Slashdot Mirror
A New DeCSS
This guy has written a fairly amusing program called DeCSS and is asking people to distribute and link it in an effort to make things more difficult for the legal boys trying to track down the other DeCSS. The page has a lot to say, and this is definitely an interesting way to show support.
You cannot sue the entire world.
Better, the garbage text files could be filled with exactly the _right_ stuff that the MD5 hashes are the same. (Ok, so that is very very hard. It's a nice idea, though :)
Watching a DVD that you've purchased under Linux is perfectly legal. Making a copy of a DVD for your personal use is perfectly legal. Yet, MPAA tries to stop you from exercising your rights to do these *legal* things. That's what this is all about: MPAA breaking the law, and us putting a stop to it.
New XFMail home page
What you're saying is that you don't feel the stakes are high enough in this particular case to flout the law. That's your opinion and that's fine. But others feel differently.
I'm not claiming that the DVD situation is comparable to the holocaust. I am saying that those who go along with unjust laws, or worse, berate others for disobeying them, aren't the good citizens they believe they are.
The heart of the problem in this case is that corporations have successfully lobbied for laws that line their pockets at the expense of society as a whole. It's not just about watching DVDs, it's about screwing regular people and intimidating them (using the threat of law suits) into complying. That stinks and has no place in society.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
Before you start with the self-rightious diatribes you should remember that disobeying bad laws has a long and honourable tradition.
The American Revolution, the Underground Railroad, the French Resistance, Jews escaping the Nazis, Ghandi's peaceful revolution... the list goes on. All of these things were horribly illegal.
The fact of the matter is that laws are made by people. Some people are ignorant, greedy, corrupt, or cruel and when these people make laws they need to be opposed using whatever means are most effective.
In this particular case we have shortsighted politicians who have perverted intellectual property laws far beyond the point where they serve any social good. The laws are wrong and the politians in charge are either too stupid or too corrupt to do anything about it. How do fight within the system if the system itself is broken?
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
not suing people tho. just sending out cease-and-desist letters citing the preliminary injunctions given in the CA and NY cases. I'd say most mirrors will get one sooner or later.
If I distribute a program, can't I call it whatever I like? As far as I know, the name "DeCSS" doesn't violate any copyrights or trademarks. Why couldn't I name a program that I write "DeCSS?" Why does it have to be plausible?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Face it danger is not a good thing and I would rather have my pride/honor/respect/and freedom than play DVDs on unsupported OSs.
Yeah, and I'd rather have my freedom than be allowed to drive a car wherever I like without being monitored.
I'd rather have my freedom than be able to view whatever I wish on the Internet.
I'd rather have my freedom than be able to decide for myself what my children should or should not be taught.
I could go on...
Maybe we should all just quit trying to change the things that we think are done for the wrong reasons or that are unjust, or that are just plain stupid. I'm sure it would make things a lot easier for the government if we would all just shut up and do as we're told. Maybe you should get out there and lead the wooly resistance against those who would dare to refuse to let the government or corporations take their rights away without a fight. Baaa! Baaa!
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
It hurts legitimate searches for the code
The damage to searches for the other DeCSS is minimal for the geek and huge for MPAA lawyers. This is because MPAA lawyers and an average geek have different objectives. The geek want's to find ONE copy of the other DeCSS. The lawyers want (and to be successful MUST) find every single copy of the other DeCSS.
Multiplying a trivial effort by 4 (for example) isn't so bad. Multiplying a nearly impossable effort by 4 is a real show stopper.
Now when I want to grab DeCSS to play DVDs on my Linux box, I have to search through ten times as much noise to find what I need.
It's much easier to find one copy out of ten linke than it is to find one copy out of nothing at all.
Chris
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
Chris DiBona
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
By mirroring this and putting up somewhere visible, you will be helping out big time. I don't know if this is being said, but this will both cost time, money and lead to frustration for the MPAA/DVD CCA lawyers, which is a good thing :-)
Again, a copy is Here. Mirror early! Mirror Often! Post your link here and muddy up their searches!
Chris DiBona
VA Linux Systems
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
Chris DiBona
VA Linux Systems
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
Lets make thier jobs -hard-.
Chris DiBona
VA Linux Systems
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
Using the phrase DeCSS is *hardely* against the law, and anyone attempting to sue an individual for using such a term would quickly find themselves countersued.
Peacefull resistence is not against the law. Neather is using the phrase, DeCSS. It simply means that they won't be able to do a simple net search for the phrase DeCSS, and get a list of sites..
There is no danger. As a matter of fact, I'd love to see one case where someone here was sued. Sure, slashdot was brought to court, but they are 'the big boys'. If they went after 10,000 little guys, once again, class action lawsuit against them..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
Seriously, this is a great way to draw attention to the DeCSS case, which is exactly what we DO need. The MPAA are getting away with murder because nobody but the techies care.
However, if "innocents" can get themselves dragged into the lawsuit, that'll be a different matter. The press is more likely to ask questions. Awkward questions. An "obviously guilty" person isn't going to get serious respect, even if they're just a young kid. But when bystanders start getting shot at by the MPAA lawyer, I think the media will start perking up.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
There are two reasons why such bottom-feeders should not be a major worry:
(1) Eliminating a specific class or instance of code or data is virtaully impossible because of the tendency of the internet (I speak of the net as including the human end-nodes) to route around censorship using the highly-respected "Whack-A-Mole" distribution model. And of course, overt limitations on the availability of information exponentially increases the interest in and demand for it.
