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• a victim who has injury, and
• a criminal cause (as opposed to an accident, or act of god)

• "persons" can own property,
• "persons" have rights,
• "persons" can engage in contracts,
• "persons" can sue and be sued, and presumably
• "persons" can be injured, "persons" can be crime victims

• a victim who has injury, and
• a criminal cause (as opposed to an accident

• "persons" can own property,
• "persons" have rights,
• "persons" can engage in contracts,
• "persons" can sue and be sued, and presumably
• "persons" can be injured, "persons" can be crime victims

• a victim who has injury, and
• a criminal cause (as opposed to an accident, or act of god)

• "persons" can own property,
• "persons" have rights,
• "persons" can engage in contracts,
• "persons" can sue and be sued, and presumably
• "persons" can be injured, "persons" can be crime victims

• a victim who has injury, and
• a criminal cause (as opposed to an accident

• "persons" can own property,
• "persons" have rights,
• "persons" can engage in contracts,
• "persons" can sue and be sued, and presumably
• "persons" can be injured, "persons" can be crime victims

I fear I was a little too vague as to the question. It appears that Congressman Boucher thought I was questioning copyrighted materials in source code. Unfortunate, I wanted to see the question answered as well.

Yes, links should have been provided to the 2600 DVD Lawsuit Archive.

In a nutshell, there were countless mirrors of the DeCSS source code, but the MPAA used threats of lawsuits as their blunt object with which to beat these sites off the Internet. 2600 rebelled, and would not remove their list of links to the source code until forced by a court of law.

The interesting part of this is the fact that source code, without being compiled cannot be run by a computer, so the source code itself is benign. Only when a user compiles and runs the program does it circumvent DVD copy control.

Basically, the DMCA went so far as to halt the exchange of purely intellectual material.

There is a very interesting document on the site that portrays source code as protected free speech.

I realize that his time is quite important, but is there really a possibility of giving the Congressman more information and re-submitting the question?

I fear I was a little too vague as to the question. It appears that Congressman Boucher thought I was questioning copyrighted materials in source code. Unfortunate, I wanted to see the question answered as well.

Yes, links should have been provided to the 2600 DVD Lawsuit Archive.

In a nutshell, there were countless mirrors of the DeCSS source code, but the MPAA used threats of lawsuits as their blunt object with which to beat these sites off the Internet. 2600 rebelled, and would not remove their list of links to the source code until forced by a court of law.

The interesting part of this is the fact that source code, without being compiled cannot be run by a computer, so the source code itself is benign. Only when a user compiles and runs the program does it circumvent DVD copy control.

Basically, the DMCA went so far as to halt the exchange of purely intellectual material.

There is a very interesting document on the site that portrays source code as protected free speech.

I realize that his time is quite important, but is there really a possibility of giving the Congressman more information and re-submitting the question?

Anyone else noticed this:

( Read More... | 2600 bytes in body | Ask Slashdot )


EXACTLY 2600 bytes! Amazingly 1337 feat!

I would like the plagurism of AlphaKinetic and Saalim Chowdhury exposed. My work, and the work of others, is the subject of a recent SlashDot article called "Electronic Pricetag Alteration", although we are not attributed. I published an article which was plagurized by Saalim Chowdhury and used as the subject of a press release. An article was subsequently published by TheTelegraph and mentioned by TheRegister. This article was cited by ZDNet, syndicated to Yahoo, then this article was cited by SlashDot.

I published an article called "Flaws In ECommerce Systems" in the Autumn issue of 2600 Magazine. This article is available at http://www.xirium.com/product/mtecs/doc/secure/ and http://www.basketlogic.com/doc/secure/ . This article:

• States how loosely integrated ECommerce sites do not check prices.
• Cites a wine merchant with such a vunerability.
• Cites a domain name re-seller with such a vunerability.
• Explains how to move decimal points to reduce prices and why this action should succeed, but has never been substantiated.

On 25 Jan 2001, TheRegister reported an article in TheTelegraph which:

• Cites an undisclosed "glitch" that allows prices to be modified.
• Cites a domain name re-seller with such a vunerability.
• Cites Saalim Chowdhury as the "chief executive of e-commerce software development company Alphakinetic which discovered the flaw".
• Omits all references to moving

AlphaKinetic press releases 4 and 5:

• State that AlphaKinetic "found this security hole whilst developing our own secure e-commerce system, and our forthcoming e-commerce solutions".
• Cites the purchase of wine by this method.
• AlphaKinetic does not specialise in security.
• "What astonished us was when we contacted our secure payment provider about this they stated that they had be aware about the possibility of this hole existing for the last 5 years".

