OT: Hacking your Tivo

[Debee Norling]

I'm getting a lot of off-list questions about this. Here are the answers.


Tivo is *NOT* accessible to people who don't know Linux.

Since most everyone reading this list does, then, yes, Series1 tivos are
very accessible. Series 2 Tivo's aren't unless you're a kernel hacker.
DirectTivos are somewhere in between. I have a series 1.

The processor  is a Power PC, not X86. It's an embedded system, so you have
to do some hacking to get access to the Linux shell -- whether or not you
are sighted. You have to put the drive in a PC and run a byte-swapped kernel
to access its partitions; you need to futz with scripts and initialization
files  just like you do to get Linux running anyway.

 You need to research this yourself online though; there's plenty of
information out there.

I can telnet in to my Tivo, access it through a web interface known as
Tivoweb, plus I have bash access on its serial port.

I can access it then with any terminal program or telnet client. The web
interface has JavaScript and is very accessible with JAWS. There are even
keystrokes to emulate the TV remote. An enthusiastic hacker community has
written open-source software which runs under Tivo Linux.

Going through Linux, I have more control over the system than a sighted user
working just with the television remote. For example, I can nfs-mount its
partitions, view its logs and track its disk usage. I can also scramble its
data big-time if I don't work carefully!

One thing I haven't really figured out yet is how to turn on the SAP for
just DVS. I either get a lot of Spanish or nothing. I might need to write my
own software to accomplish this -- I'm still researching it.

Deaf or hard of hearing people can easily access the real-time captions.
There's a utility to stream them to your terminal, or you can use ordinary
redirection to save them in a file.

Once I get our VPN working, I will be able to access the Tivo from work, but
for now, it is secure behind my router. Tivos aren't secure. Root is the
only account and it isn't even password protected. I always use both Braille
and speech to prevent my making mistakes. Also the processor is only 50
megahertz, so you can't load it up with  a bazillion processes!

This Tivo was a Christmas gift for my sighted fiance. He's an electrical
engineer so I had someone to do the hardware stuff. He installed its network
card and soldered cables; he also helped me remove the drive to back it up.

In return,  I can't do so much hacking that I mess up his TV-watching, so
getting answers to the DVS situation may take some time.

I hope this clarifies things.

--Debee