Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Path: msuinfo!galaxy.cps.msu.edu!gurney
From: gurney@galaxy.cps.msu.edu (Eddy J. Gurney)
Subject: VCR+ code question: Was it cracked and legal action taken?
Message-ID: <1992Jan6.160219.3580@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu>
Originator: gurney@galaxy.cps.msu.edu
Sender: news@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, Michigan State University
Date: Mon, 6 Jan 92 16:02:19 GMT

I just got done reading an article in 'sci.electronics' that said
three people at Berkeley had cracked the entire VCR+ code scheme.
When GemStar (the makers of VCR+) found out about this, they took
some massive legal action, since apparently, the newspapers and 
TV Guides that print the VCR+ codes have to PAY GemStar to print the
codes!

Anyway, the poster said the code involves 31 separate look-up tables,
one for each day of the week, and that a partial subset of the code
was available as a C program via anonymous FTP from sprite.berkeley.edy
as /pub/vcr.Z.  Another poster said this code was removed due to the
above legal action.  I checked, and this is true.  The file, when 
retrieved, contains this message:

/* Begin 'vcr.Z' */
I am not distributing information on VCR codes.

Ken Shirriff			shirriff@sprite.Berkeley.EDU
/* End 'vcr.Z' */

So... something must be going on.  Does anyone have more information
on this?  This _really_ annoys me if GemStar is acting in this fashion
by trying to prevent any information on their scheme from being
discussed.  I remember seeing the code posted to 'sci.electronics' 
about four or five months ago, and I thought it only worked for codes
that were four digits or less.

Any more info on this would be greatly appreciated...

Thanks and regards,
Eddy

-- 
         Eddy J. Gurney  N8FPW       THE ECCENTRICITY GROUP           EEEEGGGG
gurney@cps.msu.edu     gurney@egr.msu.edu     17158EJG@MSU.BITNET     EEE G GG
   (Preferred)          (If cps bounces)      (If you HAVE to :-)     EEEEGGGG
--
   "Failures are divided into two classes-- those who thought and never did,
         and those who did and never thought."     John Charles Salak
