Even 1990s systems would have a 2400bps modem to phone in pay per view purchases. Policy requires a telephone connection, partly for the purpose of reducing su

Even 1990s systems would have a 2400bps modem to phone in pay per view purchases. Policy requires a telephone connection, partly for the purpose of reducing subscription sharing. Pirates and many others wouldn’t or couldn’t plug them in. Once an update was built to check for a dial tone intermittently and eventually deactivate, so pirates created a 555 timer device with a 9V battery to generate a frequency close to the dialtone. Even though a dialtone is 2 frequencies, the modem accepted any single frequency remotely close to the right range. At some point, the provider would call subscribers with several boxes on the same sub that didn’t phone home and ask for “secret” numbers from all receivers, but someone quickly published a program that generated those keys. Saves legit customers from walking around the house too. Fun times.