ECM - Entitlement Control Message

By: Christine Martz

Meaning of ECM Entitlement Control Message, is an encrypted message that is used to prevent unauthorized reception for such services as cable or satellite television. Scrambling and encryption are used in a Conditional Access System to prevent users from acquiring an unauthorized reception on their Satellite or Cable TV system. An Entitlement Control Message contains access criteria and a scrambled key called a control word. The ECM is sent encrypted to the receiver, or Set Top Box (STB), in a customer's home. If the customer is authorized to acquire the reception, a subsystem in the receiver will decrypt the message. The receiver knows whether or not the customer is authorized because the authority is sent to the receiver in an Entitlement Management Message (EMM). A Condition Access System employs a layered approach to security. Every ten seconds the control word is changed and the ECMs are changed every month or so to prevent hackers from gaining access.

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In a vast oversimplification, simulcrypt works like this: Keys to content, called "control words," are encrypted and sent along to the digital set-top in an Entitlement Control Message, or ECM. Whether or not the customer using the simulcrypt box is allowed to receive the scrambled content, with its nested key, is discerned under a separate transmission of an Entitlement Management Message, or EMM. [Leslie Ellis - Broadband Week] SmartRight would be designed to honor a local "entitlement-control message" - that is, the rules used to forbid copying or to allow one copy for personal use. The system allows content owners to charge consumers every time digital content is redistributed within the home or viewed multiple times in a certain number of days, Lafaye said. Proponents point out that the smart-card approach is based on removable security modules that could be replaced if hacked. [IEEE Times] Having browsed the service provider's database, a user can select the desired piece of music. The music, which has been ciphered or scrambled with a Control Word, is transferred to the user's mobile in the appropriate mode (stream or download) along with an Entitlement Control message. This message, encrypted with a key the operation key - contains the Control Word and the rights required for accessing the audio file. The operation key is a key similar to the management key, it is stored in the smart card and was transferred in the same way as the management key during the initial subscription. [Oberther Card Systems] ECM is a component of the electronic key system (sometimes called the Multisession Key) and is transmitted encrypted to control the descrambling process. Its use has been perverted(?) by some satellite operators to carry specific programme pricing information. Jokingly said also to stand for Electronic Counter Measures. [The Digital TV Group Limited]

EMM - Entitlement Management Message

By: Christine Martz
Meaning of EMM Entitlement Management Message, is an encrypted message that contains private conditional access information about the authority a viewer has to aquire reception for such services as cable or satellite television. Scrambling and encryption are used in a Conditional Access System to prevent users from acquiring an unauthorized reception on their Satellite or Cable TV system. An Entitlement Control Message (ECM) contains access criteria and a scrambled key called a control word. The ECM is sent encrypted to the receiver, or Set Top Box (STB), in a customer's home. If the customer is authorized to acquire the reception, a subsystem in the receiver will decrypt the message. An EMM generator, a component in a conditional access system, is used to is send EMMs to the receiver. The generator receives commands from a subscriber management system and creates EMMs that get sent to the viewing card or to relay messages to the cable operators. The receiver knows whether or not the customer is authorized because of the authority is contained in an EMM.

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If the box is authorized to receive a particular service, this information is encoded in an Entitlement Management Message (EMM) which is also sent as part of the MPEG stream. When a scrambled MPEG signal is received by a conditional access decoder, the box first checks the EMM to see if it is authorized to receive the key and decode the service. If the box is enabled, then the ECM is decoded and the public key is combined with the private key to decode the MPEG stream.[Brad Gilmer - Broadcast Engineering] The Entitlement Management Message generator is responsible for building "out of band" communications with the set top box to deliver the other half of the decryption key. Each EMM is uniquely encoded using the set top box's own key pair thereby providing one to one security. [Hewlett-Packard Development Company] Entitlement management messages are private conditional access information which specify the authorization level or the services of specific decoders. They may be addressed to single decoders or groups of decoders. [Advanced Television Systems Committee] The scrambler key, called the control word must, of course, be sent to the receiver in an encrypted form as an entitlement control message (ECM). The conditional access subsystem in the receiver will then decrypt the control word only when authorized to do so. The authority to decrypt is sent to the receiver in the form of an entitlement management message or EMM. [Embedded Software Group]