(2) Any company making a business out of seeking and stamping out illicit data/code on the web must implicitly understand that if their actions are sucessful enough to become even a deterrent, then they will put themselves out of business. None would openly admit to this, but unless these are nonprofit or volunteer organizations their purpose is to make money. Thus their financial model requires enough success -- but not too much -- to provide a sustainable revinue stream.
J
I think not...(*poof*)
Point: Ms. Parks wasn't the innocent history claims she was. She was the Boss of the local chapter of the NAACP. She knew what she was doing.
Kinda like a lot of people on here. They know this is illegal, but post it anyway. You're hardly innocent.
> I did have one theroy though...don't know if it was brought up before...what if someone posted
;)
> a wav file ( because mp3 would be too "underground" ) of them reading the DeCSS
> ( as in the DVD program ) source code?
Hahahaha, I had this mental image of a beatnik reciting the DeCSS code as free verse in a smoke-filled, candle-lit coffeehouse as someone
plays bongos in the background. Hahahaha.
*LMFAO* Very nice, i actually like that.....as long as William Shatner doesn't mention anything about Priceline dot com at the end of the code
It's actually been at FreshMeat for a good part of the day, it's announcement is here But i just wanted to thank the Cmdr for finally posting the damn thing ( i had only submitted it three times today ) the nice spiel is too damn funny for anyone to pass on :)
( Warning, mildly offtopic thought follows)
I did have one theroy though...don't know if it was brought up before...what if someone posted a wav file ( because mp3 would be to "underground" ) of them reading the DeCSS ( as in the DVD program ) source code?
Sgt Pepper
Lame Sig Shamelessly Ripped from
Fortune:
A mind is a wonderful thing to waste.
You do have a point, and I agree that many DeCSS advocates are acting childlike, but you overlook one essential doctrine that has pervaded many US court cases (of which this is one). This doctrine is called "Fair Use" and it essentially states it is unfair and illegal to restrict the use of a product you have sold to a consumer for any reason other than legal contractual obligation. For example, it is illegal to prevent resale of a product unless it would be illegal to sell it (ie food packages without ingredient lists). In my opinion, banning DeCSS falls under this blanket, preventing legitimate DVD owners from watching movies the way they want. I agree, perhaps the communtities reaction has been overzealous, but this is an important legal case for consumer rights (possibly the second most important rights after human rights) and deserves most of the attention it is getting.
My (poorly written) $.02
--Nick
I recommend an obfuscated DeCSS programming contest...
It would really put a kink in their work.
Cute program. Not quite useless, has a legitimate reason for the name, totally legal, and a slap at the MPAA. But it doesn't help our case at all.
In fact, this could backfire on us.
"See!! Look!! These HACKERS are all alike!! They're trying to make it HARDER for us to seek out CRIMINALS trying to ROB US of your^H^H^H^Hour hard earned money made by selling DVD's of Porky's and Celine Dion!! KILL THEM ALL! Whoops. I mean, your honor, this demonstrates that these people don't have a leg to stand on. Please kindly sign this court order effectively stamping on the rights of Geeks even further? Thank you.
Finding God in a Dog
I'll be finishing it up shortly!
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
For this reason, I suggested to Mr. Bad that he add some cruft so that it would have the same file size and checksum.
:)
I think that would be a lovely program to write (make arbitrary size and checksum cruft).
Maybe I'll call it DeCSS.
_Deirdre
I'm tempted to just rename every single program I write "DeCSS". I'd just give them all different descriptions. Imagine if, for a couple of months, nearly every Open Source project changed the name of their downloadable package to "decss.tar.gz". So, as a member of the Open Source community, and a DVD owner who would like to use Linux to play his DVDs, I emplore everyone who reads this to consider changing the name of their downloadable files to decss.tar.gz. Thank you.
--
--
"Insert witty quote here."
This is definitely an amusing idea, yet unnecessary. The internet has already interpreted the censorship as damage, and worked around it.
Bite the hand.
Point: Ms. Parks wasn't the innocent history claims she was. She was the Boss of the local chapter of the NAACP. She knew what she was doing.
Yeah. She was, in a harmless way, violating an unjust and immoral law, which happened also to be unconstitutional. Of course she knew what she was doing: She was standing up for her rights as a citizen.
In any case, if you think membership in the NAACP somehow precludes "innocence", you're out of your mind.
They know this is illegal, but post it anyway. You're hardly innocent.
I think you've just raised bootlicking to a new peak of perfection. Calling a program "DeCSS" is not illegal. In fact, I'm going to rename my cat "DeCSS". There, it's done. I'll be calling him that from here on in. No doubt you think that makes me a felon.
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law." --
Rather than just acting with complete disregard for the laws and whatever, why doesn't everybody here just ADVOCATE why they think DeCSS is okay, and let the court systems decide...
... children.
If the answer comes back in a form that you disagree with, THEN disregard their decision and do what you wish...
It only seems that you're all making the lives much more difficult for everyone involved by acting like... dare a say the word?
"you can't catch me! neener neener!"
Write letters to your representatives. Write letters to the companies. Write letters to the judge. Put informational web pages as to why you think DeCSS is okay.
Look at Connectix as an example... Things are going good for them. Yes, they've barely sold their software yet, but they're setting a very important precedent. You too could set a precedent, but in the end it will all be remembered as acting in complete disregard of the "rules" that everyone is made to obey...
They're not written in stone, you know... It's just easier to justify everything when you wish they were.
Is there some reason why the one true DeCSS hasn't been reimplemented under a different name (or 3 dozen)?
