shran star trek gif

Jeffrey Combs (I)

Additional crew.

IMDbPro Starmeter Top 5,000 57

• Contact info
• 6 wins & 5 nominations

• Herbert West

• Milton Dammers

• Shepard Lambrick

• Officer Mulkahey
• 1994–1999 • 32 eps
• Mr. Lockwood
• Old Friend (voice)
• Post-production

• Zodak (voice, as Jeffery Combs)

• Agimus (voice)

• Charles Siringo

• Edgar Grimson (voice)

• Kirk Langstrom (voice)

• Bartok the Great

• Young Wally (voice)

• Henry (voice)

• Father (voice)

• Far Seeing Crow

• King Prince Lavender
• Prince Lavender
• The Greater Good (voice)

• Reinhard (segment "Bad Wolf Down")

• Berman Livingston

• The Shopkeeper
• photos courtesy of

• performer: "What We Left Behind"
• In-development projects at IMDbPro

Personal details

• Jeffery Combs
• 5′ 7″ (1.70 m)
• September 9 , 1954
• Oxnard, California, USA
• Alice Cadogan ? - present (1 child)
• Catherine Combs
• Parents Eugene Combs
• Other works Playing Edgar Allen Poe in a one-man play: "Nevermore - An Evening with Edgar Allen Poe" at the Steve Allen Theater in Hollywood, California
• 4 Interviews
• 1 Magazine Cover Photo

Did you know

• Trivia Has starred in 5 movies based on H.P. Lovecraft stories.
• Quotes [on being cast as Herbert West in Re-Animator (1985) ] God, I had no idea what was to come. All I knew was, I was doing a play in Hollywood, and a casting director came to see it. I did not invite him. As I recall, he said, "I'm casting something you might be right for." I went in and met Stuart Gordon, did my read, got a callback where I was paired up with the great David Gale. We did a scene. I guess we both got cast. Very low budget, shot in 18 days. Who knew? I am not rich from the movie. Somebody got rich.
• Trademarks Often plays psychotic anti-heroes or eccentrics on the verge of psychosis.
• How old is Jeffrey Combs?
• When was Jeffrey Combs born?
• Where was Jeffrey Combs born?

Related news

Contribute to this page.

• Learn more about contributing

More to explore

Add demo reel with IMDbPro

How much have you seen?

Recently viewed

• Entertainment

The Official Star Trek Giphy page, boldly going...

Star Trek: The Original Series

Star trek: the animated series, star trek: the next generation, star trek: deep space nine, star trek: voyager, all the gifs.

Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Thy'lek Shran

A constant frenemy to the NX-01, there's more than meets the antennae under that blue skin.

Making his debut in Enterprise's first season episode The Andorian Incident , Thy'Lek Shran, Star Trek's first recurring Andorian, wasted no time in making his mark on the show, and Trek lore as a whole.

Although his first appearance would portray him as a ruthless commando with a (not unfounded) distaste for Vulcan trickery, Shran would spend the next four seasons leaping and bounding across the line of hero and villain in the eyes of Captain Archer and the Enterprise crew.

Slavishly bound to Archer by a constantly shifting debt of oneupmanship and tit-for-tat, Shran's appearances would rapidly become a fixture of Enterprise's run. As his single-minded opposition to the hated Vulcans gradually shifts to one of conciliation, he becomes emblematic of the unity disparate societies could foster and, ultimately, leads to the formation of the Federation itself.

Whilst we can learn much about Andorian culture from Shran's appearances, there's still much we don't know about the man himself. Here then are some little-known facts about the tenacious commander, that may peak the antennae of even the most ardent of Trekkies

10. Nobody Else Could Play The Part

When casting the role of a recurring character, Star Trek's casting directors often have entire phonebooks of reliable names they can call upon, who sit for hours on end in make-up to portray myriad characters across Star Trek's multiple series.

Of all these names, few have such regard in the fan community as Jeffrey Combs. Reoccurring to the point of being meme-worthy, Combs' Trek acting CV includes Penk in Voyager' s Tsunkatse , the Ferengi Krem in earlier Enterprise episode Acquisition, and the megalomaniacal supercomputer AGIMUS in multiple episodes of Lower Decks . It's in Deep Space Nine , however, where Combs truly makes his mark, appearing as Tiron in the episode Meridian , as well as the recurring roles of Brunt (FCA) and five different versions of Weyoun.

It's unsurprising then that, when the time came to cast Shran, the team behind the camera knew exactly who to call. Combs was offered the part without even auditioning, and impressed the crew with his ability to act past the slightly silly antennae to create a character who could portray both threat and pathos with the kind of depth the role demanded.

Hampshire based Writer who spends his time rewatching Deep Space Nine, trying to be an actor and voraciously consuming every Metal album he can find. Final Fantasy IX is the greatest game of all time and this is the hill I will die on.

• More to Explore
• Series & Movies

Published Sep 9, 2023

Every Star Trek Character Played by Jeffrey Combs, Ranked

The character actor is one of the few to play multiple roles across multiple Trek series. From Weyoun to 'holosuite guest', here's how they all stack up.

StarTrek.com

When Jeffrey Combs first broke out as the electrifying Dr. Herbert West in Stuart Gordon’s classic cult horror movie Re-Animator in 1985, it began a journey that would turn the actor into a staple of genre cinema. After numerous adaptations of H.P. Lovecraft’s work in the late '80s and early '90s, Combs would eventually join the ranks of fellow character actors who took guest roles on Star Trek . For most actors, this was a one-and-done deal; a week’s work on one of the most-beloved franchises of all time.

For Combs, it would become a decade — nine roles across numerous Star Trek -related projects, many of which were under heavy makeup, and several that were much, much more than one-time guest roles. With so many roles (and prosthetics) to choose from, Combs is the perfect subject for a good old-fashioned ranking.

From Weyoun to a background Holosuite Guest, here's how they all stack up.

9. Holosuite Guest

"What You Leave Behind"

At the bottom of our list is an appearance so fleeting that most viewers probably don’t realize it’s Combs!

In the series finale of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , our main cast speaks about their plans for the future now that the Dominion War is over, and enjoys one final performance from their favorite holographic lounge singer, Vic Fontaine. Among the many other guests at Vic’s club is one conspicuously placed Combs sans makeup, but looking snazzy in a 1960s style suit and tie. Is he a hologram? Is he another Starfleet officer who felt like dressing up that night? He doesn’t speak and remains in the background, so we’ll never know for sure! Let the fan fiction begin!

Star Trek: Elite Force II

Combs has only had a handful of appearances in Star Trek video games, and usually appears as two characters we’ll see further down this list. In 2003’s Star Trek: Elite Force II , Combs assumed the role of main villain Suldok, a Romulan commander responsible for planning a military coup against the Romulan Star Empire using — what else? — an ancient race of genetically-engineered bugs. It’s unfortunate that the Elite Force games are somewhat lost to time — the original Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force featured some of the most faithful, fun to explore recreations of Star Trek ships.

"Tsunkatse"

Combs’ work is so closely associated with Deep Space Nine that it’s easy to forget that he appeared (along with DS9 alum J.G. Hertzler) in the sixth season Star Trek: Voyager episode “Tsunkatse” as Penk, who kidnaps Seven of Nine and forces her to compete in a popular bloodsport.

