🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <29287@oasys.dt.navy.mil> curt@kcwc.com (Curt Welch) writes:
>In sci.crypt, strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight) writes:
>>Finally, there seem to be two sets of codes. One, of up to six digits,
>>is for the standard start times (on the half-hour) and lengths (multiples
>>of 30 minutes). A second, of more digits, seems to be for the exception
>>cases.

>I'm one of the people the "broke" the codes.  It isn't that simple.

>The algorithm starts out being quite simple for single digit codes, and
>gets more and more complex for each digit you add.
[...]
>You don't have to collect published codes, you can just sit down with the
>VCR Plus+ device and start punching in numbers.  But there are 9,999,999
>7 digit codes (and each one requires 9 button presses to test), so it can
>take a long time to get enough numbers.

>This is at least part of why we stopped working on the codes.  It was
>taking too much time.

      Wasn't Gemstar also threatening to sic rabid lawyers on you? Or
did that only come later?

      I got one of these devices for Christmas (though I usually use a
CP8 programmable remote, which is far more versatile, if not quite as
user-friendly). Since some of my cable channels don't have TV Guide
listings, I'd like to be able to generate my own codes.

      When I looked in the front of TVG, I found that the numbers are
claimed to be *copyright* by Gemstar. I suspect that selling the
numbers to TVG and other publications is another revenue stream for
them.  (Can you really copyright a number?  Intel is calling it's new
chip the "Pentium" since it can't copyright 586, any more than it
could 286, 386, or 486).

      A possibly relevant note appears in John Dvorak's column in the
Jan 12 PC Magazine. To summarize:

      Sega sued Accolade, which was making Sega Genesis game
cartridges without getting licensing from Sega. This suit was settled
in Accolade's favor with a ruling that:

 * Accolade could make Genesis games without asking Sega's permission.
 * Accolade could reverse engineer the Sega software needed to let the
   cartridge talk to the machine.
 * Accolade could use a Sega cartridge as a model for the reverse engineering.

   Dvorak says: "Who says you can't look at the code of the product
you're reverse engineering? ... This means that software code of a
competitor now can be examined for the purposes of reverse
engineering."

       I'm not a lawyer (and neither is Dvorak), but I suspect that
this ruling means that a lawsuit from Gemstar against someone who
published an algorithm which produced codes with the same values as
the VCR+ device would fail, and quickly.

							Peter Trei
							ptrei@Mitre.org