DeCSS Source Mass-Posted to Usenet

Flitz writes "It looks like the inevitable is happening: someone is mass-posting copies of the DeCSS source code to Usenet. It showed up today in the comp.os.linux groups, with a little checking, it looks like it was posted to all of the comp* groups. Will MPAA be suing Deja now? Here is a link to the spam sighting report." I'm really amused by the various things that have been released with the DeCSS code embedded. Song lyrics in free MP3s, encoded into MIDI files, poetry, pictures of the statue of liberty. I just wish this whole lawsuit thing would get dropped so I could start playing DVDs on my laptop's DVD drive under Linux. I've bought tons of movies: its so unfair that I can't play them on the plane without rebooting. Having to keep a whole operating system around just to watch movies is pretty harsh.

Comments

Hmm...

[siokaos]

so I could start playing DVDs on my laptop's DVD drive under Linux.

I think that should get a -1 (troll)

Re:All I can say is: Bwahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!

[stevea_csl]

Lawyers aren't known for their ability to know when to stop.

We've been here before - Scientology attempted to shut down an entire newsgroup, to prevent their sooper sekrit scriptures being posted, and failed miserably. Spookily, someone close to the fight (Keith Henson) said at the time that the Usenet-Scientology battle was but a rehearsal for the Big One. I don't think that *this* is the Big One, but there is no way that they can be any more successful than Scientology in preventing the dissemination of this information. Of course, they could still always try to spend *more money* than Scientology did, but I don't see it succeeding in doing anything except making lawyers richer, and giving music publishers an excuse to jack up their prices. Not that that will stop them - can anyone say "tar baby"??

Re:Don't put words in my mouth, please.

[Apotsy]

Sorry, I wasn't trying to put words in your mouth, but I do believe that a blanket statement that "DVDs are better" is not correct. A more accurate statement would be "it depends", which is what I said.

To wit, Braveheart may not look as good on DVD (I don't know, never watched the LD version), but does the LD version have...(bunch of stuff)

The main reason for getting the discs is to watch the movie! If the picture isn't as good, how are all those extras going to make up for that? There's a reason why they're called "extras"! It really bothers me that everyone is so busy gushing over all the cool features that come with DVDs that they often overlook the fact that the movie's image has flaws. There have been many, many DVDs that are quite disappointing in terms of picture quality. As I said before, DVD has the potential to be the better in terms of image quality, but so far it has not lived up to that potential.

Re:I still think this is the best:

[NoseyNick]

How about:

dig @138.195.138.195 goret.org. axfr|perl -e 'for(sort <>){if(/^c...(.*).gr/){print pack("H32",$1)}}'|zcat

saves a few bits of external sorting/cutting/grepping. Could do the dig and the zcat in perl too, but that's actually longer.

Another alternative is:

dig @138.195.138.195 goret.org. axfr|sort|perl -ne 'if(/^c...(.*).gr/){print pack("H32",$1)}'|zcat

Ummmm... yes, I'm a sony sysadmin telling you other ways to get the decss code.

Re:Agreed

[SEE]

Well, it's absolutely impossible for the average person to make a duplicate DVD, because burnable DVDs already have the key-storage space permanently burned out. You can't do it with or without DeCSS or any other tool.

But it's fairly easy to use a legitimate decoder to give you a stream to copy onto a hard disc or VHS. The biggest problem is "Macrovision", which gives you a non-standard NTSC or PAL signal that theoretically can only be decoded successfully by TVs, not VCRs or video decoder cards.

However, numerous times DVD players with secret Macrovision disable modes have been released, and "chipping" mods for DVD players to bypass Macrovision have been successful. And a time base corrector can compensate for and even eliminate Macrovision effects. These can be bought for a few hundred (low-end) to a few thousand (high-end) dollars and are often the lower-end ones are included in higher-end VCRs. Most people who do video editing will have time base correctors, either separate ones or ones that are components of their other equipment.

So, DeCSS makes copying DVDs to hard disk or VHS somewhat easier/cheaper/better than if you don't have DeCSS or a DVD player that allows Macrovision bypass.

Steven E. Ehrbar

Re:i hope you know...

[Loundry]

Unfortunately you probably also heard some hogwash like some dude turned water into wine and brought dead people back to life.

Re:Why the heck would this be?

[haggar]

As a matter of fact you can not play CDs on a plane, either. The rules are clear: you may use your laptop, but without a CD or a DVD. And you may not liten to CDs.

OK...

[cr0sh]

Well, that clears that up, and nixes all my points - except for one:

Why isn't anybody (the manufacturers) doing anything to shield this stuff (the airplane control systems, or the CD/DVD drives), so that there won't be any problems (from interference)?

It's almost like someone saying "BRR! It's chilly in here" on a winter day, yet refusing to do anything about the window that is open, and instead putting on a jacket (of course, I have known of people who have done this - such is stupidity)...

I support the EFF - do you?

Re:Agreed

[quux26]

"A protest that does nothing but annoy people (which is really all this will do) accomplishes nothing but turning people against you."

History, time and time again, disagrees with you.

My .02
Quux26

Re:Agreed

[cyber-vandal]

Not quite true though, as Linux has a market share of about 3-4% and the Mac has a market share of about 5-6%, and yet the Mac has DVD playing software for it. Just laziness and indifference on the part of the various actors in this little tragi-comedy

So who wants to join me in a reading?

[RoadKnight]

So who wants to go down to LA with me and recite the DeCSS code at the steps/frontage of the MPAA building. I've been thinking for a while now that a bunch of us should memorize it, w/out paper and recite it in front of their building. What are they going to arrest us for? RK

Spamming DeCSS

[BobLenon]

Hell, We shouldn't stop at Usenet ... maybe someone with a lotta money otta pay off those annoying email spam companies to spam everyone via email ;) Worst thing that might hap'n then is a Spam CO might get shut down (No Complaints here!)

Re:Broadcast DeCSS via email SPAM?

[Demona]

Spamming Usenet is bad enough. Spamming individuals by email is arguably worse. But if you must, there's plenty of autospamming software available for Windows. (Why none for Linux? Probably since anyone with half a brain can cobble standard tools together. The big bottleneck, as always, is bandwidth.)

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Agreed

[arielb]

you can't get alot of things for linux or other operating systems. Does that mean it's ok to illegally open the source of say Photoshop so that it could be brought to linux or freebsd or BeOS or qnx or whatever?

Re:Great :)

[Homer Sexual]

I'd like to get the source to some 128-bit encyrption codec tattooed across the left side of my back, and the DeCSS code tattooed across the right side of my back.

I'm getting the M$ Kerberos extensions on my penis. Hey! Penis extensions! Tee hee!

Re:Hold up

[Platinum Dragon]

Once again, I underestimate the ability of the legal profession, using a rather complicated combination of Latin, Greek and English known as "legalese", to obfuscate legislation beyond all sense and comprehension by mere mortals.

Remind me to buy a 20 GB hard drive so I can violate the DMCA on Oct. 29th in order to watch "The Matrix" in Linux.

Re:dotdotdot

[treke]

Problem there is a lack of software to play DVDs with. There are a couple of apps that can play MPEG 2, but none that a) do it well on older equipment b) use any of the DVD features. And before anyone complains that people should just upgrade, my use of older refers to a P3 450.
treke

You sure are law-abiding, Rob. :)

[Booker]

I just wish this whole lawsuit thing would get dropped so I could start playing DVDs on my laptop's DVD drive under Linux.

While I don't want to diminish the effect that laws like the DMCA will eventually have on our everyday lives, I'm a bit incredulous that Rob doesn't play DVDs on his laptop just because it's "illegal." Are you incredibly law-abiding, Rob, or is LiViD just not good enough yet? :)

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Re:You sure are law-abiding, Rob. :)

[grappler]

Don't worry, I'm sure he does. But if I were Rob, I wouldn't post that fact publicly cuz he's like, rich and influential and a businessman and stuff...

"What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is"

Re:You sure are law-abiding, Rob. :)

[Aaton]

LiViD just doesn't work with everyones laptop DVD. Wish it worked on the HP 4150B laptops...

Re:OT: Quit buying DVD's already!

[nilekim]

Think about this a little more. All geeks stop buying DVDs and this has a noticeable impact on DVD sales. The MPAA will conclude that all geeks are using DeCSS to pirate their DVDs. Then they will have hard statistical evidence to back up their case that DeCSS is harmful to their business.

Nevermind that this in an absurd proposition; the media will buy it...

Re:Agreed

[jeffry_smith]

Keys don't matter. Read Bruce Schneier's work at counterpane.com, but I'll give you the short version of copying a DVD without decrypting:
1. Slurp - suck up the bits on the DVD. No interpretation, just such them up into memory, in order.
2. pffft - spit them back out in order onto the new disk.

Result - an exact, bit for bit copy of the DVD. Including all keys. Plays just fine in a standard DVD player. Oh, by the way, this is the way the DVD pirates are currently copying DVDs. In fact, if you follow the court case, MPAA admits that this is the only way that DVDs are being copied and that there are NO cases known of using deCSS to copy DVDs.

Re:Wrong

[Enoch Root]

I think the difference is that the VBS can be activated without knowing, and thus can be used to mislead a user into damaging their own computer (I know, it takes a stupid user, but still), whereas source code requires some active action (such as compiling) to work.

If, for instance, you managed to distribute the source code to a virus, along with a compiler, and could trick a user into compiling and executing the code, I think the code would be seen as malicious. The point is, what can the code do on its own that is malicious in nature?

Re:Y'know that poster on ThinkGeek...?

[dlgree1]

Probably actualy like this one.
MrP- posted it in this article earlier here

Re:Brave New World.

[SuiteSisterMary]

Get a better player, then, and make sure that you're not mistaking NTSC artifacts or anamorphic downconversion artifacts for MPEG artifacts.

Re:You just don't get it yet, do you?

[Kintanon]

Making drugs legal won't fix the problem and killing the dealers seems to be the only solution that has any hope of working.


Maybe we should look at the root cause of drug usage, namely that LIFE SUCKS. Doesn't matter who you are, how rich, how succesfuly, there are going to be times when you are so stressed you can't deal with it and our society doesn't have any mechanisms in place to deal with that. So people turn to drugs, most of the time it's Alcohol or nicotine, or caffeine, but sometimes it's heroin, crack, speed, LSD, etc.... We need to improve the overall quality of life for everyone and put mechanisms in to place for dealing with the stress of life.

Kintanon

the one line summary

[paulbd]

"Digital technology is the universal solvent of intellectual property rights."

A forgotten computer scientist, DEC PA Research, circa 1993.

opps

[umask077]

Isnt linking to the code against the law now? Slashdot criminals... All of them, Specially that CmdrTaco Fellow.

Re:Agreed

[umask077]

>>CSS does NOTHING to stop copying.

This is B.S., and very common B.S. at that. Here's how it works:

In order to play a commercial DVD, you must have a bunch of decryption keys. One of them is the "player key", which is built into the DVD player. Another key is on the disc itself. DVD hardware will not read that key from the disc for you. It will only apply it to the DVD, and return the partially decrypted data. It is impossible to get that key off of the disc without modifying the hardware. Therefore, it is not possible to make a sector-by-sector copy of a DVD on commercially available hardware. Actually there is commercial hardware to do it, its not standard hardware you would by for your pc but if have truely blank disks, not with the 0'd encryption blocks or a press you can do it. Its all about sector by sector copy. If you copy everything on the disk and its identical it will play. Thats how the chinese dvd chop shops work. The only way to stop it would to make me enter a software key and connect to a centralized database to make sure I was the authorized user. (hack divx). This instantly kills are rentals however but the MPAA has tried to kill video rental stores for years and failed. They want to sell the disks and admitedly I buy a few here and there and will probably for a long time. Not saying that I dont want to go break the legs of the MPAA lawyers which I think would be a good lesson for them as well as splendid fun but thats another discussion.

The point is there are lots of ways to make copys on commercial hardware but very little on residential hardware. As for DEcss, Yeah, it does allow you to copy, its a side effect but holding the code responsible is like holding gun manafacturers responsble for shootings.

I was curious about what it actually took to copy a dvd using decss so I tried it with my own disk with no intent to distrubuted. Other then a boatload of disk space it took a huge sequence of programs and nearly 10 hours on a Dual 733. This was not a let it run for 10 hours activity so you could start it and go to bed. It required interaction, alot of it. Now you take into account that my company charges 240/hr for my time. Take that times 10 hours and you have 2400USD. The dvd's cost me 15-20 bucks. I think ill happily buy them. While it is possible to use the DECss code to copy a disk it is terribly impracticle. That should be the point that is emphasized in court. Show that to the judge, Use it as evidence. Grab a p200 and make the judge sit there for 48 hours while you copy one. Demand a full trial and make the jury sit there. Yes it allows it but if they see that its completely impractile they'll drop the whole thing as a nusance.

you know...

[nomadic]

I guess because it was moderated down it escaped everyone's notice, but it's been stored on Slashdot as well. Though it was kind of truncated, a lot of the code is there.
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Re:Well, who do you think should go to jail?

[B'Trey]

Who should go to jail? The ones who are guilty, of course

Well, that's the whole point. Guilty of what? All too often, no one is guilty of any malicious act. It's accidental. Firestone didn't intend to sell faulty tires. There's even a legitimate question as to just how dangerous the tires actually are. By all accounts, well over %99 of them function perfectly normal throughout their lifetime. Like most situations, it just ain't that simple.

Re:This is wrong.

[CrayDrygu]

DVDs are for fags anyway. Fags who want to watch homoerotic fag porno.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

And I'm actually sticking to VHS for now, the tapes are only half as much, and I don't really need a "choose your own adventure" style porno.

--

Re:Agreed

[Goonie]

and the jury is still out on whether you can make a playable copy of a DVD, I've yet to hear any convincing evidence for either side)

I can personally verify that on a trip to HK in August last year, I saw a DVD copy of "Mercury Rising" (I think that's what it's called, it was a Bruce Willis movie about a kid who cracked the NSA's super-secret code...). As far as I could tell, it had been duplicated from the official CD.

Re:Agreed

[Jeff DeMaagd]

It is about control. CSS was one of the restrictions placed by the studios before they'd agree to use the new format.

They wanted to enforce the idea that you had to sign an agreement to be able to make a player, so that the Macrovision and region coding demands are complied with, and CSS is such a bullying method that if you break the contract, they can revoke your encryption key on future discs, making your company's players worthless.

Again, control. And that's a pretty stiff cartel.

Return DVD

[www.sorehands.com]

Do the DVD's have a similar EULA as Windows?

If that is true, buy a DVD and then try to run it on a Linux system. It fails, you return it. 1000s of people do this, they may get annoyed.

Maybe they'd get the point.

Re:Return DVD

[DavidTC]

Ah, but DVDs don't have any EULA. Which is part of what this entire fuss is about. They're just protected by standard copyright law, like a book or a song.

-David T. C.

Re:Return DVD

[SlashGeek]

Thank you all for politely correcting me on the DVD information and the DVD video differences. I still don't understand why the hell they woudn't want EVERYONE to be able to play DVD's. Mabey they want more people to buy seperate home players. Who knows, but thank you for correcting me.

Re:Return DVD

[SlashGeek]

If that is true, buy a DVD and then try to run it on a Linux system. It fails, you return it. 1000s of people do this, they may get annoyed.

Sounds good, but, although I've never purchaced a DVD, I'll betcha it says "requires win95 or higher" or something like that on the package. OTOH, it sounds like a good way to let them know that their is a market for such a software package. But let me ask this, some Linux distros are offering a DVD format (SuSe is one, I don't know if there are others). Assuming that one logicly wouldn't be installing Linux through Windowz, how does this work? Would not the DeCSS code have to be on the boot disk? I still don't understand this whole thing anyway. The way I see it, they would see a higher sales in the DVD movies, and that shouldn't be anything but good for them. I suppose somewhere in their twisted minds they think they will make more money off of licencing the code than they will selling DVD's. Unless they're more worried about people using DVD technology to store more information on a CD without paying royalties. In this case, I can understand their gripes (eh, sort of). The whole thing might make more sense if the MPAA would just say what their real intentions are. But being that it is probably greed, I'm not holding my breath.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Agreed

[titus-g]

I've always wondered about the legality of using win progs with Wine (I just can't seem to control the mouse after a couple of bottles...erm), normally if you want the same prog with a different OS you have to buy a different version.

At a guess I'd say at the moment it is probably not explicitly disallowed, but will it be soon?

More ideas

[Warpedcow]

Someone should encode DeCSS in a DVD movie ;)

Re:More ideas

[luckykaa]

It strikes me as ironic that nobody has encoded it into a movie.

Re:More ideas

[Another MacHack]

No, they didn't. The DVD-CCA added Copyleft to their trade secrets case, which is entirely separate from the MPAA's DMCA case. This is even in the article you linked to.

Re:More ideas

[LiamQ]

i wear the shirt to school and everyone looks at me funny. :)

Are you sure that's because of the shirt? I also wear the Copyleft DeCSS shirts to school, and people do look at me funny, but they seem to do that no matter what I wear.

Re:More ideas

[LiamQ]

That's very interesting, since the shirt doesn't even have the key on it.

The "Got DeCSS?" shirt contains the keys on the back.

Re:More ideas

[puppet10]

Haven't you heard that the MPAA has added Copyleft to the lawsuit for providing these t-shirts?

So order while you can.

Re:More ideas

[bigdavex]

Haven't you heard that the MPAA has added Copyleft to the lawsuit for providing these t-shirts? So order while you can.

That's very interesting, since the shirt doesn't even have the key on it. Copyleft does, however, send a hard copy of the code (with the key) along with the shirt.

Re:More ideas

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Yeah, and that story was an april fool's joke.

I'd be glad to moderate you DOWN for that annoying repetition you did there, but I already posted elsewhere.

Re:More ideas

[puppet10]

I didn't specify which lawsuit, I left that for the reader to determine. I'm guessing you mean that the MPAA and DVD-CCA are separate, but although they have different purposes in general in this case (DeCSS) they seem to be more or less interchangable. But point taken, it's not the money grubbing monopolist MPAA taking Copyleft to court, its the money grubbing monopolist DVD-CCA which was set up and designed by the MPAA taking Copyleft to court.

Re:More ideas

[fjordboy]

For all we know, they already did...remember those subliminal messages that were found in DVDs? Maybe some fun-loving moviemaker decided to add one in....of course...we would have to use the code itself to find the code so....i guess you'll just have to do what i did and order one of the DVD shirts off of copyleft and get a full printout of the code with your order...i wear the shirt to school and everyone looks at me funny. :)

Re:More ideas

[fjordboy]

There was a /. article moderators will moderate this up a while back about subliminal msges in DVD movies...here is the link subliminal stuff it is basically about how moviemakers added moderators will moderate this up some extra one picture scenes to some DVD movies...appearently moderators will moderate this up trying to manipulate people's minds by flashing words by during a movie...i dunno..sounds moderators will moderate this up a little hooky to me.