What makes it even easier to forget that Combs (or anyone else) appeared in this episode is that it also features Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson at the height of the WWE’s Attitude Era. He’s the most electrifying man in sports entertainment no matter what quadrant you’re in.

"Meridian"

In the Deep Space Nine episode “Meridian,” Tiron is a super-creep, but it says a lot about Combs as a performer that even when he’s doing something so weird and off-putting, you can’t help but watch just to see what’s going to happen next. Tiron probably has the most in common with Combs’ breakout role in Re-Animator ; he’s myopically focused on one (gross) thing, doesn’t care what he has to do or who he has to run through to achieve his goals, and ultimately falls victim to his own hubris. All the while, Combs gives us a totally dialed in, one-off performance that perfectly captures everything we like about him as an actor. It’s his work in this episode that would lead to him getting called back again, and again, and again.

5. Kevin Mulkahey

"Far Beyond the Stars"

Part of the fun of an episode like “Far Beyond the Stars” is that, along with its still-relevant social commentary and stellar storytelling, it’s one of those classic Star Trek scenarios that allows the entire cast to play completely different characters.

In Benny Russell’s 1953 Harlem, all of Sisko’s friends and enemies have a direct analogue. The DS9 crew are fellow writers and artists at Incredible Tales, while Gul Dukat and Combs’ Weyoun appear as (most definitely racist) detectives Burt Ryan and Kevin Mulkahey, who antagonize Russell about his suit and space station drawings. Things get worse (and the chilling parallels to real life become clearer) after Mulkahey and Ryan shoot and kill Jake Sisko stand-in Jimmy, and then proceed to beat Russell nearly to death in the middle of the street. Mulkahey never appears again in the series, but Ben Sisko carries these events with him all the way to his ascension to the celestial temple.

"Acquisition"

Just shortly after Deep Space Nine ’s conclusion in 1999, Combs was cast for the Star Trek: Enterprise episode “Acquisition” as the Ferengi Krem, who along with his pirate crew attempt to sabotage and steal the Enterprise .

As part of a standout crew of guest performers including Star Trek vets Ethan Phillips ( Voyager ’s Neelix) and Clint Howard (The Original Series’ Balok), Krem offers a contrasting performance to his previous work as Brunt by showcasing a Ferengi capable of seeing the flaws in his hyper-capitalist culture, especially when he sees how his cousin Ulis has been exploiting his easy-going nature and forcing him to doing menial jobs for less pay on their raids. In many ways, he could possibly be an ancestor to Deep Space Nine ’s future union leader, Rom!

"The Magnificent Ferengi"

Of course, the Ferengi we most closely associate with Combs is Liquidator Brunt. Brunt first appears in the third season episode “Family Business,” and for a time, largely serves as an antagonist to Quark, who can’t help but continually fall under the scrutiny the Ferengi version of the SEC.

As the series progresses, Brunt becomes our window into the inner workings of Ferenginar. He is the true believer in the Ferengi way of life, and perhaps the best example of how, even in a future that is striving towards utopia, meddling middle-managers and bureaucrats are still waiting in the shadows to take a cut of your wages and credit for your work.

"Treachery, Faith and the Great River"

Weyoun is Combs’ own pick for his favorite performance in all of Star Trek , and it’s easy to see why! Weyoun started off as merely the third unique character the actor played in Season 3 of Deep Space Nine , and he even perished at the hands of his own Jem’Hadar soldiers at the end of “To the Death.”

It is soon revealed, however, that that the Vorta was merely the fourth in a line of clones, all created to serve at the discretion of the Founders. Combs would go on to perform as five different variations of Weyoun all the way to the DS9 series finale. Each version was masterfully performed by Combs with their own little quirks and insecurities, giving audiences enough variation that one could easily do a ranking of Weyouns on their own!

Combs plays Weyoun 5 for much of the middle seasons of Deep Space Nine when the Dominion finally takes the stage as the true antagonists for Sisko and the crew. Special attention, however, must be paid to Weyoun 6, who is considered “defective” for daring to question the motivations behind the Dominion War. “Treachery, Faith, and the Great River” is an important episode not just for Weyoun but Deep Space Nine as a whole, as it furthers the idea that not everything can be simply broken down into “good” and “evil.” Even the shades of grey have shades of grey — clones bred for diplomacy included.

When Combs portrayed both Weyoun and Brunt in the episode “Dogs of War,” he became the first Star Trek actor to portray two different, completely unrelated recurring characters in the same episode.

It would take nearly 40 years after the end of The Original Series for an Andorian character to appear as anything other than a background extra of a one-off guest appearance, so when Combs first appeared as Thy’lek Shran in Enterprise it was, needless to say, a big deal. Not only was this classic alien race finally getting a true representative in the Star Trek canon, the character of Shran radically reinvented what we had mostly acknowledged as “those blue aliens with the things on their heads.” Enterprise ’s Andorians were pissed off, leather-clad commandos with a serious bone to pick with the Vulcans, setting up a lot of questions about how these people are going to become one of the founding members of the Federation by Enterprise ’s end.

After nearly a decade playing various degrees of villains on Star Trek , it’s with Shran that we get to see Combs in a new light as an honorable anti-hero with a serious chip on his shoulder. He’s passionate, cunning, and tough as nails when it comes to defending his people from harm. He undergoes a lot of growth over four seasons, and, according to producer Manny Coto, had Enterprise gone to a fifth, he likely would have found himself stationed on the bridge of the titular ship with Archer and the crew having come to peace with the Vulcans and opened up himself and his civilization to the idea of the Federation. He is, in many ways, the living example of what Enterprise was all about from the beginning.

Every Star Trek Character Played By Jeffrey Combs, Ranked

Get Updates By Email

This article was originally published on May 29, 2019.

Andy Webb (he/him) is a social media producer from Brooklyn whose work has been seen on CollegeHumor, Dorkly, Big Think and beyond. His passion for all things pop culture has been channeled into live comedy shows at the Alamo Drafthouse, live music video riffing for New York Comic Con, and placing 7th in the last season of the New York Trivia League on team Otrivia de Havilland. Follow him on Twitter at @Webbslinger for pictures of his cat, Odo.

Memory Beta, non-canon Star Trek Wiki

A friendly reminder regarding spoilers ! At present the expanded Trek universe is in a period of major upheaval with the continuations of Discovery and Prodigy , the advent of new eras in gaming with the Star Trek Adventures RPG , Star Trek: Infinite and Star Trek Online , as well as other post-57th Anniversary publications such as the ongoing IDW Star Trek comic and spin-off Star Trek: Defiant . Therefore, please be courteous to other users who may not be aware of current developments by using the {{ spoiler }}, {{ spoilers }} OR {{ majorspoiler }} tags when adding new information from sources less than six months old (even if it is minor info). Also, please do not include details in the summary bar when editing pages and do not anticipate making additions relating to sources not yet in release. THANK YOU

• Memory Beta articles sourced from reference works
• Memory Beta articles sourced from eBooks
• Andorian Imperial Guard personnel
• Andorian commanders
• Andorian generals
• Starfleet personnel
• Starfleet personnel (22nd century)
• Starfleet admirals