All attempts to contact all parties have been ignored. This inaccuracy has now been extensively propagated during the last two days. The additional information that was unsubstantiated is now the subject of recent articles and the estimated proportion of vunerable sites has risen from 10%-20% to 40%.

There is circumstantial evidence that Saalim Chowdhury read my work in 2600 Magazine (the source of the information) and this can be verified by checking domain name registrations. 2600 has a pre-occupation with purchasing domains of the form *sucks.com then printing the "cease and desist" "nastygrams" from lawyers. AlphaKinetic (the source of the plagurism) is highly anomalous because they have registered alphakineticsucks.com themselves, although this problem only affects large companies.

I would like the plagurism of AlphaKinetic and Saalim Chowdhury exposed. My work, and the work of others, is the subject of a recent SlashDot article called "Electronic Pricetag Alteration", although we are not attributed. I published an article which was plagurized by Saalim Chowdhury and used as the subject of a press release. An article was subsequently published by TheTelegraph and mentioned by TheRegister. This article was cited by ZDNet, syndicated to Yahoo, then this article was cited by SlashDot.

I published an article called "Flaws In ECommerce Systems" in the Autumn issue of 2600 Magazine. This article is available at http://www.xirium.com/product/mtecs/doc/secure/ and http://www.basketlogic.com/doc/secure/ . This article:

• States how loosely integrated ECommerce sites do not check prices.
• Cites a wine merchant with such a vunerability.
• Cites a domain name re-seller with such a vunerability.
• Explains how to move decimal points to reduce prices and why this action should succeed, but has never been substantiated.

On 25 Jan 2001, TheRegister reported an article in TheTelegraph which:

• Cites an undisclosed "glitch" that allows prices to be modified.
• Cites a domain name re-seller with such a vunerability.
• Cites Saalim Chowdhury as the "chief executive of e-commerce software development company Alphakinetic which discovered the flaw".
• Omits all references to moving

AlphaKinetic press releases 4 and 5:

• State that AlphaKinetic "found this security hole whilst developing our own secure e-commerce system, and our forthcoming e-commerce solutions".
• Cites the purchase of wine by this method.
• AlphaKinetic does not specialise in security.
• "What astonished us was when we contacted our secure payment provider about this they stated that they had be aware about the possibility of this hole existing for the last 5 years".

All attempts to contact all parties have been ignored. This inaccuracy has now been extensively propagated during the last two days. The additional information that was unsubstantiated is now the subject of recent articles and the estimated proportion of vunerable sites has risen from 10%-20% to 40%.

There is circumstantial evidence that Saalim Chowdhury read my work in 2600 Magazine (the source of the information) and this can be verified by checking domain name registrations. 2600 has a pre-occupation with purchasing domains of the form *sucks.com then printing the "cease and desist" "nastygrams" from lawyers. AlphaKinetic (the source of the plagurism) is highly anomalous because they have registered alphakineticsucks.com themselves, although this problem only affects large companies.

Things that actually help:

1. OpenDVD - actually learn about the DMCA and the case against it.
2. Electronic Frontier Foundation - donate to the actual court case
3. US Congress - Hand write your representatives and inform them of your digust with this law

(sourceCode==freeSpeech)

--

I'm sorry. I'm afraid this isn't true. The US Government was founded by men who valued (among other things) freedom, but ARPANet was founded by the US Government. It had more to do with military supremacy than freedom at its inception. We have used it for freedom, and we hope to continue to use it for freedom, but we must understand that laws like the DMCA (pdf) are slowly eroding that freedom as are projects like Carnivore. The kind of freedom we enjoy wasn't granted by God. It wasn't encoded into this international jumble of computational devices. It's not guarunteed, and it's not sticking around. For more information about the erosion of freedom, ask the guys at 2600. They love to talk about it. If you actually want to help, donate to the legal support of freedom at The Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Of course, when Al Gore invented the internet, it was all about freedom. ...and democracy. ...and health care.
-the Pedro Picasso

(sourceCode==freeSpeech)

--

With the large number of blackhats likely to be in the population of those pissed-off about the way things have been going, I'm surprised that the RIAA and its major members still have intact web prescence. Not that I'm advocating or condoning civil disobedience as a means of political action. Oh, and I'm also surprised to see that the MPAA site is up.