Agreed

[MolGOLD]

Have to agree that having to reboot just to watch a DVD can be a pain...so far I've had no luck getting DVDs to play under linux...
The HOWTO at http://opendvd.org is a great help, but I can't seem to overcome a few little problems...
As far as posting the code to USENET in such a manner, doing so obviously isn't going to give the right impression on major corporations that is needed.
Doing so rates supporters of DeCSS as SPAMMERS and basically is going to create more and more negative attitudes and opinions in the eyes of major businesses.
Are there constructive ways to make the point that we want DVD support under Linux?
I think i've probably filled out a million petitions requesting companies to support such a product...Hell, didn't InterVideo promise us a software player by the end of summer 2001? At this point, Ihave enough trouble finding reference to that product on their web site....

Re:Agreed

[B'Trey]

Uh, nothing personal, but perhaps you need to restudy that economics book. Supply and demand is driven by the desire to maximize profit. If supply is limited, producers can charge more because people will pay more. Why charge more? Why, to maximize profit, of course.

Exactly how much demand is their for a Linux DVD player? Probably not enough to pay the company to produce, package and support it.

Re:Agreed

[/dev/kev]

Your analogy is flawed.

Noone has illegally opened the source to closed source DVD players (well, if they have, it's not what the current trials are about). What HAS been opened is the algorithm used to scramble the content, and it was reverse-engineered, not "illegally opened" (eg. by breaking into the offices of Xing and stealing some paper/disks).

To fix your analogy, consider the Photoshop FILE FORMAT, not Photoshop itself. The Gimp can read/write Photoshop format files, and it doesn't even matter if this is because Adobe published the file format or because the Gimp coders figured it out (I don't even know which is the case).

Your question should be "is it ok to open the Photoshop file format so that OTHER programs (notably, ones running on Linux or whatever) may read/write them?" The answer is a resounding "Fuck yes!"; if the format isn't published then it can legally be reverse-engineered. Federal courts have ruled that reverse-engineering for the purposes of interoperability (ie. read/write .psd files in the Gimp) is perfectly legal. The same should be true of DVDs.

Of course, the DMCA aims to remove that right, and the MPAA is rabid about getting it enforced, so that you lose your rights and they get more money. Ain't corporate life grand?

Re:Agreed

[Nathan Russell]

CSS is such a bullying method that if you break the contract, they can revoke your encryption key on future discs, making your company's players worthless.

If they ever tried this, I wonder how long it would take before a few programmers in the company revoked, on their idle time, were told to start working on DeCSS.

Re:Agreed

[Fred Ferrigno]

I don't need to decrypt it to xerox it.

Kinda funny, but you are diluting Xerox's trademark, though it has been pretty diluted already. They're not too happy about it. I can't wait for the first non-Xerox xerox machines..

--

Re:Agreed

[dirk]

and the jury is still out on whether you can make a playable copy of a DVD, I've yet to hear any convincing evidence for either side)
I can personally verify that on a trip to HK in August last year, I saw a DVD copy of "Mercury Rising" (I think that's what it's called, it was a Bruce Willis movie about a kid who cracked the NSA's super-secret code...). As far as I could tell, it had been duplicated from the official CD.

I should have stated that a little better. I know given enough money you can make a playable DVD, but can the average person make on with a simple DVD-ROM. If you have enough money to press your own DVDs, you can make damn near anything, but could someone who isn't running a full scale pirating business duplicate it?

Re:Agreed

[Master Bait]

As far as posting the code to USENET in such a manner, doing so obviously isn't going to give the right impression on major corporations that is needed.

Haven't you had enough of being impressed by major corporations? Wouldn't you rather be free? Do you believe that major corporations will hand you your freedom just because you're nice?

blessings,

Re:Agreed

[laxrox]

"...doing so obviously isn't going to give the right impression on major corporations.."

the fact that i, the consumer, want to be able to watch a purchased dvd on hardware i purchased under the OS of my choice should be the ONLY impression a corp needs. it is this little thing called supply/demand i heard of once upon a time, not maxamize profits at all costs (and the cost probably shouldn't be the source of the revenue - me a.k.a. the consumer).

moderate as a rant - i don't care - i am too sick and tired of all this BS to be civil about this anymore

apology to MolGOLD, please don't take this personally - it's not intended to be

Re:Agreed

[Chakotay]

And if we do do this, how do keep the economy running?

Personally I don't own any movies on playable media because I don't have a VCR and because I run Linux which is notoriously bad at video and audio playback - yes, I know that's also driver related, and most of my problem is in that department since Aureal went bust. But anyway, a good friend of mine does have a very extensive collection of movies on MPEG and DivX, and an equally impressive collection of legally imported Region 1 DVDs - there are no laws against importing Region 1 DVDs to Region 2 countries. I often watch those with him.

But what I noticed was that the more movies I watched, the more of a movie freak I became. Currently I catch at least one, sometimes two and sporadicaly even more movies a week in a theatre, most of them (the at-least-one-per-week) are sneak previews, the others are movies that I want to see that I didn't catch in the sneak. Since being introduced to illegally copied and legally yet controvercially imported movies, the number of movies I watch in theatres per month on average has tenfolded. Now that I have access to an almost unlimited supply of movies playing on a TV near me, I more and more want to see those same movies in their full glory on the big white screen.

With all my power, I can't see where the movie industry has lost any money on me or my friend - quite the contrary, actually...

)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity

Re:Agreed

[micahjd]

Are there constructive ways to make the point that we want DVD support under Linux?

Post DeCSS on MSN! Microsoft usually buys stuff they perceive as a threat, so you might get some money out of it.

Re:Agreed

[roju]

The only problem is that when the only demand for a linux player consists of a small group of hardcore computer users, there is probably way less money to be made from a linux player than from a windows player.
Without a large enough profit incentive, no corporation is going to be willing to make the leap into linux.
You'd think that the DVD consortium would appreciate the favour that the open source community would be doing them by creating a dvd player; after all, the consortium would still make all it's cash from the sale of (overpriced) DVDs....

Damn the man.

Re:Agreed

[Nathan Russell]

Not to mention the license fee, that's in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Which is, I rather expect, more than it cost to produce a 40-bit code.

Re:Agreed

[quux26]

"Are there constructive ways to make the point that we want DVD support under Linux?"

I understand and appreciate your point, but this is far more than DVD support under Linux.

CSS is control access, not copy protection like the official MPAA site claims. CSS does NOTHING to stop copying. If I have an encoded message on a piece of paper, I don't need to decrypt it to xerox it.

What the DMCA provides is a method to prosecute access violations. For example, if I want to make a DVD that is only viewable by white people, I can. And viewing by a black person is illegal and prosecutable under the DMCA. Think I'm joking? An author of a protected work can set whatever limitations they want and the DMCA makes circumvention of that protection illegal.

So again, while I appreciate your point, I think mass-posting DeCSS is a great form of protest. Almost any type of protest is going to disturb bystanders - think of this week's oil blocade in France or the Seattle protests last year. The relevant question is, "does this do more good than harm, does this advance the cause?" I think it succeeds in spades.

My .02
Quux26

Re:Agreed

[g0del]

People are continually saying how now that we have entered the "information age" everything is free because it can be copied and there is no way to stop it. So, what do you propose to stop this copying? Do we let people take what they want? Since everything can be copied (and once copied and on the net it can never be contained again) do we just give up and expect everyone to give everything away? And if we do do this, how do keep the economy running? Why, you're right! All those farmers in the world will starve, since no one will buy food anymore, they'll just copy it! And the automotive industry is dead, because everyone will just copy new cars instead of buying them. And why should I pay rent for an apartment - I'll just copy it! On a serious note - dont' be an idiot. The world got along fine without intellectual property for a very long time, and could survive without it now. I'll still get paid - I don't care what you copy for free, my boss still needs people who can admin a system. I'm not calling for a complete abolition of intellectual property (though I think it would be nice), simply pointing out that whatever the corps tell you, freely copying dvds will not destroy the economy. G0del

Re:Agreed

[webrunner]

Plus, if you're protesting eating meat, you don't do it at a vegetarian cooking class. Marching through there would just annoy the people who are ALREADY ON YOUR SIDE. Mass Posting DeCSS to comp.* groups has a net effect of being seen by next to none of the people your protesting to.
----

Re:Agreed

[kaphka]

Keys don't matter. Read Bruce Schneier's work at counterpane.com

I'm reluctant to argue with Schneier, but I can't find the article you're referring to, so let me repeat what I said in my original post: No legal DVD hardware will read the disc sector that contains the keys, period. If you slurp and pffft, you'll end up with a malformed disc that's missing keys. (There's nothing wrong with a DVD that has no keys if it's not encrypted, mind you, i.e. if it has been DeCSS'ed.)

I know it's hard for hackers to grasp this, but CSS is actually a brilliant attempt to accomplish the impossible task of perfect copy protection. If only they hadn't used a broken encryption algorithm, it would have actually worked. There would have been a few player keys compromised here and there, but they could have always just revoked those keys.

Mind you, I'm not saying that that's the way I'd want it. I'm happy about the way things have turned out, if only because highlights the rapidly erosion of freedom of speech all over the world. I'm beginning to think that our descendants will look back on the DeCSS debacle in much same way that we remember, say, the rebellion at Harper's Ferry. So for god's sake, everybody, look sharp!

Re:Agreed

[jeffry_smith]

1. The article is at http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram-9911.html.

2. Actually, every legal DVD player reads the sector that's got the keys. Otherwise they couldn't decode the disk. Yes, you may need to modify the HW to write the key sector (but, since you're wanting to break the law if you're planning to distribute illegal copies, why do you care?)

3. Since at some point, the stream is decrypted (even with legal systems, otherwise they couldn't display the info), you can always tap off the decrypted stream & record. At that point, you then record to an unencrypted disk.

Bottom line - no matter what, it's ACCESS CONTROL, not COPY PROTECTION.

Read the article.

Re:Agreed

[kaphka]

Yes, you may need to modify the HW to write the key sector (but, since you're wanting to break the law if you're planning to distribute illegal copies, why do you care?)

We're not really disagreeing here... I just think you're underestimating the significance of "modifying the hardware". I'm sure the MPAA doesn't feel the need to make it physically impossible to copy DVDs; they only want to make it sufficiently difficult, to prevent a Napster-like situation from arising. (And don't give me that line about how no one will ever trade DVDs online... Bandwidth and HD capacities improve very rapidly, and the DVD format will have to last for many years. You can already find many popular DVDs re-encoded into smaller formats and posted to newsgroups, etc.)

Since at some point, the stream is decrypted (even with legal systems, otherwise they couldn't display the info), you can always tap off the decrypted stream & record. At that point, you then record to an unencrypted disk.

I must say that software decoding is certainly the weakest link in the chain. I think they've done a pretty good job of preventing it so far, though. Also remember that using a hacked software player to "rip" DVDs will inevitably be a messy process. There are a whole lot of folks who would use DeCSS for piracy (when the bandwidth becomes available,) but would draw the line at messing with something like a rigged video driver.

Re:Agreed

[Delirium Tremens]

I'm beginning to think that our descendants will look back on the DeCSS debacle in much same way that we remember, say, the rebellion at Harper's Ferry.

What's an Harper's Ferry? Can we eat it? Is it a new shot gun? A pr0n movie? A baptist church?
I am afraid most of our highly-cultured descendants will not remember it...

Re:Agreed

[rking]

Doing so rates supporters of DeCSS as SPAMMERS and basically is going to create more and more negative attitudes and opinions in the eyes of major businesses.

Unfortunately not. Major businesses won't be thinking "spammer scum", they'll be thinking "GREAT idea. You think we can use this usenet thing for our mass mailings too?", except for those that already do of course, but they're unlikely to be shocked :)

Re:Agreed

[dirk]

CSS is control access, not copy protection like the official MPAA site claims. CSS does NOTHING to stop copying. If I have an encoded message on a piece of paper, I don't need to decrypt it to xerox it.

But, as people so often point out, there is no way to make something that can't be copied (and the jury is still out on whether you can make a playable copy of a DVD, I've yet to hear any convincing evidence for either side). People are continually saying how now that we have entered the "information age" everything is free because it can be copied and there is no way to stop it. So, what do you propose to stop this copying? Do we let people take what they want? Since everything can be copied (and once copied and on the net it can never be contained again) do we just give up and expect everyone to give everything away? And if we do do this, how do keep the economy running?

So again, while I appreciate your point, I think mass-posting DeCSS is a great form of protest.

While I appreciate a protest as much as anyone, spam is spam. A protest that does nothing but annoy people (which is really all this will do) accomplishes nothing but turning people against you.

Re:Agreed

[jafuser]

And if we do do this, how do keep the economy running?

Believe it or not, we had an economy before the computer was invented.

--

Re:Agreed

[kaphka]

CSS does NOTHING to stop copying.

This is B.S., and very common B.S. at that. Here's how it works:

In order to play a commercial DVD, you must have a bunch of decryption keys. One of them is the "player key", which is built into the DVD player. Another key is on the disc itself. DVD hardware will not read that key from the disc for you. It will only apply it to the DVD, and return the partially decrypted data. It is impossible to get that key off of the disc without modifying the hardware. Therefore, it is not possible to make a sector-by-sector copy of a DVD on commercially available hardware.

Of course, DVD players decrypt the data completely before they display it. However, you may have noticed that software DVD players always seem to lack a "decode to stdout" option... in fact, they make it effectively impossible to get any access to the stream once it has been decoded.

So, given the above, it should be impossible to make a digital copy of a DVD. However, DeCSS changes that. DeCSS reads data from a DVD normally, and then makes it available to the user, to play it, or save it to disc, or reencode it and burn it onto a thousand VCDs. DeCSS can do this because its authors did not license any technology from the DVD people, so they have no contractual obligation to prevent copying.

As I've said many times here, DeCSS is legal, because the DMCA is flagrantly anti-constitutional. But it does make it possible to copy DVDs; the MPAA wouldn't be putting as much weight on it if that weren't the case.

MP3 song version too!

[antdude]

I think this is old news, but I will share. Someone made a song out of it too. 7 minutes long. I saw it on detonate.net at this
UR L

Pretty weird ;). Someone should make a game mod out of it [grin].

Re:less talk, more action...

[sdo1]

1. - Done
2. - Done
3. - Soon. I've got a DVD-ROM drive and software to disable codes and macrovision. Does that count?
4. - Done. Write real letters, not just online. They figure if you can take the time to write and send a real letter, then they can take the time to read it. You don't get that kind of response from online forms and email.
5. - Done. Same deal as reps.

Add 6. - Tell your non-techie friends and relatives. Done.

Add 7. - Write to the MPAA. Done.

i know you're the movie cowboy

[titomane]

excuse me but i want to react again :

who knows what is right or wrong ?

only you because right or wrong is subjective : you think that terrorists are the bad guy. You would have kill the christ (no i'm not catholic but agnostic that's the historic point of view that i'm discussing now).

300 millions is sufisant for you to kick someone in is face ? but if this men were told that someone is the devil and got to be killed even if it's wrong ?

did CNN told you that the somalian people hate those fuckers that came 'to save them' and jump on their rights ?

do you speak in the name of american citizen or in the name of the somalian people ?

enjoy to be at your place instead of them

terrorism against an agressor is not terrorism, it's resistance and fight for your freedom !

I can understand that a man whose all family was burned by the holy antipersonnal mine (build by our country ! ) wants to revenge and can be fooled by an other man that told him that our country is the bad guy.

i can undestand but i do not agree ! this spirit of revenge but i can't even understand that a man think about restore hope as a message for peace given by the citizen of america !

i hope you could read noam chomsky one day mister nice guy

Re:Disagreed

[richardbowers]

Actually, its a good analogy...perpetual monopolies are also unconstitutional, and tying media to a player is a violation of the Sherman Act. Judge Kaplan said that because the DMCA was more recent, it was all that mattered.

Think of the recent E-Books wars. You would think that publishing something that couldn't be read by accessibility software, and thus couldn't be read by blind people, would be against some law, somewhere. According to the publishers, though, you don't have a right to crack their codes in order to translate their books to braille.

Re:Another way to get the word out...

[umask077]

Yeah, I guess this was bound to happen sooner or later. I was also thinking it would have been funny to distribute DeCSS in an ILOVEYOU sort of virus; then MPAA would have to sue everyone.

Guess that beats my office paper clip wizard virus for vi idea.

What does Oil and Seattle have to do with DeCSS?

[Oscar26]

What does the oil blockage and Seattle Riots have to do with DeCSS? I support DeCSS 100%, but the oil blockage of France did not do the country any good and the riots of Seattle did little for the people stuck in sweatshops working 18 hour days.

Instead of the consumer paying for gas as they use it (IMO, the fair way), the government pays for it. Last time I checked, the government get's its revenue from taxes, which a citizen pays whether or not they drive a car. Add the additional burocracy to implement the program and you end up paying more per gallon in the end. Not to mention that cheaper gas promotes more pollution and does not give us an incentive to find, develop, or use alternative energy resources.

While I'm off topic I'll mention Seattle. Those rioters were not concerned about the welfare of third world countries, they were concerned about their own hourly wage. By closing America to cheaper foreign imports, they have less competition (this is labor competition, not product competition) so they can charge hire wages, ultimately making our companies less competitive.

Before you say sweatshops are evil/bad/whatever, I agree completely, but America had sweatshops and other poor working conditions from approximately 1820-1920. 100 years of exploting the poor. Yet without this period of hard work, the economy could not have developed to the next level. In the 19th century, no one knew what factories would do to society. Now we do. Now we have money to speed up the process. This is not a step that a developing nation can skip in the economic process, but the pain and suffering of 100 years that our culture experience can be drastically reduced to hopefully 30-40 years. We have money. We have experience. The fastest/best way to share that is with free trade with the 3rd world economies. Any anyone for the free distribution of information must understand that the free distribution of goods & services is equally important.

Sue ID!

[cbwsdot]

How about a quake map with DeCSS source on the walls?

Re:Moron ideas

[Jeff DeMaagd]

The line done once or twice is a joke. Five times is damn annoying and makes the REAL message much harder to read.

Besides, my comment was kind of a joke of taking it as reverse psychology!

Re:Class action lawsuit against MPAA!

[devious507]

Actually, forget the class action, thats on giant pain in the neck they can easily swat. Now if 1 million people were to file $200 small claims lawsuites (the cost of a retail version of windows required to view their DVD's) the MPAA would be stretched thin trying to swat this swarm that is suddenly coming at them. Of course, IANAL but it would be funny seeing the MPAA get a taste of their own medicine.