After all, the source is a matter of public record now, and it's been on T-shirts and all... Why not re-implment it in any and all programming languages out there. Java, Pascal, Fortran, Perl, VB, Befunge (ferchrisakes!)..
Differently named, all of them.
This new DeCSS is litigation chaff, and we should follow the blow with another, and another.
Let's add the string "DeCSS" to comment fields of web pages, to give the spiders and bots something to chew on. Let's integrate the DeCSS source code into web page background images.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
http://www.sarahandcasey.com/decss/cssstory.txt
Is the entire css auth code in, well, story form. It's hilarious.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
The one significant error you make is assuming that physical pain will always be greater than emotional or psychological pain. people don't commit suicide -- inflict the ultimate physical pain upon themselves -- to avoid physical pain (frequently -- of course for some folks like cancer victims they do). they do it to avoid emotional or psycological anguish. Living with terrible cowardice or regret is a painful existence to go through every day of your life. For many it would be vastly preferable to simply die trying to extinguish the pain by fighting their oppresors than to live a "painless" life of physical comfort. Its the same reason that knowing the world is unfair is a relatively painless thing -- explaining to your child that it is unfair can be one of the most emotionally draining experiences of your life, becuase you see in their eyes the basic instinct (that you have avoided) that it shouldn't be...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
One of Ami Ganguli's original examples holds some water with the DeCSS case, however. I am not a historian, though, so my reasoning or thoughts may be incorrect.
The American Revolution
We weren't actually fighting over anything nearly as noble as peace, freedom, intolerance, etc. As far as I know, we were fighting over money and property. The rights of taxation, representation, ownership, etc. And while we won, it wasn't legally, fairly, or nicely. And if we had any right to do it then, as indivduals trying to gain control over our own lives and world vs an empire that wanted none of that, it shouldn't be any different, I don't think, of consumers trying to fight the MPAA or the entertainment industry over control over what we can and cannot do with our DVDs, CDs, music, players, OSes, etc.
You're right in complaining about the other examples, however =)
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
If all this DeCSS, RIAA, mp3, MPAA and lawsuit stuff is getting to you, do something about it.
Patronize live bands. Watch a theatre performance. Go to the beach. Take up a musical instrument.
We do not have to live our lives consuming the goods if they don't want us to consume them! If they want to make proprietary closed and encrypted CDs, then don't buy them. Don't buy CDs. Don't pirate them. Just find something else to do!
There are big battles in life, and DeCSS and such may be one of them. But the value of the battle is not just in watching DVDs under Linux. It's the right to do as we see fit, in our own lives.
So go and do so!
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Now I'm mad...
;-)
I went through all of this work to set up my wonderful-est web site, with beautiful copyrighted content, with region coding so that you viewers in France see one version, which I charge more for by the way, and one in Australia which implements filter eluding porn links (this one's real expensive), and the regular cheap page for 'Mericans with all the banners you could ask for, doubleclick.com cookies in all the images, etc. My revenue needs to be protected by all of this CSS coding.
I send these pages encrypted in SSL, and now you're running this decryption program that removes my region encoding, and displays my copyrighted text in plain HTML for the world to see. Why, you reverse engineered a device which removes the encoding from my copyrighted web site content and are distributing it.
I'm gonna sue under the DCMA.
(Would somebody please explain this to the judge in the real deCSS case in New York, just in case he doesn't already get it?)
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
The MPAA has blinded everyone by making them fight for this bit of code, IMHO.
:-)
:-).
:-)
DeCSS is out there. No amount of legal wrangling will ever get it all removed. The MPAA has assured that themselves by even bothering over the issue.
What's the defense again? "DeCSS was a necessary first step in producing a program for Linux that is capable of playing DVDs." Okay. Good. I agree. Now, where's the player?
Ok, ok, I realize there's work being done on it, but I still don't see even a beta of a fully functional player. Here's what I'd consider a fully functional player beta:
Can play video
Can play sound
Can do the DVD menu stuff (mostly.. problems will exist)
Can do over 50% of the stuff in the player specs (as in branching, alternate audio tracks, etc)
Once a player exists, no-one will care about DeCSS anymore. Just don't use the EXACT code from DeCSS in the player. Hell, I'm not sure that you can, even. I need to read up more on the specs and try to grasp that DeCSS code I'm mirroring in 20 places
But, if a player existed, all attention will shift to it. DeCSS will be a forgotten memory. Plus, and here's the bonus, the MPAA's major offensive CANNOT be used against a player. Their major strategy seems to be that DeCSS is a copying program. If you make a player, it's not a copying program. It's a player, obviously. Just don't put in a write to disk feature (Leave that for the first upgrade after you win the suit
Ah well. I really just wanted to get it out there. If I'm incorrect, and there is a good functional player in existance, please tell me! Tell everyone. Tell the world. I know there are projects out there to do this, so lets give them some press attention.
Just another thought I had the other day. Correct me if I'm wrong, but DeCSS just uses the Xing key, correct? Well, how hard is it to crack all these keys? I mean, here's how I understand it:
The movie is encrypted using a "Key Prime".
The Key Prime is encrypted using all the myriads of other keys, including Key Xing.
DeCSS tells the DVD player Key Xing, gets Key Prime, and can decrypt the movie.
Well, then all you need to play a movie is Key Xing, or Key Sony, or whatever. Well, there's umm.. well, call it a thousand Keys on there, all of them encrypting Key Prime.
Since you can get Key Prime using Key Xing, how hard is it to get, say, Key Sony? You have the encrypted Key Prime using Key Sony, and you have Key Prime. Maybe you still must use a brute force attack, I don't know.
