did the same with their east coast feeds by August. The two networks began scrambling full time on January 15, 1986, which in many contemporary news reports was called "S-Day". Within two years, encryption through Videocipher II was used by a majority of major cable television programmers. However, lapses in its security enabled some pirate decryption, modifying a consumer descrambler to receive free programming. Beginning in 1991, programmers began to phase out the VCII system in favor of the more secure Videocipher II Plus (RS) system. The system was fully phased out in 1993. Originally sold as a stand-alone decoder box that consisted of a fully electronic decoder and descrambler module, other satellite system manufacturers began to make their receivers with the GI descrambler module installed. This VCII system digitally encrypts stereo audio using the DES encryption scheme and scrambles video by inverting the video polarity and moving color information to a nonstandard area frequency. It is noteworthy that the Videocipher II Plus design did not alter the video scrambling scheme (only the audio encryption was improved). As such, a Videocipher II decoder is still capable of decoding the video portion of a Videocipher II Plus encrypted stream. In the late eighties and early nineties, VideoCipher II modules that had been pirated, began to receive constant Electronic Counter Measures (ECM). In the early nineties, programmers increased the frequency of the top tier DES keys from monthly to near daily. Companies (such as Magna Systems) began offering services whereby users could continue to receive keys via fax electronic modifications/add-on boards such as "VMS" modems. These add-on modem modules would dial into a bulletin board system and automatically download the required keys to view all available programming. Eventually (about 1992), HBO completely left the VideoCipher II datastream in favor of the more secure VideoCipher II Plus (RS) datastream; other programmers followed suit. Having a VideoCipher II module was no longer worth anything unless the viewer wanted to watch adult programming without audio. At the time, most local cable providers did not pass the encrypted audio to subscribers. As such, some viewers who had both cable and satellite found a way to marry audio and video. Viewers found a way to get audio from a cable line and video from satellite with their VideoCipher II and push both to their VCRs and TVs. Due to the advanced VideoCipher II Plus datastream, video could