Re:Great, now the MPAA will come 'a knocking

[grappler]

and that's why it ISN'T GONNA HAPPEN. Chill out, nobody is going to censor your Slashdot.

"What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is"

Re:Great, now the MPAA will come 'a knocking

[h4x0r-3l337]

UNBIASED news on slashdot? You have GOT to be kidding...

Speaking of all the different places....

[jbridleman]

try this script:

dig @138.195.138.195 goret.org. axfr | grep '^c..\..*A' | sort |\cut -b5-36 | perl -e 'while(){print pack("H32",$_)}' | gzip -d

The *only* solution

[{X-Frog}]

MPAA have only one solution: just shut down the Internet!

Re:Missing Header

[jbuchana]

A google search for css-descramble.h finds it. At least for the moment... :-)

http://cubicmetercr ystal.com/decss/source/css-descramble.h.html

whiners.

[juuri]

okay first things first, decss is great. sliced bread and all that...

but who the hell is losing out buy you not buying a dvd a movie you want? some studio? some actor? face it. dvd is here. its a lot fuqin better than VHS. DVDs are cheap compared to audio cds if you buy online... so stop being so damn cheap and go buy a real damn dvd player, hook it up to your tv (you know the thing you play games on, and sometimes watch stuff with your girl) and have some entertainment.

isnt that what movies are about? or have most of us become too caught up in our ideals to get it anymore?
---
Solaris/FreeBSD/Openstep/NeXTSTEP/Linux/ultrix/OSF /...

Re:Disagreed

[sillysally]

and nowhere puts restraints on the rights of individual citizens

...and also nowhere put constraints on the power of the Supreme Court to make the by definition constitutional decisions they've made. The Supreme Court declared businesses to be places of public accomodation because of the realization that equal-protection was meaningless in the face of the atmosphere that prevailed in the Jim Crow south. None of which has anything to do with constraining the rights of individuals to discriminate.

Cool

[vandan]

You guys are funny... I've already bumped into 2 versions of DeCSS, and I've only clicked on 2 links so far...

Re:We're happy for you Rob

[Johnny Starrock]

Think CmdrTaco puts on some gold, then goes to night clubs and poses in the corner folding a wad of money?

If not, then he should. One can meet the most interesting people that way. =)

Re:We're happy for you Rob

[Zach978]

Ohh come on...IT guys should be sitting in their Porsches not their porches ;)

Re:Great :)

[titus-g]

I'd like to get the source to some 128-bit encyrption codec tattooed across the left side of my back, and the DeCSS code tattooed across the right side of my back

Adds a whole new meaning to upgrades being a pain in the ass...

Re:i hope you know...

[grappler]

Oh man, that made me laugh for a full minute! Just came right out of the blue, as the best ones tend to do. Thanks for making my day

"What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is"

So, use it anyway

[Bun]

I just wish this whole lawsuit thing would get dropped so I could start playing DVDs on my laptop's DVD drive under Linux. I've bought tons of movies: its so unfair that I can't play them on the plane without rebooting. Having to keep a whole operating system around just to watch movies is pretty harsh.

I don't get this at all. So why don't you just use DeCSS and one of the free DVD players? Are there not enough keys available? I doubt a member of the MPAA will be looking over your shoulder to see what OS you're using, and even his he was, there's no way he'd do anything.

DVDs on planes?

[EuroBryce]

The last few flights that I've been on explicitly prohibited the use of DVD drives (along with CD drives/players and MDs) at all times. CmdrTaco's blatant disregard for the safety of his fellow passengers is astonishing.

Re:DVDs on planes?

[jonfromspace]

The last few flights that I've been on explicitly prohibited the use of DVD drives (along with CD drives/players and MDs)

What????

I have traveled extensivly over the past 4 years, on both domestic and intenational flights, and I have NEVER encountered this. In fact, the last two airlines I traveled on (British Air and Air Canada) provided a power outlet for my laptop. There are no regulations regarding the use of Laptop Computers (accept durring Takoff and Landing) on ANY airline I have ever used. Do you think the average business traveler would put up with not being able to work on a long flight?

I think you are mistaken sir, or you were flying on the MPAA airline.

Re:DVDs on planes?

[barooo]

Would playing the DVD on an international flight be violating region encoding?

Re: DVDs on planes?

[jihad23]

The last few flights that I've been on explicitly prohibited the use of DVD drives (along with CD drives/players and MDs) at all times.

Really? I haven't heard an airline require that. IME, they ask that cell phones be kept off for the duration of the flight, but laptops and gadgets and such only need to be off during takeoff and landing.

--
Turn on, log in, burn out...

Re:DVDs on planes?

[EuroBryce]

My recent experience is with Lufthansa, Condor and Lauda airlines on European and international flights. None of them restrict laptop use outside of takeoff and landing, just the use of optical drives, cell phones, radios... I'll keep BA in mind for my next trip home (Florida).

a really good idea

[wdf]

we should all get our local irish pub's (or comprable establishmnet) bar tender to pour it in the head of everyone's Guiness instead of the shamrock! everyone would see it, but most people would loose it anyway. the people that don't get a free Guiness, just like when you drink the shamrock to the bottom...either way the drinker of the beverage wins!

Re:I heard you CAN...

[gavinmead]

There are laptop hardware decoders. They are PCMCIA cards with dongles for AC-3, video output, etc. I wish I could be more specific, I just know they are there because my boss owns one. He says it came with his Dell laptop. Good luck!

Re:I still think this is the best:

[Hentai]

Does this count as "linking"?

Re:OT: Quit buying DVD's already!

[Another MacHack]

Seatling DVDs wouldn't help the problem, and would be unfair to the distributers who depend on being able to sell or return their physical stock in order to recoup the cost of obtaining it from the manufacturer.

If, on the other hand, you were to illegally copy the movie for your own viewing, the impact from the standpoint of the movie industry would not be distinguishable from the case in which you simply decide not to view.

Would it have been cracked? Of course!

[Chas]

Given enough time, you can reverse engineer almost ANYTHING. And, judging from the idiotic simplicity of CSS, it would have only been a matter of a couple weeks/months max.


Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!

Re:Can they do anything about this?

[Danny Ra]

There's also at least one song (mine) where the lyrics are a link to the decss source code. Much less funny and clever, I know, and what's worse it's on mp3.com 'cos a) I thought it would be funny to put it there, and b) I had nowhere else to put it.

It's called "Dee Ee Cee Ess Ess", and it's on this page:

http://www.mp3.com/wtrem

and it's free to be copied to any other location anyone feels like, and if I ever make more than half a buck on it I promise I'll send the check to the EFF. Way things are going, I might just send them a check anyhow.

Re:Brave New World.

[juuri]

What planet do you live on?

Do you have any clue how the real world operates out there anymore?

Seriously fighting for causes and ideals is wonderful. But decss isnt the grand stage to solve all the problems between coporations, people (consumers which is what we are, and do) and intellectual property. Stop trying to turn into "a shot heard around the world" it isnt. thats not here yet... and when it is, you will really know.

... and please ets try not to play the "opium of the masses, entertainment" card here... its old and tired. do yourself a favor and try a slightly less jaded and cynical viewpoint for a bit.
---
Solaris/FreeBSD/Openstep/NeXTSTEP/Linux/ultrix/OSF /...

Re:I just don't get it

[bluephone]

You're correct. It does nothing to prevent duplication. And it's horribly easy to prove this. Take any file you have on your computer, and encrypt it somehow (even PKZIP it with a password). Now, copy that file. Bam! Notice how the encryption did nothing to prevent the copying?

The encryption of the CSS format has nothing to do with copying, and everything to do with use. And it's ALREADY done it's job. Jughead Kaplan's ruling on DeCSS, the MPAA now has a club to beat users into submission.

Under the DMCA, encryption is the equivalent of a magic spell. In PreDMCA times, we had fair use. But now, after the passage of the DMCA, Fair Use is now but a memory once some form of encryption is applied, even the pathetic CSS. Since decryption is now a crime, they can crontrol your fair use by being very conservative with decryption rights.

Flat out, CSS is a joke, and the DMCA is a crime against consumers.

Re:SLashdot, please don't encourage the criminals.

[tongue]

The concept is called Civil Disobedience, and while it has been a well-respected method of protesting laws and societal problems for centuries, a key component of it is willingness to pay for your crimes. The idea is not to say "fuck you I'll do what I want and you can't do anything to me"; its "fuck you, I'm doing what I want because it shouldn't be illegal and I want everyone to know that it is illegal and they need to help change the laws".

Re:Hold up

[troyboy]

Different parts do kick in at different times.

Right now, it is (assumed to be) a violation to distribute DeCSS. After Oct. 28 it will be a violation to use DeCSS.

The only way to change laws.

[j0hn33y]

I the words of a wise Ray. The only way to get laws to go away is to break them. y0

Re:SLashdot, please don't encourage the criminals.

[treke]

What DeCSS actually does is decrypts the data on the encrypted DVDs. That's it.
treke

Is it illegal to USE it?

[Booker]

One thing I didn't quite figure out from the NY case is whether it's actually illegal to use a tool like DeCSS... the reverse engineering seems to be (at this point, according to Da Judge), and apparently distributing it is, but has the simple use of DeCSS been formally declared to be illegal?

---

Re:Is it illegal to USE it?

[DeeKayWon]

Not yet. The part that makes using programs such as DeCSS illegal doesn't come into effect until October 28th.

Re:Disagreed

[tongue]

Are you suggesting that an amendment is a reinterpretation of the Constitution? If so, then I don't think you really understand the concept. If not, ignore me.

Re:Even More ideas

[plastik55]

Someone should engrave the contents of css_descramble.c into a brass placard in front of the Jefferson Memorial. We all know he would have supported us in this cause if he were alive.

OK, I get it so far....

Software designers are so infatuated with the fact that they can, that they don't stop to think if they should.

I don't get it. Are you trying to be ironic?

Re:I still think this is the best:

[MoOsEb0y]

Holy SH*T! Though it only seemed to work for me after removing the \ and putting both lines together as one... still, my jaw is on the floor at the moment.

less talk, more action...

[doug_anestad]

Instead of whining about the fact that we are losing our fair usage rights, here are five concrete steps that you can take:

1. Become a member of EFF at https://www.eff.org/support/joineff.html
   They are one of the few folks who are putting their time and money where their mouth is and fighting back.
2. Buy some "stop the MPAA" stuff at http://store.yahoo.com/2600hacker/a ntimpaa.html
3. Order a DVD player with country codes disabled at http://www.codefreedvd.com/dvd_dvdpla yers.htm
4. Write to your Representative in the United States House at http://www.house.gov/writerep
5. Write to your Senators at http://www.senate.gov
   

I am reminded about people who complain about politics. I always tell them "If you don't vote, shut the hell up". I guess I am saying the same thing here.

I would love it if people replied to this comment with other action items that people could do.

Re:Who'll program DVDster

[thopkins]

The name DVDster implies that it would be a program which shares DVDs over the internet. The correct name would be DeCSSster. This has been done with several open source file sharing programs which share any file. This is not interesting at all. Someone can just put the DeCSS stuff on one of those file sharing systems.

I'm sorry but DVDs are cool.

[Punto]

It's really cool that a little disk stores 17gb and I can hold it in my hand. Just to hold a DVD in my hand is cool. So I won't stop buying them.

Personally, I don't like all holywood crap, I own 2 DVDs (Aeon Flux and Amadeus). But the other day I rented Pulp Fiction on DVD, and I didn't have time to watch it, so I copied the files to my HD.. :-)

--

another mirror

[darkwhite]

just to link up, my decss mirror is at my homepage

Karma Police, arrest this man, he talks in maths

Re:Great :)

[Kwikymart]

IANAA (I am not an american), but if I remember correctly it is not illegal to take crytpo over the american border if it is in the form of a written document (ie ye ol' pen and paper). So you might as well just print the source to a book, because it would be the exact same thing. (please correct me if I am wrong)

Re:MPAA will have a field day

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoever did the mass spam, I hope you're reading this.

Take DeCSS source. Email to every addr @sony.com you can find.

Wrong

[Enoch Root]

A compiled binary becomes a program and thus can constitute 'malicious' material; distribution of the compiled (i.e. active) version of ILOVEYOU, for instance, is certainly against the law, and against many corporate policies.

Posting source code, or text, however, is the whole point of this argument. Source code is information; what's dangerous is not information per se, but what you do with it. For instance, I know how to kill a man or rob a bank, but that knowledge is not punishable by law; using that knowledge is.

By posting the source code of the DeCSS, you're arguing that information itself is not criminal. By posting the binary, you're doing some bit of old-fashioned civil disobedience. While both are noble, the later is certainly much less effective than the former.

Re:You just don't get it yet, do you?

[thopkins]

Good post but saying that DeCSS lets you photocopy your own books is wrong. DeCSS would let you read your books which are written in an encryption scheme. You could copy encrypted books with a photocopy machine.

Re:Disagreed

[sconeu]

Please specify, where exactly, the Constitution of the United States prohibits "discrimination"

How about The Fourteenth Amendment

1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.


I'd say that clause of the Fourteenth Amendment trumps the DMCA, at least for the proposed test case.

Re:Porting to Other Languages

[sowalsky]

How about if someone just hacks the RIAA public relations web page and post it on there?

i hope you know...

[Wakko Warner]

posting DeCSS makes baby Jesus cry.

-A.P.
--

"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad

Re:i hope you know...

[mincus]

orig. quote -

'Lies Make Baby Jesus Cry.' -- Todd Flanders
- The Simpsons.

in case you didnt know.

.mincus

Re:i hope you know...

[Squeeze Truck]

Well, yes, Todd Flanders did say it on TV. However, some of us who lived in more religious Christian communities heard it every day as children.

Re:i hope you know...

[spitzig]

that death guy was pretty bad, too.

Re:i hope you know...

[joepits]

I hope you don't mind I put that sig in my AIM profile. It is so great.

Re:i hope you know...

[mincus]

::some of us who lived in more religious Christian communities heard it every day as children.

oh my. I thought that it was too fake/absurd to be a real thing, please accept my condolences.

.mincus

Re:ideas for spreading decss code

[sowalsky]

Or do that thing they did in X-Files with the DOD data tapes. Have entire Navajo nations memorize it and be willing to share it with the whole world if any one of them were to be injured (by the RIAA).

!!!

Re:One way to "safely" distribute DeCSS

[cr@ckwhore]

So to safely distribute DeCSS: make up your own form of scrambling. Distribute DeCSS and your own associated copyrighted content (say an essay about how you feel about the case) scrambled with your form scrambler. Distribute the descrambling tool separately

Why make up my own scrambler... can't I just scramble it with DeCSS? Then, could I legally distribute my DeCSS code to descramble the DeCSS code? Oooh... think of the possibilities... it's like... ummm... trying to create a black hole by sucking up a vacuum cleaner with itself.

--cr@ckwhwore

Re:The internet is the next generation of cockroac

[Mija Cat]

Yep, that's pretty much the "Big Media" position. Eloquently put.

Meow.

Re:Great, now the MPAA will come 'a knocking

[cougio]

-Canadians are people too!

What the fuck is that suposed to mean?

Re:We're happy for you Rob

[quietlysubversive]

That was the funniest thing I've read in a long time!

Caused me to snort apple juice up my nose, it did.

Re:You think MPAA is bad?

[jjeff]

well how far into the site can you get?

i can browse it all fine using konqueror...
(although i cant login of course ;-P )

Re:Mmmm....

[TobyWong]

The code is *TINY* and is certainly not infringing on any USENET tabboos in spirit anyhow. It's not like they posted a 12 meg mp3 to a non-binary group.

Re:If DVD player written in Java, there'd be no is

[The_Messenger]

Obviously you've never used Java. Idiot.

- A disgruntled Java programmer

---------///----------
All generalizations are false.

Re:Awesome, especially with the holidays coming up

[Kev Vance]

Heh, why not send a nice gift to the president of the MPAA gift-wrapped in that source? :)

You never know

[Tsian]

Of course Deja won't get sued, i mean, that would be plain ludicrous...

That said, the way things are going i wouldn't be that surprised if Deja was sued... and @Home and any ISP with a news server... really quite sad... but, then again deja is breaking the law if you agree with the courts decision...

Of course i'll laugh my ass off if it turns out the MPAA and/or their ISP have a private server... that would be the ultimate irony, not to mention a gem if it were to come out in court!.
------------------------------------

Re:You never know

[kezgin]

Of course it was also ludicrous that Johansen(sp?) got sued/arrested, being that he doesn't even live in the U.S. I wouldn't put suing Deja and everyone else above the MPAA.

Re:Hold up

[ktakki]

Right now, it is (assumed to be) a violation to distribute DeCSS. After Oct. 28 it will be violation to use DeCSS.

I was going to dress up as a penguin this Halloween, but now I think I'll write the DeCSS source code all over my body in red marker and go as the prisoner from Kafka's The Penal Colony.

Be just!

k.
--
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people
are really good at heart." - Anne Frank

Re:Well, who do you think should go to jail?

[kaymen]

Someone is quite likely guilty of negligence. Even if it was an accident there should still be consequences, just to force people to try harder in the future ,to ensure that they're tires don't explode.

You can go to jail for seven years in Australia, for hitting someone who runs out in front of your car. No one ever gets sentenced to that long, but I suspect it would make someone think hard about murdering someone and claiming it was manslaughter.

Re:SLashdot, please don't encourage the criminals.

[logicnazi]

No, I wasn't clear. It is okay to break a law inconsistant with MY worldview. If you have a differnt worldview I must believe you are in fact incorrect (otherwise I wouldn't believe I was correct).

It is however required of you by consistancy to break laws that disagree with your worldview.

Now things like the french revolution are probably better examples of mistakes. For example it is okay for me to bake an apple pie for my friend, however I am unaware of his allergy to apples and cause him harm. Similar to these revolutions the people who started the revolution had no intention of the disastorous results therefore we may label them as ignorant or without foresight but we would not label them morally lacking

Re:yup

[Enoch Root]

Solitaire? We all know Rob plays Diablo on Windows. His saying he keeps Windows around to play DVD movies on his friggin' laptop is just bragging.

Great :)

[tcc]

All is missing now is someone with a tattoo of the source code on his back, heh makes you wonder... Disclaimer: I am not responsible if anyone does something that erm... weird ;)

Re:Great :)

[Hentai]

I've actually been considering it for awhile. I'd like to get the source to some 128-bit encyrption codec tattooed across the left side of my back, and the DeCSS code tattooed across the right side of my back. If I go ahead with it, I'll continue to add more tattooes as more expressions that can be transcribed onto flesh become illegal.

I'm also, incidentally, considering having a tattoo of a naked 12-year-old - since certain laws consider a drawing of someone the court decides is underage in a manner the court decides is lewd an example of "child pornogrpahy", it'd be interesting to see where this would go.

