Encryption

[MikeBear]

https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/108272632722025/1

In a letter submitted to FCC today by Weigel Broadcasting, they reveal that the A3SA has plans to shut down signals and display a message that a TV Station is a risk to watch on certified ATSC 3 NextGen TV tuners for stations that are not certified by and not paying the A3SA to broadcast.

Even if the stations don't want to use DRM, the A3SA is requiring them to be certified by A3SA and broadcast an A3SA signing certificate. This would affect those who do not comply with the A3SA by a certain date they call "High Noon" which Weigel says was going to be June 30, 2025, but has now been moved to a later date to be determined.

[DrSmith]

So is this a way to get PBS (and a few other independents) to turn on DRM? Ugggh.

[wlm12]

https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/108272632722025/1

In a letter submitted to FCC today by Weigel Broadcasting, they reveal that the A3SA has plans to shut down signals and display a message that a TV Station is a risk to watch on certified ATSC 3 NextGen TV tuners for stations that are not certified by and not paying the A3SA to broadcast.

Even if the stations don't want to use DRM, the A3SA is requiring them to be certified by A3SA and broadcast an A3SA signing certificate. This would affect those who do not comply with the A3SA by a certain date they call "High Noon" which Weigel says was going to be June 30, 2025, but has now been moved to a later date to be determined.

I hope that the FCC will finally see what A3SA is doing to the industry and shut it down.

[NedS]

So is this a way to get PBS (and a few other independents) to turn on DRM? Ugggh.

The security certificate is separate from DRM, and a non-DRM channel can have a certificate. The basic idea is that a security certificate is a way to make sure a broadcaster is who they say they are, and not a fake broadcaster. Think of it like an HTTPS certificate. So someone else couldn't pretend to be PBS, and broadcast on some pirate transmitter a fake PBS station. Though, I have never heard of anyone intentionally trying to impersonate a different ATSC station in the entire history of ATSC (even for 1.0). It seems a solution in search of a problem, and looks more like a way to shake down broadcasters for another kind of licensing fee.

A3SA/Pearl TV (technically different entities, but A3SA is made up of employees from Pearl TV-represented companies) would be acting as the certificate authority, so that means a non-Pearl TV broadcaster would have to pay their competitor to get a certificate, and Pearl TV could refuse to certify without any kind of government oversight. Why even have that as a process separate from the FCC license? Why not have the FCC handle both, or at least issue a certificate using the existing FCC process/paperwork/fee/etc for getting a broadcast license? Are they going to be the only certificate authority? How are they calculating the fee to charge broadcasters?

What A3SA/Pearl TV is doing is very sketchy.

[Phoenixfury]

Sounds like racketeering to me.

Pay up competitor because it would be a shame if you're suddenly unable to broadcast. Would be a terrible if no one could see your channel!

How can this possibly be legal?

[howardc1243]

Sounds like racketeering to me.

Pay up competitor because it would be a shame if you're suddenly unable to broadcast. Would be a terrible if no one could see your channel!

How can this possibly be legal?

IT IS....

not legal, it is blackmailing a practice used by the mafia.

UNLIKE DRM-blackmailing which is a practice used by broadcasters to force those who have cut-the-cord back to cable or satellite.

[Cabal]

Why even have that as a process separate from the FCC license? Why not have the FCC handle both, or at least issue a certificate using the existing FCC process/paperwork/fee/etc for getting a broadcast license? Are they going to be the only certificate authority? How are they calculating the fee to charge broadcasters?

What A3SA/Pearl TV is doing is very sketchy.

I hope some responses will be filed.

[spatula]

Sounds like racketeering to me.

Pay up competitor because it would be a shame if you're suddenly unable to broadcast. Would be a terrible if no one could see your channel!

How can this possibly be legal?

And IMO the only reason this level of collusion is even *possible* is that so much consolidation of station/network ownership has been allowed over the decades. Forty percent of all television stations in the US are owned by three conglomerates: Nexstar, Sinclair, and Gray. The networks in turn are mainly in the hands of Disney, Comcast, Paramount, and News Corp (and Nexstar and Sinclair).

I'm simplifying, but you get the idea.

Collusion among broadcasters is easy (and probably inevitable) when only 6 entities are involved to begin with, and any smaller broadcasters are certainly too small to do anything about it.

Of course it's ostensibly the FCC's job to set standards and practices, NOT the broadcasters' job (or privilege), but unless they lay down the law, there's nothing stopping this oligopoly of broadcasters from calling the shots.

[theseer2]

^ “I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...

The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”

Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark