Can you really plug your SKY remote via ethernet to get free SKY TV? HOAX

A rumour is spreading across social media that claims that SKY customers can unlock all of the channels on their SKY box simply by plugging their SKY TV remote into an available port on their broadband router with an Ethernet cable.

TL;DR – the rumour is false. There is no Ethernet port on the back of the remote, and following the instructions towards the end of the message will likely change the code your SKY remote uses to operate a TV set, meaning it may stop operating your TV set.

The rumour – (which appears to have originally appeared online in an article titled “This Sky Engineer Just got Fired & Released A Secret Hack To Get FREE Sky TV“) – claims that a relic feature that allowed SKY engineers to check faults across all SKY channels is still accessible by plugging the remote control into a router to download a firmware patch from SKY’s “central server”, which then unlocks all the channels.

The rumour can be seen below –

Secret life hack to get FREE Sky TV, that BSkyB don’t want you to know.
After being a Sky Tech since BSkyB digital launched in 1998, as part or the original tech team we were taught about a secret menu on the remote which is used to unlock all the Sky channels on a viewing card to allow access to ALL the Sky channels for testing and monitoring purposes.
Many people may remember that Area engineers like myself would turn up with laptop in hand to visit customers with faults that were escalated up from your standard Field Engineer to investigate symptoms that may be due to local interference.
This action was enforced at the time by OFCOM if the customer complained , and with the use of a Spectrum Analyser, and the Clients receiver, all channels could interrogated for cross modulation, interference and any other faults that would cause pixelation or loss of viewing, with a report submitted to prove BSkyB’s digital coverage was not at fault to avoid heavy fines.
What BSkyB does not want customers to know is that they still build this feature into the remote, hence the LAN port that is built into every Sky remote to date.
And the best thing is, there is no need for a Laptop to programme the remote at this is all performed over IP to a central server based at Sky when Sky HD was launched, using the same technology that On Demand utilises.
And better still, you do not even need an active Sky subscription, this will work on Cards that have been killed by Sky as the agreement from Ofcom has to also cover what was known at the time as Freesat from Sky.
By simply connecting the remote into a spare port of ANY router will download a firmware patch, this includes ANY broadband modems from any provider and only requires plugging in, the remote will do the rest automatically.
This will take around 60 seconds, but leave for up to 5 minutes to be on the safe side.
Now Press TV, Select and Red together, TV, and 0000, then Select will unlock all your Sky Channels for Free!!
You will know this has worked if the remotes LED lights blinks back at you.
Enjoy!

Of course, the rumour is false, and fails to make sense on a number of levels. Perhaps most obviously, you can’t plug your SKY remote into your router because the remote actually doesn’t have an Ethernet socket built into it. The socket at the back of the remote inside the battery compartment is not an Ethernet port, and an Ethernet connector will not fit inside it since it is too small, and does not contain 6 male pins, which the socket requires.

We spoke to a SKY engineer who asserted that the socket is actually designed to allow SKY to upload programming codes for the latest television models so the remote can control the latest television sets without having to manually input the code for a specific TV model.

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What’s more, it is the viewing card inside the SKY box that decrypts the signal from SKY, not the SKY remote, so regardless of what you download to your SKY remote, it wouldn’t have any effect on what the viewing card can or cannot decrypt from SKY.

It seems the message is some kind of prank by the original uploader to see how many people they could dupe into trying to jam an Ethernet connector into the back of their SKY remote control and programming their remotes to work with the 0000 code (which appears to be the code associated with Sony TVs.)