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Mattel Dislikes Being Embarrassed (UPDATED)
Update: 03/16 6:50 PM EDT by J : The problems started with the AP story (cited above). The decryption software posted by the activists was described as "a method for kids to deduce their parents' password and access [pornographic] Web sites."
This was the spin that Mattel's PR people put on the story. They surely didn't want the news media reporting that activists had posted software that exposes their secret, hidden blacklist to the light of day. That wouldn't sound so good - it might get people to ask "why are these blacklists encrypted at all?"
Instead, Mattel's PR decided to say that the decryption software allows kids to view pornography. Predictable - this is the same smear that's always dragged out - but the media swallowed it uncritically. (The AP story was repeated on cnet, and everywhere else that uses the AP feed.)
Even the normally-critical Declan McCullagh wrote a story for Wired whose opening sentence was corporate propaganda. "Toy-maker Mattel has sued two programmers who revealed how to circumvent its CyberPatrol blocking software." Thankfully, the rest of his article gave the full story.
Mattel is not upset about CPHack's minor feature of circumventing the program when installed. Peacefire has been distributing their own instructions to disable Cyber Patrol for months now, and hasn't been sued. (They're pretty simple instructions, too.)
Mattel is upset that people can see the flaws in their software which were previously hidden by encryption. They want to continue selling bad software and will use the full force of law to prevent you from learning how bad it is. Legal papers have already been served and the proceedings will presumably begin shortly. Stay tuned - and don't trust press releases.
A couple of points that may be relevant (I'm Matthew Skala, one of the defendants, but this information should speak for itself):
1. We didn't post the Cyber Patrol block list. We posted a utility that can cryptographically attack the block list. In order to read the decrypted block list, a user would have to already have a copy of Cyber Patrol, which they can't get from us. Our posting does not contain material from Cyber Patrol, except for a few lines of hex dump and assembly code embedded in the essay we wrote explaining the break.
2. Although we sympathise with Peacefire and think they are fine people, we are not Peacefire. Peacefire deserves credit and blame for many things, but not for this particular project. We did this independently of them. It wasn't a Peacefire project.
I was cusious and downloaded a tool to decrypt blockfiles from peacefire. I was able to decrypt a 4 mb blocklist which resulted in a >10mb plaintext file full of URLS.
Just for the fun, I tried grep'ping for the most known porn site and they were all there.
Strangely enough, I looked for known URLS of the Ku Kluxx Klan, none showed up.
Yeah! Porn is bad, kids should not know about sex!
Lets inculcate them racism and hate instead.
I just read this, and am enraged at the very thought of this litigation. I am a parent, and thought for a while about using some of this software because my time to surf with my kids is limited. I never did it though because it goes against everything that I believe about parenting. Those that hide things from their kids only ensure that their kids will hear it from somebody else, and that their values are not the same. Why even go there? Any smart parent will deal with the issue and give their kids the support that they need to make smart decisions. The software is nothing more than a cop out.
Given that I would not use this sort of software, I still have to say that parents that do choose this (lazy!) path have a clear right to understand what it is they are getting for their money. How else are they going to know? Type in a bunch of URLs and see if they are blocked? Maybe if they typed in a lot of them they would understand what was being done. Heck if they thought about it for a while, they probably could just deduce the rule sets based on the content of the blocked sites! Would this then be reverse engineering? I hardly see that as being illegal. I think the DMCA only serves to empower the corporations with the ability to keep their customers stupid. The chances of any group of parents doing this is almost none. Who's interest is best represented here? Not mine!
This decryption is a service to me and reinforces my decision not to use this type of software. There are many ways around this sort of thing anyway. Some of the easier ones that I can think of are easily within the abilities of smart children that I know. Information like this flies through the kid network faster than you think. If one of them really wants to know, I don't think that this sort of software will stop them for long. Just one kid wanting to be popular or cool with a printer could print the content, and the methods of getting it and show it off at school. Give that a few weeks and pretty soon almost all of them who want to see will. Simple. The only ones that can have an effect on this are the parents.
We deserve the right of full-disclosure on any technology that can have this much impact on our lives. How will this happen if it can't be verified. Trust our goverment to handle it? Not bloody likely.
Who can we write to? I am beginning to realize that this is going to be a long battle. Fight it or become just another dumb computer USER.Blogging because I can...
If Mattel is so keen on keeping children ignorant about their sexual destiny, why does their famous doll scale up to have a Vegas showgirl's legs and doubly implanted breasts? And a wardrobe to show it.
That's the drill, Mattel! Teach little girls to want to grow up to be sex objects, but make sure they don't know what the "sex" part is about until they do grow up.
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
If your child is bright enough to find the crack to cyber patrol on the web, download/run it, and beat your pathetic attempt at stopping that child from seeing whats really out there then you have little to worry about. You kid is smart, able to think for themself, aware of political censorship (you) and somewhat rebellious. All are admirable qualities!!
Congratulate your child for seeing through your silly attempt, and having graduated to the level of being able to view the real world for themselves.
Your kid will trust you so much more when you trust them. (vice versa works too)
no sig.