Slashdot Mirror

It's probably important to note that what the law means by "e-signatures" is NOT the same as digital signatures (like PGP-signing your e-mail).

"E-signatures" are things like click-through licensing. "Click here to accept the agreement." "By pressing 'Accept', you agree to...". In other words, it's a way of making legally binding the bogus licenses that companies have been forcing on users for years (e.g., the Windows EULA).

I highly recommend the following URL for great info on e-sigs:

http://cryptome.org/esigs-suck.htm

~Mr. Bad

Given that the NSA compromises effective keylengths by twisting implementors arms to introduce 'bugs' (see cryptome article: nsa sabotage), my question is; what can the NSA do to ensure a compromised choice? or can they only rely on implementation errors and back doors?

The Unedited Version Can Be Found Here

Moore's Law -- Logic density doubles every N years where N is currently about 1.5 but used to be 1.

It does not imply that computer speeds (measured as getting work done) is limited to the same factor. What is the yearly increase in 3d texture processing speed? The chips still follow Moores law but there is far more than 2x gain/18 months.

If Moors law applied for performance, your desktop box would be about as useful as a calculator.

Now go look at EFF's box. It was designed in 1997 using standard cell custom chips. Their parts run at 40mhz . They are only doing 24 DES engines per chip and they aren't piplined and take 16 clocks per DES. It looks like they used standard DES cells to put it together. Just cracking does not require such features as CBC modes. The design isn't the best if all you want to do is crack one DES block. It was designed to do other kinds of searches as well. Take that design and optimise it so that its completely piplined and uses shared key counters. Keep adding cells till you can't fit anymore gates and and see how fast it goes. Just with these simple extras your going to get a better increase than Moores law.

As far as the large primes go, Rmember Cray Computer company (not Cray Reaserch)? They were building two computers for the NSA when they went folded. One of them was a 16,384 bit machine and the other was a 65535 bit machine. They were built to do prime number research. They were paid for and the order was cancled after the machines were mostly complete. To me that says the NSA didn't need to do any more big prime number research since it would have not cost them any more money to have the machines completed. I have a strong feeling they know something about big primes that hasn't hit the litature. I also know that some even numbers will pass many of the "prime" test used by many popular key generation programs.

There is an ongoing discussion on one of my email lists (well, it gives us something to talk about now the RIP bill has been stamped into law)
It appears Demon Internet (a largish ISP here in the UK) received the letter too, and was sufficiently paniced by it to sent out a "prove you are innocent or else" letter to it's customer.
--

That would be great if they would make it a patent issue, because the constitution was not intended to have one play off the other, creating a "super monopoly" The arrogance of the MPAA is stupefying though, because that's exactly what they are trying to do.

There was a discussion about this on openlaw. Not so much that they have patents (I'm sure somebody does, knowing how the PTO is patenting the time of day now), but that they are using their copyright in a patent like manner,

But this is just the beginning folks. Next week the MPAA is holding their crypto-warez meeting in LA. To see what kind of fun they have in store for us, go here.

One aarguement for the new batch of software players is that software patents can't preempt mathematical algorithyms, which the new brute forcing dvd player does now. (In fact the DeCSS code doesn't work on new disks as the Xing key was revoked). See here.

In other less than stellar news Senator Leahy made this statement today:

In 1998, the Chairman and I worked closely together on the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act, "DMCA," to advance the complementary goals
of protecting intellectual property rights in a digitally-networked
world and promoting the continued growth of electronic commerce and
development of innovative technologies. As new online services are
launched and new websites created, the DMCA is helping order the
online environment. For example, earlier this year a federal court
relied on the DMCA to shut down websites that were used to post a
computer program permitting users to break the encryption used to
protect copyrighted motion pictures on DVDs, and copy the movies
without permission. See Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Reimerdes,
82 F. Supp.2d 211 (S.D.N.Y. 2000).

All this makes me feel pissy allover. Go to openlaw to feel even more pissy.