My thought was, why not get ALL the keys, and then spread them around? Look, the consortium could decide at any time that Key Xing has been compromised (which is true) and stop putting it on new disks. But, they can't add new keys, because they lose the market by removing all backwards compatibility with all existing players and disks. Also, they can't remove all keys because then it's free and clear for anyone.
So find those keys. Make your OSS player able to use ANY key, but it doesn't come with a key by default, it just reads it from say, key.txt
Then put all the different keys out there. Remember, once they're there, they're there forever.
Ahh well. Now I'm rambling.
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
And it should be carefully chosen garbage, so CRC checks of the software produce the same checksums...
Okay, I have it mirrored on my site as well, if anyone wants a copy of it.
This program is really cool. Check it out!
By loading this comment in your browser, you agree to give me all your worldly goods, do my laundry for the next 19 years, and send your SOSpecial over to my place unescorted three nights a week for a like period.
Pay up, or I'll sue you in Virginia's courts.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I'm pissed. Moderate me down if you want. But there are always two sides to the story. If you wanted to get DVD support in linux, for christs sake your going about it THE WRONG WAY!!! Email the companies, email the developers, talk to the right people. AND DON'T MAKE YOURSELF LOOK LIKE YOUR 14 YEARS OLD.
God gave us a brain, use it!!! Your rights, linux rights, deez nuts, your nuts.. WHO CARES. But i want my DVD movies, i want what i'm paying for!! I don't want everyone copying disks and raising the costs of what i pay for. I don't want people suing companies because of there rights to break someone elses protection scheme. DeCSS my ass.. You guys are fighting for a war that doesn't exist. And slashdot is the only benifactor of the advertising revenue this topic generates.
Do you think DVD technologies grew on trees? did it not take millions of dollars in investments and man hours to create this superb media format? Did it not take licensing with THX and Dolby to use superb sound? Does DeCSS bring this benifet to the masses? Did decss people license what others have spent BILLIONS developing? Did the linux community create something new for a change? NOOOOOO.. so SHUT THE HELL UP ABOUT THIS ALRIGHT!!
Maybe if you were responsible in creating something rather then trying to manipulate and re-evolve everything it would be as bad. But no, its not that way. So what will linux loose? What WILL decss loose? NOTHING.. ABSO FREAKIN LOOTLY NOTHING will be lost. Maybe the time of one person. But hell, thats alot cheaper then at the expense of millions of end users, hundreds of studios, thousands of licensee's and many many many developers other then the people who think they are kings here..
geezus.
Obfuscation cuts both ways.
Now when I want to grab DeCSS to play DVDs on my Linux box, I have to search through ten times as much noise to find what I need.
It hinders the profiteers at MPAA, and it hinders the legitimate users as well.
Still, it's pretty damn funny.
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
www.fogbound.net
Um, actually you could market a chocolate bar under the name "Marijuana" it just wouldn't sell.
You know damn well it would sell. Like hot cakes, it would.
[ c h a d o k e r e ]
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I'm not sure I'm all enthusiastic about the idea of coming up with uncountably many new ways of distributing the DeCSS source (rather than, say, concentrating on proving that it is legal). But if you are looking for yet another way to do it, and if possible one which will get the legal system into a not of paradoxes, I have a suggestion for such a method which might be a novel way of supporting free speech on the Internet if enough people apply it.
--
Posted using the Lizard.
IMO, the smartest thing that this guy does is not to create a new DeCSS. It's his offer to find another better job for the human spiders who are actually crawling the web as hit men for the MPAA. They have to read the page to determine if it's actionable; and by reading the page, he gets a chance to hire them away. Imagine if everyone the MPAA can hire for this job quits after a week :).
Unfortunately, this may be TOO smart of him. IANAL, but I suspect that the offer to hire someone away merely as a predatory attack on the business that employs them (and not in order to gain their skills) may be illegal under some kind of racketeering statute.
Of course, if a real lawyer were to reply to this message with a professional opinion in the affirmative, he/she might be doing the MPAA's dirty work for them and helping get this poor fellow sued (criminally, not civilly!) when that's exactly what he was trying to avoid.
Preferential Voting: easy as 1-2-3
Many people seem to believe that the creation of another program named DeCSS will help the cause of playing encrypted DVD's by confusing the MPAA's lawyers, who want to crack down on the "real" DeCSS. This might initially look like a harmless, and somewhat humorous, joke, but if it becomes popular, I think it could end up harming the efforts of those who want to watch DVDs.
One of the main (and IMHO, the strongest) arguments of the defendants in the DeCSS cases is that people have a right to watch DVD's that they own, without any hindrance from big companies. Tactics like making a "fake" DeCSS destroy the crediblity of the defendants--if people really should be able to freely distsribute DeCSS, it shouldn't be necessary to create another program to obscure the real one. In other words, why should we have to cover up activities (such as distributing DeCSS) that should be completely legal?
Furthermore, a false DeCSS program, while annoying lawyers, will be even more annoying to those who actually want to use the program--consumers. What if we win the DVD case, and it becomes legitimate to use DeCSS; I don't want to wade through numerous copies of a program porporting to be "DeCSS" before finding the real thing!
In my view, people could better utilize their time by supporting and distributing the true DeCSS, rather than confusing the issue and potentially harming the effort to create a free DVD player.
In this world, you only have to have a couple high-profile public butcherings, and the rest of the populace just files into line like the sheep they are. Occasionally, perhaps rarely, a bunch of sheep get together and arm themselves and make it difficult for the herders, and perhaps even more rarely, the sheep cast off their sheepskins and again become men. But most people just want to go about life milling around and grazing, without much care for how they're being sheared.