Thy'lek Shran

• View history

Thy'lek Shran , also known as Hravishran th'Zoarhi , was a 22nd century Andorian thaan who served as a prominent officer in the Andorian Imperial Guard before becoming one of the first leading admirals of the newly-constituted Federation Starfleet in the 2160s . ( ENT episode : " The Andorian Incident "; ENT - Rise of the Federation novel : A Choice of Futures )

Upon reaching the correct age he followed several other members of his family, including his elder brother, in joining the Imperial Guard. In order to follow a career in the military, Shran had to sacrifice his responsibility of being in a shelthreth party, which meant he had to live a very lonely life for many years. In 2142 , Shran was promoted to commander of the Andorian warship , IGS Kumari . At some point during Shran's command, Talas , a female tactical officer came aboard the Kumari . Like Shran, she had sacrificed her place in a shelthreth party, and the two eventually became lovers. ( ENT episode : " Babel One ", ENT novel : The Good That Men Do )

• 1.1 Early life
• 1.2.1 Opening engagements
• 1.2.2 Mutual trust
• 1.2.3 The Aenar
• 1.2.4 Rescuing Jhamel
• 1.3 Earth-Romulan War
• 1.4 Federation
• 2 Political career
• 4 Information
• 5.1 Appearances
• 5.2 References
• 6 Connections

History [ ]

Early life [ ].

Shran came from a military family and remembered his older brother joining the Imperial Guard, while he was still in primary school. ( ENT episode : " Proving Ground ")

The "Pinkskin" [ ]

Opening engagements [ ].

In June 2151 , Shran led a commando team that raided a Vulcan monastery on P'Jem , in the hopes of finding and destroying a long-range sensor array hidden away under the monastery, which was being used to illegally survey Andorian territory. After leading two assaults on the monastery, the team was unable to discover the base. However, on the third visit the monastery was being visited by Captain Jonathan Archer and the crew of the Enterprise (NX-01) .

The presence of the Enterprise and Subcommander T'Pol , led Shran to believe that the Vulcans were definitely hiding something beneath the monastery, and he had Archer, T'Pol, and Charles Tucker III taken prisoner. The prisoners were later able to escape after using the transporter to bring down security officers from Enterprise led by Lieutenant Malcolm Reed . In the ensuing firefight, Shran and Archer accidentally uncovered an entrance to the secret sensor array located underneath the monastery. As a gesture of peace to Shran, Archer shared all sensor data and images taken by the array, and allowed Shran to depart the planet freely. Shran later admitted that he was in Archer's debt. ( ENT episode : " The Andorian Incident ")

Hravishran th'Zoarhi in 2151

Several months later, Shran paid his debt to Archer after rescuing him and T'Pol from rebels on Coridan III . During this encounter, Shran helped to avoid a firefight between the Coridanite rebels and the crew of the Vulcan starship, Ni'Var , by shooting the rebel leader, Traeg , who was about to kill Captain Sopek . ( ENT episode : " Shadows of P'Jem ")

Mutual trust [ ]

In late 2152 , Shran commanded Andorian ground forces that were attached to Weytahn , a planet disputed between the Andorians and Vulcans. Shran wanted to negotiate a cease fire with Ambassador Soval , but wanted Archer to mediate as he had proven himself impartial during their previous encounters. ( ENT episode : " Cease Fire ")

Soon after, while giving Archer a tour of an Andorian city, Shran introduced the human to the mysterious establishment known as The Captain's Table . ( ENT short story : " Have Beagle, Will Travel: The Legend of Porthos ")

In December 2153 , the Kumari was ordered into the Delphic Expanse to capture a prototype of the Xindi superweapon that the Andorians could use to thwart a Vulcan invasion. After catching up with Enterprise , Shran provided tactical and engineering support and repaired heavy damage that had been suffered during their months in the Expanse. Following this, Shran and Archer launched a combined assault on a Xindi weapons-testing area, and the Kumari was able to capture the prototype weapon. When Shran tried to steal the weapon, Archer destroyed the weapon using its remote activation code. Regardless of his betrayal, Shran transmitted sensor data which would later prove invaluable in stopping the Xindi . ( ENT episode : " Proving Ground ")

In February 2154 , Shran and the Kumari came to Earth 's defense by attempting to destroy the Xindi superweapon before it reached Earth. ( ENT episode : " Zero Hour ")

Later that year, the Vulcan High Command planned an invasion of Andoria. The Earth starship Enterprise , with Soval 's help, located Shran and alerted him of the invasion. Shran was in command of a fleet of only seven ships while the Vulcans had twelve, though Andorian reinforcements were on the way. When the Vulcan fleet arrived, the first fights occurred just between the Vulcans and Andorians. When Enterprise , who was attempting to play the part of peacekeeper, was ordered to be destroyed, Shran stopped the Vulcans from doing so, stating that Archer now owed him twice. When problems in the Vulcan High Command ended, the battle halted. The trust between Humans and Andorians strengthened, and a new trust between Soval and Shran began. ( ENT episode : " Kir'Shara ")

The Aenar [ ]

In November 2154, the Kumari was destroyed by a Romulan drone-ship which was posing as a Tellarite vessel. Shran, Talas, and 18 additional crewmembers were able to make it to escape pods and were later rescued by Enterprise . Also aboard Enterprise was Gora bim Gral , the Tellarite ambassador. Determined to make Gral confess to the attack on the Kumari , Shran burst into Gral's quarters and held him at gunpoint. While the dispute was soothed by Archer, Talas was shot by Gral's aide, Naarg , and eventually died. In order to avenge the death of Talas, Shran challenged Naarg to the Ushaan , but Archer agreed to substitute for Naarg in the challenge. The duel ended when Archer lopped off Shran's left antenna and rendered him defenseless.

Evidence eventually pointed to the fact that the Romulans were controlling their drone-ship's via telepresence being performed by the Aenar , an offshoot of the Andorian race. Shran and Archer traveled to Andoria to meet with the Aenar, and enlisted the help of Jhamel . With her help they were able to persuade the Romulan vessel's pilot, Gareb , to stop the attacks. ( ENT episodes : " Babel One ", " United ", " The Aenar ")

Rescuing Jhamel [ ]

After these events concluded, Shran returned to Andoria and was forced to resign from the Imperial Guard, and he later choose to spend his time living with Jhamel and the Aenar. Six months later, Shran attended the forming of the shelthreth bondgroup between Jhamel, Theras , Shenar , and Vishri . Following the completion of the ceremony, the area was raided by Orions , who began summarily capturing and transporting Aenar to their ship. Due to the Aenar's pacifistic nature, Shran was the only one who could put up a fight, but was soon overpowered and watched powerlessly as Jhamel, a woman he was coming to love, was taken.

Following this event, Shran and Theras managed to contact Captain Archer and requested his help in tracking down Jhamel and the other Aenar. Archer was initially reluctant as he was under orders to make it to the signing of the Coalition Compact on Earth. Thankfully he decided to help Shran, and they were able to track the warp trail of the Orion vessel to Adigeon Prime . By now, Archer and Shran seriously believed that the Romulans had used the Orions and the Adigeons to capture the Aenar for them. After going through official channels to find the whereabouts of the Orion vessel and failing, Archer decided to take a landing party down to the surface and visit on Orion slave market .