(Speaking only for myself!!!)

For starters, I'd get my idea to http://cryptome.org/, even though that's guaranteed to get it law enforcement attention, because John Young is a better and more trustworthy newsman as a part-timer (he's really an architect!) than 99.9% of the full timer$. Good people look at Cryptome, and I'm guessing if it upsets authority your project will interest him. You might also post it to cypherpunks, or Usenet, as has already been suggested here.

Of course, you may need to find a way to pay for it somehow, and there's a pretty good chance that some of what you're thinking of has already been done, anyway. Good luck!
JMR

Now think about this: "what do you think the NSA is doing with your tax money ?", playing solitare on Windows ?

It's definately in there interest if they can crack the communications they intercept. And what nicer way than to have "bugs" introduced in crypto products exported from the US ?

Bruce Schneier reported last year that the NSA was walking door-to-door trying to introduce backdoors into crypto products, that would then be eligeble for export.

--
Why pay for drugs when you can get Linux for free ?

"Matthew Pavlovich [of LiViD] is a leader in the so-called 'open source' movement, which is dedicated to the proposition that material, copyrighted or not, should be made available over the Internet for free. Acting in concert with like-minded individuals throughout the world, Pavlovich engaged in purposeful, unlawful conduct directed toward substantial business enterprises in the State of California by posting DeCSS. He did so knowing that his actions would adversely affect these business enterprises ..."

"circumvention device". The DeCSS is not a device until it is compiled and executed until then, DeCSS is nothing more than a bunch of symbols on a piece of paper or t-shirt. You publish code.
However, the MPAA does not say this. They tell website operators to "remove the circumvention device from your website." IANAL, but what kind of language is this??? See the letter that the MPAA sent cryptome.org today for an example of this.
They cannot say "please remove the code that you have published on your website" because publishing involves speech, which the DeCSS is. When it is compiled and executed, your computer becomes a decryption device , placing it under patent laws. Is the DeCSS patented? If it is, then the US patent office has already published it. Then it follows that it is your computer that is the circumvention device not the DeCSS code by itself.
Another thing that gets me is the mishmash of copyrights and patents. Two different things, or two different temporary "granted monopolies". People should not be allowed to use one "monopoly" to increase the power of the other (i.g. dealing in software patents), because that power has not been granted by the constitution. The constitution separates the two because they were intended to deal separately with two different things, not act together. For many years, they had about the same amount of power until "copyright creep" started taking place, continually increasing its power until now you have the DMCA controlling "devices" overtaking the power of patents. Software should either have a copyright or a patent, but not both. If it can be copyrighted, then I should be able to have rights like "first sale" and "fair use" that have been argued the century before last when a publisher put a EULA on the first page of a book. If the software is a patent (i.g. a device that configures a computer), then I expect to be able to copy it in twenty years when the patent expires (and I mean the actual software created by the company using the patent). Just because you flash a contract in front of somebody's face or toss it in with the shinkrap doesn't mean you can usurp somebody's constitutional rights, and I consider having patents and copyrights acting as two separate entities as one of those rights. What we see now is the result of abuse of these two constitutionally "granted" temporary monopolies (making it greater than the freedom of speech). Taking a power that was niether "implied" nor "granted", they shaft the public out of their due - the very reason why the constitution grants patents and copyrights in the first place.
What the MPAA is trying to do is extend copyright privilege to devices (even they have to refer to DeCSS as a "device", otherwise their arguement gets flushed down the toilet where it belongs) all the while basking in the newfound powers of the copyright law/DMCA.

Anyone with a long enough memory - http://slashdot.org/yro/00/05/20/045253.shtml - will remember when Oxford University pulled a student's DeCSS page, only to discover it wasn't offering the real DeCSS anyway. It seems lawyers have some special powers over normal human beings, allowing them to trample on the rights of any they want.

