"But NDS had one important rival, an encryption technology developed in France by the local broadcaster Canal Plus which had been adopted by just about all News Corporation's rival broadcasters.

The NDS team in Haifi, according to a lawsuit filed in the US district court for the Nothern District of California, set out to "sabotage Canal Plus technological security measures engineered into its smart cards."

Breaking the encryption alone would cost up to $5m. The process demanded the use of ultra-expensive electron-scanning microscopes, with the team probing wafer-thin chips no bigger than a thumbnail. Each chip contained up to 50 layers, with each layer in turn carrying up to 1,000 transistors, every one of which had to be pulled apart and analysed."

Sounds like they spent too much money. :)

MediaGuardian.co.uk | Media | How codebreakers cracked the secrets of the smart card