On 2/15/2011 10:21 AM, Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Sadly, it never seemed to occur to them that the best solution was to
>> encrypt the damn signal in the first place, until later.
>
> You mean, until later, when the technology was economically feasible?
> Remember that HBO was around long before even digital cell phones, let
> alone cheap hardware encryption that could keep up with a signal as
> broad as a television broadcast. Remember that HBO started five years
> before the Apple ][ and TRS-80 were cutting edge, and before even RSA
> public key encryption was conceived.
>
Well, that is true. There was a period in which it was probably not 
feasible. But, this is a bit like making a digital player, which only 
supports RAW, then coming back later and adding encryption and DRM. You 
could argue that everything *prior* to the addition of those was fair 
game, more or less, if you could engineer the means to see it, but 
after.. not so much. In a fair world, it should be the copyright owners 
suing the channel for the infringement, not the channel trying to do 
something about the people that just happened to know how to make a 
receiver (or bought one, for legit use).

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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