No Software Update attempted on 420 no zkt yet

[ront50]

I thought I would start this thread based on what I have been reading about the 430's

As of Feb 13th, 12:36 PM EST, there has been no attempt to upgrade the software on my 420 as reported by the IRD.

Having said that, this may change in the near future and I am really happy I did write protect my system even though a new flash may or may not be required in the near future. This remains to be seen!

Cheers

[borg1]

The 'upgrade' removes the wink code from the IRD firmware.
If your receiver is not winked, i.e. if the wink code is not present in your flash, there is nothing to 'upgrade'
Remember that wink and ZKT are two seperate functionalities.
Most no-ZKT mod flashes are not winked.
However, the 430 flash was never released in an unwinked version.

[ront50]

Dual chip IRD flashed with W image just to clarify.


Cheers

[sdeens]

Is there any UNWINKED images for the Phillips IRD's? i suspect u96 might be the older firmware before the wink update came down..unfortuantly it only works in the lousy 5250's (no s-video connectors on this cheapo model)

we need an unwinked image for the Phillips, but i am NOT sure one exisits.

p.s.
the Phillips can in theory be write-protected (I have the procedure), but I was very much against this because it involves a very tiny trace cut in a delicate area near a surface mounted resistor; it is not easy to reverse when implemented....I was at the time tryiong to think months ahead, and thus was against locking it down because of fear of a Wink attack against that 5th gen. receiver; especially after I learned that the Wink Technologies contract was terminated..i am now very glad I never lock them down..i think will need to wait for the Phillips to receive their new updates and patch for NOZKT after it is sent down..I am a believer in flash protection but not to receivers that ONLY had wink software inside of them..that's why I never locked a phillips but always locked the RCa420's with Unwinked images...the RCa420 was the one receiver that we had a nozkt patch of an unwinked image in the 5th generation category.

[rudy1]

..that's why I never locked a phillips but always locked the RCa420's with Unwinked images...the RCa420 was the one receiver that we had a nozkt patch of an unwinked image in the 5th generation category.

As we saw with the 430 updates last week, the firmware version determines if the update is applied to the ird. Wink or no wink, if your ird's firmware version is lower than the one being downloaded, a firmware upgrade will be attempted.

It remains to be seen if a similar update could disturb the write-locked 420s.

[sdeens]

that may not be true..the winked and unwinked firmware both had different version numbers..Dave may not bother updating 420's that have unwinked images becasue they have a firmware # that is NOT on his upgrade list.

why?

1. becasue all of the legit receivers already are updated with winked software and have the newer revision # associated with wink code..legits ones are suppose to ALL be winked..the only onmes that are NOT winked are virgins still in the box (nopt many of thos left to worry about anyway) and the hacked ones that we test with (a small % of the DSS community)


2. why waste precious bandwidth on updating fimrware for unwinked receivers..such receivers in theory are NOT suppose to exist unless they are still in an unopened box which Dave is not suppoorting anyway...this poinmt can NOT be ignored..BANDWIDTH is BLOOD!

3. His firmware update policy will focus on the real subcribers not the nozkt audience,,this is not an ECM but a policy change that required him to purge the wink software (we were all expecting this anyway so why act surprised) He does not want to be in violation of Winks trademarks and copyright protections..otherwise Dave woiuld be required to pay Wink a licensing fee for its continued usage or presence in legit receivers..Dave would not be held responsible for older 420's that used unwinked iamges since they are already clean and not in violation of his terminated wink contracts; therefore Dave could care less if we use the old unwinked images since it is not costing him any money..and would only cost him precious bandwidth to fix.

