IIRC it mostly stemmed from a lot of US tv channels not being available in Canada at the time. So to make them available, they started hacking satellite descramblers and Direct TV cards. Then they found a giant market in the US willing to buy these boxes and cards to get free tv.
There were people in the US making them too, but the Canadian stuff was more reliable and updated quicker when Direct TV changed codes.
I tried searching for this but only found recent news. Anywhere I can read about this? Wikipedia, article, or book?
I love tech history.
There’s a little bit in this Wikipedia article but I can’t find much either.
IIRC it mostly stemmed from a lot of US tv channels not being available in Canada at the time. So to make them available, they started hacking satellite descramblers and Direct TV cards. Then they found a giant market in the US willing to buy these boxes and cards to get free tv.
There were people in the US making them too, but the Canadian stuff was more reliable and updated quicker when Direct TV changed codes.
This is great! Thank you.