The majority of set-top boxes (STBs) on the market in the 1990s were secured by Conditional Access System (CAS) smart cards that stored STB identities along with their respective service rights. While these early smart cards offered operators basic levels of content protection against unauthorized viewers, they were ultimately incapable of guarding against increasingly sophisticated methods of attack by criminal hackers and pirate collectives.
Smarter than a Smart Card
Set-top boxes (STBs) were initially secured by Conditional Access System (CAS) smart cards. However, this approach is no longer effective. Smart cards cannot prevent unauthorized access to premium 4K and UHD content, as they are not designed to protect the interface between the card and box, or the STB SoC itself. This is one of the reasons why cardless CAS set-top boxes, equipped with a hardware-based root-of-trust, are increasing in popularity amongst major operators such as Dish TV India. A hardware root-of-trust, provided by platforms such as Rambus’ CryptoMedia, offers operators robust security protection with an integrated security core that acts to effectively decrease potential attack vectors. Moreover, eliminating the smart card significantly reduces cost, for both short-term BOM and long-term liability in the form of frequent card swaps. It should be noted that not all hardware security cores are created equal. One important consideration is that any hardware security core should be compatible with multiple leading CAS and DRM systems. This ensures operators are not locked into a single vendor for the entire lifetime of a set-top box. Moreover, the ability to function alongside numerous CAS and DRM systems can potentially enable new ways of securely distributing pay content, offering tangible benefits to both DTH operators and OTT distributors. For example, operators can provide their subscribers OTT content alongside broadcast content on the same set-top box, using the same robust hardware security, while maintaining cryptographic isolation between the different systems.
Why tokenization is critical for mobile payments
Steven Anderson of PaymentWeek recently observed that tokenization is a critical aspect of the mobile payments revolution.
Essentially, tokenization protects payment credentials by replacing them with a randomly generated number that resembles the customer’s primary account number (PAN). The unique identifier, known as a ‘payment token’ or ‘tokenized PAN’, is worthless if stolen, as it acts as a reference for a consumer’s original card data which only the card networks and the consumer’s bank can map back to the original account.
Accelerating high performance computing systems
Esthela Gallardo and Patricia J. Teller recently penned an article for HPC Wire that explores the various challenges associated with cross-accelerator performance profiling. As Gallardo and Teller note, high performance computing (HPC) systems are comprised of multiple compute nodes interconnected by a network.
“Previously these nodes were composed solely of multi-core processors, but nowadays they also include many-core processors, which are called accelerators,” the authors explained.
Exploring future memory requirements for quantum computing
Quantum computing utilizes quantum-mechanical phenomena, including superposition and entanglement, to perform operations on data. According to Wikipedia, quantum computers differ from traditional binary digital electronic systems based on transistors. To be sure, digital computing encodes data into binary digits (bits), each of which is always in one or two definite states: 0 or 1. In contrast, quantum computation exploits quantum bits, which can be in superpositions of states.
Intel says DDR4 is ramping quickly
Last week at IDF 2016, Intel executive Geof Findley presented a comprehensive overview of the memory industry ecosystem. According to Findley, DDR4 is ramping quickly and should hit 31% of shipments during the second quarter of 2016.
With volume shipments kicking off in 2014, almost all servers are now shipping with DDR4, while most PCs will ship with DDR4 by the end of 2016. In addition, says Findley, DDR4 volume and a price crossover should occur in the first half of 2016, with the upcoming 8GB transition tied to DDR4 adoption.