"circumvention device". The DeCSS is not a device until it is compiled and executed until then, DeCSS is nothing more than a bunch of symbols on a piece of paper or t-shirt. You publish code.
However, the MPAA does not say this. They tell website operators to "remove the circumvention device from your website." IANAL, but what kind of language is this??? See the letter that the MPAA sent cryptome.org today for an example of this.
They cannot say "please remove the code that you have published on your website" because publishing involves speech, which the DeCSS is. When it is compiled and executed, your computer becomes a decryption device , placing it under patent laws. Is the DeCSS patented? If it is, then the US patent office has already published it. Then it follows that it is your computer that is the circumvention device not the DeCSS code by itself.
Another thing that gets me is the mishmash of copyrights and patents. Two different things, or two different temporary "granted monopolies". People should not be allowed to use one "monopoly" to increase the power of the other (i.g. dealing in software patents), because that power has not been granted by the constitution. The constitution separates the two because they were intended to deal separately with two different things, not act together. For many years, they had about the same amount of power until "copyright creep" started taking place, continually increasing its power until now you have the DMCA controlling "devices" overtaking the power of patents. Software should either have a copyright or a patent, but not both. If it can be copyrighted, then I should be able to have rights like "first sale" and "fair use" that have been argued the century before last when a publisher put a EULA on the first page of a book. If the software is a patent (i.g. a device that configures a computer), then I expect to be able to copy it in twenty years when the patent expires (and I mean the actual software created by the company using the patent). Just because you flash a contract in front of somebody's face or toss it in with the shinkrap doesn't mean you can usurp somebody's constitutional rights, and I consider having patents and copyrights acting as two separate entities as one of those rights. What we see now is the result of abuse of these two constitutionally "granted" temporary monopolies. Taking a power that was niether "implied" nor "granted", they shaft the public out of their due - the very reason why the constitution grants patents and copyrights in the first place.
What the MPAA is trying to do is extend copyright privilege to devices (even they have to refer to the refer to DeCSS as a "device", otherwise their arguement gets flushed down the toilet where it belongs) all the while basking in the newfound powers of the copyright law/DMCA.

JARED BOBROW (Bar No. 133712)
CHRISTOPHER J. COX (Bar No. 151650)
WEIL, GOTSHAL & MANGES LLP
Silicon Valley Office
2882 Sand Hill Road, Suite 280
Menlo Park, CA 94025-7022
Telephone: (650) 926-6200
Facsimile: (650) 854-3713

ROBERT G. SUGARMAN
JEFFREY L. KESSLER
EDWARD J. BURKE (Bar No. 103414)
JONATHAN S. SHAPIRO
WEIL, GOTSHAL & MANGES LLP
767 Fifth Avenue
NewYork,NY 10153
Telephone: (212) 310-8000
Facsimile: (212) 310-8007

Drop 'em a line why don't you. The country code for the US is 1.

> California long arm statue

According to the posting at Cryptome, GnuPG 1.0.1 is not vulnerable. I'd assume that applies to all of the older versions as well.
--

According to the posting at Cryptome, GnuPG 1.0.1 is not vulnerable. I'd assume that applies to all of the older versions as well.
--

Second, even assuming that DeCSS runs under Linux, it concededly runs under Windows---a far more widely used operating system---as well. It therefore cannot reasonably be said that DeCSS was developed "for the sole purpose'' of achieving interoperability between Linux and DVDs.

Judge Lewis Kaplan, Memorandum Opinion granting the MPAA's motion to enjoin the publication of the DeCSS source code on the Internet. [There was a time when judges were appointed on the basis of fairness and intellect. I guess those times have passed.]

Try checking out this site for more info.