When they were able to capture an Orion guard in the hopes of interrogating him, Archer had to hold Shran back after he nearly killed the guard. However, Shran's methods were good for loosening the Orion's tongue, as he pleaded with Archer not to let Shran near him again. As the guard revealed that the Orion vessel had transferred the Aenar to a Romulan freighter that was heading into Romulan space, the guard's colleagues arrived to rescue him. Thankfully, a timely beam-up saved the party from becoming slaves.

Not knowing the exact location of the freighter, Commander T'Pol came upon the idea of connecting Shran to the telepresence unit that was constructed by Commander Tucker during the last incident with the Aenar. Although not telepathic, Theras revealed that because of the deep bond between Shran and Jhamel he may be telepathically linked to her. The first attempt nearly damaged Shran's mind and damaged the unit, but the second time he was able to locate where Jhamel and the other Aenar were before he was forced to stop.

Against orders, Archer took Enterprise into Romulan space in order to track down the freighter. Once they had intercepted, Shran and Theras joined a boarding party that were dispatched to find the Aenar. As Enterprise battled against two Romulan bird-of-prey , Theras used his telepathic powers to firstly shield the boarding party from the Romulans perception, and finally to make the Romulans turn their weapons on each other. With the guards disarmed, the boarding party, Jhamel, and the other Aenar were beamed back to Enterprise .

Theras, however, remained aboard the Romulan freighter in order to destroy the vessel so that he couldn't be captured by the Romulans. Shortly before his death, it was his wish that Shran take his place within the shelthreth bondgroup with Jhamel. ( ENT novel : The Good That Men Do )

Earth-Romulan War [ ]

During the initial stages of the Earth-Romulan War , Shran remained in retirement. However, the loss of several former crewmates from the Kumari at the Battle of Threllvia IV led Shran to rejoin the Imperial Guard, with Jhamel's blessing.

Upon his return to the Guard, Shran was promoted to the rank of General and given command of the IGS Weytahn . Shran's new command held the responsibility of monitoring the Vulcan warp detection grid in the Andor system . During this duty, the Weytahn detected several of the grid's sensors going inactive, eventually leading to the realization the Romulans were attacking .

During the battle, Shran allowed the Earth warships Challenger and USS Yorktown to participate in the battle. Later, the Romulans captured Andorian support fighters, forcing Shran to destroy the vessels. Following the battle, Shran got drunk on Fesoan grainwine because he was distraught at killing fellow Andorians. Later that year, Shran joined the fleet that retook Deneva from the Romulans. ( ENT - The Romulan War novel : Beneath the Raptor's Wing )

Before the end of 2156 , however, he retired from the Imperial Guard once more when the Andorian and Tellarite governments decided to withdraw from the war. He returned to his shelthreth mates and daughter Talla on Andoria.

In 2160 , hearing about Starfleet's critical offensive at Cheron , Shran could not stand by and do nothing. He gathered a fleet of armed freighters with the help of Kolos and rushed to Archer's help. In the course of the battle, most of his ships were destroyed, but he bought enough time for a fleet of Vulcan, Andorian and Tellarite warships to arrive and effectively put an end to the war, with the Romulan fleet's destruction. ( ENT - The Romulan War novel : To Brave the Storm )

Federation [ ]

After the formation of the United Federation of Planets and the establishment of the Federation Starfleet in 2161 , Admiral Archer persuaded Shran to join the fledgling organization. He was given the rank of Admiral and became Chief of Staff for the Andorian Guard branch of Starfleet. In that capacity, he was in charge of the defense of the entire Federation.

In 2163 , during the Vertian crisis , he personally commanded the Starfleet task force in the Kandari sector , from Rigel V . Despite pressure from several Federation officials (led by Defense Commissioner Min glasch Noar ), Shran tried to employ a non-aggressive stance with the Vertian . His persistence ultimately paid off, as they were able to resolve the situation peacefully, partially thanks to the efforts of Captain T'Pol and the crew of the USS Endeavour . ( ENT - Rise of the Federation novel : A Choice of Futures )

In 2165 , Shran authorized the commitment of seven Andorian Guard ships to the Starfleet task force sent to find the origin of the Ware . ( ENT - Rise of the Federation novel : Uncertain Logic )

Political career [ ]

Not unfamiliar with politics from his career in the military, involved in such negotiations as the Treaty for Disposition of Weytahn/Paan Mokar , Commander Shran would later have a seat on the Federation Council . ( ST reference : Federation: The First 150 Years )

Shran published his personal Memoirs via the Andorian High Command Press in the Andorian year 6180. ( ST reference : Federation: The First 150 Years )

A cerulean statue of Shran was located in Laibok in the 24th century and was visible from the offices of Charivretha zh'Thane . ( DS9 novel : Andor: Paradigm )

Information [ ]

Shran's full thaan name was established in The Good That Men Do . In the bioscreen seen on the USS Defiant computer in "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II," Shran's name is given as "Thy'lek Shran," which was the name of Shran's Mirror Universe counterpart in the novel Age of the Empress .

Appendices [ ]

Appearances [ ], references [ ].

• ENT episode : " Twilight "

Connections [ ]

• Thy'lek Shran article at Memory Alpha , the wiki for canon Star Trek .
• 1 Achilles class
• 2 Ferengi Rules of Acquisition
• 3 USS Voyager (NCC-74656-A)

• #I-Exaggerated
• #William-Shatner
• #star-trek-v
• #Virtual-Production-Market
• #Alliance-of-Zoom
• #outer-space
• #Undercover-Boss
• #firekattasking2
• #indulge-yourself
• #Uss-Discovery
• #David-Bowie
• #Big-Tongue
• #UFP-Emblem
• #itsbigchase
• #assimilation
• #Pâté-Aviandd
• #star-trek-picard
• #ask-a-question
• #Space-Ghost
• #captain-pike
• #Social-Justice
• #Star-Trek-Fleet-Command
• #Terrapallismo
• #Terrapallari
• #Beam-Me-Up-Scotty
• #Star-Trek-Voyager
• #Seven-Of-Nine
• #Princess-Leia
• #Vulcan-Salute
• #Captain-Kirk
• #Live-Long-And-Prosper
• #Be-Involved
• #Starfleet-Badge
• #Starfleet-Dogtag
• #moopsy-lower-decks
• #Stabilized-Scene
• #Star-Trek-Picard-Logo
• #mangaitalia
• #Darth-Vader
• #Beastie-Boys
• #Eye-Gadget
• #Locutus-Eye
• #Storm-Trooper
• #I-Highly-Doubt-That
• #Infinity-Necklace
• #Visitor-Badge
• #darth-vader
• #transparent
• #European-Union
• #Brawl-Stars
• #enterprise
• #Christi-Himmelfahrt
• #Himmelfahrt
• #blainethepain
• #Campanha-Maxsan
• #Jean-Luc-Picard
• #data-oh-yeah
• #shake-it-so
• #picard-dance
• #Deep-Space

to upload to Tenor

Upload your own GIFs

• #Star-Trek-Tos
• #beam-is-down
• #star-trek-what
• #The-Next-Generation
• #Capt-Kirk-agrees
• #Trek-Travolta-Transporter
• #Deal-With-It
• #Capt-Kathryn-Janeway
• #Star-Trek-The-Next-Generation
• #funny-data-moment
• #scared-by-a-door
• #picard-funny
• #William-Riker
• #Data-Coordination
• #Exactly-Yes
• #dance-party
• #Aye-Captain
• #Montgomery-Scott
• #Drunk-Shimoda
• #Friends-Of-Desoto
• #michelle-forbes
• #Night-watch
• #New-Cadets
• #commander-data

Villains Wiki

Hi. This is Thesecret1070. I am an admin of this site. Edit as much as you wish, but one little thing... If you are going to edit a lot, then make yourself a user and login. Other than that, enjoy Villains Wiki!!!