With the large number of blackhats likely to be in the population of those pissed-off about the way things have been going, I'm surprised that the RIAA and its major members still have intact web prescence. Not that I'm advocating or condoning civil disobedience as a means of political action. Oh, and I'm also surprised to see that the MPAA site is up.

DMCA 1201(a)(1) is absolutely all it takes to legally keep you from writing a few lines of your own code on a napkin and passing it to a friend. This is the first bit of legislation that does this. It was lobbied by the MPAA, recommended by the Congressional sub-committees, and passed unanimously by legislators who likely thought they were acting in the interests of the American people. Would you vote against a bill with such a trendy name and so few powerful antagonists? What bills will follow this one in regulating computer programs? If this sort of thing continues, we could even end up with a Federal Source Code Review Agency. Sure it sounds stupid, but there's enough money involved to do it.

Protect your rights as programmers:

• Learn what you can about the case. Keep up with the news, and don't get bored with it. This isn't about DVDs, it's about whether or not we are allowed to write and copyright our own code.
• Support the fight in the courts by donating to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Support the fight in legislation by sending a hand written letter to your congressional representatives expressing your digust with the law and your request for one that dismisses it.
• Support those fighting on the front lines by reading 2600, the Hacker Quarterly. (They will ask you to donate to the EFF.)

-the Pedro Picasso

--

The OpenNap servers are only directories-- they don't contain illegal contents, just listings, so how can they be held accountable?

I think "reasonable" is the key word here. Have you been paying attention to the 2600 vs. MPAA case?

Wait a second...

If PGP could by booked, why not DeCSS?

One could argue that PGP's main purpose is to keep information private from the ever-growing prying eyes of FedGov.

PS: I don't know WTF is going on, but at 2600's website, there's this funky Japanese or Chinese character and a chant..

Anyone have a clue what that is?

Yesterday, it looked like a 'pi' with the top bar as the top border of a square; today it looks like a capital 'ksi', three horizontal parallel lines with the middle line shorter than the other two.

Something is going down @ 2600. They don't have their usual news page, and they are adding a different character and chant everyday.

(The name of the image's file is 'preksbauv.gif', I dunno if that's the language, or if there's steg involved... more later)


Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)

there's an article in the current issue of 2600 on how to get anybody's credit information.

Basically the method is:
1. Get a MasterCard/Visa application, whatever.
2. Enter the target's current address into the "Previous Address" section on the application.
3. Enter your address (or the dropsite address) in the "Current Address" section.
4. Enter their name and birthday in the information section.
5. Leave the rest of the application blank. (You don't want the application accepted, and if it's accepted you'll be in a shitload of trouble.
6. The agency will match the person with their name and the "previous address" but because no income information is mentioned they'll reject the application.
7. By law, the agency is required to send a notice of rejection to you., which will have the person's social security number on it.

And once you have a social security number, you're set: Go get a driver's license, and you're a new man (or woman, if that's they way you swing :) )

Discalaimer: This is provided for informational purposes only, I do not condone any misuse of such information...yada yada

Check out these fruitcakes they're quoting:

"It's something the intelligence, law-enforcement and military communities are really struggling to deal with," Ben Venzke of the cyberintelligence company iDEFENSE told the paper. "

ok, head on over to www.idefense.com, browse a bit, find some speeches, dig out the tasty quotes:


"We already know that some 30 countries are working on offensive information warfare programs and the principal target for each is the United States. We know, too, that if a US business buys hardware or software from such countries as Russia, China and France, there is a very good chance that they will be infected by bugs or various kinds. We also know that every day hundreds of American companies are attacked through cyberspace and that billions of dollars are lost through theft and blackmail.
"

"
For example, no American intelligence agency effectively mines open source data and shares it across federal agencies and with the private sector. Yet open source data could be a huge national asset. Real reform might mean the creation of a Central Analytical Agency that could collate and analyze all open source data and distribute it via the web to its customer base in the private and public sectors. Only secret intelligence would be the responsibility of the existing intelligence community. Not only would this create a significant and profitable national asset, but it would eliminate wasteful duplication in the intelligence community."


Read the whole thing, it's beautiful.

