TiVo shows details of KidZone service
Forget all the talk about TiVo's new pricing plan and the rollout of the Series 3 model. We know that what you really want are some deets about TiVo's KidZone service. No? Well, humor us a little, since Dave Zatz apparently went to the trouble of crashing TiVo's introduction of the service, which actually brought out the company brass, members of Congress and execs from non-profits, all of whom were gushing over the service's ability to protect kids from all of that evil content out there in TV-land. Basically, the service allows parents to block channels, as well as specific programs, based both on their own opinions and on recommendations from the Parents' Choice Foundation. All of this is protected by a four-digit PIN, so kids can't change the settings. Wait a sec -- a four-digit PIN? We give this a week until some 8-year-old hooks his TiVo remote up to a PC and launches a brute-force attack to crack his parents' PIN. Good effort, TiVo, but don't underestimate the kids: they know tech, they dig TV, and they have way too much free time (especially if their parents are limiting their TV time).
Filed under: Home Entertainment
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
All Your Hate Are Belong to Us... @ Mar 15th 2006 5:25PM
Frak the PTC.
Frak TiVo
Signed,
-4X TiVo Buyer/User Goin' a Different Route Next Time
khamel @ Mar 15th 2006 5:45PM
brute force? im sure all it would take is 5-10 tries max. most people use birthdays/kids birthdays/anniversaries/house numbers for their pin numbers anyway. when i was in high school my friend had one of those humgo antenna thats got thousands of channels and all the 'good' channels were locked with a 4 digit pin. it took us 5 minutes to crack it each time they changed it. and besides that, im sure most kids would just watch to see their parents enter the code when they wanted to check out the sopranos or 24. i guess someone thinks this shit matters though.
tainted @ Mar 15th 2006 6:03PM
"TiVo: Watch want you want, when you want. We'll watch the kids!"
bwhaler @ Mar 15th 2006 6:30PM
4 digit PIN? Forget the brute force attack. Even that is not required.
A kid alone for an afternoon could run through 10K combinations.
Of course, Tivo could put a 60 second time out on 3 incorrect tries which would slow them down.
grimm @ Mar 16th 2006 5:43AM
Hey...If my kid can hook the TiVo remote up to a PC and launche a brute-force attack to crack the PIN he's earned the right to watch whatever he wants.
retirement_bound @ Mar 16th 2006 7:54AM
I hate it when everyone tells us parents that if we don't like the trash that is on TV then change the channel and then when someone comes out with something to help us accomplish this task you make fun of it. I applaud TiVOs efforts to help parent clean out some of the filth that bombards my three girls on a daily basis.