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Historical background: DIRECTV to SypherMedia

In November of 1999, DIRECTV made it a priority to create an in-house security team that would take ownership of broadcast and content delivery security. SypherMedia International (SMI) was formed by members of the DIRECTV Engineering and Conditional Access Group in August of 2003. Before SMI was created, the now SMI team along with fellow DIRECTV members were responsible for re-engineering the security approach of the Pay TV broadcast. This team eliminated piracy at DIRECTV and it has remained secure for more than 15 years.

SMI engineers designed and deployed the first key provisioning solution in 1999 at ST Microelectronics as part of the new DIRECTV security engineering team. This was done so that DIRECTV could own and maintain control of the Set-Top-Box (STB) keys that secure DIRECTV’s network.

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