They even get to speak before congress now and then.

Good thing they don't have a vested interest in the whole thing.

At least they got hacktivist right.

Not exactly what your looking for, but the movie Freedom Downtime might be worth a look. It was created by the 2600 Magazine people, the same folks that were sued for hosting and linking to the DeCSS code as part of a news story they ran on their website.

It doesn't deal with the DeCSS case specifically, but covers the good old topics such as mighty state and corporate entities that repress of information, and harshly penalizes harmless people who figure stuff out.

It is also widely accepted in hacker-lore that the person who is Captain Crunch could whistle a perfectly pitched 2600 Hz. without the use of any devices.

I was just listening to an MP3 of 'Off the Hook' from July- the 2600 radio show hosted by Corley. If you want more insight into this case (in a listenable format) download the MP3's from 2600.com - Interesting perspectives from before, during and after the case.

I was just listening to an MP3 of 'Off the Hook' from July- the 2600 radio show hosted by Corley. If you want more insight into this case (in a listenable format) download the MP3's from 2600.com - Interesting perspectives from before, during and after the case.

I'm the son of a librarian, and I know firsthand that they are trying to stop this in any way they can... but should that not work, we're screwed, because I can research virtually nothing for my anatomy course... unfortunately, they get their internet connection through the local school, who has some kinda filtering software up... it's really screwed up, you can't go to half the 3rd party candidates' websites, 2600, or even the Onion. It's really annoying, because I got one of the librarians hooked on red meat, and now we can't access it!

"There is absolutely nobody high up in this new administration who is familiar with the Net, and when they do hear about it, it's all hackers and perverts."

Sounds like a pretty good assessment to me.

Steven

In closing, this is my question to David Farber: When will the FCC begin strict regulation of Digital Subscriber Lines? And when will Verizon be held accountable for their nefarious acts?
(Recently, a class action suit against Verizon was initiated on behalf of Verizon DSL customers)

This would be OK if they just blocked pornography, but they also block hacking sites (such as 2600.com) and, as with all other censorship, they also block their fair share of non-offensive (by their standards) websites. www.newton.org.uk is the only example I can think of now, but I've seen more. Previously, an anonymous web browser could be used to get around this, but they caught on and decided to brand those as "offensive" too.

So, if you ever feel like your government is clamping down on your freedom, just remember that there are people like me in countries where the government is <WORDPLAY> just plain unjust.</WORDPLAY>

Oh, I forgot to mention that the single, government-owned ISP provides 56kbps as its fastest option (unless you are a government agency or Internet cafe, in which case you can have 256kbps for a measly $2,500 a month). So, not only does it block many interesting sites (I keep seeing links in /. comments - click - D'oh! That stupid "Important Notice" again) but it provides a very slow, unreliable service with which to access then non-offensive content.

I can understand that the leader is feeling a bit moaned at and undervalued, the stuff does work at the heart of it and he and the other people working on it do deserve credit for it.

As some who is working on stuff over Freenet (through the new Everything Over Freenet project; check it out at eof.sourceforge.net) and has been on the mailing lists for about a year, I can tell you that most of the developers and mailing list regs hate Freenet's publicity. The project really hasn't accomplished that much and the media is screaming over it.

The problem that they don't seem to have addressed in their efforts to dodge censorship is that they will ultimately make the posession and propogation of the key names themselves illegal, undoing all of the good work they have planned for. For example, it will be the posession or use of the key name ''secrets/food/soylent green'' that will be used to repress people who might like to look up the document belonging to the key.

This is actualy already solved to some extent. Let me give a crash course on the types of keys on Freenet (a more complete list is at http://www.freenetproject.org/index.php?page=keys) :

KHK--These were deprecated in 0.3 and replaced by KSKs (see bellow) due to similar problems that you described above. KSKs now do the same job (i.e., have a guessable, human-readable string for a key name), but much more securly.

KSK--Provides a human-readable, guessable key. Despite being more secure then KHKs, they are not as secure as CHKs (see bellow). Its suggested use is as a redirect to a CHK. This is accomplished by setting the CLI option "-autoRedirect" for inserts to "yes". That is also the default behavior for FProxy.

CHK--Is not human-readable. Instead, its a cryptographic hash of the data inside.

There are a few others, such as SVK and SSK, but they're not as important for this disccusion (see the link above for more detials on them if you're interested).

