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
More information about the cypherpunks-legacy
mailing list