The Arms Race and Consumer Harm

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