Re:Great :)

[Psibr2]

Some lunatic did that with RSA done in PERL and had it tattoed on their arm. If human life is cheap, I guess skin in a hell of a lot cheaper.

Re:Great :)

[pvanheus]

Well, in Apartheid-era South Africa, we actually had a guy who was sent to jail (I think he got 3 years) for having a tattoo reading "ANC" (the name of the then-banned African National Congress). Supposedly he was promoting subversion or something...

Peter

Re:Great :)

[Mr Z]

You are correct. For it to be munitions, it needs to be in a natively computer readable format. Therefore, you need to get a tattoo of your crypto algorithm in barcode or similar format. After all, you know that at least one Iraqi managed to snag a :Cue:Cat at Rhadio Schack. ;-)

--Joe
--

Re:If DVD player written in Java, there'd be no is

[Tom7]

My 800mhz Athlon can *compress* Mpeg-2 in real-time. I think there's probably something wrong with your machine/setup.

I don't think there's any reason why a Java-based decoder would be inherently slow, provided you could code the inner loops using "real" int and float constructs rather than classes (dynamic dispatch and heap allocation are problematic). Modern JIT compilers can probably generate machine code equivalent to C (or better because run-time information can get you better branch prediction!) for this kind of code. Bounded-time (aka "real time") garbage collection would be helpful too; I don't know what the status of this is for Java compilers.

The real issue (and reason why the post was probably a joke) is that we are not short of mpeg-2 decoders, we're short of software which talks to DVD hardware. Java is not a good language for this kind of thing.

Where is css_descramble.h?

[kevlar]

Where is css_descramble.h?

Not in the posting...

Re:Where is css_descramble.h?

[micahjd]

I have a base64-encoded-gzipped-tarball with a few of the source files in my user information page.

You keep windows just for DVD?

[Mista Brown]

Thats another thing i remember you keeping windows on your hd, Cmdr

Re: ideas for spreading decss code

[fireproof]

Changing my name to the code sounded really good to me, until I thought about trying to sign my name every time I wrote a check or signed some document. That would really suck. I haven't written that much since my last essay exam . . . and I didn't have to memorize that word for word (number for number) . . .

-------

Re:You just don't get it yet, do you?

[duffbeer703]

If you actually believe that drug abuse leaves no victims I need to question your intelligence. Look at some poor soul who is hopelessly addicted to heroin or crack and tell me there is no victim.

On the other hand, The civil rights movement is an excellent analog to the de-css issue. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to make the american public understand that organizations like the MPAA and RIAA are setting the precedents that will be used to take away our rights in the future. Most people do not view the ability to listen to music or watch movies as a fundamental right.

We are lucky to live through an age that will be studied by historians many years from today. We moving away from our current republican democracy towards rule by judicial fiat. The most interesting thing is that nobody gives a damn.

Enjoy speaking freely while you can.

Oh no....

[Tuzanor]

...Slashdot just linked to the DeCSS code.

Re:Oh no....

[sulli]

You Bastards!

Great, now the MPAA will come 'a knocking

[morpheus_]

Won't be long before Big Brother demands a slashdot account with the power to delete this post. Here's to hoping they get a clue soon...

Re:Great, now the MPAA will come 'a knocking

[DreamMaster]

Won't be long before Big Brother demands a slashdot account with the power to delete this post. Here's to hoping they get a clue soon...

It won't be that unprecedented... I heard (I think it was here, actually) that Microsoft has been given a moderation account on e-bay so they delete the listings of anybody trying to sell their Microsoft products second hand.

It wouldn't surprise me, honestly, if the powers soon want to be able to start censoring Slashdot. It is, after all, one of the premiere sources of geek news, so it's one of the first places they'd aim to censor.

Re:Great, now the MPAA will come 'a knocking

[micahjd]

Hmm... I wonder if HTML, ASCII, or Unicode are against the DMCA?

Holy !@#$, what about TCP/IP!

Re:Great, now the MPAA will come 'a knocking

[cebe]

The day slashdot is censored... the day I don't have access to all posts regardless of moderation... is the day I stop coming here. And I dont think I'm alone.
That's talking about trashing the very principles slashdot was built on. The reason we're here... to get uncensored, unbiased, undeletable news and comments.

Re:Great, now the MPAA will come 'a knocking

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not an entirely far fetched proposition. A little known and often overlooked provision of the DCMA legally requires ISPs and such to deploy "copyright protection" schemes should or when such schemes become practical to deploy. I am sure this is precisely what our mad execute at Sony was
thinking about in his recently published remarks,
and I would not dismiss it as an idle threat to
liberties as some seem to have.

With this consideration in mind, would not a
physical "censor" be considered a "technically
feasable" means of "protecting against copyright
infringement" in the case of an environment such as slashdot and hence legally required under the DCMA?

Re:Great, now the MPAA will come 'a knocking

[micahjd]

Well I know DeCSS has been posted more than a few times here on slashdot, and a few users (including me) have it in their user profiles. It's also in an everything2 node. BSI is proud to host DeCSS!

Re:Great, now the MPAA will come 'a knocking

[Jim Mitchell]

How do you know that you can see all posts regardless of moderation now?

Re:Great, now the MPAA will come 'a knocking

[eudas]

oh yeah? and how would you know it was happening? how do you miss what you didn't know was there?

eudas

Re:Great, now the MPAA will come 'a knocking

[Joe Groff]

Well, I'm afraid nobody can slurp the DeCSS code from your mime-encoded User Info page, since using mimencode probably counts as reverse-engineering and is against the DMCA.

- Joe

Re:You think MPAA is bad?

[Tom7]

But did they sue you?

translation

[MrCreosote]

Perhaps someone should convert the source code for DeCSS into barcodes that can only be read by a CueCat scanner

Re:Can they do anything about this?

[wapcaplet]

There's an mp3 in the top 40 at mp3.com by Don't Eat Pete (http://www.mp3.com/DontEatPete) called "DeCSS" - it's the source code sung in a sort of poetic-prose style to acoustic folk music.

Eric

Re:Brave New World.

[acacia]

We all make choices and these choices collectively do make a difference. I applaud the original poster because he/she/it is right. Don't support organizations you hate. You vote with every dollar you spend.

BTW, it is you whose attitude is jaded and cynical. You apparently accept without question others framing your worldview (via the media) and the national discourse. This is the most harrowing aspect of your post. Wake up and smell what you are shoveling.

Re:If DVD player written in Java, there'd be no is

[The_Messenger]

Oh, sure... I believe javax.dvd.decss is slated for 1.4. :-)

---------///----------
All generalizations are false.

Re:You just don't get it yet, do you?

[logicnazi]

I used the quotation marks around victimless to try to avoid precisely this argument.

Drug use, like anything else, is not consequentless. As drugs are very often undertaken in a poorly thought out manner (those taking the drugs are either engaging in self-destructive behavior or not properly weighing the cost and benifits) with visible consequences some people might call the drug user the victim.

However, the way I use victim, and I think is the prevalent usage is not someone who suffers due to their own poor choices (someone who drops out of college is not a victim they are meerly excersising poor judgement) but instead is someone who unfairly has negative consequences inflicted on them by another. In this sense then drug use is indeed victimless.

Of course you might still claim as victims the friends and relatives of said individual but once again I disagree with this usage. True they are victims in a pure utilitarian sense for if the drug user had not undertaken his actions they would not be in pain but a similar argument makes us all criminals with victims every poor man and women we have not contributed to or given money too.

Moreover, someone coming from an atheist family might hurt his friends and family (because of their belif he is wasting his life) by becoming a priest yet I think we would all hesitate to say his family were victims of his actions.

The differentiating point here is that a victim must have his plight inflicted unfairly. In this sense someone who is mugged is a victim because his loss of money is unfair while a family member saddened at the drug abuse of another has had none of his rights violated hence while they are in a poor position it is not unfairly poor and thus they are not a victim

Re:This is wrong.

[plastik55]

You could employ the "sophisticated-super-compooter-image-recognition-s oftware" used by the friendly censor groups!

I think the proper word is "sophistimacated" :)

Actually, one of the techniques I implemented for my vision class has something like a 97% accuracy in distingushing between images that contain faces, and images that don't. The research actually is getting somewhere.

I heard you CAN...

[PovRayMan]

I heard that with some decoder card that you can watch DVD's in linux. That's just what I heard, I could be completely wrong. If you can play DVDs in linux with a decoder card that would leave laptops out because I don't think there are laptop dvd decoder cards. Is there? Or do they run of software?

-----------------
PovRayMan
prm@[boo]3d-shooters.com
www.3d-shooters.com

Re:ideas for spreading decss code

[Kwikymart]

Hey, watermarking is the best idea I have heard yet. I am not sure if its possible to put something that size in an image but it's sure worth a try!

Correct me if I'm wrong

[Vermifax]

But the whole point was that by looking at the Xing key they generated about another 100 (non Xing keys) that would work.

Vermifax

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong

[Jeremy Erwin]

Actually, the entire keybock of 400(or so) possible keys can now be forced.

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong

[jafuser]

Woo hoo! Sounds like a new project for distributed.net! Of course they should just claim publically they are using your CPU to calculate all of the Fibonacci numbers or something... :)

--

Legal way of hiding DeCSS..!?

[Arondylos]

If it is legal in the US to put a *description* of the decoding algorithm in English on a webpage (AFAIK this is covered as "freedom of speech") one could use a version like this:

"First, calculate the sum of an array of variables"

and write an English to C translator which parses for keywords like "sum", "array" etc and transforms these to the respective C code.

Since a "generic" English to C (although it would certainly yield very bad results with other texts, even algorithms) translator is certainly not illegal, it would be legal to publish a written English description of the code together with the source/binary to this hypothetic translator. The user would use his cc to compile, there would be a script to help with the installation of "some code" (again, tailored to DeCSS code) and voila...

Now,
* is this legal? (up to the compiling stage)
* someone would have to do it! :)
* it's probably still illegal to compile it as a binary (which is IMHO ridiculous)

Disclaimer:
I do NOT endorse any copyright theft and have never played any DVD nor VOB (my computer would be too slow anyway). Copyright is the basis for Copyleft. Still, for me this is really a freedom of speech issue -> an algorithm can't possibly be banned! (the RSA patent issue was painful enough)

-Malte

Re:You think MPAA is bad?

[dmadhatr]

I have to agree with you, banks should never dictate what kind of OS it takes to operate your computer, just to check your bank account. Even though your doing the best thing by leaving that bank, have you thought about ways that you could get around that? Adios, DMad

Mmmm....

[Signal 11]

Well, I disagree with their methods - they should not be spamming usenet. Post it to the binaries groups, that's what they are there for.

But, I would very much like to see the MPAA try to stop this one...

--

Re:OT: Quit buying DVD's already!

[Peyna]

I want a VHS player for my laptop. I'm too cheap to buy dvds or dvd players.....

I didn't do it

[YellowSubRoutine]

... but I always tought it couldn't be that hard to find the full source online, or am I wrong on that?

Re:I didn't do it

[fatboy]

... but I always tought it couldn't be that hard to find the full source online, or am I wrong on that?

Naa, just look real close in my ./ user info :)

Re:I didn't do it

[drsoran]

It is easy to find it online. Just go to www.google.com and search for DeCSS. There are hundreds of sites out there with the full source code on it. The MPAA should just accept that this thing is out there and is basically public domain at this point. They don't want to admit it but they should just go back to the drawing board and redo their encryption scheme with something halfway secure. Then release it as DVD 2.0 and phase out the old players by only release new movies after some cutoff date to players that support DVD v2.0. Maybe have manufacturers offer an upgrade option on the boxes.

Re:Hold up

[richie123]

Better upgrade to 2.4 or you will run into the 2gb file limit

Re:OT: Quit buying DVD's already!

[tswinzig]

Do what I do: buy used laser discs. Very cheap, just as good as DVD

Ummm, no not just as good as DVD. But i hope we don't have to re-visit this issue as well...

-thomas


"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

Missing Header

[ejrongo]

It was looking for a file called css-descramble.h, which I can't seem to find anywhere.

Re:OT: Quit buying DVD's already!

[Mad-cat]

Why stop there? Stop buying videos, and don't go to theaters either. Boycotting DVDs won't help if you don't take it all the way.

err, where to go?

[NuclearArchaeologist]

I'd recomend sticking to the $3.00 video rental and the $40 used VCR, but that's where these fu^H^H^H^H the MPAA gets most of their money. Want their product, damnit! I'll just keep renting the junk, and seeing an occasional movie from time to time.

Just who would loose if the whole thing bellied up anyway? I'd wager it will be the equipment makers.

Oh yeah, to entertain yourself on an airplane you can:

Read a book.

Sleep.

Insult a US Army General who commands an 850 million dollar budget. Out of uniform, he and his wife wanted to keep their aisle seats, so me and my wife got to sit on either side of them. The wife decided to write letters to me, and we filled them with many cruel and unusual comments about the General and his wife, her pulp novel, his "top secret" stamped high level management language BS. She spied his name and his organization, wich will not be mentioned here except to note that you should view this face saying "We'll keep the aisle seats, thank you". My wife asked me, "If he does not want to sit by his wife, why would anyone else?" Oh well. After looking at his bio I almost felt bad about it, and we decided not to sign him up for porn mail and that kind of thing. Then again, such a petty air heaid in charge of $850 million dollars? Wheh! My wife pegged him for middle management at Applebee's.

REST OF COMMENT CENSORED BY 164.214.2.59

Re:This is wrong.

[quietlysubversive]

You could employ the "sophisticated-super-compooter-image-recognition-s oftware" used by the friendly censor groups!

Can they do anything about this?

[wParam]

Can they do anything about this one? I'll be interested to see if they try suing deja and related sites. Or perhaps they go after individual USENET servers. This person probably just created a major headache for quite a number of people. On a side note, are those mp3's songs? I'd like to hear any source code sung. Would you sing all the lexemes? "Curly brace, if, lparen foo, rparen semicolon"

Re:Can they do anything about this?

[Tom7]

Check out the MP3's on Dave Touretzky's site:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/

Re:Can they do anything about this?

[plagiarist]

We at The Original Plagiarist.org are pleased to provide The DeCSS Song for your listening pleasure. Part of the full "Naughty Bits - The DeCSS Uncensored Art Show," linkable from the plagiarist.org homepage. (It would have a direct link, but there is of course the requisite Net Art License Agreement to deal with first - can't be too careful where IP issues are concerned, you know....)

-plagiarist

Re:Can they do anything about this?

[darkshadow]

Someone needs to copyright the DeCSS song

Re:Can they do anything about this?

[Sphere1952]

deCSS was number 1 on the World/Folk chart at MP3.COM yesterday.

I bet it's number 1 on MP3's general chart today. :)

Sphere.

Re: Even More ideas

[jihad23]

> Software designers are so infatuated with the fact that they can,
> that they don't stop to think if they should.

I don't get it. Are you trying to be ironic?

Based on reading his other posts, that's his .sig, not part of the comment.

I sure wish people would learn to clearly seperate the two.

--
Turn on, log in, burn out...

What? You don't have to wait to use it!

[twivel]

CmdrTaco,

Why would you wait until the lawsuit is over to
use DeCSS under linux? I'm sure you already
have a copy anyway.

~
Twivel

Re:"just to watch movies"

[Peyna]

From a slightly different point of view... I run windows 2000 (I needed to for my previous job, and am too lazy to put linux back on.. maybe someday I will, it still doesn't quite fit all my needs.) and I have to keep windows 98 around to play all my favorite games.

Re:Well, who do you think should go to jail?

[Th3 D0t]

But after they knew about it, they covered it up, figuring $(lawsuits) $(recalls). Those people should be jailed for murder.
---

Code needs work

[Fervent]

Actually, the code looks like it could use a little work. I'm a little concerned about the use of some arrays here.

DeCSS is a lame duck anyways

[ferrocene]

I think there's a big issue that either no one is aware of, or that no one has posted.

DeCSS is based on the Xing key, we all know that. What many people don't know is that the key has been pulled from all new DVD's, therefore if you're trying to watch T2U with yer "all-knowing" DeCSS it won't work.

DeCSS no longer works with new movies! If you really want power, and avoid DeCSS completely, I suggest you use vobdec or some equivalent (CladDVD) that uses a brute-force method of cracking the CSS.

http://doom9.excelland.com/software.htm

Includes binarys and source. Yes, I do copy dvd's, but just to see if I can. It's rather fun.

DVD rippers (such as myself) haven't used decss in a long time, which leads me to believe that most of you haven't used it in awhile, if at all.

Re:SLashdot, please don't encourage the criminals.

[logicnazi]

>a key component of it is willingness to pay for your crimes.

Yes this was a key component of the civil disobediance of the 60's as protests were necesserily not hidden thereby leaving the only choices of violence or accepting arrest. Besides arrest in many instances lent weight to their cause.

This is however not always true. Consider the undergroud railway of an earlier era. This was certainly a well justified violation of the fugitive slave laws, however, those engaged in the undergroud railroad where not willing to pay for their crimes. They believed in the moral rectitude of their actions and saw no need to go to jail for these actions.

The government is no differnt than a gang, tribe or any other large organized group of people. The fact that millions of people believe you should go to jail for your actions gives them no inherent moral authority.

Re:Brave New World.

[Chas]

Gimme a break! If I buy a DVD disk, it's MINE. I want to be able to view it anytime or anywhere on any equipment running any software that I want!

PERIOD!

The MPAA should not be able to come into my home and dictate how or where I should view my own property.

With a tape, as long as I have a functional tape player, I can listen to any tape anywhere. I can also reproduce it (in another media format/for my own personal use) whenever I feel like.

With a CD, as long as I have a functional CD player, I can listen to any CD anywhere. I can also reproduce it (in another media format/for my own personal use) whenever I feel like.

With VHS tape, as long as I have a functional VCR, I can view any VHS tape anywhere. I can also reproduce it (in another media format/for my own personal use) whenever I like.

I cannot watch DVD wherever I like. I cannot utilize it "anywhere", even if I have a valid DVD drive. I need software to descramble the piddling CSS.

So even though I own the disk, and own a valid player, I cannot watch unless I:

• Buy a "licensed" piece of software to decode the CSS.
• Buy an operating system for no other reason than because it's the ONLY one with "licensed" CSS decoders.

Does a CD player make you buy software? Does a VHS player make you buy an operating system for it?

I have no problem with anyone making royalties off hardware sales, or off of actual per-disk sales. But squeezing money simply to view something you already bought? GIMME A BREAK!

What happens when something succeeds DVD as a digital audio/video medium? Do we have to re-purchase each and every movie?


Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!

Never rationalize spam.

[Nonesuch]

There are no exceptions that make spam acceptable- to think otherwise is to invite everybody to make their own exception. DeCSS may be the exception for you, spreading the word of god is the exception for your neighbor, announcing the birth of their daughter is the exception for your boss, and soon we are completely overrun by spam.

