RF Shorts – Jan. 13, 2011

  • •Could cybercriminals use your new Internet TV to infiltrate your home or business? Security Week writer Mike Lennon's article Researchers Hack Internet Enabled TVs, Discover Multiple Security Vulnerabilities raises this possibility. "During the course of its research, Mocana, the security firm that discovered the flaws, demonstrated that the TV's Internet interface failed to confirm script integrity before scripts were run. As a result, an attacker could intercept transmissions from the television to the network using common 'rogue DNS', 'rogue DHCP server', or TCP session hijacking techniques. Mocana was able to demonstrate that JavaScript could then be injected into the normal datastream, allowing attackers to obtain total control over the device's Internet functionality. "
  • •Verizon sees a future in Mobile TV. Mark Milian from CNN writes about this in Verizon takes steps towards launching TV Everywhere service. In the article, he includes this statement made at the recent CES by Verizon's CEO, Ivan Seidenberg. "We're changing the game again across all of our networks--wireless, broadband, the Internet backbone and the cloud. Consumers are actually watching more TV than ever before. What's changing the game is how they're watching."
  • •For more information on interesting products at CES, see these articles:
    •Gary Arlen's From CES: Tablets, Connected TVs, Mobile and Content Security Dominate on tvtechnology.com; •Mark Walsh's Mobile TV Regroups For 2011 on Mediapost.com; •PC Magazine's Mobile TV Coming This Year to iPhones, iPads, Your Pocket by Sascha Segan; Digital Stream Plans ATSC-M/H Add-On and Cydle Readies Tablets, PNDs, PMPs, And Mobile DTV Add-ons by Joseph Palenchar in TWICE; •Deborah McAdams' Hauppauge Bows Fixed+Mobile DTV PC Antenna on tvtechnology.com
  • •For a somewhat biased view of broadcasters' use of spectrum, also see Larry Downes's article Spectrum worries at CES: Deja vu all over again. He notes that "According to Tom Wheeler of Core Capital Partners and a longtime industry veteran, only 2 to 3 Mbps are needed for the digital TV signal itself. Assuming technical issues are resolved, broadcasters could give up much of their allocations without interfering with their ability to broadcast." Any broadcast engineer knows that statement is valid only if the "digital TV signal" consists of one standard-definition channel. Even by using H.264 compression (incompatible with existing TV sets), it's difficult to do high quality HDTV in less than 6 Mbps. One mobile stream takes about 2 Mbps of data bandwidth.
  • •Also see Nancy Gohring's article Auction Plan Is Most Likely to Succeed, FCC Head Says.
Doug Lung

Doug Lung is one of America's foremost authorities on broadcast RF technology. As vice president of Broadcast Technology for NBCUniversal Local, H. Douglas Lung leads NBC and Telemundo-owned stations’ RF and transmission affairs, including microwave, radars, satellite uplinks, and FCC technical filings. Beginning his career in 1976 at KSCI in Los Angeles, Lung has nearly 50 years of experience in broadcast television engineering. Beginning in 1985, he led the engineering department for what was to become the Telemundo network and station group, assisting in the design, construction and installation of the company’s broadcast and cable facilities. Other projects include work on the launch of Hawaii’s first UHF TV station, the rollout and testing of the ATSC mobile-handheld standard, and software development related to the incentive auction TV spectrum repack.
A longtime columnist for TV Technology, Doug is also a regular contributor to IEEE Broadcast Technology. He is the recipient of the 2023 NAB Television Engineering Award. He also received a Tech Leadership Award from TV Tech publisher Future plc in 2021 and is a member of the IEEE Broadcast Technology Society and the Society of Broadcast Engineers.