So, lets say KSK@how-to-build-a-nuke.txt (note: Freenet URIs are formed like this: keytype@key) is a redirect to CHK@fjdskalf879934q2823rl,ekf;qnieof (I don't think I have the correct number of charecters for the CHK's crypto hash, I just type it randomly, but it doesn't matter). If a given node operator has their house broken into by Them and their node searched for a specific key name, they may find the KSK name, but that doesn't mean the operator was actualy holding that key (its just like a link on the web . . . oh no :). Nor does it mean that he had requested the data, much less had been the one to put it there in the first place.

There are a few things that Freenet needs to get rid of, but was known all along that they were just crutches to be gotten out of latter. The first is key indecies, which list names of keys. The second is inform.php, which is how a new node discovers other nodes already in the network. The latter will require being replaced by searching, and the former will be replaced by "discovery probes". The inform.php is the more serious of the two and will probably be fixed first (should be in 0.5 at the latest). Searching is a lower priority so it may not be touched until we get closer to 1.0 (some predict even longer, others a lot shorter. I think it will be there in 0.5).

------

I ask because of the problems I've had with this. I live in Amarillo TX. I wanted to get DSL from a local ISP (ARNet). Naturally, only Southwestern Bell is allowed to work on the physical lines. Southwestern Bell also offers DSL service.

I tried for more than two months to get DSL service. ARNet would place the order, and SWB would encounter a tiny problem and cancel my order without telling either ARNet or me. Eventually, two months after it started SWB canceled my order for the third time (I only found out because I called ARNet, and they called SWB, this is they way I found out about the pervious two cancelations) saying that I could never have DSL where I live because there was an "obstructor" on the trunk line.

I have difficulty believing that I would have gotten this much hassle had I gone to SWB directly for my DSL.

Finally, I gave up and am now getting broadband through COX cable.

2600 had similar problems: http://www.2600.com/news/2000/1002.html

Is there a solution to maintenance bullying? Or will we need to forbid the physical line providers from providing service simply to insure that they don't abuse their maintenance monopoly to get customers away from everyone else?

Hmm.

The IOC bans websites from using or showing video clips, the story hits Slashdot and now free-speach advocates are getting crazy shouting that it's an infrigment of their Nature-given right to watch an event which is, by the way, international.

You know what happens next - kids with video capture cards start recording every bit of Olympic activity they can, "DivX ;-)" it and send it out on Napster and Gnutella. Oh, and don't forget those that will create hexadecimal dumps of the movies' content in text and print those on t-shirt with "The IOC can suck my dI0Ck" on the back.

C'mon, it' s pretty obvious that the IOC has learned a less on from the De-CSS episode and is seeking to improve the rating for a pretty much dying event.

I can see it already: thousands of kiddies all watching Curling just to see what the fuss is all about.

Not bad, IOC. Not bad.

[Check out this other Jesus-powered IOC]

Greg

Jay Satiro, 19, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Westchester County Court to first-degree computer tampering. He faces up to 15 years in prison.

The average prison time served after conviction for homicide, willful murder, is 5 years, 11 months.

First degree computer tampering? A 19 year old with obvious talent belongs in federal prison. You bet.

The greatest crime you can commit in America is first degree curiousity.

Noticably lacking are any TLD's reserved for criticism of large trademark holders -- i.e. the .sucks proposal that would have allowed legitimate criticism sites to avoid specious trademark infringement lawsuits (remember Verizonreallysucks.com?)

At least it has dawned upon the sage minds of ICANN that 3-4 TLD's constitutes an artificial scarcity. Perhaps today's decision opens the door for future domains that represent broader constituencies.

Sincerely,
Vergil

My site has a link to slashdot. Slashdot has a link to your site. Your site has a link to 2600. 2600 has links to mirrors of hte DeCSS code
2600 has a list of mirror sites. They are not allowed to link to sites with DeCSS.

I also think that they are trying to bully people around. They won the first legal battle, but they know the war isn't over.

Just MHO on the issue.

according to this story at 2600.com, the current maximum allowed characters for a domain name is 67. that story is a very intersting read about how verizon sued 2600 for registering www.verizonreallysucks.com, so 2600 took advantage of the 67 character max and registered
www.Veri zon ShouldSpendMoreTimeFixingItsNetworkAndLessMoneyOnL awyers.com

Here we have a hardware device which does almost exactly the same things that DeCSS does, with the same "feared" effect by the MPAA: being able to record mpeg-2 directly to your hard drive.

