Originally Posted By: gbeer
The critical items of activation, account numbers, and lifetime service, are stored in a chip on the motherboard. As long as you install an image meant for that specific unit, there is no problem.

The S1 TiVos just had the machine ID in the EEPROM. Everything else was kept on the server side. No clue what they do in S2 and S3 TiVos.

Dubious as in distributing copyrighted software not as in risk of losing your sub. Unlikely that TiVo will do that much about it considering the image is pretty useless if you don't have the TiVo hardware. The main things that do annoy them is switching software images between different types of unit and stealing service.