If you read the Microsoft NT C2 Configuration article closely, with comprehension, you'll find that it speaks of NT 4.0 being evaluated, but never certified, as being C2 compliant. This was addressed in this BugTraq post. Believe you me, if NT 4.0 had been certified, Microsoft would be singing it to the heavens. But they don't want you to know that. You'll also note that "The C2 Administrator's and User's Security Guide" is itself a MS Windows executable (http://www.microsoft.c om/technet/security/exe/C2SecGuide.exe), hardly the most secure and safe way to transmit data around the Internet. Anyone got an open-standards version of this document?

They also don't want you to know about the man they killed after he first got WinNT 3.51 C2 certified, then told Microsoft that it would not be possible to get C2 certification for WinNT 4.0. Ed Curry, military man, NSA-certified technician, and a former independent contractor for Microsoft first had his business, health, and ultimately life destroyed. I knew Ed only from online encounters in Nick Petreley's InfoWorld forums, but the man was a friend, willing and capable of sharing fascinating information. Ed Curry died in December of 1999 of a stress-induced stroke. He is survived by a wife and young daughter.

What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?

The shit-brained, goose-stepping judge in this case appears to have ruled in essence that it's a crime merely to post this string:

a href = 'http://cryptome.org/dvd-hoy-reply.htm#Exhibit B'

Should I now flee the country? Go into hiding and join the First Amendment Underground?

See the earlier Slashdot article on this:

http://slashdot.org/articles/00/01/24 /118240.shtml

here

There was a link on Cryptome a while a go.

Until recently there was a very controversial and public web site, crytome available which offered a unique and interesting look inside the world of espionage. Of course, by placing under the public eye so much information they made enemies of the FBI, the CIA, and various foreign intelligence agencies.

Do you know what happened to this site, and to your knowledge was your agency (or any of the other aforementioned agencies) involved in its apparent disappearance from the net?

Apparently Duncan & J.Bamford are working on a new up to date book on Echelon & the NSA.

Bamfords previous book, Puzzle Palace is absolutely excellent, though was published in '83 so is largely out of date.

IMHO, the best current site for John Youngs Cryptome which is unfortunately currently down due to a DDOS attack!

Apparently Duncan & J.Bamford are working on a new up to date book on Echelon & the NSA.

Bamfords previous book, is absolutely excellent, though was published in '83 so is largely out of date.

IMHO, the best current site for John Youngs Cryptome which is unfortunately currently down due to a DDOS attack!

As I write this, Cryptome is still down. This is at 10:14 GMT July 24th 2000.

Lucky I saved all the offending material to my HD...

FYI, the people who requested the removal of the information were Special Agent James Castano and his immediate superior, Dave Marzigliano.

The published e-mail address was nccs-ny@fbi.gov

Be sure to let them know your views!

Incidentally, we're still proceeding with the "Openlaw" experiment -- discussing legal arguments for the defense in a public forum in full view of the opposing side. At least one of the MPAA witnesses has said he used the Openlaw site as a starting point for his search for DeCSS information online. Yet I think the mix of participants -- and thus the range of insights and analyses we've gotten -- is far broader than a more traditional set of calls to experts might have produced. Thanks to everyone who's been involved!

Join the discussion at http://eon.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/DVD/

I must say that I had the feeling after reading the Memorandum Opinion that either the judge had to be in the pockets of the film industry, or he would be ignorant. Now, one of my principles as that one should never attribute to maliciousness what can adequately be explained by stupidity, so I thought it was the latter. But, it seems it is not and adequate explanation after all... :-(

At the surface, it seems like they should be able to brute force it consistent with the court order for the wire tap. Just out of curosity, though, what about the DMCA's protections on decoding encrypted information?

To wit: From Jack Valenti's, MPAA Chairman, deposition:

10 Q You said any use of DVD that involves
11 coping is illegal. Is that right?
12 A I think what I said was, any time you
13 circumvent encryption according to the DMCA you're
14 violating the law. That's what I said.

It seems to me, if DMCA is used that broadly, couldn't it be used to argue against the FBI decrypting email communication?

Just a thought.