Repeat after me: baaaaa. baaaaa.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
>as long as William Shatner doesn't mention anything about Priceline dot com at the end of the code ;)
God I hate those commercials... not only does he butcher the original song (whichever one it happens to be), he's even more stiff and useless than when he was doing Trek...
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
I know it was meant to be bad, but there's bad and funny (i.e. Mel Brooks films) and then there's just bad (Shatner).
I guess he just rubs a nerve the wrong way.
What next...
"People try to put me down...
just because I get around...
and all because if Priceline dot com, yeah...
saying I just got a great deal (blah blah blah)...
What is it, Spock?
Extra airline miles for each transporter trip, and all on priceline dot com.
Isn't it great how I get paid for having no noticable acting talent? All beacuse of priceline dot com... yeah.
Thank you."
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
... wouldn't it be much more to the point to do some really good design documentation on the original DeCSS? Like, as in totally pelucid English (or Norwegian) prose. Explain in unmistakable detail how CSS works, and how to go about a key search for it.
/. reader) could crank YADeCSS in an afternoon, and I defy any judge to say that there aren't any First Amendment implications to censoring prose (or at least to do so with a straight face.)
With that in hand your average 8-year-old (or at least an 8-year-old
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I'd post these comments on PDJ, but we're currently swamped with slashdot hits, so I figgered I'd do it here:
- Yes, it's silly. Yes, it's a joke. But humor is one of the biggest assets of the freedom-loving community. Let's use it wisely.
- Wide distribution of DeCSS *may* be a minor nuisance for "good" people looking for DeCSS. Note, however, that the DVD-CCA has done much, MUCH worse damage by shutting down sites with DeCSS and sites that link to sites with DeCSS. The problem of having to sift through false DeCSS's is a drop in the bucket by comparison.
- Also remember that someone who's looking for DeCSS just to use it only needs to find *one* copy. Even if they get a few false positives, they will eventually find a real one. However, someone with a legal agenda will be looking for ALL copies. Having thousands of decoys will make their hunt much more difficult.
- If you're really worried about making it easier for "good" people to find DeCSS, mirror it! Or at least link to the excellent meta-site at dvd-copy.com.
- Someone smart will be able to find the "real" DeCSS using file sizes and hashes. Fine! Let's make them work harder. Also, the person who does that coding (they'll probably use Free Software like perl to get it done) should think long and hard about it. Shame on geeks who sell out their brothers to The Man!
- I do not weep for Jack Valenti and the MPAA. They already mentioned the DeCSS Distribution Contest in legal filings. I'm sorry if we're making it hard to sue the Internet. Maybe the next industry cartel with this idea will think twice about it.
- If you can't get into Pigdog Journal, try one of these mirror sites:
- Crackmonkey
- Cryptome
- Pottymouth
- ZGP
Thanks to everyone who's mirroring. Spread the love!Evan Prodromou | evan@prodromou.name | http://evan.prodromou.name/
...might be sufficient to accomplish his goals. If this effort gets a bunch of publicity on the web and a thousand pages get linked from the various search engines, it will have been worthwhile.
;)
If the software were actually useful it could be a roaring success. Does anyone out there have a useful program just lying around that could plausibly be renamed DeCSS and relaunched?
If one is good, a hundred would be better!
Geeky modern art T-shirts
My copy of the DeCSS program is at My Utterly Useless Web Page
The scary thing is, this is the closet I've ever gotten to putting something useful up on the apache server I've been wasting clock cycles with all this time.
Tell a man that there are 400 Billion stars and he'll believe you
The next version of DeCSS should include a "garbage" text file with just enough filler text (Perl poetry, perhaps? Anti-MPAA manifesto?) such that decss.tar.gz and decss.zip have EXACTLY THE SAME FILE SIZE AS THE REAL THING!
:)
That will really mess with their heads...
It doesn't. But failing to examine choices because they *seem* risky is a short-sighted and useless display of cowardice. Galileo, Socrates, Ghandi, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Einstein, and other great challengers in history examined the common mores, saw their flaws, and worked to overcome them. The actions and thoughts that they proposed were ridiculous at first. They all faced humiliation - at the very least - and all but two (Rosa and Einstin) lost their lives for their cause.
Darwin Award winners, OTOH, do risky things because they are risky (read "fun") things to do. That's stupid. One might argue that they deserved their fate.
The power you have, and may choose to wield, comes from own intelligence and ingenuity. Just don't let them over-rule your common sense or sense of decency.
Wouldn't a link to anything that claims it's a link to DeCSS accomplish the same thing?
You forgot the 21st Amendment. There's you first failed assertion.
(then, from a later post in the thread)
If you are prevented from doing what you will in the privacy of your own home, specifically as it regards watching a movie you've paid to be able to watch, haven't you actually lost (some of) your freedom? If you are unwilling to stand up for something you believe is important, haven't you relinquished your pride and honor? This would appear to be another failed assertion.
Based on these comments holding up so poorly to scrutiny, what exactly are you trying to say? That you don't mind being [Valenti|Gates|Eisner|CEOx]'s bitch because it doesn't hurt that much?
Corporations wage war on the people all the time. In this case the weapon they've chosen is knowledge/information and I'd like to think in that arena I (and my fellow /.ers, etc) am much more well-armed than Mr. Valenti and his celluloid minions and worldwide rent-a-cops. Yeah, it may still come down to money, but I can at least hope that a jury of my peers can still see (and still cares about) truth and freedom through the lawyer-induced fog of mis-/dis-information being slung about by the MPAA.