Looks like someone took a cue from Slashdot...

[Saint Aardvark]

...'Cos yesterday's discussion on how to distribute subversive software had this suggestion that the code be distributed by Usenet.

(I know, it's not the first time that's ever been thought of. But the timing's interesting, don't you think?)

Re:Looks like someone took a cue from Slashdot...

[titus-g]

Yup, which probably means I'm going to get done for inciting people to riot or something equally bizzarre.

Oh well need a holiday and I've always wanted to see what Cuba was like anyways :)

Re:Awesome, especially with the holidays coming up

[jihad23]

Holidays coming up?

/me checks calendar

Geez, it gets worse every year. Last year I thought xmas decorations at Halloween was bad...

--
Turn on, log in, burn out...

Y'know that poster on ThinkGeek...?

[TSN]

The one w/ the picture of Tux made up of Linux code? There ought to be something like that made out of the DeCSS code. Perhaps a large portrait of the president of the MPAA... :-)

Re:SLashdot, please don't encourage the criminals.

[LoneWolf176]

"dude", do you think when hitler joined his political party anyone thought he'd end up starting the holocaust? my point is, things start small. for all you know your grandchildren might be asking you what free speech is.

Toshiba laptops with embedded hardware decoders

[Nonesuch]

Toshiba makes a number of laptops with embedded hardware decoders, and S-Video output. They even have AC-3 optical digital output. Details are on their web site.

Who'll program DVDster

[jasamaman]

With DeCSS out in the open, it's only a matter of time before someone programs a DVDster.

Re:This is wrong.

[plastik55]

And I'm actually sticking to VHS for now, the tapes are only half as much, and I don't really need a "choose your own adventure" style porno.

Yeah, keeping a hand on the remote is a drag. Also, it's a drag having to hit a key to advance the picture in GQView. Someone should write a program that uses computer learning techniques to figure out what kind of pictures I like to linger on, and which ones I like to skip over...

Damn, I just got an idea for an Open Source Project!!!!

RIAA Comedy

[verbot]

Check out this cool cartoon I found about the RIAA:

http://www.laugh2day.com/mp3b.html

Enjoy,

Verbot

Re:RIAA Comedy

[Bandman]

Isn't the worst thing about this that he's using an I-Mac? Blueberry at that.

Re: Even More ideas

[plastik55]

I knew that. What makes you think I didn't know that?

no

[Captain Pillbug]

By calling it a "binary", you're playing into their hands. It may be spam, but it's still speech -- words.

Re:Hold up

[Platinum Dragon]

Already done - running 2.4.0-test8 and loving it:)

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:This is wrong.

[plastik55]

Look up Markus Weber's 2000 PhD thesis from Caltech, that should be able to get you started.

Re: DVDs on planes? [OT]

[Robert S Gormley]

Another reason (but not the primary reason) is that they also get the cellular network shitty, by being able to see, and "appear" in several cells at once...

Spamming for the good cause

[Nicolas MONNET]

I agree with you completely Mr Nonesuch. Not long ago I got spam from an animal loving freak. She said in her spam that she knew it was bad to spam, but that she had a good reason. The good reason? Well animals are suffering. No shit. So she wanted to let us know. Something has to be done about it. No mention of what.

Of course I told her to go get raped by a german shepherd. But she probably had been cut off yet.

So you see, there's good causes for spam. I mean, animals are suffering dude!

mirror

[jbridge21]

http://diddl.firehead.org/censor/decss/dvd.htm

have a nice day :-)


-----

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:You think MPAA is bad?

[warkeng]

Toronto Dominion Bank's website [snip] just introduced a bug in the javascript code which makes it not work unless you're using windows or a mac.

That's nasty.
Bank of Nova Scotia uses an add on program called Entrust. Entrust works as a proxy to encrypt everything sent/received from the bank. Of course there is no Linux, BeOS, BSD, etc version of Entrust. Windoze & Mac only.

Hey, I've got an Idea! Let's post!

[chaboud]

All right, everyone is complaining (especially around /.) about the DeCSS case, the Amazon one click, Napster and the RIAA, and now this Hasbro suit. Sorry, it's time to get out of the basement. Pry your fingers off of your wouldn't-be-touched-at-a-leper-colony keyboard and do something about this. I can't stand the frustrated posts (like this one) anymore. We're losing everything that made the geek community different from everything else, and we're losing it to media mongols (not a mistake) and lawyers. We're losing it to judges who don't own computers and laws that are always questionable, but all we do is post. Do you want to do something worthwhile? Write a letter, or throw some of your hard earned green at something other than your DVD collection. Right now is the time to get serious.

Re:This is wrong.

[groke]

thanks much

Porting to Other Languages

[Tom7]

Some people have been converting the DeCSS source to other languages. Search for "ExCSS", for instance.

This seems like a good hour-or-two project for hackers who are interested in this sort of thing; port DeCSS to your favorite language and anonymously post it to a few usenet groups. This could potentially make an even bigger nightmare for the RIAA folks.

Check out Dave Touretzky's Archive for starters.

Re:Porting to Other Languages

[Vasilis Vasaitis]

Erm, I can't see why the RIAA would care about anything having to do with DeCSS. Remember, the fights right now are:

• RIAA vs. Napster
• MPAA vs. DeCSS

Re:Porting to Other Languages

[eudas]

i think that's a good idea.
you first.

eudas

DeCSS in the DNS

[veg]

This was published in NTK a while back, but I still think its rather cool: dig @138.195.138.195 goret.org. axfr | grep '^c..\..*A' | sort | cut -b5-36 | perl -e 'while(){print pack("H32",$_)}' | gzip -d

Suck.com aside, spamming Usenet was dumb!

[gfecyk]

There are far more imaginative ways to spread DeCSS without vandalizing Usenet, many of which were described by Slashdot readers in other threads and stories.

I just pray no one decides to spam this through e-mail.

I still think this is the best:

[Duckie01]

dig @138.195.138.195 goret.org. axfr | grep '^c..\..*A' | sort |\
cut -b5-36 | perl -e 'while(){print pack("H32",$_)}' | gzip -d

Get your DeCSS from a DNS server!

Re:I still think this is the best:

[Duckie01]

Shoot, the &lt&gt thingies got messed up. Here's the right code:

dig @138.195.138.195 goret.org. axfr | grep '^c..\..*A' | sort |\
cut -b5-36 | perl -e 'while(&lt&gt){print pack("H32",$_)}' | gzip -d

Sorry about the f*ck up.

Re:I still think this is the best:

[Soruk]

How about the source IN the web page, rather than part of it... Look at my sig.

Its about freedom of software, not just linux

[pixel fairy]

there probably already is a linux binary dvd player, but that does not solve the real problem, which is the right to watch movies using software which respects our freedom of code.

this is also an issue of the freedom to code and freely distribute that code. this is a right many (mostly out of fear,ignorance,or greed) want to take from us.

Of course the practical side of free software is important too. moving from x86 to alpha is a matter of recompiling. maybe i want to get an alpha, run netbsd or plan 9 and watch DVDs on it...

It's not that simple

[Jeremy Erwin]

We're not pirating copies of Windows. We're not stealing copies of Windows DVD Players. We want to be able to develop our own DVD player, for Linux, for *BSD, for any OS we care to run.

We won't die if we're unable to play DVDs. It's just an itch. But itches are made to be scratched. The entire Free software movement is about developing software-- and about exchanging source code. If comapnies are allowed to put arbitary limits on the nature and kind of code we are able to exchange, free software will no longer be so.

There are those who believe that artistic endevours only provide "content" -- content that can be metered, censored, and restricted. There are people who would copyright "facts", believing that short term profits are more important than long term advances in knowlege. I'm not one of them.

Not an equivalent.

[Politas]

DeCSS is open source software, not proprietry. This is not a question of stealing IP. You are thinking of the Napster case.

The MPAA is trying to block DeCSS for the same reasons they tried to block the sale of home video recorders.

Re:You just don't get it yet, do you?

[throx]

The claim that this is a "victimless" crime, much akin to drug abuse is false. In the view of the entertainment distribution companies (who also control the mainstream media remember) and the judicial system there is a vast difference between drug abuse and the theft of intellectual property. Never forget that despite the "common sense" view that most of us on Slashdot have that there is no theft of IP going on here, the external view and the current legal view is that theft has occurred.

If you can somehow convince me that theft is a victimless crime then maybe I'll agree, but it is no more victimless than photocopying your university textbooks to avoid the cost of buying the books themselves. This is blatant theft and the victim is the publishing house (and occasionally the author). You are correct in saying that the theft is difficult to track down, but no more so than tracking down stolen goods through distribution channels such as pawn shops and the like.

The fact is that while it is currently difficult to enforce, in much the same way prohibition of alcohol was difficult to enforce, it doesn't mean that it is unenforceable. A law has never been repealed (to my knowledge) because of its difficulty to enforce. What usually happens is the police are given more powers to enforce the law. Because the internet is currently a rather uncontrolled (by law officials) medium and you can use anonymous remailers to send things around without them being traced does not mean it will remain this way. Tools like Carnivore and the basic ability to take a warrant out to impound the remailers on suspicion of being used in a crime will make this sort of facility much leaner on the ground. Remember that 20 years ago it would have been enough to wear a hood on your face and gloves on your hands to get away with something like a bank robbery. Today it is much more difficult because the technology of law enforcement has advanced.

If "your hacker is far more sophisticated than your average burglar" can you explain the sophistication behind the spamming of DeCSS to net groups. Sounds like about the sophistication of someone who posts bills on every open wall they can see - rather less than your average burglar.

The civil rights movement has rarely broken laws to push its point. It has protested non-violently in many cases to successfully change bad laws, but it has not distributed illegal material (like DeCSS at the moment) in an effort to push its case. Like I said before, if you really care about this issue then write to someone who will make a difference. Posting DeCSS all over the place just gets you branded as an extremist nut or criminal and you end up doing more harm than good.

Perhaps it is worthwhile pointing out the difference between Napster and DeCSS. Banning Napster is akin to banning an list of phone numbers of people who sell goods. If most of those goods happen to be stolen, does that make Napster bad? Banning DeCSS is like banning crowbars because they might be used to break into houses.

John Wiltshire

Re:Something to worry about

[rschwa]

For that matter, Why isn't the MPAA going after Xing for tacit distribution of the code (the key at least)? The actual implementation is dog simple once the key is there.

Brave New World.

[oGMo]

(This may be moderated down as a troll, or as being flamebait, or whatever, but it should be said. Does it make you uncomfortable? Does it tweak some part of you that says maybe you shouldn't be doing these things? Maybe it should.)

Who cares about ideals! Who cares about individual freedoms and rights! As long as I'm comfortable and entertained, people should just stop whining! Conform! It doesn't matter, after all; besides, relax, sit back, watch a movie, pop some soma, don't worry, and be happy!.

...right. Our rights are being whittled away here. It's not going to stop; it's not even just started: we're in the middle of it. And it's not going to end until we're all restricted by law into being nothing but mass consumers.

The hypocrisy we see here is pretty sad, too. On one hand, it's down with the MPAA, down with Microsoft, down with RIAA, and down those things that take away our freedoms. On the other hand, we see CmdrTaco and other slashdot authors buy DVD's (supporting the MPAA), buy and use Windows (supporting Microsoft), buy CD's (supporting the RIAA), and generally don't take action on their loudly-stated beliefs.

If you believe these things, if you truly support your viewpoints, give up these comforts and frivolities.

• Don't buy DVD's. But your favorite movie came out! Tough. If you believe that the MPAA is wrong, don't buy it. You'll live.
• Don't buy/use Windows. But this cool new game just came out and you have to have it! Tough. No you don't. There are plenty of other games out there. (This of course only applies if you have something against Microsoft, their business practices, whatever.)
• Don't buy CD's. But this great new album I've been waiting for just came out! Tough. You don't need it. Go buy non-RIAA labels instead (if you can find some, and there are plenty). Go make music yourself and distribute it. Whatever.

You know what? It's perfectly possible. You can find things to do with your time, entertainment or otherwise, instead of wasting it on supporting the things you say you don't support. Try it.

(By the way, DVD's really aren't that much better than VHS. Sure they're more portable, and hold some more data, and you can make exact copies, but average video quality is only slightly better. In many cases, it's even worse.)

And I want you to remember, every time you buy a DVD, you just gave money to the MPAA to support their case. You did. And you told the world that, no matter what you vocalize, you don't really care about your rights. Consider it.

Re:Brave New World.

[radish]

The "functional player" is simply a combination of hardware and software, in the same way as your CD player is a combination of hardware and soft(firm)ware. So if all you have is a DVD rom drive hooked up to your Linux pc then sorry, you DO NOT have a "functional dvd player". If you combine that hardware with the proper software, then that's fine. If you buy a standalone player which already has the software built in, that's fine.

Manufacturers of cassette equipment have to pay money to some organisation or other in lieu of copyright royalties. In a similar way, makers of CD equipment pay money to Sony (I think) for the rights to manufacture. If I marketed a CD player tomorrow which I had built myself but which I had not bought a licence for, then I'd be in trouble.

If you really want to watch DVDs on Linux then you need to persuade some software house to write a licensed player - there is NOTHING stopping them doing that.

Re:Brave New World.

[SuiteSisterMary]

(By the way, DVD's really aren't that much better than VHS. Sure they're more portable, and hold some more data, and you can make exact copies, but average video quality is only slightly better. In many cases, it's even worse.)

A VHS widescreen movie, on average, uses 180 lines of resolution. An anamorphically encoded DVD uses the full 480 lines of resolution allowed by NTSC. Yeah, that's hardly better quality right there. Let alone the 5.1 DD/dts sound, the commentaries, the extras, and all that stuff. Oh, and the fact that a DVD doesn't physically destroy itself with each viewing. Oh, and a DVD will only rarely snap and break your player.

Re:Brave New World.

[Jay Carlson]

A VHS widescreen movie, on average, uses 180 lines of resolution. An anamorphically encoded DVD uses the full 480 lines of resolution allowed by NTSC. Yeah, that's hardly better quality right there.

Yeah, but I've never seen MPEG artifacts on VHS, and hoo boy do I see 'em on DVD.

Re:Linking to illegal software?

[UnknownSoldier]

> Stealing is wrong

Linking to "illegal" software is not stealing.

Heck they are linking to source code. WHO are they stealing from?

I would have thought...

[great throwdini]

... a remark about the implicit irony of a BestBuy ad banner ("Passing on these DVDs ... would be criminal") flashing atop this article would have been made by now.

Guess everyone else is browsing with the banners blocked and/or I'm the only one to have the (mis)fortune of the banner appearing right as I open to read the comments.

Sometimes humor is simply the result of happenstance...

Re:SLashdot, please don't encourage the criminals.

[Thing 1]

Logicnazi said: In fact in reference to CNN it seems bringing the world attention to the problem often alleves it. It attracts the notice of non-partisans whose only goal is to end the violence. For instance many of the US recent overseas milatary missions have been motivated by the moral outrage of viewers at home (think somalia). The peace process in northern ireland and in isreal has also no doubt been helped by US involvement which is a direct result of US citizens caring about peace in the region which is a result of being informed via CNN.

CNN is the nerves of the world. The US is the brain. US military are white blood cells.

People talk disparagingly about "the world's policemen," but I don't see it that way. Our cells banded together billions of years ago and ultimately decided to form humans because a human can be more effective than 75 trillion single-celled organisms.

And likewise, a planet that thinks will be much more effective than 6 billion individual thinking organisms.

The Internet is both our nerve cells and blood vessels at the same time -- it provides us with information, and with nanotechnology will be able to provide goods as well!

Great time to be alive.

--

Re:If DVD player written in Java, there'd be no is

[WasterDave]

Really? Are we sure? Does the Java(tm) API have some way of getting low down and grunty enough to be able to lift numbers straight off the DVD?

Dave :)

One way to "safely" distribute DeCSS

[ravi_n]

After October 28, 2000 it will be illegal to circumvent an access control according to the DMCA. According to the MPAA's legal theory, this means descrambling any scrambled copyrighted work if you don't have the consent of the copyright holder of that work. So to safely distribute DeCSS: make up your own form of scrambling. Distribute DeCSS and your own associated copyrighted content (say an essay about how you feel about the case) scrambled with your form scrambler. Distribute the descrambling tool separately and explicitly inform anyone who downloads the tool that they are permitted to use the tool to descramble your work for their personal use unless they are an employee, lawyer, consultant, etc. of the MPAA or one of its member companies or they communicate the results of the descrambling to any of those people. When the MPAA sues you distributing DeCSS either:

1) The only evidence they have is your claim to be distributing DeCSS (because they didn't descramble your scrambling) or

2) You can countersue them for circumventing your "access control". Quote extensively from the MPAA briefs and Judge Kaplan's opinion to establish your access control rights.

DISCLAIMER: IANAL so this is probably not airtight, and I wouldn't even dream of doing this unless you have plenty of money to cover your legal bills.

Re:One way to "safely" distribute DeCSS

[jareds]

The problem is that only the copyright holder of the encrypted work could sue for a DMCA violation. You'd have to write your own version of DeCSS to be the copyright holder (not that that's impossible, you could probably do it based on Frank Stephenson's paper, for example).

Re:One way to "safely" distribute DeCSS

[jareds]

Surely all you'd have to do is include something that is your copyright in the same encrypted archive. A text file containing a few sentences written by you about the DMCA, DeCSS etc. should do.

I guess you're right. The main problem is that I don't see what damages you'd claim in your countersuit.

Re:One way to "safely" distribute DeCSS

[rking]

Surely all you'd have to do is include something that is your copyright in the same encrypted archive. A text file containing a few sentences written by you about the DMCA, DeCSS etc. should do.

Re:Well, who do you think should go to jail?

[hidden]

yes, but when you sell as many tires as firestone does, even a fraction of 1% is a whole shitload of tires...

Re:Disagreed

[Chakotay]

Limiting the viewer of a DVD to white people is simply discrimination and thus a violation of Constitutional rights.

Ah, but limiting the viewing of a DVD to people who run a monopoly OS is okay? Limiting the viewing of a DVD to people in one particular country is okay aswell?

Yes, these things are not entirely comparable, but I smell something of a contradiction anyway...

)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity

Re:SLashdot, please don't encourage the criminals.

[nicky_d]

>No one can be truly compelled to do anything. >They decision is ultimately theirs to make.