For those of you who don't want to supply anything with "MS" in the title, look up the article on Crpytome

Paper by Kenneth Neil Cukier, Communications Week International on Frenchelon.
Also mentioned in this issue of Cryptome.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv /NSAEBB/NSAEBB23/22-01.htm

Arrgh! I have submitted articles on this topic no less than three times in the past two weeks, and each time they were rejected.

I'll try to fill in the gaps, because I've done a little bit of hunting for mor info about this. In particular, I found that one of the four people that opposed the bill in Congress was Ron Paul, a congressman from the district south of mine here in Texas. Paul is a libertarian conservative Republican (he once ran as the Libertarian candidate for President), and has a very good record on privacy rights. The fact that he voted against it was a warning signal to me.

Further, I strongly recommend reading this article analyzing the bill at Cryptome. (Pointers to other analysis of the bill would be welcome.) The author of this makes it clear that there's a daylight and dark difference between "electronic" signatures and "digital" signatures, the diference being that the latter provides significant protection against fraud and tampering that is completely absent in the former.

This is a terribly important issue, and I tried to sound the alarm two weeks ago because it is quite likely this will become the law of the land in the next few days. It may well be too late to stop it.

Knowledgeable Internet users might think that the "Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act" -- passed overwhelmingly by the US Congress last week -- would provide virtual world commerce with the same protections expected in the physical world.

Surprise! No, that would be "digital signatures", never mentioned in the Act. Digital signatures are designed to detect changes in digital content, and computationally irreversible functions ensure that the signature belongs to a particular entity.

Instead, these electronic signatures are a "sound, symbol, or process". By the simple act of pressing a telephone keypad that makes a sound ("press 9 to agree or 7 to hear this menu again"), clicking a hyper-link to enter a web site, or clicking "continue" on a software installer, the consumer consents to be bound to an electronic contract.

The Act imposes the language of UETA (the bastard sibling of the notorious UCITA that has been opposed by the attorney generals of most states) upon the US as a whole.

The Bill "Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act" is not about "Digital Signatures". Please do not make this mistake.

Instead it is the evil sibling of the notorious UCITA that has been opposed by the attorney generals of most states.

It's primary purpose is to make one-line electronical agreements, legaly binding, when you click the "Agree" button.

Read the whole story on Cryptome.

--
Why pay for drugs when you can get Linux for free ?

It also makes copies. This is a use of DeCSS that is not deencryption. Rectify this fact with your statement.

Bypassing the region code is a byproduct.

But a use of DeCSS nonetheless.

Oh, your point #4 is completely inaccurate, try actually reading the law, I have.

I did, too, specifically:

"1201(2): No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that--

(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof;

(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof; or

(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof."

You may have missed, in your prior readings, the words "primarily designed" or "limited...purpose."

Then there is the issue that the right to prevent fair use propter hoc is not a right granted to the copyright holder, yet the studios' TPM does this.

There is also the issue that non-copyrightable or expired-copyright material may be behind a CSS controlled system.

The list goes on and on. The defense will demonstrate this when the time comes.

Right now, though, they are involved in depositions that reveal that the studios cannot tell you how or when you are entitled to use the stuff on a DVD. They're also fighting the preliminary injunction, and in the process they're severly hampering the credibility of the studios' expert witnesses.

they've won every filing they've made and the defense has lost every one.

Does that include the motion to have Garbus' firm removed from the defense? Or the motion to have every deposition confidential?

You are terribly misled.

You did not address my points 1-3, or 5-7. You failed on point four. All of these are supported by depositions, court filings, self-evident facts or the DMCA. Your response was mere rhetoric.

I haven't even mentioned how certain elements of 1201 may be unconstitutional, though certain of the plaintiffs arguments would entail such a conclusion. In this sense they're digging their own grave before they've even taken it to trial.

Besides trolling, I'm confused why you would waste your time defending doomed arguments and speaking about the case as if you actually understand what is going on. You clearly don't. Or maybe you work for that DVDCCA thing that MPAA President Jack Valenti has never heard of.