Just in case, slashdot-terminal, why don't you send 65 bucks to the EFF and we can all laugh about how frivolous this was a year from now?
If you live in Texas and you are sued for civil damages your wages cannot be garnisheed. That's reason enough for me as the "little guy" to not give a flying fuck. Sometimes you need to think cavalierly of the consequences because you are doing the right thing.
Let's hope the lawyers that work for the MPAA don't think that you are big enough to score on. Generally they don't have to take everyone on at once just a few high profile people who have a great deal to loose.
Also think of what lawyers charge for various services. It is in the best interests of lawyers to sue everyone and anyone they can to get more and more moeny. Things like this are like playing with fire.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
Not everyone is stupid and not everyone enjoys being "fleeced" (the sheep metaphor is rather stupid guess it must have been coined by people who live in high density sheep populations New Zealand?).
I think being robbed of all my money and then spending all my free time getting rapped by someone of the same sex would get rather irritating after awhile.
I think you would change your tune if you were the one who was getting let's say 300 years in jail in some harsh maxium security prison for violating laws. Boy the big old freedom fighter can't do much from the dungeon can you? See I understand what is at stake I just choose to remain free and wait for the time when I have ture influence and change things like I see fit. You could always develop a hardware device that superimposes something onto the front of the television/monitor and then reincodes the DVD into MPEG3 or something else and do it that way. Or you could simply do the smarter thing and get a windows box that had the ability to play the movies and stream it like a real video stream from there to the linux machine. This stuff can be done you just have to care enough and it seems like you do.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
Ok so if I decide to swallow gasoline and light a match near my mouth am I not an intelligent person?
Tell me how making risky choices makes me inherently better?
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
For most of my life Mr. Prestigeous AC I probably have had more crappy life changing events occur to me and my immediate family than you could shake a stick at but I will not favor this "wonderful" forum because I don't consider them worth it or my friends in any sence of the word.
Secondly my reply to the above poster was in his socially bigoted concept calling all people who do not directly challenge anything to be nothing but mindless automotans. That was downright rude and I seriously doubt that anyone could state in a well worded essay that would incontrovertably prove that such has occured.
Thirdly I think that anyone who runs a linux machine and who is using a alpha stage decoding device using assemply or low level buggy C code is probably more than capable of what I just described. Hell I in fact have never actually sat down in from of a true "multi-media" machine with linux on it anyway and still I managed to come up with that little idea. Think it's still impossible?
Fourthly Your analysis of what the tormented feel is hardly accurate. I would be very interested in seeing exactly where and under what circumstances that said captives expressed their joy in imprisonment. Did they "love Big Brother" to coin the popular? I can think of only one person in fictional or mythical or spiritual literature who did that kind of thing (and I have read a great deal i[Dn fact if there was more money to be made I would drop CS and go into history where I reaDlly did do much better as far as grades and enjoyed it a hell of a lot more) that was the figure of Jesus of Nazareth.
He was the true inventor of the concept of actual forgiveness and all that good stuff (I could be wrong and quite frankly I expect to loose about 15 karma points from this little debate but I yearn for the debate and feel that we as humans are better for it). Being imprisoned is so against what people who truely love freedom could tolerate that I assume that if you handed a couple of cyanide capsules to one of those people and left for maybe a week they would most certainly be dead.
Fifthly I have had to work hard and never received much in the way for it. Unless you have been a Vietnam POW or been in terrorist hands in Lebanon I doubt any claim to the contrary wise.
For better or for worse I feel as I do. Historically (you can debate this if you want as well I can personally attest to this) that in fact the people who do all the major social "crusading" to do anything are those people who are in fact the neauvo-rich (programming does pay well I am told). They have the time, the resources, their ideals. They have everything and can be responsible to no one. I am sure that you planners of the world will single me out. In fact I would fear for my life if I didn't protect my identity so well. However I have a real good question for all of you thinking people I would like this topical question to be answered to the best extent of your ability: Why is it commonly assumed that I am going to be an "artist" or as the term goes "content author". What actual percentage of you are actually consistently engaged in the task of making the kind of money that it takes to survive in doing things of your own choosing? I doubt these things because when writing programs it usually tkes time
to even write the lousy ones. How do you actually make sums of money without being attached to a job? In each and every instince I can define I have never known the group of artists and the like to have much of an impact. Show me the local amateur DVD shop and then maybe I will seem more sympathetic to your cause. Show me cases documented in writing that in fact if say Billy Codehead or Billy Rockstar is actually hurt? Another little thing that has been stated is that I have the inclination to do whatever that individuals choose to do in terms of entertainment. I would go as far as to say that at some future date (because of my superb grasp of attempts at anonyminity and tracability that I could be one of these goons in black suits, did anyone ever think of that?). Throughout time we have sought to try and change things and we have had passion about things. I think that the needs of the "artist" are not that weighty because of the almost non existence in a modern society that is fueled with money.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
To force in the computer arena is to basically give no plausible alternatives to so that the only other choice is one that is not desireable to the user.
For example if for example if I want the modem that came with my computer to work and it happens to be a winmodem then perhaps I am being "forced" (ie I have to other reasonable alternative) to run windows if I am to have the modem work at all (withotu replaceing any hardware).