I believe this statement to be demonstrably false. The simplest argument against it is hypnosis. People can be compelled to do a number of things udner hypnosis. Working from this tenet, the question is how far does your definition of hypnosis extend? It may extend further if you relabel is 'suggestion'. Every day, the vast majority of people are doing things they don't really want to do, buying things they don't really want to buy, reading posts they don't really want to read, and obeying blatantly unjust laws they don't really want to obey, largely on the strength of suggestion (often reinforced by the threat of some kind of punishment). People may have their own 'will' (though it's impossible to prove it), but more often than not it's been assembled for them by a variety of agencies. This is undeniably convenient, but not necessarily desirable.

>By the way, I've never even heard
>of "apoxiutial," and apparently, neither has the
>American Heritage Dictionary, Webster's, or
>Princeton Wordnet.

See how that works? Because these 'authorities' tell you it's OK to do so, you launch an attack on someone. You are punishing them for not obeying a law. Suggestion, negative reinforcement. Was it genuinely your decision to be snotty, or was there some influence from your teachers somewhere along the line? Of course, I'm just being deliberately apoxiutial now. Sorry.

This Is Civil Disobediance, NOT Crime!

[NeuroManson]

I suppose that all those black people who wanted to be able to ride the bus in the front, or those who wanted to drink from a water fountain other than the "Coloreds Only" ones would qualify as criminals? How about the concientious objectors to the Vietnam war? Or the folks on the resistance within Nazi Germany? All of those people qualified as criminals too...

What's the difference? Not bloody much... The geeks/nerds in general are a cultural subset, just as much as gays, goths, wiccans, scientologists, etc...

We think differently (Um, thinking is bad, m'kay? Let us do it for you)...

We act differently (Gee, I'd LOVE to go watch monster truck rallies, but I have a D&D game in 3 hours, and a Q3 deathmatch going right now)...

We speak differently (Yer using big words, are you trying to make us look dumb?)...

We listen to different music (Turn that crap off! It's interfering with my Britany Spears album!)...

We look different (Hey NERD!!! You faggot, you aren't trendy enough to hang with us! Lets pound the crap outta him for 5 hours straight!)...

We've been profiled, defamed, stereotyped and belittled for decades... For what? For being different, for not thinking or acting in a nice sane spoonfed media glorp manner... For looking, thinking, talking, or doing anything else differently... Not in a criminal way, at least I like to imagine most of us do, just a different way that honestly causes no harm...

And YET despite this, we ARE criminals, we ARE constantly discriminated against (unless anyone sees a quick opportunity to profit from us)... And yet, just as intelligence is predetermined by genetics as race or sexual orientation, WE are the ones who're criminalized...

If Jack Valenti was saying "Those niggers (pardon my french) are using DeCSS to steal our precious movies!" instead of "hackers", how quickly would everyone be up in arms? I guarantee you if he did, the MPAA building would have been ashes within 10 minutes...

Lets face it folks, the DMCA qualifies as the open door for technological and cultural discrimination on a par with the old Jim Crow laws... Only instead of attacking one specific racial or cultural group, they're attacking people based on their intelligence instead...

How long til we see "Coders Need Not Apply" signs hanging in windows? Or would a concentration camp be needed til anyone notices the parallels?

Ahwell, rant mode off...

Re: DVD linux distros

[Omar Djabji]

There is an important distinction that you seem unaware of. DeCSS allows the decryption of encrypted video data from dvds. Without DeCSS you can easily read data from dvds (I have a dvd with a large database on it that is not encrypted) and you can easily read non-encrypted video dvds.

Another thing to note is that the ability to physically read the dvds is a prerequisite to the ability to use DeCSS on said dvd. This is why DeCSS was first released for windows. DVD access was not quite working under linux at the time.

hopefully this gives you a little better of an understanding as to what DeCSS does. (even if noone reads my post because i am posting it a whole day after the article was posted)

--brent nelson

Re:SLashdot, please don't encourage the criminals.

[Chakotay]

Lawmakers make laws FOR US, and if we don't stand up, then we won't get the laws we want.

Ummm, are they? Lately they more and more seem to be making laws only for corporations and not for the people. Last time I checked, corporations didn't vote. So why don't the people vote for people who care for the people instead of for over-sponsored concubines of the Big Money like Gore and Bush Jr.? And "concubine" is the most lenient word I could find for the intended meaning I wish to convey...

)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity

Re:OT: Quit buying DVD's already!

[Apotsy]

Ummm, no not just as good as DVD. But i hope we don't have to re-visit this issue as well...

Actually it depends on the DVD. If you think it's impossible to make a bad-looking DVD you're nuts. Yes, DVDs have the potential to always be better than LDs, but the reality depends heavily on how well they are mastered.

In some cases, even the DVD fanboy websites will grudgingly admit that some discs just don't look as good as the laserdiscs. Braveheart is one recent example. The Sound of Music is another (sorry, no link, just check rec.arts.movies.tech for discussion on it).

In terms of picture quality, DVDs can be better than laserdiscs, but aren't necessarily.

knock knock.

[SomePoorSchmuck]

Who's there?
Asshole.
Asshole Who?
Asshole my soul to the MPAA.

Are they going to check my systems to make sure that I am running Windows[TM] in order to watch the movie that I bought?

um, they don't have to. that's the whole point of the case -- now the very existence of DeCSS is illegal, regardless of whether you use it or it just sits on your hard drive.
As far as them checking your system, I hope you're not using a school, work, or broadband connection, since all of these make your system contents relatively transparent to the folks running the network.
Even if you're not, when you are identified through your activities/associations as a probable criminal, the po-lease will batter-ram your door down and confiscate your computer.

_/\!/\_
you can have my DeCSS when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

---
the problem with teens is they're looking for certainties.

Re:Irony

[BluSkreen]

I just sent Timmy this.....

***start email***

There is a factual error in your post to Usenet, regarding DeCSS. You state "Spammer is knowinkgly and willfully disseminating the source code of illegal software", when in reality, only a single US district court has ruled that providing the source is not legal, and only under a few specific conditions.

No doubt it is spam, but excessive crossposting should be the reason for the message cancel, not the legality of only a single court, in the US. Outside of that, it's perfectly legal. Singley posted to the appropriate group, this is perfectly legal in most parts of the world. For example, a single post to comp.os.linux, would be appropriate. According to recent numbers from Media Metrix, the US only accounts for 40% of Internet traffic these days.

Last I looked, Usenet was still a worldwide network. ;-)

Fighting the spam is good, but do it for the right reasons. This is a crossposting issue, not a legality of source issue.

*** end ***

Dave

Re:MPAA will have a field day

[krogoth]

I can see the next move: "DNS servers cracked; all domain names redirect to a random copy of the DeCSS source code". Even mpaa.org would show the source! The governement would show the source! Imagine the lawsuits the MPAA idiots would make with that!

Re:Broadcast DeCSS via email SPAM?

[radja]

my auto-reply on above email is cssdescramble.c, and that's the account I receive all spam on...

//rdj

Re:OT: Quit buying DVD's already!

[pdp8]

> Excellent point. You need to add one more
> factor, though. A protest will only work if you
> stop buying them and DON'T steal them.

And one more thing after that, tell the movie
studios that you are't buying their stuff any
more.

[of course I fell of the wagon last month,
so maybe I should not talk...]

Re:SLashdot, please don't encourage the criminals.

[Chakotay]

For instance many of the US recent overseas milatary missions have been motivated by the moral outrage of viewers at home (think somalia).

Ask the average American what Somalia is and they'll think it's some sort of contageous disease. Ask the average American what Yugoslavia is, and they think it has something to do with bad cars. Ask them what Kosovo is and they may know that there was a war going on there, but they'll not know where the hell it is if you give them a map of the world. Heck, they probably can't even name 10 states if you gave them a map of the US.

I'm not saying it's better here in the Netherlands though. I'm constantly appalled about the Dutch people's ignorance about current events, politics and geography aswell. The point I'm trying to make is that the general public doesn't really care at all.

They're killing Muslems in Srebrenica, Christians on Ambon, Buddhists in Tibet, Witches in Africa... They're killing Hungarians in Romania, Kurds and Assyrians in Turkey and Iraq, Moluku in Indonesia, Tutsies in Ruanda, Albanians in Serbia, Serbs in Bosnia, Bosnians in Croatia, native Americans in Columbia, Chechens in Russia. Israel is occupying parts of its neighbours, China is occupying Tibet, Indonesia is occupying the RMS, in Yugoslavia everybody is occupying anything they can get their hands on, the United Kingdom is occupying Northern Ireland, England is occupying Gibraltar, Greece is occupying the islands off the coast of Turkey, the French are occupying Corsica, the Italians are occupying Sardegna...

But the US doesn't seem to care unless the American people care - or ofcourse unless American corporations care, which was the obvious case in the invasion the whole Desert Storm thingy - and the American people don't care if CNN doesn't care. So, in short, the US doesn't care if the CNN doesn't, and thus getting CNN's attention is a surefire way of getting American forces to support you.

Why did the Americans act in the Kosovo conflict? It was by all international standards an internal conflict, because Kosovo is a province of Serbia. And why, if they went into Kosovo, why didn't they go into Bosnia and Croatia, why don't they go into Chechenya or Tibet?

)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity

Re:Playing DVD's

[TSN]

That's exactly the point. People want things like DeCSS so that Linux can run as many apps as Windows. If you want to someday dedicate your machine to Linux, people will need to use Linux rather than Windows, so that more apps will be made to run in Linux. What you're suggesting is that, because Linux can't do all these things right now, everyone may as well give up on it. It never will do much unless people keep complaining.

Re:SLashdot, please don't encourage the criminals.

[DavidTC]

It was a metaphor, we all know that actually is the law.

-David T. C.

Who REALLY reads all that hex?

[laborit]

You know, it would be easy to post something that looked a whole lot like DeCSS... someday it might be interesting to see how many of those copies of the code descramble every DVD into a banner ad for pr0n...

- Michael Cohn

Re:Even More ideas

[AFCArchvile]

Someone should engrave the contents of css_descramble.c into a brass placard in front of the Jefferson Memorial. We all know he would have supported us in this cause if he were alive.

Re:MPAA will have a field day

[Number14]

I'm just thoroughly amused that Spam Buster quoted the entire source code in the reply.

We're happy for you Rob

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure is nice that you have a dvd laptop that you can use on the plane while us common-folk sit on our porches pickin' shots at the possums for dinner.

Do you got anymore gadgets you wanna enter in the /. pissing contest?

Re:We're happy for you Rob

[Lord Ender]

Whoever modetated that as 'flamebait' really must have some serious problems. That was so obviously a joke, the moderator must have absolutely no sense of humor at all. Moderators, if you can't take a joke, stay off the net.

Re:SLashdot, please don't encourage the criminals.

[Beatles]

It is okay to break a law if you don't agree with it. It's called civil-disobedience. Without it, we'd still have laws segregating whites and blacks in the United States. I'm not advocating commiting murder because you disagree that it's immoral to lock up murders, and I don't think anyone is.

I do, however, think it is stupid just to follow whatever laws are made for us. Lawmakers make laws FOR US, and if we don't stand up, then we won't get the laws we want.

Re:You just don't get it yet, do you?

[logicnazi]

Ok lets go through this slowly one more time.

First of all ingesting substances while pregnant is certainly not equivalent to doing drugs while not being pregnant. In essence what you are doing while pregnant is using drugs and forcing another to imbibe the drugs as well.

Yes you have established it is possible to harm another being with drugs...WOW just like all other pieces of matter in the universe it is possible to commit a crime with an actual victim.

Yes indeed street gangs to fight over drugs but this is not a direct result of someone imbibing/possesing the drug (in fact there are good arguments that it is the result of the prohibition). You might argue that by using drugs you contribute to the demand and are hence responsible for the harm caused. However this argument is just as applicable to petroleum or whatever other scare resource in the world which people fight over (if no one wanted gasoline, gold or anything at all there would be nothing to fight over).

Do drugs contribute to crime? Of course (which does not imply that prohibition necesserily is a good idea) but this does not mean that the consumption of drugs is actually victimizing someone.

Re:SLashdot, please don't encourage the criminals.

[JamesGreenhalgh]

Stupid Stupid Stupid.

DeCSS decrypts the DVD movie for playing on things other than "approved" players/operating systems.

It doesn't make it any easier or any harder to pirate DVDs. If someone copies a CSS'd movie, they have a CSS'd pirate copy. If they copy a non-CSS'd movie, they get a non-CSS'd pirate copy.

DVDs aren't even software either, get a bloody clue. IMHO people should pay for their films/DVDs (I personally don't have a DVD player at all, just a nice VCR), but they should also be able to watch it using whatever equipment is capable, not just a specific operating system they might not even own.

james

Re:You just don't get it yet, do you?

[logicnazi]

Ok first of all I never made the claim that this was a victimless crime. I analagized it to "victimless" crimes in the real world to point out the difficulty of enforcing the law when the offended party (the copyright holder) is not a party to the illegal act (copying the program or whatever). The argument was that because everone who might have firsthand knowledge of the actual crime has a motivation to remain quite (unlike a burglary where the man who was burgled is a party to the crime and has interest in seeing hte burglar arrested) it it much more difficult of a law to enforce.

Now I am not an expert (and would appreciate someone to back me up on this one) but wasn't prohibition repealed to a great extent not because a great majority wanted alchool but because enforcement was failing so people got alchool and more violence occured. I imagine a great many laws are probably repealed to some degree or another b/c of enforcement problems but what agency is going to broadcast this fact.

Now unless there is a major upset in the world of mathematics or a worldwide tyrannical police state it appears that it indeed will be possible to retain anaonymous communication on the internet. With the current state of encryption as the power of computers grow the balance shifts more and more to the encryptor and further away from those who would attempt to break my encryption. Already I can create in seconds and decrypt in seconds a message which might take thousands of years to decrypt on the same hardware (maybe in the tens or even several years) for specialized hardware but still certainly to expensive to waste on all but the most wanted criminals. It is very possible, probable even, that this fundamental advantage to the encryptor will be proven correct.

Now given the great difficulty in breaking said encryption a series of remailers like the cypherpunk remailers set up in countries all around the world can be used with the same message differntly encrypted (with random time delays) between each of these machines. Even if several, perhaps most, of the machines were comprimised (meaning actually under the control of a government agency which wanted your information) they would still not be able to decipher what your message was or connect you and the reipiant except under exceptional circumstances. This is not like normal crimes where technology inherintly favors the investigating party but instead appears to be just hte opposite where technology favors the party trying to remain anonymous.

The header is somehat ironic

[Jeremy Erwin]

The original message was posted from
"From: wdfvze@kaplan.com"

nice touch!

Re:Something to worry about

[griffjon]

If you remember, the general attidute of Johansen and the team that cracked CSS was a huge slap to the forehead of "if we'd known they were using such a weak keylength, we would've just brute forced it" or words to that effect. The actual CSS key is very teensy, and the time they put into reverse-engineering at it would've cracked it.

As to the second point, there's a fundamental problem with copy protection--if someone can see something, it can be recorded--probably losslessly. It might be hard, rquire hardware or special video drivers hand-coded, but it will be fully possible. If you make it truly unrecordable, you've made it unviewable.

It is illegal to drive above 75mph--but my can can go faster. Think about it.

Re:Disagreed

[ghoti]

Ah, but limiting the viewing of a DVD to people who run a monopoly OS is okay?

This is BS. You know, there are players for DVD where you just put the DVD in and you can watch the movie. Using your argument, it would also be discrimination to force people who want to watch movies on VHS cassettes to buy a VCR. That doesn't make sense.

Limiting the viewing of a DVD to people in one particular country is okay aswell?

*That* is a far better argument, and one I believe would be interesting to try out in an international court (like that property organization of the UNO) once.

Re:Something to worry about

[I R A Aggie]

If you remember, the general attidute of Johansen and the team that cracked CSS was a huge slap to the forehead of "if we'd known they were using such a weak keylength, we would've just brute forced it"

Not to put too fine a point on it, but "duh". USA product. Strong encryption export restrictions.

:) -- for once...

James - and yes, only 40bit at that...

Re:Slashdot, please don't encourage the criminals.

[BasharTeg]

Yeah, ignorance is the key to stopping injustice. If we didn't talk about the bad things people do, people wouldn't do them because they wouldn't get any attention right ? Sure. Dream on. Or better yet, WAKE UP.

Attitudes such as yours sicken me.

"Ignorance is bliss" "Good, look the other way, you'll never know what hit you."

another mirror

[Chakotay]

http://home.student.utwente.nl/a.a.arendsen/zut/dv d.htm

Voilà :-)

)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity

Re:Well, who do you think should go to jail?

[nysus]

Exactly. I've driven drunk 1,000 times and only hit one kid. Why the fuck did I go to jail? That's statistically insignificant. It's not like I knew something bad was going to happen.

You think MPAA is bad?

[Geek Boy]

My bank, Toronto Dominion Bank's website A HREF="http://www.tdaccess.com">http://www.tdaccess .com just introduced a bug in the javascript code which makes it not work unless you're using windows or a mac. This is after 2 years of working fine. I called support and they wouldn't let me speak to the IT department and told me the bug was that I wasn't using windows and that I should go buy it and use it instead. They sounded like complete fools. Let's just say they're not going to keep my account for much longer.

Re:You think MPAA is bad?

[alecto]

Have you considered using a proxy to change your user agent string so that you look to their server as if you're running Windows or MacOS?

And how does this relate to DeCSS? Ah! The proxy's just a means for bypassing a device (their JavaScript) that effectively controls access to a copyrighted work (Toronto Dominion's web page).

Re:interesting...

[micahjd]

Well, now we know that the whole subliminal message and reverse psychology scene is doomed. The new craze for fooling moderators is posting DeCSS! Soon one will merely need to put a DeCSS link in their .sig to achieve instant +5, Redundant status!

Broadcast DeCSS via email SPAM?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone have an email SPAM machine to complete the broadcast of DeCSS to the net? I hate SPAM with a passion, but I can rationalize an exception. Maybe include a nice cover message explaining how Hollywood lobbyists and lawyers are working to repeal our rights to lawfully use movies we buy.

Who knows? Maybe the MPAA would put its lobbyists to work to pass effective anti-UCE legislation.

It could happen.

I wonder....

[ldspartan]

... if someone were to release an official, commercial, closed-source DVD player for Linux, if there would be such an uproar. It seems that one of our primary arguments is "We just wanted to watch movies" in this case. If we had that ability, I wonder if the complaints would be any less vocal. -- Phil

Re:DVD Image Encoded With DeCSS

[mrmag00]

Neato is all I have to say. I didnt even notice the source code was there at first. You can claim it was an accident the letters used just 'happened' to decrypt DVDs too...

CmdrTaco on the floor

[Eil]

Dunno if anyone's mentioned it yet, but I do believe CmdrTaco is off his rocker with his comment to this story:

its so unfair that I can't play them on the plane without rebooting.

