this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2024
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Piracy
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You could tune in to any channel you wanted, but the ones you weren't subscribed to would be scrambled. These boxes would unscramble the signal letting you watch paid content for free.
Goes to show that security through obscurity is no security at all.
I remember before scrambling they just put blocks that prevented you from going to certain channels. I somehow figured out if you ran the cable box through the VCR first and put it on channel 2 while the TV was still on 3, it would shift all the channels down one. Cinemax was channel 14, which our box just would not go to. But it would go to 13, so doing my little trick teenage me got to watch a lot of skinamax.