If you get mugged late at night in the streets of downtown New York City and a mugger takes you at the point of a shotgun and "forces" you to give your wallet over then that is being truely "forced" in your eyes. I don't know why people never think English matters anymore I guess they are too busy learning something else really cool like why DVDs are cool and you end up getting speech that resembles tarzan:
Me want DVD work under Linux *UG* FUCK MPAA, make bastards pay rah rah rah
In each and every one of my posts to date there has been a group of people or persons who has said something similar to what you have that you are not truely being "forced". Ok so I guess the MPAA is not forcing anyone to pay them royalties, your boss is not forcing you to work for money, you are not "forced" to eat to live, you are not "forced" to read if you go to a university lie Harvard and most especially you aren't "forced" to feel bad if something bad happens to you.
It really depends on how much of that "force" you think is actual force.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
I base it upon the possibility that anyone who actually invented that phrase (and I picked a place where more sheep are than anywhere else, in otherwords a guess ok).
It is essentially bigoted and elitest to think than anyone but fanatics and groups of "caring" people in the world are just stupid pawns for Big Brother.
That is what really angers me to the depths of my core. Just because I wish to live without obresion because I taped my particular tormenter and said "please sir hit me and beat me to a bloody pulp for the hell of it ok?". I sometimes wonder if people like the sadeo masohistic way of thinking in their dayly lives.
Another supporting piece of evidence is that on slashdot (yes on that wonderful utopia of web sites) many english people (and coincidentally man people who have strong social tied to those countries) really lambast Americans for being lazy, stupid, slothful, and finally stupid, then being denegrated as sheep.
That my dear happy friend is what I do not like. If you do not like my analysis please tell me the exact name of the person or groups who advocates said statementys and I will write a little e-mail just for them. Oh I would like to know how you speak for each and every person in New Zealand I very much doubt that you have the only computer and internet connection.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
Maybe just maybe how would have society been different for example most of the people in history had simply played it cool and decided to take the artful form of the tactifal retreat? Suppose Lincoln had decided to act like a frady cat and just stay home from the theatre that night? Hmmm well I can tell you that he would almost certainally been able to shape the South to gradually transition into the Union and not fall under the "carpetbagger" regime that took over shortly after his death. Guess when and why the Klu Klux Klan formed? You got it Nathan Bedfoird Forrest an disgruntled ex-Confederate civil war general decided it would be cool for him and his "men" (and I use that term loosely about anyone who enjoys killing for fun) decided to cause a mess of trouble.
If Lincoln had been there we would have had a lienent system that would have been ther for the south when they needed us. Instead we had next Jim Crow laws and widespread ignorance and poverty because of greedy people i charge.
Fighting is nice but survival is much, much, much better in the long run. Take various political dissenters. Some fellow a while back was involved with the former East Timoreese government before Indonesia invaded. He decided to flee and not to make himself a useless matry for a (currently then) lost cause.
I have a perfectly affable solution. Let's take a crack at the next format of the future and make it an open standard that dosn't support these big bugaboo features that people don't like. Then when the technology becomes outdated in say 6 months you can have something that you helped reate and you don't have to act like (as my favorite phrase for radicals taken from a book published in the year 1919):
"Bolsheviki agents of radicalism" pretty catchy no?
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
I would maintain that in fact it was because the USSR became sloppy and the KGB grew weak that Eastern Europe was mainly allowed to leave. I will admit that in fact people getting neadlessly killed must have been quite a thril (you usually can't interview dead people because they are well dead but the dieing give us a clue and they don't usualyl like it one bit).
I am not ignorant because I dont' have millions of dollars to quit my day job and jet set around the world to interview old men and women or to learn 20+ languages to intelligently talk with said people.
I am basing my ideas on some very basic primevil emotions that people have. Simply try this experiment take you regular gass stove (or perhaps fireplace if you prefer if you have none of these get a wastepaper basket, garbage can, or dumpster and create a fire in it. Now take an exposed limb douse it in a flamable liquit (gasoline, nitroglycerin, or crude oil) and see what happens. Ok good did that feel good? Assuming you survive that and have not lost conciousness from the excrutiating pain in that area of the body take a minute and wonder what death (pain magnified 10,000x your current pain level of the limb over your whole body). That is what people try to avoid.
On a more subtle level if I decide that unstead of direct harm a thourough form of mental torture with movements into physical deprivation (hint feed you when your howling becomes bothersome or water when you have finally pased out from thirst).
Well the one constant is this. Supposing I don't irritate the power that be I can live and think (and most importantlty scheme, plan, and generally advance my evil theories that a "Bolsheviki agent of radicalism" would want to do). Meanwhile you and your fellow band of lennists die at the hands of the secret police or remain in some Goulag for the rest of your mortal existence.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
You have such nerve to call me a coward when you don't have any identifing info (not even a fake slashdot id).
I quote things liek this because I think that the biggest threat to people will not come from without (in the case of space aliens, corporations, or your local boogey man) it will come from a reverse form of utopia which will allow for a renewed caste system and the addition of a whole group of people the Proles (aka nonprogrammers) who will be completely powerless in the face of massive "Hippie Power"(tm) and wealth.
You pass enviro laws that raise the prices of basic goods and services thousands of times because we are "hurting" the environment (whateer that means), you support all sorts of miserable wretches outside fof said country and allow your own private citizens to go in want. You then allow for open methods of travel which allow for massive ammounts of competition. No my firend what will most undoubtally happen is not Big Brother because theyt are far too smart for that but they will just slowly allow you to become a hollow husk of a human which they can safely ignore. Obvious tyranny is soooo mid 20th century for my taste.
