Smartcards vs. Software? ‘Conditional Access’ Providers Disagree
LONDON -- As telcos move from traditional telephony to IPTV, a debate has arisen over whether to handle content security with smartcard technology or software solutions, speakers said Tues. at the IPTV World Forum here. Providers of “conditional access (CA)” called smartcards the only way to guard premium content. Software sellers said smartcards are too vulnerable to copying and too pricey.
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IPTV networks are great at distributing content but even better at redistributing it, said Geof Todd, mgr.-Synamedia sales & business development for NDS, a DTV content protection firm. Video content owners fear their products will go the way of music CDs, he said. The CA debate has arisen purely because telcos looking to enter the pay-TV market are taking a “let’s do it like we do the Internet” approach.
But pay-TV, which has existed for some time, has a well- structured business model and controlled network environment, Todd told us. Pay-TV models need multicast capabilities, sufficient bandwidth and quality of service, all things alien to the Internet, Todd said. The Internet’s ad hoc nature doesn’t work for TV, he said. Telcos should use Internet Protocol, not the Internet itself, as a model, Todd said.
The CA debate hinges on security, Todd said. Pure telcos see access control as enough, but broadband’s power of redistribution means software isn’t acceptable to protect the highest-value content. Smartcards themselves are being eliminated from broadband as Intel and other industry leaders embed security blocks in hardware. The smartcard industry overall is becoming more hardware-dependent, Todd said.
The argument centers on the set-top box, said Matt Cannard, vp-mktg. for Widevine, which provides CA and digital rights management. Traditional smartcards rely on devices in the card to encrypt content. But Widevine tools use the devices to create a unique identification between network operator and device, letting it identify the individual user to the device, then authenticate the device to the network so the viewer can access coded programming.
Smartcards are cloneable, said Cannard. Between distribution of new cards and the start of content protection, a window of vulnerability allows pirating of content. Sellers of physical smartcards like to think their system is more secure but it’s actually less, Cannard said. That Widevine’s “virtual” smartcards work is borne out by the 90 operators who now buy premium content from major providers. Besides, he said, smartcards cost so much more than virtual counterparts new players won’t consider them.
“I see no debate myself,” Frederic Maizeret, dir.-new commercial markets for Viaccess, a France Telecom company, told us. It’s up to content providers to say how they want their product protected, he said. IPTV needs good content, demanding a trusted protection solution. Viaccess uses both smartcards and software. Because smartcards are personal devices, the question is how users can shift their rights to other devices, akin to the way mobile phones have SIM cards, Maizeret said. He predicted increasing use of smartcards for premium content, with software for non-premium.
Traditional broadcasters totally controlled content access but they're no longer the sole gateway, said IBM Digital Leader Bill Scott. Access controllers charge per use on a time basis, a significant cost to operators. The movement of more devices onto different networks is good not only for consumers but also for operators, who are no longer tied to a particular CA provider at a rigid cost, he said.