STOP the presses, THIS is important! The collapse of western civilization is now imminent! Oh, and while you're at it, drag the Blizzard development team out into the streets to be drawn and quartered, for not having a bestselling title *NIX compatible is obviously a gross violation of the Unspoken Cardinal Rules of the Universe!

(disclaimer: I do not own any DVDs. My VCR is working fine.)

Too the moderators the main post is Flaimbait..

[paulydavis]

Big time!

Re:You just don't get it yet, do you?

[Ace_]

There was a mass genocide (anyone remember the holocost?). And it was accepted by those who participated in it (entire countries). However, (thankfully), the rest of the world didn't accept it.
Oh yeah, not too long ago (less than 100 years), it was acceptable to kill a black man in the southern US. Legal? No. But acceptable. It happened with no punishment more than in just a few isolated cases.

Re:SLashdot, please don't encourage the criminals.

[OrangeTide]

Why would anyone have respect for ./ ?

And the biggest problem is you're not an extremist, you're fairly normal. And that scares me shitless.

Man arrested in NY for learning the DeCSS by heart

[RedLaggedTeut]

Yesterday, Leon B. was arrested in N.Y. for learning the DeCSS by heart.

It seems that he is viewed as a threat, since he has been known to enjoy reciting the source code in public, and hearsay has it he is even muttering it in his sleep.

Maybe it is ok to lock him up. I mean, you lock up dangerous lunatics too.

If anyone has more news about Leon, I'd liek to hear from him.

Re:Another important point:

[kongo09]

you're missing the point: using encryption for private purposes will simply become illegal. France has seen this development already.

Re:OT: Quit buying DVD's already!

[kongo09]

As far as I know it is illegal in Germany to sell someone software but forbidding that someone to resell it. Once I've bought the software I can go and sell it second-hand. Didn't Microsoft just loose a big case concerning their OEM licenses that were resold?

Re:You just don't get it yet, do you?

[duffbeer703]

That is very well said, and I see where you are coming from.

Keep in mind though that drug users and their adult family are not the only players in the drug 'game'. Completely innocent people are terrorized by drug-funded gangs, just because they live in the wrong neighborhood. Children are born to and raised by addicts; whether they be alcoholics or on narcotics or even perscription drugs.

I agree with you that drug users are not 'victims' by default, but the people in the periphery who suffer from users and traffickers are certainly 'victims' by your definition.

Re:Disagreed

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

I agree with you that CSS is about controlling access, but your anology is flawed. Limiting the viewer of a DVD to white people is simply discrimination and thus a violation of Constitutional rights. The DMCA would be useless in the defense, because it is superceded (sp?) by the Constitution.

Yes, just like the DMCA is superceded by the First Amendment.

Oh wait, we lost the DeCSS case. The DMCA won over the First Amendment.

Judge Kaplan believes the DMCA takes precedence over the Constitution.

BTW, talking about bigotry, I hope you all read the judge's obviously biased statement about 2600, implying they are pro-theft and other such nonsense. And the MPAA calling all open-source programmers "pirates".

Re:You just don't get it yet, do you?

[Walles]

photocopying your own books for the hell of it (what DeCSS does)

I thought the whole point in the DeCSS argument was that DeCSS is not needed for copying DVDs, but it is for viewing them. So, I think a better example would have been i you had said "reading your own books for the hell of it (what DeCSS does)".

Cheers //Johan

I wish people would stop...

[David A. Madore]

...merely distributing css-descramble.c without the required header files and without the code that performs the DVD drive authentication and challenge. Hey, haven't you heard of tar | gzip | mimencode?

Look, either it's a symbolic measure of protest and civil disobedience: but then, it's much more fun to have tee-shirts and MP3's and images of the DeCSS source.

Or it's destined to be actually useful. But then, did you ever notice that the wonderful xmovie program comes with DeCSS included (though you'll have to recompile it yourself; which is a pretty difficult task, in fact). I haven't tried out version 1.5.1 for the moment, but I use version 1.4 to read my DVD's and it works marvelously. No messing around with css-cat's strange options. Brutal seeking works fine. This program is beautiful.

So instead of distributing just one isolated file which is worthless alone, distribute the entire xmovie source code. All right, it's a bit large - but it's worth it.

Re:The internet is the next generation of cockroac

[fossa]

Actually, electrons themselves don't travel very fast. It's what they pass between themselves that travels at the speed of light. Nothing with mass can reach the speed of light according to the General Theory of Relativity.

Re:interesting...

[Soruk]

Soon one will merely need to put a DeCSS link in their .sig to achieve instant +5, Redundant status!

Here's proof this doesn't work. Oh. Don't be fooled by it.

Re:SLashdot, please don't encourage the criminals.

[DavidTC]

willingness to pay for your crimes...

You mean like all the people putting up links to DeCSS code? I think most of the .sigs are pretty traceable back to human beings.

-David T. C.

Re: ideas for spreading decss code

[DavidTC]

You don't have to have your signature be your full name. In fact, most people's signatures do not include a middle name. And, legally, some people sign with an X.

-David T. C.

Re: ideas for spreading decss code

[groke]

Then get DeCSS/css_unscramble() as a legal alias.. keep using your given name, but also have it as a name.. or the other way, so you could still sign "Mr. Bigglesworth" or whatever your real name might be.

Re:SLashdot, please don't encourage the criminals.

[tongue]

Consider the undergroud railway of an earlier era.

That's not civil disobedience, that's seeking asylum from abuses of human rights. People still do it today.

You just don't get it yet, do you?

[throx]

Go back a few days and read the suck.com piece on lawyers and the internet.

The internet provides computer oriented people with a wealth of freedom never found before. Suddenly some rules start getting imposed by the external world and we cry to each other that because they don't understand they can't possibly succeed in tying us down. Guess what? Bad news is they can. In the real world you have the freedom to do anything you like. There is nothing physically preventing you from going next door and burning down your neighbour's house if you feel like it. Nothing stops you from creating a nuclear weapon if you have the materials to do it. You have all these freedoms. Of course, nothing stops you from selling an index to where you can pick up goods, of which most are stolen (pretty much what napster does), or photocopying your own books for the hell of it (what DeCSS does). Laws prevent you from doing some of these things in the real world, and pretty soon now laws are going to prevent us from doing that on the net.

The question of how are they going to find out is stupid. 20 years ago they couldn't trace DNA evidence at a crime scene. They can now. In 20 years time do you really think they won't have the ability to enforce the laws which are being made now describing how the internet can legally work? If we don't stop bitching to ourselves when outside influences start controlling our sphere of influence then the outside world just isn't going to care about us any more. Once laws are in place we become irrelevant. We can bitch and moan all we like to each other but the police and judicial system are going to keep locking us up, fining us and laughing at how stupid we are. Don't bitch to each other. Protest to the people who count - the people that make the laws. If you care about this sort of thing and haven't sent money to the EFF then you are a hypocrite. If you care about these laws and haven't written a nice and non-abusive letter to your congressman or senator then you are a hypocrite.

Stop blowing off steam and do something if you care. Spamming to Usenet is going to be seen as the equivalent of something like "Well, if we kill enough niggers then they'll stop making it illegal". Didn't work back then (thankfully, I might add) and sure as hell won't work now.

John Wiltshire

Re:You just don't get it yet, do you?

[epcraig]

Bad example, at least post Roe vs Wade.

Under the current interpretation of the constitution, a fetus is NOT a human being, else abortion, even the pill, would be illegal, and a miscarriage would be manslaughter.

Which is why various jurisdictions are having trouble trouble prosecuting alcoholic expectant mothers for child abuse. Cases have been successful for nursing mothers.

Re:You just don't get it yet, do you?

[taiwanjohn]

Drop by where I live and take a look around. Heroin is basicly legal in small quantities. Needles are free for the asking. So far this year there have been over 180 fatal OD from heroin alone. There are yong kids hooking for drug money.

Dude... I sorta assumed, since you seem to be able to write, that you could also read as well...

Could it be that you've never heard about the fact that the vast majority of OD cases are the direct result of unknown purity/strength of the drug? ...caused by the fact that -- as long as the trade is under-ground -- there is no regulation or oversight of the quality/production/purity of the drug?

As someone else pointed out, "De-facto legal is not legal. The distribution is still controlled by violent gangs and treatment is still out of reach of most..."

But let's look at it from the other end... With 180 OD cases this year alone (in your neighborhood alone!) do you really think that the current methodology of criminalization, interdicion, and incarceration is working?

The USA now has over 2 million people in jail... half of whom are non-violent drug offenders. Yet the government's own stats tell us that over 80% of high school students still find drugs "easy" to get, even after 20 years of the Drug War.

How long does it take? How much money? How many lives must be ruined by 5-year mandatory jail sentences for simple posession? How much more FAILURE do you need before you realize that the current approach DOES NOT WORK???

Jesus K. Rist... are you still using Windoze too?

Making drugs legal won't fix the problem and killing the dealers seems to be the only solution that has any hope of working.

Um... excuse me, but we've been killing and jailing dealers for DECADES and yet the price of most drugs has dropped, while purity and availability have both increased. Please explain to me how this scenario fits with the definition of "working".

If you'd spent even 5 minutes looking at CSDP.ORG, as I suggested, maybe you'd learn something...

Please do so.

Cheers,

--jrd

Re:You just don't get it yet, do you?

[duffbeer703]

Legalizing narcotics and turning them into an uncontrolled substance is a great academic argument that sounds really appealing depending on who is pushing the idea. Unfortunately, reality is not that simple. Read up on how the British subjugated colonies in Asia, the availability of cheap drugs (opium in China's case) turned a generation of young people into doped up junkies. (who were in no shape to take up arms against the British) How far should drug legalization go? Should I be able to pick up antibiotics at the drugstore without a persciption? How about morphine? Birth control pills? Narcotics are not beer and cannot be traded as such. If you think that pamphlets in drug stores (which will be supplying addicts in your world) will get addicts off of a cheap supply of their fix, I suggest you lock yourself in your ivory tower.

Re:You just don't get it yet, do you?

[taiwanjohn]

I suppose I'm getting in on this discussion too late to be noticed, but just for the record...

You said:

I agree with you that drug users are not 'victims' by default, but the people in the periphery who suffer from users and traffickers are certainly 'victims' by your definition.

This is a common misconception. Let's be clear about this. The "victims on the periphery" you described are victims of the war on drugs rather than the drugs themselves.

To wit: The child caught in the crossfire of a turf-war between rival drug-dealing gangs would not have been shot if the drug trade (now 8% of world GDP!) were legal and well-regulated! (In that case, users would buy from the local apothecary, and the gangs would not be involved at all.)

The addict would also fare a LOT better under a legalized drug-trade. He/she would be assured of well-regulated purity and strength. (All the standard laws and regs about foodstuffs -- labeling and such -- would apply to drugs as well.)

Prices would plummet (heroin sells for US$90/kg in Afghanistan -- jumps to US$250,000 on the "street" in the USA). If a junkie can get a week's worth of "fixes" for a few bocks, he can support his habit *easily* with a part-time job at McDonald's... No more mugging and petty theft to support an artificially price-inflated habit...

Legal drug outlets would be a prime location for folks like 12-step programs and treatment centers to distribute *truthful* information on how to minimize the dangers of use, and how to get help when your "dalliance" turns into an addiction.

Drug abuse is a PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUE, damnit! Don't make a CRIME out of it!!! It's inefficient, futile, and destructive...

Check out CSDP.org for more info...

Now, in a desperate attempt to get back on topic... ;-) Another poster in this thread notes that banning DeCSS is like banning crowbars because they "might" be used to break into houses... sorta like banning drugs because they "might" lead "some" users into the hell-hole of addiction.

Just as drug abuse is a public-health issue, illegal copying of IP is a social issue.

The suits (MPAA/RIAA/etc) made a BIG mistake by calling out the legal pit-bulls first, instead of looking for ways to embrace the new technology and shape the emerging "online ethics" by appealing to the users/abusers, offering incentives, mounting a flashy (and *friendly*) ad campaign, etc...

The fact that the MPAA/RIAA are not raking in BILLION$ from all this "illegal" copying is their own damn fault. Fsck 'em!

... my 2

--jrd

Re:You just don't get it yet, do you?

[Vagatech]

However, the way I use victim, and I think is the prevalent usage is not someone who suffers due to their own poor choices (someone who drops out of college is not a victim they are meerly excersising poor judgement) but instead is someone who unfairly has negative consequences inflicted on them by another. In this sense then drug use is indeed victimless.

How about you drive your ass down to your local hospital and explain this "victimless crime" theory to the doctors and nurses looking after the couple of dozen babies born with addictions that are probably laying dieing in pediatrics...

How about you explain it to the families of the hundreds of people per year that get there heads blown off just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time when either a deal went bad or some crack head decided he needed some cash to get his next fix...

Victimless crime my ass. I generaly have no problems with people that use drugs, a few of my friends do, but don't sit there lying to yourself that its a victimless crime...I know a hell of a lot of victims that would tend to disagree with you.

--

Re:You just don't get it yet, do you?

[titomane]

i think that's a little bit more complicated than your explanation so i'm gonna give you my point of view. When you talk about drugs : why did they failed (and why will they'll never be able to) in stopping drug dealing ? because they can't stop drug consumming. I'm afraid to say that but every man (perhaps not the exalted ones like great martial artist's which can generate their own drugs in their own brain without the need of buying it !) every mammlian and who knows all the living ? (i'm not sure for the trees of bacteria), feel the need of taking drugs. And i'm not specifically talking about the 'evil' drugs that are regarded as the corruption of our society. You can ask me : why do they need it ? They need it because their situation is not good enough for them : you take coffee 'cause your tired, you take soft drugs, another mediatic word, because it helps you to erase the bad things of the day or just to help you make 'la fiesta' (i'm talking about alchol, cannabis and television here), you take przak because you're really not happy and a little bit stressed, you take heroin because you're affraid of living, you take crack because you're tired of living... I can give you a huge list of things that can be called as drugs. Every society in every period of its history had its own drugs to content people and avoid them to try to change the society itself. So you can't stop their flow because the society need it and when it generate a such huge pack of gold/dollars/power youwant to control it. So you put it on a 'black list' of evil things you call it hashich instead of cannabis/hemp and you control the flow... Do you really think that the 500 billions of dollars generated by drug markets (thet's an estimation of course :) is only controlled by the men you called criminal ? none of the good lawyer, bank chief, politician take thier own part of the gold eggs chick ? mmmh if you think this you're a fool i'm affraid to say that ! But why did i say that ? don't be affraid this is not my introduction or 'mise en abîme' like we can say in my own langage (didn't you hear the french accent ?). Like drugs men feel the need for liberty or at least the impression of liberty and the liberty to do such little things like do what you want with a film that you bought is a kind of liberty you see ? and this is why we've got such differents reactions people fighting for freedom (an illusion i'm affraid to repeat that :) can be aggressive like cracker who disseminate DeCSS, idealists who want to fight in the name of justice and with the law on their right. this men fight with what they have :) and i finidsh with this : when you say 'Furthermore, while lynchings and murders did occur in times past, I do not believe there was ever an organized genocidal type effort. Fortunately such a thing never emerged but if it had (and had enough backers) it might have worked. Conversely the civil rights movement steadfastly refused to obey racially discriminitive laws (in a non-violent manner) and eventually in fact these laws did disappear.' i'm not sure but are you really speaking seriously ? perhaps i didn't understood but ask jewish, amerindian people if there was not in their past an 'organized genocidal type effort' oucha it was really hard with my bad english, i hope that i've not made any confusion ! and i repeat it's only MY point of view, feel free to agree xith it :)

Re:You just don't get it yet, do you?

[cpt kangarooski]

It is 100% impossible to steal information. The oft-used phrase 'intellectual property' is an oxymoron. That which is intellectual is not and cannot be property. That's just how the world works; blame God if you like.

This isn't to say that I think that copyright laws (which govern the ACT of copying, and then only in certain circumstances, and which do not claim that theft ever occurs) are useless. But are our current laws constitutional? I think not. Are they just? Again, I think not. We do NOT have copyright laws to protect copyright holders. If you doubt this, I suggest that you pay close attention to the exact wording of the Copyright Clause of the Constitution. Rather, we have copyright laws to ensure that the greatest amount of useful material enters the public domain, which is the natural home of information. While it may accomplish this through the creation of temporary limited monopolies on the act of copying (though not of use - never of use) that is the means, and not the ways.

You complain that the people supporting the widespread dissemniation of DeCSS and the striking down of the laws that are employed to attack it are trying (perhaps unsuccessfully) to skulk like bank robbers. I disagree. What good is their law if we _all_ defy it? If not only the people who use forums like Slashdot do, but if we explain, in calm and rational language to five ordinary people what's going on? And if we ask them to pass along a copy of the source code? Laws and government exist solely on a foundation of consent by those governed by them. Should we, en masse, withdraw that support, the laws topple like a house of cards.

This was the lesson that was revealed, at the cost of much pain, during the struggle for Civil Rights in the 1960s. And let me point out that there were no end of Jim Crow laws in the South that were broken, repeatedly, by the Integrationists. It was ILLEGAL for blacks to sit at lunch counters. It was ILLEGAL for whites and blacks to marry each other. But these laws were unjust, and when this was revealed to everyone, the laws were rapidly overturned. Injustice only lasts so long as people are willing to tolerate it.

I suggest that the people here print out a few copies of the DeCSS source, and hand them out to friends, or even just people that you happen to meet. Explain that a few sheets of paper are illegal, even though all that they are are part of the set of instructions that let computers play movies. Ask them to keep the copies; if possible to further distribute them. And to realize that the laws are not around for the convenience of the movie studios, but to improve our society. Is it really improved if harmless computer programs cannot be created and dissemninated?

Personally, I plan to do just this during the coming week. Let them come after me if they like. I've done nothing wrong. Perhaps it's illegal, but that doesn't make it wrong. Who else is willing to put their money where their mouth is? DeCSS is definately on the net. Now let's get it on the streets. (And of course, a documentary movie that included the DeCSS source would be very humorous to see... especially if distributed on unencrypted DVDs. I'd _definately_ buy one. ;)

Re:You just don't get it yet, do you?

[thogard]

Get a grip on the real world.

Drop by where I live and take a look around. Heroin is basicly legal in small quantities. Needles are free for the asking. So far this year there have been over 180 fatal OD from heroin alone. There are yong kids hooking for drug money.

I've got ex friends that are going to be depressed for the rest of their lives becaase they had just one too many many hits of esscascy.

Making drugs legal won't fix the problem and killing the dealers seems to be the only solution that has any hope of working.

Re:You just don't get it yet, do you?

[logicnazi]

I disagree with your claim about the ability to enforce.

First of all it is the size of the community resisting these changes which makes it more difficult to enforce. In the real world crimes are so often able to be solved because there is an opposing interest. Burn down someones house and it is obvious a crime has been commited and that man his friends and anyone walking in the neighborhood that night are willing to help the police find the guilty party.