It also makes copies. This is a use of DeCSS that is not deencryption. Rectify this fact with your statement.

Bypassing the region code is a byproduct.

But a use of DeCSS nonetheless.

Oh, your point #4 is completely inaccurate, try actually reading the law, I have.

I did, too, specifically:

"1201(2): No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that--

(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof;

(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof; or

(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof."

You may have missed, in your prior readings, the words "primarily designed" or "limited...purpose."

Then there is the issue that the right to prevent fair use propter hoc is not a right granted to the copyright holder, yet the studios' TPM does this.

There is also the issue that non-copyrightable or expired-copyright material may be behind a CSS controlled system.

The list goes on and on. The defense will demonstrate this when the time comes.

Right now, though, they are involved in depositions that reveal that the studios cannot tell you how or when you are entitled to use the stuff on a DVD. They're also fighting the preliminary injunction, and in the process they're severly hampering the credibility of the studios' expert witnesses.

they've won every filing they've made and the defense has lost every one.

Does that include the motion to have Garbus' firm removed from the defense? Or the motion to have every deposition confidential?

You are terribly misled.

You did not address my points 1-3, or 5-7. You failed on point four. All of these are supported by depositions, court filings, self-evident facts or the DMCA. Your response was mere rhetoric.

I haven't even mentioned how certain elements of 1201 may be unconstitutional, though certain of the plaintiffs arguments would entail such a conclusion. In this sense they're digging their own grave before they've even taken it to trial.

Besides trolling, I'm confused why you would waste your time defending doomed arguments and speaking about the case as if you actually understand what is going on. You clearly don't. Or maybe you work for that DVDCCA thing that MPAA President Jack Valenti has never heard of.

It also makes copies. This is a use of DeCSS that is not deencryption. Rectify this fact with your statement.

Bypassing the region code is a byproduct.

But a use of DeCSS nonetheless.

Oh, your point #4 is completely inaccurate, try actually reading the law, I have.

I did, too, specifically:

"1201(2): No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that--

(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof;

(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof; or

(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof."

You may have missed, in your prior readings, the words "primarily designed" or "limited...purpose."

Then there is the issue that the right to prevent fair use propter hoc is not a right granted to the copyright holder, yet the studios' TPM does this.

There is also the issue that non-copyrightable or expired-copyright material may be behind a CSS controlled system.

The list goes on and on. The defense will demonstrate this when the time comes.

Right now, though, they are involved in depositions that reveal that the studios cannot tell you how or when you are entitled to use the stuff on a DVD. They're also fighting the preliminary injunction, and in the process they're severly hampering the credibility of the studios' expert witnesses.

they've won every filing they've made and the defense has lost every one.

Does that include the motion to have Garbus' firm removed from the defense? Or the motion to have every deposition confidential?

You are terribly misled.

You did not address my points 1-3, or 5-7. You failed on point four. All of these are supported by depositions, court filings, self-evident facts or the DMCA. Your response was mere rhetoric.

I haven't even mentioned how certain elements of 1201 may be unconstitutional, though certain of the plaintiffs arguments would entail such a conclusion. In this sense they're digging their own grave before they've even taken it to trial.

Besides trolling, I'm confused why you would waste your time defending doomed arguments and speaking about the case as if you actually understand what is going on. You clearly don't. Or maybe you work for that DVDCCA thing that MPAA President Jack Valenti has never heard of.

After the Valenti deposition, the MPAA lawyers went before Judge Kaplan to attempt to have the entire deposition sealed from the press. During this hearing, documented here at the cryptome site, Judge Kaplan had some very interesting things to say ...

