[H-GEN] Hmmmm - whose paranoid? ;)

[A Bruce in the Land of the Bruces]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-02/07/060l-020798-idx.html

CAMBRIDGE, EnglandIt's a technique that intelligence agencies have used
for years: Park a van filled with monitoring gear near an embassy and
listen for the faint radio signals that computers routinely emit when they
are on. Analyze those signals for clues to the data that are on the
computers.

Now researchers at the University of Cambridge, home of groundbreaking
work in intelligence over the years, are trying to adapt this technology
to the fight against software piracy. With special code written into
software, they say, computers could be made to broadcast beacons that
would carry several hundred yards and identify the software they were
running, complete with serial numbers of each copy.

Vans run by anti-piracy groups could pull up outside a company's office
and count the number of software signals emanating from it. If, say, 50
beacons for a particular title were detected but the company had licensed
only two copies of the software, that could become evidence on which a
court would issue a search warrant. 

[more]

--==--
Bruce.


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