This seems like it would be in direct conflict with the MPAA's position on DeCSS... Is it possible that this product's release may cause a stir in the DeCSS case [ MPAA | 2600/Burns ], particularly in the view of copying digial media of which one already has a copy? Seems evident to me - hopefully the same sentiment will creep into the heads of everyone involved in the case.

Mebbe...mebbe not. I think Verizon decided cutting 2600 off the net was more expedient.

Remember that 2600 registered www.guinessrecords.com to protest the real Book of Records portrayal of Kevin Mitnick. Shouldn't something like this be allowed just as "MicrosoftSucks.org" is/should be? Follow the links for more info.

Remember that 2600 registered www.guinessrecords.com to protest the real Book of Records portrayal of Kevin Mitnick. Shouldn't something like this be allowed just as "MicrosoftSucks.org" is/should be? Follow the links for more info.

It would be catastrophic if a much-used application like Outlook or scripting platform like VBS had huge security holes that even twelve-year-old kids knew how to exploit.

How would anyone be able to trust Win servers for e-commmerce? Would there need to be "security challenged" notices on all Win2k powered e-commerce sites like genetically-altered poultry? Just a thought.

This is going to give me nightmares.

full choose-and-lose2000 coverage

-------

-------

The lawsuit's defendents are clearly stated on this document. Both Mr. Goldstein and 2600 are listed. Either way, I doubt Mr. Goldstein would be afforded the typical protection of the State given to white collar criminals by the legal shenanigans surrounding business incorporation. Protection of corporate directors and principals from any real responsibility for crimes committed by the entities they supposedly control is typically reserved for large companies who have through decades of marketing efforts convinced the citizenry that to attack their company is to attack the American Way. This is not the case here as 2600 is a solid dissident voice and has already been ascribed outlaw tendencies by the Judicial system far beyond those merited by this single act of disobedience.

I have not purchased a DVD player yet. I probably won't for some time. I have chosen not to with what is going on with DeCSS and all. Still, the complete collection of COSMOS on DVD makes me drool...

I must admit I got a little laugh at the CD though:
All of the Cosmos favorites, including Vangelis, Pachelbel, Louis Armstrong, Mozart, Synergy, Hovhannes, Pink Floyd, Holst, Yamaguchi, Stravinsky, and many others. Specially composed music by Vangelis and Boydsten not available elsewhere.

I mean come on, what was Sagan smoking when he chose those... Errr. Never mind. (Ok, bad joke :)

On another note I will take this little slashdot moment to promote what is IMO Sagan's greatest book: The Demon Haunted World, Science as a Candle in the Dark. If you have not read it, you should.

You need to get yourself up to date, grasshopper. The trial ended a while ago.

Judge Kaplan (beyond all comprehension) did in fact decide that "linking to DeCSS is illegal".

--

"Quite frankly is someone can reverse engineer it, odds are it was so damn obvious, it didn't deserve protection in the first place."

I think 'reverse-engineering' in the sense of this article relates to copying and distributing technology in its exact form.

Take a look at DVD players for example (There are many examples though). DVD players are non-programmable devices. They serve no purpose to the consumer other than to take a dvd and throw it straight to a television unencrypted.

When people go to purchase a DVD player, the only thing they really want is something thats affordable and good quality, and lasts for a long time.

Well, if i was Fishbulb Heavy Industries in Sako Japan, and US patent and copyright law didn't quite hold up where I'm living, I could very easily take a nice, popular DVD player and pull it apart.

Inside, I would find a slew of resistors. I could decide there value with a $5.00 ohm meter if they weren't labelled. In fact I could decipher and note the value of all components within the player instantaniously using a multi-meter or just my eyes.

When it comes down to the encryption itself - well that's a hard deal to decipher. Sure its been done and suppressed ... but say I don't want to bother looking it up; all I do is take the Programmable Chips (PGA, FPGA, CPLD) and copy them exactly to my own $1.00 chips. In the end, I remove all components and copy the circuit board.

There ya go, I now have a cheap fabricating operation to start-up which will yield millions of dollars; because I sell my DVD players for $50 less, and had to invest 0 dollars in R&D.

