1. A method of activating functionality comprising: (a) receiving a feature authorization message (FAM) in a set-top box, wherein the FAM comprises: (i) one or more rules to be evaluated, wherein each of the rules comprises one or more tests for a status of one or more conditional access module (CAM) attributes; (ii) one or more event requirements for rule evaluation; and (iii) one or more features that are dependent by the rule evaluation result, wherein each of the one or more features represents a set of one or more abilities of hardware and/or software; (b) when one or more of the event requirements have been met, evaluating the one or more rules to obtain a result; and (c) setting the ability to use the one or more features based on the result.