I may suspect (well because of the time zone differences and how late it is here but I think we have hit Europe or perhaps Asia (possible insiteful but I think that the most liberal literature thumping bunch are usually te ones that have the least to actually loose in the real battle the battle over power and walth of veto groups)
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
"The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic" --Joseph Stalin
The dead have very little influence on current policy in the world. Being a matry isn't going to bring you a long and happy life, nor will it allow you to achieve anything that people really value in the 21st century (namely technical ability and achiewvement). One of the best things that group can do to become oppressed is to start making a great deal of noise. The minute that happens you are done for. Wheras you had been previously ignored and left alone now you suddently have lots and lots of oppresive actions and ideas. Frankly I would think that most intelligent people would realize that it is better to fight another day.
or how about this one:
"Neither a borrower nor a lender be" --Polonius, Hamlet; William Shakespeare
I could go on in such a manner but I would be wasting my time with further references to the cencept of allowing for a life unfettered with burdens and hideous problems.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
Are you people lawyers or know a lawyer in the immediate family?
Look I am as supportive as the average nonDVD owning/playing person in this world can be but don't people ever learn to avoid trouble?
Even getting sued is a major expense eevn if you are innocent (I know), couple this with public embarassment and the problems that it can lead to and I think that it is a thourally bad thing. I actually looked at this program and he author's page on freshmeat at least an hour before it got posted to slashdot; and my opinion is pretty much unchanged.
People don't like drug laws and such and there have been many, many, many attempts to override them through similar attempts at civil disobedience; however all of these have failed and over 50 years later we still have unpopular drug laws and they are still enforced. Same with these types of things. Although the vocal minority of people (face it not everyone really ownes such equipment as a general rule and it becomes even smaller when you look at the entire population).
Also please tell me exactly how this does anything at all? So I have a program that has the name of another unpopular program. Does this really change anything? So if I decide to help out say say a fanatical regime in Iran does that mean I should rename my linux distro to Komini Linux? Face it danger is not a good thing and I would rather have my pride/honor/respect/and freedom than play DVDs on unsupported OSs.
Flame me if you like but I am interested (I mean really interested) why this kind of thing was selected by taco in the first place? Does he realize that VA and the individuals who control his job could end up being forced to possibly even realease him from employment? Yeah I guess the slashdot croud does like to live dangerously.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
It's a matter of what's important to you. If freedom is not important to you then by all means follow your own advice.
/. ers who have expressed...disagreement.. with your post. You have your own lines, whether it is the defense of your family, the right to eat yogurt, or an intolerance of rap music. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance and that freedom will (not might) occasionally require sacrifices.
Most people have certain lines that they will not let others cross without a fight. This issue appears to be one of those lines for many of the
The "superiority kick" may be because many people feel that those that value freedom so little don't deserve the freedom they have.
Unbreakable toys can be used to break other toys.
No, it wouldn't go well... for MSN. Can you imagine the outcry? And if Microsoft tried to steal some thunder away from Linux and Linus could reasonably prove that the "Linux" they're talking about is a competing operating system (what his trademark is for) and being used in that fashion, bang, Torvalds vs Microsoft. Court case of the century ;)
Esperandi
I'd sure as hell tune in, if only to see the protesters outside!
Unfortunately, It's an arms race you would be destined to lose. First of all, it's inevitable that there wouldn't be that many different versions. Second, there has to be something in the code that's identifiable, so it's not that hard to scan for it (heck, how about just the help string?).
--
It's a cute idea, but it's not that hard to defeat. If I was writing a 'bot to search for DeCSS, I would just check the file size and a hash, and keep a list of "real" DeCSS hashes.
It is kind of funny, though.
--
Ok, I've added my own software to the mix :)
:)
Please download this highly useful code.
Right from here
Great idea by the way
Cheers,
Q
--------
os.system("perl -e 'print \"My first Python Script.\"'")
[And a brief note for said Web flunkey: d00d, what are you DOING? How can you possibly be doing this job of searching around the Web and pointing fingers at people for trying to distribute free software? What is the matter with you? Have you no respect for the many hackers that have come before you, who built up this Web that is making you a living? How can you participate in this ugly, ugly action? If you feel you need to do it to keep your job, think again. Send me email, and I'll personally help you to find a better job, with better pay, and WAY better karma.
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
This sounds like a good idea, at least in theroy. However, is it really going to be effective? I don't think so. The DeCSS suit named (IIRC) 200 John Doe websites, and I don't believe they've put actual names to any but a fraction of those (Wasn't 2600 mag of the "John Does"?). It dosn't look like they are making any real effort to track down ALL the DeCSS sites on the web; they are going after high-profile people.
I think a more effective way to fight the insanity would be to use the legal system against them. If say 10,000 people were to file small-claims suits against the MPAA, that would really hurt them and divert their resources away from DeCSS.
Since IANAL, I don't know on what grounds a whole bunch of people could sue MPAA over; but I'm sure that there's a lawyer out there who does. If a lawyer would put together a nice package instructing people how to sue the MPAA in small claims court (sample documents, typical costs, what to say & not say, etc) and not have it thrown out or exposing themselves to a counter-suit, I for one would be willing to spend some money and time being a thorn in MPAA's side.
"The axiom 'An honest man has nothing to fear from the police'
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
1. It hurts legitimate searches for the code
2. Any scheme a legitimate searcher would use (e.g. knowing the file size) will be quickly mimicked. These MPAA people are not idiots, just assholes.
3. It kinda dilutes the whole 'civil disobedience' stance I think.
My favorite part of the article:
Start spreadin' the love, eh? And FUCK the MPAA
Pigdog Journal's ISP is yanking at www.pigdog.org 'cause of too many hits. Please go here instead... http://www.totse.com/DeCSS