CDR: Re: BSA deploys imaginary pirate software detector vans

Ian BROWN I.Brown at cs.ucl.ac.uk
Fri Nov 10 01:30:57 PST 2000


>Wasn't there some articles some time ago about Microsoft doing research into
>Tempest/Van Eck (sp) radiation ? It was speculated  at the time that they
>were going include software to "broadcast" their serial numbers so that
>illegal copies could be detected.

This was a suggestion by Markus Kuhn and Ross Anderson (at Cambridge
University). The paper is at http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ih98-tempest.pdf

"Our suggestion is that software packages include in their screen layout a few 
lines with a signal that encodes the license serial number plus a random value 
. . . a "software detector van" can be used to patrol business districts and 
other areas where software piracy is suspected. If the van receives twenty 
signals from the same copy of a software from a company that has only licensed 
five copies, then probable cause for a search warrant has been established." 
p.13





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