• Science Fiction Villains
• On & Off
• Friend of a Hero
• View history

Shran is a recurring antagonist-turned-ally in Star Trek: Enterprise (originally known as Enterprise ). Introduced in the first season episode "The Andorian Incident", he appeared in one further first season episode, one second season episode and two episodes of the third season (including the season finale) before becoming a major recurring character on the fourth and final season.

He was portrayed by Jeffrey Combs , who also played Weyoun and Brunt in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , Herbert West in the 1985 film Re-Animator , the 1989 sequel Bride of Re-Animator , and the 2003 sequel Beyond Re-Animator , Dr. Vannacutt in the 1999 film House on Haunted Hill , and the 2007 sequel, Return to House on Haunted Hill . He voiced Brainiac in Injustice 2 and Scarecrow in The New Batman Adventures .

History [ ]

Shran was a commander in the Andorian Guard, who led an assault team who occupied the Vulcan monastery on P'Jem, convinced it was a cover for a listening post spying on Andorian space. The Andorians had searched it twice before and found nothing, but the arrival of Enterprise made them more convinced they were correct. Shran took Archer, T'Pol and Tucker prisoner and had Archer beaten and tortured, convinced he was conspiring with the Vulcans. A rescue by Reed using the transporter led to a firefight in the monastery's catacombs, during which it was revealed that Shran was correct and there was an illegal Vulcan listening post beneath the monastery. Archer allowed Shran to leave with the evidence.

Uncomfortable at being in Archer's debt, Shran sought to pay him back. When Archer and T'Pol were captured by rebels on Coridan, Shran worked with Tucker and Reed to rescue them, although their plan was disrupted by an attack from the Vulcans. Shran later enlisted Archer's help to organise a peace treaty with the Vulcans over the disputed world Weytahn, foiling an attempt at sabotage by his lieutenant Tarah .

After the Xindi attack on Earth and the reveal they were building a larger weapon, Shran travelled into the Delphic Expanse claiming to be offering Enterprise assistance. He worked with Enterprise to steal the prototype of the Xindi weapon: However, he was under orders to secure the weapon for the Andorians and absconded with it, stranding Archer. Worried what he would use it for, Archer destroyed the weapon. Despite this, Shran brought his ship to defend Earth when the Xindi-Reptillians attempted to deploy the full weapon against it, working with Archer and his Xindi allies to destroy the Reptillian shift and declaring that this time Archer owed him.

When the traitorous Vulcan administrator V'Las attempted to lead them in an invasion of Andorian space, Tucker contacted Shran to warn him. Shran refused to believe the word of Vulcan ambassador Soval and had him captured and tortured. Soval stuck to his story and Shran was impressed that he didn't simply tell him what he wanted to know. He joined with Enterprise in defending Andorian territory against the Vulcan fleet until Archer, T'Pol and T'Pau managed to depose V'Las.

Shran later transported the Andorian delegation to a conference on Babel One, only to be attacked and his ship disabled, apparently by a Tellarite ship. He was rescued by Archer but, on learning the Tellarite delegation was on board, launched an attack on them. Before Archer could restore order, Shran's lieutenant and lover Talas was killed by Tellarite aide Naarg. Shran challenged Naarg to a duel to the death but Archer took his place and defeated Shran by severing his antenna. Shran worked with humans, Vulcans and Tellarites to expose the Romulans as faking attacks on everyone's ships. In the process, he began a relationship with the young Aenar woman Jhamal.

In the show's finale, set some six years later, it was revealed Shran had faked his death after making enemies. When his daughter Talla was captured, he requested the help of Archer and Enterprise and they managed to rescue her.

According to the Enterprise Relaunch novels, Shran later became an admiral in the new Federation Starfleet and became Chief of Staff in charge of defence.

• No name other than Shran was ever mentioned for the character, but his full name was given as Thy'lek Shran in an on-screen graphic. The novels preferred to give his full name as Hravishran th'Zoarhi.

Navigation [ ]

• 1 Owl (Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey)
• 2 Skar King

• Information givers
• Season Fifteen: Age of Discovery

Thy'kir Shran

• VisualEditor
• View history

Captain Thy'kir Shran is an Andorian Starfleet officer in 2256 . He commands the U.S.S. Sebrova .

History [ | ]

• Shran is the great-grandson of Thy'lek Shran .
• Shran once served aboard the U.S.S. Endeavour with Anton Schaefer .
• Shran once toured the U.S.S. Shran , and was treated with honor as a descendant of its namesake.

Missions involved [ | ]

Other involvement [ | ]

• "The Will to Fight" : Captain Shran of the records a log entry. He describes the apparent futility in waging war against their Klingons' cloaking technology, but reaffirms his determination to do what he can. He also reflects on his great-grandfather, Thy’lek Shran, who serves as both an inspiration to Thy'kir, as well as a shadow to overcome. The log entry is interrupted when he receives word of a distress call from a Starfleet Academy vessel, crewed by cadets on a training cruise. Shran orders his First Officer to redirect to the signal's source.
• 1 List of canon starships
• 3 Playable starship

Does Shran get enough credit or too much for helping lift Star Trek: Enterprise

L et us be very clear, we love Thy'lek Shran, the Andorian commander who made his presence known on Star Trek: Enterprise. Serving as the first point of contact between the Andorians and the burgeoning Federation, Shran and Captain Jonathan Archer became one of the best pairings the show ever, dare we say the franchise, ever had. We love Shran and we think about the world of his character, and how his actor, Jeffrey Combs, brought him to life.

And while we'd be all on board with a fifth season involving him as a member of the Enterprise, we have to point out something; he gets too much love. At least when the conversation revolves around the reasons why Enterprise was good/got better.

Firstly, the show never "got better". It was a great showcase from start to finish. Shran was a highlight, sure, just like Q was in Star Trek: Enterprise. Q was amazing, but Enterprise stood out beyond Q when he wasn't there, as did Shran.

There are pockets of fans that think the show only worked when it involved Shran and that his introduction and continued use were part of the reason it thrived as a series. We do agree that the series found success with Shran, but Enterprise was a well-written and well-executed series.

It didn't need Shran. Shran was the chocolate cake after a great dinner. The dinner was all we needed, but the cake was a nice way to close things out.

It's a shame that some people think Shran was the only highlight from a great series, a great series that had a lot of compelling secondary characters. How wonderful was Soval? While Vulcans are hard to have personalities and come off as unique, the way that Gary Graham played him was marvelous and he was a highlight of many episodes he appeared on. Some of which involved Shran.

There's an entire list of great secondary and main characters that deserve the love they don't get, and we're hoping that with time, some of them will start to be celebrated the way that we rightfully do with Shran.

This article was originally published on redshirtsalwaysdie.com as Does Shran get enough credit or too much for helping lift Star Trek: Enterprise .

