Red Hot Television Is Banned In a debacle that mirrors the "Spycatcher" case of a few years ago, Red Hot Television's attempt at stopping the UK Heritage Secretary's proscription order coming into effect has failed. It is now illegal to purchase or sell subscriptions or decoders for the channel in the UK. Red Hot Television had hoped to get an injunction restraining the Heritage Secretary, Peter Brooke, from proscribing the channel in the UK. The case in favour of Red Hot Television was convincing and perhaps as a result, the judges on the judicial review decided to refer the matter to the European Court. To those of us who live in democracies with actual written constitutions, the UK has always been somewhat of a mystery. The law is supposed to be, for the most part, common sense. Yet here is a decision that effectively says that Red Hot Television is guilty until proven innocent. The problem is not that the channel is banned in the UK. It is that the UK court decided to refer the matter to the European Court. Apparently the points of law raised pertained to whether the UK Heritage Secretary, Peter Brooke, could legally make an order banning the channel under European law. The argument against the UK government decision is more convincing and it has been boosted in an illogical way. An EC commissioner has said that it is ok for the UK government to do so. The commissioner involved was Commissioner De Pinhero. The grounds cited were that the transmissions might be damaging to minors. Right, I know what you are thinking. The Red Hot Television transmissions are scrambled and are on after midnight. Apparently the kids that de Pinhero and Brooke know are up at this time and have their own decoders. Historically, the EC policy on satellite television has been little short of a comedy of errors. The last great screw-up was D2-MAC. The commissioner there was stupid enough to mention in an interview that he was taking advice from Philips and Thomson on the subject. Well D2-MAC is presently not seen in the same light by the EC. The European Court may well take a similar view of the UK Government proscription order. The problem with the UK Government's position is that it totally ignores reality. Perhaps in former times when society was tightly controlled a proscription order would have an effect. The avenues of getting equipment and information into a country are wide. Unless the UK Government gets the Customs and Excise to examine every letter and parcel coming into the country then there is no possible way the ban can be enforced. The Grey Market operations of the last few years are a testament to that. There is a flourishing Grey Market for subscriptions in the UK. The standard trade is a Sky Movies subscription for a FilmNet subscription. The Grey Market operator picks up a commission on the deal. It is logical to expect that the subscriptions to Red Hot Television will be handled the same way. There are legal penalties for those in the UK who handle such operations. Even UK controlled magazines are not allowed to publish the schedules or subscription details for the proscribed channel. Luckily in Ireland, Red Hot Television is not banned. Though incidentally a bishop, not the famous one, was reported in a Dublin newspaper to be calling for the channel to be banned. Ireland is a prime location for such Grey Market operations due to the proximity. Of course it will be the Irish pirates who will run them. According to some interpretations, the Black Book - European Scrambling Systems 3 may also be proscribable as it contains circuits that can be used to descramble the channel. SAVE But Soon Enigma At present, scrambling system used by Red Hot Television is SAVE. The SAVE system is rather primitive and can easily be defeated with about five pounds worth of parts. Indeed there are many circuit designs and descramblers floating around. Old BBC and Premier descramblers are being modified. Red Hot Television have announced that they will change to their more secure Enigma system. Initially it was hoped that the transition would begin in late March and would be completed by May. There were a few problems in the encoder section that forced tests to be suspended for a few weeks. It now looks like the changeover will not occur for some time. The system that Red Hot Television will upgrade to is a clone of VideoCrypt. This fact has sent shockwaves through the industry. Former lackeys of BSkyB and News Datacom in the press, are said to be re-evaluating their position. But then they couldn't tell SAVE from SATPAC without a press release. I never believed that the system was as secure as they made out. The fact that it could be cloned has proven the point. The fact that Red Hot Television are to use a clone of VideoCrypt has obviously jeopardised the position of VideoCrypt. The proscription legislation refers specifically to decoders. The existing VideoCrypt decoders can be used, with a Red Hot Television card to descramble the channel. Does this not mean that the sale of VideoCrypt decoders is banned? Certainly if the Enigma system goes into operation before the case reaches the European Court, the UK government will have to, by the terms of their legislation, stop people from selling VideoCrypt decoders. After all it is the VideoCrypt decoder that will be used to decode the channel. Will this mean that the manufacturers will be stopped? Amstrad and Pace will not be pleased to hear that their IRD sales can be stopped. BSkyB and the other users of the system would also suffer as a result. VideoCrypt is the de-facto English language scrambling system. Perhaps in their zeal to be seen to act, the UK government has managed to act in the wrong way. It would seem that the move to proscribe the channel was a knee jerk reaction. The channel went largely unnoticed by terrestrial television viewers. The fact that there was a court action against the channel, drew in some four thousand subscriptions in the space of a few days. If anything, the attention has increased the audience. The fact that it is now banned will serve to mushroom the viewer figures.