Welcome to Advent of Computing, the show that talks about the shocking, intriguing, and all too often relevant history of computing. A lot of little things we take for granted today have rich stories behind their creation, in each episode we will learn how older tech has lead to our modern world.
http://adventofcomputing.com/
episode 92: Copy Protection
It's Spook Month 2022! To kick things off we are diving into the frustrating depth of copy protection, piracy, and the origins of commercial software. In 1969 the Great Unbundling made the software market viable for the first time. Ever since then pirates and software vendors have been locked in a battle over bits. This episode traces the early days of copy protection, and how spite played an important role. Selected Sources: https://fadden.com/apple2/cassette-protect.html - In depth analysis of Apple II copy protection https://www.princeton.edu/~rblee/ELE572Papers/Fall04Readings/CryptoProc_Best.pdf - The crypto-microprocessor https://sci-hub.se/10.1109/85.988583 - A personal recollection of the Unbundling