• View history

Talla was the daughter of former Andorian Imperial Guard Commander Shran and Jhamel . She was born in 2156 .

As the hybrid offspring of an Andorian and Aenar , Talla had a skin of a paler blue than that of a regular Andorian. Unlike the Aenar, however, Talla had seemingly fully functional eyesight.

In 2161 , Talla was kidnapped in the middle of the night by former "associates" of her father. Her father enlisted the help of his old friend Jonathan Archer in rescuing her. The mission was successful, and Talla was unharmed during the ordeal. Once safely aboard Enterprise , she thanked Archer personally, calling him " pink skin ". ( ENT : " These Are the Voyages... ")

• 1.1 Background information
• 1.2 Apocrypha
• 1.3 External link

Appendices [ ]

Background information [ ].

Talla was played by Jasmine Anthony .

In the final draft script of "These Are the Voyages...", Talla was referred to as an "Andorian girl", with no reference to the Aenar side of her genetic makeup, and was noted as being four years old during her rescue. Talla thanking Archer wasn't scripted, despite the fact she does so in the final version of the episode.

Apocrypha [ ]

While the Star Trek: Enterprise continuation novel series established early on that much of the ENT -era events of " These Are the Voyages... " had in fact been fabricated by Section 31 , the actual non-holographic Talla makes an appearance in The Good That Men Do . She also has a counterpart ( β ) in the mirror universe , seen in " Age of the Empress ".

She was given the full name "Anishtalla zh'Dhaven" in To Brave the Storm .

External link [ ]

• Anishtalla zh'Dhaven at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• 2 USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-G)
• 3 Star Trek: The Next Generation

How Star Trek Breached The Defences Of A Major Broadcaster

Back in 2020 in the brief lull between COVID lockdowns in the UK, I found myself abruptly on the move, with a very short time indeed to move my possessions into storage. As I was going through the accumulated electronic detritus of over four decades, I happened upon a grey box with some wires hanging out of it, and more than a few memories. This was a Sky VideoCrypt decoder, and the wires were part of the so-called “Season” interface to attach it to the serial port of a PC. It had this modification in the hope of catching some unauthorised free satellite TV, and in its day this particular hack caused some headaches for the broadcaster.

When More Than 4 Channels Was A Novelty

In the 1980s and early 1990s, there was very little in the way of digital broadcasting on either satellites or terrestrial networks, almost everything on TV was sent out as standard definition analogue video. The four terrestrial channels where I grew up were all free-to-air, and if you had a satellite dish you could point it at any one of a variety of satellites and receive more free-to-air channels if you didn’t mind most of them being in German. Premium satellite programming was encrypted though, either through a range of proprietary analogue schemes, or for the British broadcaster Sky’s offering, through their VideoCrypt system. This used a 64 kB buffer to store each line of video, and rotate it round any one of 256 points along its length, resulting in an unintelligible picture.

Sky was the UK’s big gorilla of premium broadcasters, a role they kept for many years, and which was only eroded by the advent of streaming services. As such they snapped up exclusive first access to much of the most desirable content of the day, restricting it to only their British pay-to-subscribe customers. A viewer in the UK who grumbled about Star Trek Next Generation not being on the BBC could at least cough up for Sky, but if they didn’t have a British address they were out of luck. It was in this commercial decision, whether it was based upon business or on licensing, that Sky unwittingly sowed the seeds of Videocrypt’s demise.

How Trekkies Broke An Encryption System

Star Trek is a very popular program in our community. And it’s popular not just among British hackers, but also among Germans, who sadly couldn’t get a Sky subscription to watch it. This provided all the motivation needed for one of them to set to work, and from that was born the interface I had inside my hacked VideoCrypt box. It was called Season7 after TNG season 7, and it worked by having the PC emulate the smart card supplied to subscribers by Sky.

At this point it’s worth explaining from memory some of the workings of a VideoCrypt decoder. Hardware-wise it had the video interfaces and that 64 kB line buffer, controlled by a processor which matched the sequence of line flips to that transmitted. The encryption itself was determined by a piece of software running on a microcontroller in the smart card, which talked via a serial link to another microcontroller in the decoder. This then fed the codes to the main processor. The Season7 code ran on a PC and emulated the smart card, and the “hack” was a MAX232 level shifter between the smart card serial pins and a PC serial connector.

In the early 1990s there was not a lot in the way of home internet usage in the UK, so the Season software would arrive passed around on floppies that some lucky person with USENET access had downloaded. The mystery German Star Trek fan soon found himself in a battle of wills with Sky, who changed the cards and tweaked the algorithm in an arms race that meant trying to watch Sky with Season was a patchy affair at best. There were a few of us in my local radio club who played around with it, but it’s fair to say that as a TV service, it was cumbersome and unreliable. Eventually Sky released a new card that couldn’t be cracked by Season, then moved to an all-digital system, and this particular chapter in hacker history drew to a close.

Our Mystery Hacker Went On To Great Things

This is a thirty year old tale of a long-gone technology, but it’s a little piece of hardware hacker culture from that decade that’s worth recording. I’m sorry to say I didn’t have the room for my VideoCrypt decoder, so it went into the e-waste. Meanwhile, after Sky’s first broadcast rights to TNG season 7 expired it aired on the BBC and other terrestrial channels, so I, and presumably the Germans too, were able to watch it legally.

Header image: Riton99, CC BY-SA 4.0 .

38 thoughts on “ How Star Trek Breached The Defences Of A Major Broadcaster ”

I imagine that ’20 got expanded incorrectly.

Perhaps Covid Aleph-Null has a 20-year incubation time?

My parents have just cleared out the attic, and as such, I’d imagine the VideoCrypt box and its associates have gone to the bin.

Among them though, was an unusual card. It was a “smart card”, but the contacts led out to a socketable chip. I’m going to assume the code to hack videocrypt was eventually put on microcontrollers and the point of this was that you could just get a new chip when Sky updated the encoding?

While we’re on sky hacking. One I’ve heard, but not seen in action, is that if you canceled your subscription, sky would have to wipe the actual card which was sent OTA. However the issue was this required either a larger voltage or current than was needed to read the card. This meant you could modify a Sky box so it wouldn’t be able to wipe cards. People would sign up for a while, cancel and still get their channels!

Similarly, one of my family members had a specific sky digital box which would give all the PPV events for free with the application of a 9V battery across the phone line terminals. Really weird glitch that I have barely seen anyone else talk about since.

The socketed chip was likely a PIC16C84, they were reprogrammable so your friendly local card dealer would probably exchange the card or you could as you say, swap the chip

There were also Atmel alternatives and some other variants but the PIC ones were most common.

The 9V battery trick worked to fool the boss into thinking it was connected to a telephone line.

The people who designed the system built in that particular “glitch” so that your Sky box would authorise PPV and call home later in case their dialup servers ran out of capacity.

So while you could watch a number of PPV events, if you ever connected it back to a real phone line your next Sky bill would be a shocker.

remember cards with pic16c84 in the late 90’s, you could reprogram the key with a long sequence using the receiver remote. The new code was usually posted in the internet very quickly every time it was changed

Those were the days of Internet owned by people. ( These days is internet owned by corperations. )

They fixed the programming voltage trick by making the card chip have an onboard boost regulator to generate the voltage internally.