First:

2 THE COURT: That is persuasive only to a point. We
3 are now six weeks away from a trial. If they can't remotely,
4 as you suggest, prove the allegations they have made in this
5 case, embarrassment on the Internet is going to be the least
6 of their problems, because I am going to call this case, one
7 way or another. Obviously, listening to the two of you,
8 somebody is full of baloney. I won't have any hesitation
9 about saying who it is when I see the evidence. So, while I
10 understand this embarrassment notion, I understand both sides
11 are conducting as much of a public relations campaign as a
12 lawsuit, maybe more, but the game all stops next month.

Whew!

And later ...

24 MS. ABRUTYN: Even if that is the case, there are two
25 possible remedies. The first one is that your Honor could
1 rule the depositions shouldn't go forward in the first place,
2 in which case there would be nothing to have access to, if
3 Mr. Garbus is off on a fishing expedition.

4 THE COURT: I am not accusing him alone.

5 MS. ABRUTYN: Or if both sides are --

6 THE COURT: This is a bass tournament.

I like his sense of humor!

Also available on the Cryptome site is a copy of Second Supplemental Declaration of Robert W. Schumann. This is basically his response to his own testimony where it gets to add any additional information he doesn't feel he explained adequately during the questioning.

He mostly emphasizes that despite the dificulty of making pirated DVDs, there is a real danger of pirating DVD movies by compressing the DeCSS'd movie files with DivX, which he claims can currently compress a movie to 1.2Gb, small enough to put on two CDR's, or to send over a 100Mbs LAN in 7 minutes.

He uses Gnutella & Freenet as examples of the real current threat, saying "the most concentrated activity in the unauthorized digital copying and Internet transmission of pirated copies occurs among college-age students. This is not only because of the demographics of age and interest, but also because access to wideband systems is readily available to them."

He also attacks the argument that DeCSS has "legitimate academic, commercial or scientific value", noting that if this were the case, then it would only be available in source code, since, it is hard to learn how a program works from a compiled binary.

Honorable Lewis Kaplan
United States District Judge
Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse
500 Pearl Street, Room 1310
New York, New York 10007-1312

Dear Judge Kaplan:

I would like to add my voice in opposition to the plaintiff's Notice Of Motion For Protective Order of May 30, 2000.

I am a signatory to the amicus curiae brief of openlaw participants in Universal v. Reimerdes Any contribution made by myself, or others not present in the courtroom, would be hindered by the lack of a free and open flow of information. This is a case where networked participation through use of the Internet is not a buzzword or cliche, but a reality. The brief above proves that. Choking off information about the proceedings then has the effect of impairing potential further amicus curiae briefs. Have the plaintiffs shown any evidence at all that would justify such drastic consequences? Please deny their motion.

Sincerely,

Seth Finkelstein
Senior Software Engineer
OpenLaw/OpenDVD participant

On the second link of this article, if you scroll up, you will see convincing evidence that open source software has nothing to fear about security competition from closed source software.

Here is a direct link, read the first article, although I doubt you will be surprised.

I can second the recommendation of the Cryptome docs. Most of the docs related to this lawsuit are at their section on their DVD-DeCSS section. However, one interesting item is squirreled away here.
After having read many of the transcripts, I've gained quite a bit of respect for Judge Kaplan in the case. Garbus hasn't impressed me. He's mostly come off as evasive and ill-prepared.

Damon

Work as if you don't need the money,
Love as if you've never been hurt, and
Dance as if no one's watching.

I can second the recommendation of the Cryptome docs. Most of the docs related to this lawsuit are at their section on their DVD-DeCSS section. However, one interesting item is squirreled away here.
After having read many of the transcripts, I've gained quite a bit of respect for Judge Kaplan in the case. Garbus hasn't impressed me. He's mostly come off as evasive and ill-prepared.

Damon

Work as if you don't need the money,
Love as if you've never been hurt, and
Dance as if no one's watching.

Garbus: The other thing this case is about, which is very interesting to me, is that it's kind of going to be an Internet legal trial in the sense that some of the people on the Internet and some people who deal with the Internet are very interested in this particular trial -- and every document, witness's word, judge's ruling, and lawyer's call will be on the Internet within a day.

