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.
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
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
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.
> 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.
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
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...
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
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/
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...
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
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"?