This entire scenario applies to graphics cards, sound cards, 3Com hardware, Cisco hardware... it applies to everything. It's only reverse engineering because copying the chips requires pulling them open.

to recap: "If figuring out how something works is a crime, then curosity should be outlawed." - I agree 100%, and I even agree that bad technology shouldn't generate money, it should be open-source. If however, I designed some awesome new doohickey, as i'm sure to do in the future, I don't want it to be stolen by some know-nothing capitalist and sold as "as good as the competition only cheaper".

Curiosity and Cash don't often hold the same moral arguments.

http://brighton.ncsa.uiuc.edu/~prajlich/caveQuake/

I'm not sure how much the whole system would cost, but you can read the specs on the site.

I know someone at the University of Michigan that let a group of us play around with it. Very cool stuff. It's really strange becoming a character in Quake.

I've read rumors that someone is working on a Half-Life port for this system. Imagine actually becoming Gordon Freeman.

Whether or not the law actually applies is hardly necessary to bring charges up against someone. Look at the Wen Ho Lee (sp?) case. 59 counts of various crap (including espionage) were thrown at the guy. One count of "mishandling data" stuck. It's how the system works these days. The Justice Department is not interested in justice. They're interested in making sure that somebody who gets charged with something serves some time. Hackers are especially vulnerable these days (see Kevin Mitnik's or Bernie S.'s stories at 2600 magazine for more examples.)

I'm just saying that the details of the law are determined in a courtroom. And most of us can't afford to start out in that courtroom, much less see a case like that to completion. Color us "chilled".

John

The Church of the SubGenius -- because somebody had to put all that slack in there...

Jeezus...You really worship Bill, don't ya?

But anyway. Bill's right. It's ok to rape the consumer, steal other people's ideas, buy or destroy the competitor...Just as long as you don't copy *Bill's* software.
The fuckin' amerikan way, right? Money rules, fuckin' sue em' if they don't like it.

You stupid fucks really don't 'get it', do you? Despite what the Rev. Bill may have preached to you, money isn't everything.

Richard Fuckin' Gere
Hey! Check it out! You're a karma whore and I'm a troll!
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It was explicitly mentioned in Judge Kaplan's decision that one of the concerns the MPAA raised over DeCSS was that it would enable people access to the content of the DVDs and thus it would be possible to compress the entire movie to a size which would fit onto a CD. He then went on to say that since blank CDs were about $1 a pop that the risk of piracy was very much increased.

However one of the MPAA's arguments to distinguish copying of DVDs from copying of video cassettes was that there would be no degradation of quality since everything was "digital". This degradation was important in allowing fair use copies and the like.

So is a CD copy of a DVD fair use? It's certainly a degraded quality and is conceptually almost identical to taping a music CD to use in the car.

My 2 cents is all I have.

And if the Net is, in fact, fostering a political/social movement designed to protest, curb or transform corporatism, that could well be the most significant and unexpected contribution to public life that technology has made since e-mail

"CSS, or Content Scramble System, is an access control and copy prevention [sic] system"

Of course, CSS no more prevents a DVD from being copied than Pig Latin prevents a text from being photocopied.

My fact-checking fee is $30/hour. You owe me fifty cents (and if you hadn't been too lazy to provide a link to the decision, you'd only owe me a quarter).
/.

The american corporations and legal system that seem to think they reign supreme over the internet.

Did you read the article? Wake up and smell the roses, pal. The corps and lawyers don't think they rule the 'Net, but they're taking steps to make sure that they will do. In the meantime, we're all sitting around on our collective fannies doing absolutely nothing about it. From RIP in the UK to DMCA in the US, right down to the completely intolerable situation with Network Solutions, control of the 'Net is being carved up, packaged, signed and sealed, and all because people want to make money out of it.

Suck is right. Geeks need to wise up and realise what the important issues are. Fuck Napster. They are breaching copyright, and I, for one, am sick and tired of hearing about it. DeCSS? That's a different story, but it's an issue because you guys allowed the DMCA to become law. ICANN, NSI, etcetera? That's a real pile of shit, but what do 99.99% of geeks do about it? Bitch on Slashdot and go back to playing Quake/Everquest/UO/whatever.

Whinging that it's "not fair" isn't going to make a damned bit of difference. And this "parallel" you've drawn? That's just wanking (as defined by Bobby Shaftoe in Cryptonomicon).

Less talk. More real action.

The Dodger
dodger@2600.com