Covid lockdowns in 2000?

Seems like we must’ve ended up in the alternate timeline together. Lets just hope the Europa Mission goes as planned…

I’m afraid that in this timeline it has been retconned into “the Evropa mission”

DirectTV free per view with an emulated smart card.

It was great, but there was a downside.

If you fell asleep watching a movie, the channel you were watching sometimes switched to porn. Sometimes gay porn. Wake up screaming like Kinison. I’m a _victim_! Give me free stuff!

Reminds me of that time in the 2000 where you could get Sat boxes that could break DirectTV and Bell TV Nagravision II encoding, that lasted until they switched to Nagravision III.

One system in LA inverted the video and sync pulse. So the fix was to add a sync pulse and reinvert the video. Had such a box, but the system went bankrupt soon after.

That was the old old analog cable scramble.

You could unscramble it with a t and a cutoff length of coax. The trick was to tune the length so the reflection of the synch pulse landed at ‘close enough’. Wasn’t great, putting a new rom in the box was much better.

If I recall correctly, there were 2 OTA analog encrypted TV channels in Los Angeles circa 1985. One inverted the video every few seconds. The other added a sine wave at the horizontal frequency to the video, timed so that horizontal sync couldn’t be detected. That second system used a Signetics PLL chip in the decoder; they bought exclusive rights to the chip so that nobody else could use it.

You know what I find interesting about this is that the Sky satellite receivers were often manufactured by Amstrad. The scrambling scheme seems, in a way, to be quite similar to the anti piracy measure incorporated into the Amstrad (CPC) 464+, 6128+ and GX4000 computers/consoles. The cartridges had a chip called the ACID chip that would skew timings of the data read from the EPROM which would prevent a pirate game cartridge from running. The gate array in the machine would unscramble the data by synchronising with the ACID chip in the cartridge, so you couldn’t (easily) burn copies of games to a ROM and run them on the console or computer. Probably just the way it was always done back then, but I find it fun to think that maybe the two things were related.

I’ll have to disagree. VideoCrypt and the ACID protection are nothing alike. ACID just takes address bits from the bus and uses them to derive a single-bit pseudorandom signal. If that ever differed to what the system ASIC generated internally, the reset line would be asserted – there’s no scrambling or timing changes at all.

I remember a similar system with DirecTV back in the late 90s/early 2000s. The decryption key was sent along with the video stream but it was hashed. The smart card contained a lookup table and a hashing algorithm, when you tuned a channel, the box would query the card, if the lookup table showed it was a subscribed channel, the card would spit out a hash that the box would use to decrypt the video stream. (I think in the earlier ones, the card was just a lookup table but later ones the card contained some processing as well, since when something got hacked they’d send out new cards).. So this thing you could build plugged into the smart card slot of the box and was connected to a PC via serial port, since the hash was something like 32 bits you could brute force it with an average desktop CPU, and then it would spit whatever back at the box and you could watch the channel.

I want to say that up into the mid-2000s maybe even the 2010s one could get a DVB-S tuner card for a PC and the appropriate key file (if one didn’t want to just brute force the keys) and then watch Dish or DirecTV for free, but the advent of streaming services dropped the demand for satellite piracy to the point that nobody has bothered to crack any of the newer systems.

It was called “tiers” . The tiers were a 16bit table that determined what your channel access rights were. There were a few different methods to circumvent the system: The first smartcards (F-Cards) were Motorola processors which had hardware debugging left in which allowed full access. The next gen (H-card) had 8051 processor with crypto coprocessor that handled the video decryption. The exploit was a simple buffer overflow; coding standards were not that great so you could overflow an input function on the smartcard and run code on it which allowed you to reprogram the tiers to give you everything. The satellite guys countered by downloading hashing code to check the cards for changes and brick them. We countered by developing voltage glitching to get back into the card to reprogram it again. It was cat and mouse: the cards would go down and we would counter with some new code to defeat their code. The card after that (Hu card) was TMS370 processor with crypto coprocessor and encrypted rom. We managed to get and read the rom encryption, get into the card, all through voltage and clock glitching and did the same; tier reprogramming, decryption command bypass and emulation. Also I built my own personal exploit which ran on a reprogrammed card with a reprogrammed set top box that ran undetected until they changed out the card.

Eventually we started writing emulators to just emulate the smartcard processor altogether and uploaded separate code to the smartcard to control the crypto-coprocessor to handle the decryption. I think it was a 56bit DES key every 8 seconds. The emulators couldn’t be stopped because they looked just like a normal card to the set top box for the most part except when it came to the instruction that was pass/no pass for video decrypt the emulator always passed the instruction. Any code they wrote to check the integrity of the smartcard would look like it was a genuine smartcard. There was no brute force. That’s the device you are thinking about: computer emulating a smartcard with a smartcard adapter that fit in the slot of the set top box and then a smartcard reader for the original card which was now reprogrammed to just handle the key decryption.

(old school for-reals hacker popping their head up to share this fun bit of history)

Haha, cool and thanks for sharing the stories and history. I never got involved with the scene but I really enjoyed learning about it. It would be fun to see a podcast interview with both the DTV engineers and hackers who were active at that time!

I worked for an electrical contractor that had me doing some work at a DTV uplink facility for a few months. I really enjoyed taking to the microwave technicians at lunch and learning all about RF and how satellite worked. I made the mistake of asking specific questions about how their encryption worked, they just went silent and ended the conversation. I think that was shortly after the ‘game over’ update, hahaha!

The story of the Sky hack is indeed fascinating but there’s so *SO* much more to it and the back story of how NDS (essentially Sky TV’s security company) in Israel were linked to THOIC BBS and Lee Gibling is just incredible, then there’s also the stories of how somebody hacked and essentially destroyed the business model of Sky’s only UK competitor subscription TV service.

Fascinating stories of piracy and counter piracy as well as industrial sabotage and subterfuge.

The old days of satellite hacking, I remember those times with a smile. As a 17-year-old, I was in school and had to do an internship. My internship was at an electronics store where the old “founder” was still the director of four stores and had a few rules. One of them was “you must know what you sell!” The director allowed us to take things apart, study them, take them home, etc. This way, when a customer was interested, you KNEW what you were selling.

In the early 2000s, we were selling everything from electronics to loose components like resistors and semiconductors, CCTV, PA equipment, and… satellite receivers. In those early days in the Netherlands, there was symulcrypt, a combination of IRDETO and SECA. Most channels, like FilmNet, were still on IRDETO, and with a gold card (PIC16F84 and Eeprom), it was possible to program your own card and watch these “for free”. It was during this time that I got my first satellite receiver, a Pace 600 if I recall correctly. It was a receiver brought in with a broken F connector, and the customer wanted a replacement with SECA.

The Pace was IRDETO only, had about 6 or 8 “bouquets” (starting channels), but it was mine! After installing a satellite dish, I went experimenting and eventually modified the “fat IRDETO module” that was sticking in the back with another processor so it could also descramble SECA. One thing led to another, and at that time, I was interested in “getting the channels,” not because I needed them… but because I could :-)

During this time, SECA was becoming “a thing”, and several other providers like SKY, etc., were possible to decode with a FunCard (AVR). At this time, we were “shop hacking” the Humax receivers 5400Z to the “non-Z” version. I think Humax got complaints or something; it was the “Rolls Royce” for satellite hacking. We built a JTAG Z board for these so they became “regular 5400’s again”. Multiple satellite setups with a positioner were the playground.

