In accordance with a first aspect of the present invention, a security sensitive program (100) that operates with a secret (101) is made tamper resistant by distributing the secret in space as well as in time. In accordance with a second aspect of the present invention, a security sensitive program is made tamper resistant by obfuscating the program. In accordance with a third aspect of the present invention, a security sensitive application is made tamper resistant by isolating its security sensitive functions, and making the isolated security sensitive functions tamper resistant by distributing the secrets of the security sensitive functions in time as well as in space, and/or obfuscating the security sensitive functions. In one embodiment where obfuscation is employed, the pseudo-randomly selected pattern(s) of mutations is (are) unique for each installation. In accordance with a fourth aspect of the present invention, a security sensitive system with security sensitive applications is made further tamper resistant by deploying an interlocking trust mechanism. In accordance with a fifth aspect of the present invention, a content industry association, in conjunction with content manufacturers, content reader manufacturers, and content player manufacturers of the industry jointly implement a coordinated encryption/decryption scheme, with the player apparatus manufactured by the content player manufacturers employing playing software that include tamper resistant decryption functions.