4. he knows we can easily NOZKT the new revison firmware for the 430's so why waste his precious bandwidth

5. firmware updates cause collateral damage; it is a fact of life that Echostar ruined an estimated 10,000 DP-301-010's (this was according to their own press release) about a year ago when they send down a new type of ECM oriented firmware specific tho that very popular model..they pulled the upgade after just a few hours but the damage was done..so history has shown that such upgrades come with a price..and Dave is NOT an expert in this game like Dishnetwork...this is new territory for him so we should expect him to be slow and deliberate and test gradually and not ALL at once..start with the nwer models (i.e 430's) and do a range of serial #'s..never all of them at once..then when he satisfied he will move on to older 5th geneartion models using the same policy..it may take him many months to do all of the 5th and 6th gen IRD's that have wink int them.

these are just a few thoughts, but I think I understand why Dave is doing this..its all about paying licenising fees to Wink Technologies Inc...he doesn;t want to do it so lets clean out the winked receivers first..later on he may turn his attention to thoise that use older unwinked images..but for now bandwidth is like blood and its preceious and must never be used stupidly..these firmware updates are costing him probbaly alot with respect to how he uses is bandwidth.

also we as NOZKTr's are very small part oif the testing community..only when that changes will Dave takle adifferent approach but for now he wants wink out of our receivers so he he does not have to pay licenseing fees to them

the use of a unwinked NOZKT receiver will probbaly be his last target..he must allocate bandwidth first for the legit customers..that is his primary goal..not the few of us that use unwinked bins on our 420's...The users of winked images will be targeted first not the users of unwinked images.

we are NOT the target, his target is legit customers who still have wink on the IRD's..I looked in my crtsal ball about a year when i came to this conclusion and so far Dave is doing EXACTLY what I expected and in the exact proper order.

[rudy1]

that may not be true..the winked and unwinked firmware both had different version numbers..Dave may not bother updating 420's that have unwinked images becasue they have a firmware # that is NOT on his upgrade list.

I think we need some feedback from blaknite (or perhaps Sansgrip) on how the firmware update takes place. If as you suggest, the update is targetting a specific firmware version #, then the solution is simply to raise the version # to something higher.

My guess is that there is no real "code" that is packaged with the firmware update. I think the ird simply takes the update if it somehow determines that it is a "newer" version.

Again, we need some expert info. on how the updates are taking place.

[sdeens]

I did somw winhex comparrisons of the RCA430 and I see that Dave chnaged about 1.5 million bytes in the 4mb RCA430 firmware v2.4 was the older version,now we use v2.08.

What we should all be asking is what were in these changes, other than the removal of wink technology..no doubt some new interactive programming code, but what else? Did he seceretly patch in there new code to be sued for CAM ID verification purposes..a trojan horse?

Now, i also see that there was posted a spoofed firmware foir v2.04 that appeared a few days before the ofical v2.08 patched for NOZKT was released.

why is this important?

because if there is more to those 1.5 milliin bytes in the new firmware at v2.08 than I would raghher use the older firmware at v2.04 that is spoofed to appear that it has been updated to v2.08.

i also notcied that the spoofed code had 45,994 byte changes which suggest that more than spooofing was done..it sugegst that t=someone delected the wink code and also spoofed the reviison code to 2.08.

this uis an excellent alternative to using the real Mcoy just in case Dave did in fact hide something in those 1.5 million bytes he legitamately changed..I would rather uysed the spoof code becuse I know it will reject the firmware updates and also disable interactive programming and also wont contain any unknown factors or Trojan code..

Whts I do not understand is why they went to the ffort to remove all of the wink code when simply editing and spoofing the revsions address would only have taken a few bytes and arecalculation of the checksum..perhaps they removed the wink code for good measure,

diod anyone else notice this because I think it might be safer to use the spoofer code for the RCa430's at spoofed rev2.08?

[skinerd]

420's and other brands have not been updated for wink removal, maybe the 430 was the test platform and the other stuff is commming. Who knows for sure until it happens.
Also by removing some code and rewriting, causing some other unchanged code to offset, will cause the compare to show a large difference, because the data is offset, and not in the same location exactly as it was.
In any case use what ever you are comfortable with, the ability to reflash, when and if something happens, remains as a remedy.

[ront50]

And thats why we all write protected our Flash.. RIGHT?.. WRITE!

Cheers