In the next few days, we'll be filing an amicus brief arguing against the MPAA's proposed injunction on hyperlinking.

Join the fight!

You don't have to be actually dealing any drugs to be robbed at gunpoint by the cops. Just drive down I-10 through Louisiana with some cash in your car. Oh, yeah, and it helps - a lot - if you're black.

You think I'm kidding, don't you? God, I wish I were. Here, read this. Or, from the President of the ACLU, this. Or lest you fall for the anti-ACLU business that is so popular with demagogues in this country, and dismiss the above as just the ranting of some left-wing weirdos, here is a statement published by the office of conservative Republican congressman Henry Hyde. In fact, the appaling damage which the logic-twisting pro-police-state judicial activists of the Rehnquist Supreme Court have inflicted upon the Constitutional rights of American citizens has outraged many Congressmen of both the Democratic party and the Republican party, who have responded this year with legislation to undo their excesses and restore those Constitutional rights to the public. This bill has not yet been signed by President Clinton, who has a terrible record of siding with the law enforcement gang against the interests of mere citizens. Let us hope that FBI Director Freeh and Drug Tsar McCafferty (that war criminal) don't talk him into vetoing this bill.

Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net

'Apparently the university computer services have talked to their lawyers and reckon it's against British copyright law (despite there being nothing on there except "DeCSS is a ludicrous thing to use to try to pirate DVDs, the code hasn't been here since January, try OpenDVD instead.").'

Adrian Baugh in http://cryptome.org/ox-chill.htm

But when I wrote it, I was talking in the general sense. I was trying to point out, that there was a false assumption that the MPAA sent people in different juresdictions the same letter.

--locust

FYI, Chomsky is an anarchist who probably hates the government more than you do. He's certainly gone to great lengths trying to expose the murder our government encourages (and commits) in the name of foreign policy.

FYI #2, it is still up in the air on whether click-through licenses are actually legally binding, mainly because nobody takes them seriously, and therefore do not read them. And besides, Real knows full well that people do not read them, so hiding the admission of some extremely intrusive behavior of its software inside the license rather than making it obvious on the download page or on a privacy statement shows an extreme amount of contempt for their users' privacy, and therefore they deserve all the bad publicity we can generate.

FYI #3, if you still think anyone who signs (or clicks) something without reading it is a moron (and I'm inclined to agree with you), consider a bill that was recently passed by the Republican controlled Senate:
http://cryptome.org/4th-sneaky.htm.

Go read http://cryptome.org/ustr050800.txt for the whole list.

include: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
--
Why pay for drugs when you can get Linux for free ?

The brief argues both that DeCSS itself is expressive speech and that links (to it or other sites) are communicative and should not be subject to the prior restraint of an injunction. It frequently emphasizes that even though non-traditional, 2600 is news media and is entitled to the same constitutional protections as the New York Times.

It strongly disputes plaintiffs' claim of "irreparable injury" -- necessary to maintain a preliminary injunction -- on the grounds that the studios have been crying wolf for months over "piracy" but have yet to demonstrate that DeCSS is used to copy DVDs. Further, it argues that DeCSS must be allowed to facilitate fair use of DVD movies and that DeCSS is exempt from the DMCA as part of a reverse engineering effort.

The brief is supported by a set of declarations from Harold Abelson, Andrew Appel, Chris DiBona, Bruce Fries, John Gilmore, Robin Gross, Lewis Kurlantzick, Eben Moglen, Matt Pavlovich, Bruce Schneier, Barbara Simons, Frank Stevenson, Dave Touretsky, David Wagner, and John Young.

For more on the case, see Openlaw/DVD/. Openlaw participants will be drafting an amicus brief.

I was going to post the same thing, but you beat me to it.

The Puzzle Palace really was an interesting read... Maybe I'll dig it out and re-read it.

a good web source on current news in the crypto world is Cryptome

Hope that helps