At this time, the “official” CanalDigitaal receivers from Philips (6072/6071) became interesting. A firmware was written so it would accept FunCards, not only the legal CD cards. The first install was nerve-wracking; it was over a serial connection and took about 9 hours on the private receiver of a colleague (also a tinkerer). After exploring and playing with this, we showed it to “the boss”; he was interested and funded the JTAG programmer, instead of 9 hours of programming, it was done in 5 minutes. At this time, symulcrypt was ending / ended. No more IRDETO, SECA only.

The Humax and patched Philips receivers were fun. Parallel to this, there was this thing from Dream Multimedia, the Magic Module. A programmable CI module for different encryptions (when loaded with the right firmware). There were rumors that Dream was making its own receiver, a LAN-connected Linux-based receiver. As of this moment, I knew it… I wanted it… badly :-) This made me contact “some grey paths”; while not yet available through official resellers, I got one! No more “cards burning,” just a BIN file. Some scripting, and you had an auto-updating satellite receiver. The support and scene grew instantly, and many tools, firmware updates (official and alternative), were available. I have used the Dreambox for many years until there was the end of SECA(1), and SECA2 became a thing. In the early years, there was some tinkering, and at times, it was possible to decode SECA2. There were closed-source “pirate cards” selling for way too much money, and people reverse-engineering these cards. Cardsharing became a thing; why hack it when you can share your card with friends? I’ve connected to several servers, but the fun was gone. I really enjoyed “hacking” the system, experimenting, etc., not just connecting to a server…

After moving abroad, I started the hobby once over, using the Dreambox sat-finder to install the dishes at the new place. At this time, I was in my early 30s and enjoyed a parallel hobby, XBMC. Knowing XBMC from the original XBOX days, it came and went. XBMC provided a multi-room setup for movies and series (on an NAS and different… um… alternative sources), and I started the hobby with satellite again. This time streaming the satellite to XBMC. The backend was a server with TVHeadend, a 2-port DVBS card, and… yes… an official CanalDigitaal card in a USB-connected reader.

The fun was back, playing with my own “cardserver”, scraping the EPG, and providing streaming TV throughout the house without the need for coaxial cables and several satellite receivers. This solution, a thin client with XBMC at the TVs and the server with TVHeadend, worked flawlessly. CanalDigitaal kept pushing the monthly fees and shrinking the bandwidth. Where once digital satellite TV was quality, it became shoddy. The problem, no internet connection besides an ADSL line with 20K download (that is Kilobytes….). The solution eventually was a directional antenna, pointed to the Netherlands (~2.5 km) and a business, unlimited internet GSM subscription. About 700K instead of 20… I was in heaven!

About 5 years ago, the town was fitted with fiber, a stable 100/100 connection, so the GSM link went away. The costs of watching CanalDigitaal and the poor quality made me do a sidestep to streaming TV over the internet, with better quality and much better price. Having small kids, a job with irregular hours, and several other influences made the switch complete. IPTV was the new SatTV, but… we weren’t watching live TV as before… With Netflix, Prime, and all other sources of TV on demand, we only used it to watch some programs and the news…

In 2024, satellite and streaming IPTV have ceased to exist, leaving only a few (of course shared :-) ) IPTV on-demand services. As I write this, I find myself reminiscing about the past, when hacking was still a hobby rather than just connecting to a server. It involved using your soldering skills, and devouring countless articles and posts to stay ahead or in line with the countermeasures from the provider. That’s what I miss—the cat and mouse game, not the multitude of TV channels.

What a great story. Thanks for sharing :)

Yay, a 16 MB animation making 80% of the whole page. Because screw mobile users and their data plans ;-)

You really need to rengeotiate that data plan if 16MB screws you over, just saying.

It doesn’t. I viewed it over a multiple-hundred-megabit-per-second cable that costs me a fraction of what people pay in first world countries. But I do care for unnecessary web bloat.

How few webpages do you view or how much else do you do out of the same cap that 16MB per page for a month would make no difference?

The average web page (built by idiots) brings more JS then that.

“You really need to rengeotiate that data plan if 16MB screws you over”

Said by someone in a 1st world country with low cost cell plans. (vs the other half of the world)

Just Saying……………….

Other peoples lack of bandwidth is not my problem.

I’d go so far as to say it’s unlikely to be their concern either. There are lots of places in the world where they can’t even buy ammunition. Priorities, Maslow etc.

Animated PNG: https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Videocrypt_scrambled_frame.png (16 MBytes) Webm: https://josuah.net/paste/R25PICH0lz2A0dVdDw9X/Videocrypt_scrambled_frame.webm (2.3 MBytes) Gif (poor quality w/ dithering): https://josuah.net/paste/8p9InxdDGOWeVhXgzZis/Videocrypt_scrambled_frame.gif (4.3 MByes)

Interesting! :)

> but if they didn’t have a British address they were out of luck

That reminds me of NHK: only available to the Japan residents due to a private contract with the broadcast company. And all expats are stuck out of their daily morning news to stay in touch with their culture the way they used to.

ffmpeg -i Videocrypt_scrambled_frame.png -vcodec libvpx -acodec libvorbis Videocrypt_scrambled_frame.webm

The `-vcodec libvpx` and `-acodec libvorbis` might not be necessary, but could improve compatibility a bit. Otherwise, a good ole patentful `.mp4`…

ffmpeg -i Videocrypt_scrambled_frame.png Videocrypt_scrambled_frame.mp4

MP4: https://josuah.net/paste/Jw17ua2A06TCg7bbJ8NR/Videocrypt_scrambled_frame.mp4 (490K)

German speaking countries had their own scrambled satellite channels that sparked the pay tv hacker scene. First there was the Swiss Teleclub channel that used the Payview III scheme to scramble the signal. In the early 90’s Teleclub spawned the German channel Premiere and both channels continued to use Nagravision Syster until analogue tv died.

Payview III didn’t use a key. According to the internet it just messed up the sync signals.

Syster permuted the lines of the picture and required a chip card or statistical analysis to undo the permutation. Markus Kuhn wrote a paper in 1998 about the algorithm.

This has been going on a bit longer than Jenny suggests, although with a bit of social hacking. It’s well described in the movie “The Duke” which is a very fun movie. Hint: Helen Mirren costars.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Please be kind and respectful to help make the comments section excellent. ( Comment Policy )

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

Never miss a hack

If you missed it.

Space Mirrors: Dreams Of Turning The Night Into Day Around The Clock

Mining And Refining: Tungsten

Wrencher-2: A Bold New Direction For Hackaday

Tech Support… Can AI Be Worse?

Japan’s First Commercial Rocket Debuts With A Bang

Our columns.

FLOSS Weekly Episode 777: Asterisk — Wait, Faxes?

PCB Design Review: Tinysparrow, A Module For CAN Hacking Needs

Giant Sails Actually Help Cargo Ships Save Fuel, And The Planet In Turn

6502 Hacking Hack Chat

By using our website and services, you expressly agree to the placement of our performance, functionality and advertising cookies. Learn more