settop box hacking

Question

I've recently bought a new set-top box, and the hacker spirit beckons me to carry out things with it.. i understand there could be no standard procedure to hack it / play with it still there should

so my questions are :

• what hardware knowledge do i need to have inorder to get a basic understanding on how a set-top box works. (any how-to's)

• how do i go about establishing an interface with my computer ?

• what external hardware dev. kits / components i might need ?

• how do i figure out if its a linux box ? and later get details on the linux kernel versions on it ?

Answer 1

To answer all of your questions: it depends on the box.

In short, find a hacking community for your hardware and read up.