This is why there is some much trouble enforcing "victimless" crimes. For instance despite the billions and billions of dollars spent in drug interdiction the government has not been able to stem the flow of drugs. The reason is that their is no offended party so the government has no entry into the situation. A similar argument applies to the possesion and distribution of materials on the internet. The person who suffers harm from the crimes (presumably the MPAA) is not a party to the transaction making enforcement much more difficult.

Secondly the internet is a much more controlled medium. Breaking into a neighbors house, no matter how careful you are, leaves the possibility for incidental evidence. Carefully planning and using multiple mail anonymyzers carries no such risk.

Thirdly the manner and dedication of the people engaged in the crimes. Criminals are often caught so easily because they commit their actions in the heat of the moment without planning or forethought. Moreover, I would hasten to add that your hacker is far more sophisticated than your average burglar.

Furthermore, while lynchings and murders did occur in times past, I do not believe there was ever an organized genocidal type effort. Fortunately such a thing never emerged but if it had (and had enough backers) it might have worked. Conversely the civil rights movement steadfastly refused to obey racially discriminitive laws (in a non-violent manner) and eventually in fact these laws did disappear.

It's also important to notice....

[MolGOLD]

Just as an afterthought, I guess it is important to note as some people have already mentioned that, financially, commercial software for Linux isn't a sound investment.
We all love companies like Loki that devote so much time to bringing us the games we love, and yet, how many of us actually go out and buy them? Here (in Ottawa, Canada) several posts on a LUG mailing list from retailers consist of complaints that very few of the games are being purchased, and the ones that are being purchased are not in the expected amounts.
Is there a way to make more Linux users buy certain pieces of software? Let's face facts here people: for every commercially available software package in Windows, the chances are pretty good that you can find an open-source project that either mimics or outperforms the windows counterpart...
The best example of this that comes to mind is LICQ (www.licq.org)

While we beg and plead for the software, how much does the retailer charge in order to make themselves a profit, and at the same time, make it appealing enough for a Linux user to buy?
Perhaps this is why InterVid seems to be stalling with their software player.....

Re:MPAA will have a field day

[RevSmiley]

It looks like they were just a uptight Microshaft Suckboy, else they would have chuckeled and said "right on your bad self" and moved on instead of going to the trouble to report it. The post will sit on 99% of the groups it shows up on forever unnoticed and unread.

just a thought

[fjordboy]

The whole decss issue has me wondering...if we are not allowed to rip dvds and store them on our computer, can bookmakers tell the buyers what shelf to store their books on?

DVDs players available

[wolruf]

Hi,
There's videolan that work on many platforms (Linux x86, Linux PPC, framebuffer, SDL, etc. even BeOS) with unencrypted DVDs:

• http://www.videolan.org/
• And PowerDVD, a famous DVD player for Windows, announced a DVD player for Linux so, being closed (as I imagine), I guess it'll be able to play encrypted DVDs.

Re:SLashdot, please don't encourage the criminals.

[TSN]

So, if Congress passed a law, saying that you had to stand on your head for three hours out of every day while live weasels were stuffed down your pants legs, you'd do it?

You really don't get it.

[Tau Zero]

How about you explain it to the families of the hundreds of people per year that get there heads blown off just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time when either a deal went bad or some crack head decided he needed some cash to get his next fix...

Alcohol is legal (and regulated) in the USA. How many people get their heads blown off each year because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time when a sale went bad or when an alcoholic started getting the DT's and badly needed some cash to get a drink?

I rest my case.
--

Re:The internet is the next generation of cockroac

[fossa]

I am backing up my post with information I found online from an elctrical engineer. Turns out I was right though (not that I had any doubt :) I thank the person who emailed me and made me back my comment up.

• and I quote: Re:The internet is the next generation of cockroac (Score:1) by fossa (pat7@gmx.net) on 9 514709 EST (#390) (User #212602 Info) http://www.crosswinds.net/~sideways/
  
  Actually, electrons themselves don't travel very fast. It's what they pass between themselves that travels at the speed of light. Nothing with mass can reach the speed of light according to the General Theory of Relativity.
  
  Okay, so what is it that they pass between each other??? Einstein was not entirely right...
  
  Damn, I'm not an electrical engineer... I do remember reading that somewhere however. Hang on while I search for some info... Searched Google for "electricity." I am now reading http://www.amasci.com/ele-edu.html... Aha! Click on "Barriers to Understanding Electricity," and then "ELECTONS FLOW AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT," to come to http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/miscon/eleca.html#lig ht. Read this paragraph, from that website:
  
  
  • THE "ELECTRICITY" INSIDE OF WIRES MOVES AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT? Wrong. In metals, electric current is a flow of electrons. Many books claim that these electrons flow at the speed of light. This is incorrect. Electrons actually flow quite slowly, at speeds on the order of centimeters per minute. It's the energy in the circuit which flows fast, not the electrons. When the electrons at one point in the circuit are pumped, electrons in the entire loop of the circuit are forced to flow, and energy spreads almost instantly throughout the entire circuit. This happens even though the electrons move very slowly.
  
  
  Thank you for calling my semi-bluff and making me actually prove what I said. I actually enjoyed looking this up and learned a couple things :)

Re:This is wrong.

[groke]

Hey, any way I could get a hold of that? Just to play with.. something I've been interested in.

Re:Disagreed

[webrunner]

It's probably closer to forcing people with VCRs and VHS tapes to HAVE to watch it on a magnavox television or it's illegal.
----

Not neccessaraly

[gravis777]

Not ALL DVDs have been encoded, the Bubblegum Crisses by Anime-Ego, Beyond The Mind's Eye, and Tekken are examples of DVDs that do not have CSS on them. I know this because of using a DXR2 in Linux, you have to pass a command to the program to get it to do the CSS stuff. AnimeEgo could release something like Mobile Suite Gundam, not encode the DVD in CSS, and flash the code up for a split second or something. Or encode it some other way. Also, the CSS encoding on a DVD is just for playing the VOB files, however, you can still read other files on the Disc without having to do CSS authintication. Back when I was a Windows hugger (thank god, no more), I got Encarta 98 DVD before I ever got a decoder card, and could still use the encyclopedia on my dvd-rom, although I could not view the videos. Then again, those videos are not encoded on Encarta's disc either.

Re:Something to worry about

[cfish]

judging from the size of the key, yes. if we knew the length of the key it would have been easily cracked brute force.

Re:OT: Quit buying DVD's already!

[kazzuya]

Sorry to disappoint you but I'm afraid that Mr. Doe and his family doesn't even know what MPAA is.. and he won't find out much about it and even less understand about DeCCS anytime soon.. unless you expect the TV news programs to inform him.

Re:SLashdot, please don't encourage the criminals.

[tongue]

While i can't speak for most people, if the MPAA came a-knockin' on my door, I'd gladly meet them in the courts. What they're trying to do is clearly in violation of the constitution, and i feel confident that the higher courts will see that. I also think that Congress will eventually rethink this whole IP issue, now that there's been some real publicity. Hopefully sooner or later, someone will pass a Consumer's Bill of Rights, or better yet, repeal these ridiculous IP laws like the DCMA and let the markets regulate themselves. If congress wouldn't have passed the thing in the first place, then media industries would have had to find a different way of making money instead of trying to control the distribution channels, which is what they're going to eventually have to do anyway. Any time you create a regulation, someone's going to get screwed. much better to let the free markets do their own regulating.

Re:If DVD player written in Java, there'd be no is

[The_Messenger]

While you have valid points about Java's performance, mine was that Java does not run "everywhere". Win32 and Solaris, fine. GNU/Linux, AIX, and a few other UNIX/Unix-workalike systems have semi-decent implementations. But that's hardly "everywhere".

I'm not so much a Java zealot that I think it could replace C or C++ (to the contrary, I find the idea laughable. I write in them too, you know), but Java does several things very well. Java has an excellent standard library, is easy/fast to design and program with, and offers much smarter solutions for CGI and database access than even Perl. Java isn't just a programming language; it's a software platorm as well, and its usefulness is far from being completely tapped. True, Java has a long way to go, but where it's gone so far is amazing.

Obviously no-one is going to write a DVD driver with it; if it were even possible, it would still be ridiculous. The original poster was mostly likely trolling us. Or maybe, genuinely ignorant. It's hard to tell sometimes.

In conclusion, while you can't write a device driver in Java, you can't do anything close a Java servlet in C.

- A disgruntled Java programmer, currently struggling with IBM's buggy AIX Java port

---------///----------
All generalizations are false.

Re:Playing DVD's

[flikx]

Obviously, you are trolling ... but I am replying anyway.

I'll get right to my point:

I don't give a damn shit about these "standards"

Declaring a desktop or an OS as standard is pure crap. There is no freedom involved in that. I don't want things tied down to kde, gnome, windows, mac, BSD, amiga, or whatever. Make standards that are cross platform and flexible. Period.

To CmdrTaco and all others that dual boot (or should I make a bad/stupid pun and say duel boot.) to windows for DVD's, favorite games, etc. More power to you. Personally, I'm glad that I don't waste 3 gigs per computer on the slime and filth of the baggage of a second OS (windows).

Do it illegally, push to make it legal. Use DeCSS, watch your DVD's under linux or your OS of choice ...

But don't fucking complain when your easy solution is to spend a lot of money to have windows on your machine. Standards? Bah...

Re:SLashdot, please don't encourage the criminals.

[logicnazi]

>I cannot help thinking that by giving these DeCSS spammers the oxygen of publicity, we risk setting a very bad example for the weaker members of society (like our children) who may think that its OK to break a law, simply because it doesn't fit with your world view.

In fact, almost by definition, it is okay to break a law which does not agree with your worldview. If you do not believe such an action is wrong then in fact it is not wrong even if 300 million people believe that it is wrong and are willing to throw you in jail for it. Now of course some actions may be wrong for secondary reasons (for example you may believe it to be morally justifiable to shoot someone who is a very negative influence on society but you realize that others may duplicate your actions on otherw who aren't so deserving) but DeCSS doesn't seem like such an issue.

There are many instances of righteous law breaking. For instance the civil rights movement in the south purposefully violated many racist laws in order to get them appealed. Every revolution throughout history, especially against the most tyranical regimes, has been breaking the law and yet many of these revolutions are now venerated and seen as cornerstones of our society (be it the signing of the magna carta or the american revolution).

Yes I do in fact think there would be as much terroism around the world if CNN turned a blind eye. The majority of terrorists do not want the United states attention or any other of these far flung countries attention. They are motivated by a sense of vengence and a desire to right what is an inherintly local wrong. Unless the government placed gag orders on every citizen those close to the affected (the people the terrorists are trying to scare) would here about the activities.

Moreover we only hate terrorists because we feel their causes are wrong. In fact we still celebrate the "terrorist" bomb attempt to kill hitler (which would no doubt have been a good thing if it succeded).

In fact in reference to CNN it seems bringing the world attention to the problem often alleves it. It attracts the notice of non-partisans whose only goal is to end the violence. For instance many of the US recent overseas milatary missions have been motivated by the moral outrage of viewers at home (think somalia). The peace process in northern ireland and in isreal has also no doubt been helped by US involvement which is a direct result of US citizens caring about peace in the region which is a result of being informed via CNN.

Re:SLashdot, please don't encourage the criminals.

[chris.bitmead]

"The authors of DeCSS have not been paid for their work"...

DeCSS is free software. The authors of DeCSS DON'T WANT TO BE PAID FOR THEIR WORK. Seriously, get a clue.

Idea to allow playback of the newest DVDs in Linux

[EMIce]

If these DVDs can be cracked individually, why not post the correct key for each DVD to usenet, keeping something consistent in the message so that it is easily findable via deja?

Then write a DVD player client that searches deja for the key and uses it to decode the DVD? When new DVDs come out, individuals can brute force it and post the key. The player should cache keys it gets.

Maybe key hacking groups can even write an rc5 like client to collectively crack new DVDs quickly. How processor intensive is this brute force method?

Fight fire with fire...

[jmv]

What if I write an open-source version of CSS (not DeCSS). Now let's say we decide to adopt CSS as the official movie format for the OSS community. Nobody's (even the MPAA) can say CSS is illegal, since it doesn't circumvent anything.

Now you have two organizations using the same format (encoder). Why should only one of them be allowed to license the decoder? DeCSS would simply be a OSS-movie-format decoder (with the side effect of decoding MPAA movies).

It's like a variant of the gool ol' "embrace, extend, extinguish".

Hold up

[Platinum Dragon]

After October 28, 2000 it will be illegal to circumvent an access control according to the DMCA.

After Oct. 28, 2000?

It is now Sept. 10, 2000.

Either the date up there is wrong, different parts of the DMCA kick in at different times, or something is seriously screwy here.

If the "illegal circumvention" measure doesn't kick in until Oct. 28, then DeCSS still isn't illegal software yet, oui?

If that's true, then what legal footing did the MPAA have against 2600?

Nah. Your date's gotta be wrong - either the DMCA is already in effect, or these legal exercises have all been based on nothing.

Call me confused.

"just to watch movies"

[jfedor]

Having to keep a whole operating system around just to watch movies is pretty harsh.

Last time it was "just to play Diablo II". :)

-jfedor

Irony

[TrumpetPower!]

Is it just me, or is it ironic that the linked post, to news.admin.net-abuse.sightings, first complains that the ``[s]pammer is knowinkgly and willfully disseminating the source code of illegal software so it will be stored on usenet archiving systems like deja.com,'' and then has the entire original post...complete with the ``illegal software''?

b&

Re:SLashdot, please don't encourage the criminals.

[Spudly]

This discussion is bordering on "who defines what is right & moral - the Law? or the individual?".

I don't have any DVD's, and don't intend to buy any until I can't get VHS anymore. I'd be interested to know what DeCSS *actually* does (as opposed to "allowing people to play DVDs under Linux").

-Spud.

(OT) Not getting something else

[Tau Zero]

Under the current interpretation of the constitution, a fetus is NOT a human being, else abortion, even the pill, would be illegal, and a miscarriage would be manslaughter.

That doesn't follow. No human being has the right to use a body of another against the other's will (absent conviction of a crime, I think). Granting a fetus or embryo the right to use someone else's body is a huge logical leap, and a denial of rights to the person whose body is made to play host without consent.

Which is why various jurisdictions are having trouble trouble prosecuting alcoholic expectant mothers for child abuse.

It's a pity that the Supremes created a "right to reproduce", because mandatory contraception (Depo Provera, Norplant, tubal ligation) would be a much cheaper and more effective preventative measure against e.g. fetal alcohol syndrome than is the threat of jail. I know that there have been judgements against chemical companies etc. for creating conditions which led to harm to babies not even conceived when the tort was committed, and this falls into the same area.
--

Don't buy the gear...

[tliet]

You're not able to play DVDs where you want them? Why do you buy them then? I've not bought CDs for the last 5 years because of the high price.
For the same reason I refuse to buy DVDs.

There's one thing where you can break the balls of the big companies, don't buy their gear and encourage others to do the same.

Another important point:

[Osvaldo Doederlein]

If and when law enforcement becomes efficient in the Internet, people will just start to use encryption MASSIVELY. Every single thing from IRC to Napster will run on top of very strong encryption, and what are the net-cops going to do then (considering that they've already lost the fight to prevent use/export of encryption software)? Have an entire farm of supercomputers to break every single surfer's packets? This is a very substantial difference from "real world" law enforcement, where people have no access to near-perfect means to do anything they want without leaving evidence.

Why the heck would this be?

[cr0sh]

Why couldn't you watch a DVD on a plane?

It used to be "they" (FAA?) complained that laptops were causing problems with the plane's communication/navigation gear. Now, you can use laptops while flying. But all of a sudden, what amounts to an overblown CD drive, causes problems? Is someone smoking crack?

So the question comes up: Can one listen to a CD in a portable CD player on a plane? If so, can one listen to the same CD in a laptop CD-ROM drive? What if you needed to read data off of a CD in the same CD-ROM drive?

Or is it just movies?

Can I play music, but not watch a VCD on the same laptop? Is it the MPAA that is blocking the DVDs on planes (ok, that is a little paranoid - and probably over-complicated)?

Still - I question why an electronic device like a CD-ROM drive is causing problems. If there are problems, then shouldn't the issue be that manufacturers should put better shielding on the drives and/or nav gear? And why would the laptop itself (the CPU, screen, floppy drive, hard drive - in essence, everything about the machine apart from the CD/DVD drive) emit less noise than the CD/DVD drive?

I support the EFF - do you?

Oops

[kaphka]

Yes, you may need to modify the HW to write the key sector (but, since you're wanting to break the law if you're planning to distribute illegal copies, why do you care?)

We're not really disagreeing here...

Actually, we are disagreeing. I misread your post. I still maintain that it is impossible to read the disk keys directly from a DVD. The only way to get a disc key is to provide the hardware with a valid player key.

I still believe that this scheme would have worked. There was only one flaw: the brokenness of the CSS system allowed the DeCSS folks to get at all the player keys once they had a foot in the door. If it were not for that hole, (along with the fact that CSS only uses 40 bit keys,) the DVD CCA could have just revoked each key that was compromised, leaving plenty of keys for future DVDs.

Re:Oops

[jeffry_smith]

In order for the system to decrypt the disk, it MUST read the keys, otherwise, they're just taking up space. Sure, most software won't let the user see the key, but nothing the proper snooping tools won't let you see. Sure, you need to provide it with a valid key to begin with, but if you know the algorithm, you can create a key. You have to know the algorithm, or you can't decrypt the stream. To quote Bruce Schneier from the article:

The flaw is in the security model. The software player eventually gets the decryption key, decrypts the DVD, and displays it on the
screen. That decrypted DVD data is on the computer. It has to be; there's no other way to display it on the screen. No matter how
good the encryption scheme is, the DVD data is available in plaintext to anyone who can write a computer program to take it.

And so is the decryption key. The computer has to decrypt the DVD. The decryption key has to be in the computer. So the decryption
key is available, in the clear, to anyone who knows where to look. It's protected by an unlock key, but the reader has to unlock it.

The DVD software manufacturers were supposed to disguise the decryption program, and possibly the playing program, using some
sort of software obfuscation techniques. These techniques have never worked for very long; they only seem to force hackers to spend
a couple of extra weeks figuring out how the software works. I've written about this previously in relation to software copy protection;
you can't obfuscate software.

It might be a bitter pill for the entertainment industry to swallow, but software content protection does not work. It cannot work. You
can distribute encrypted content, but in order for it to be read, viewed, or listened to, it must be turned into plaintext. If it must be
turned into plaintext, the computer must have a copy of the key and the algorithm to turn it into plaintext. A clever enough hacker
with good enough debugging tools will always be able to reverse-engineer the algorithm, get the key, or just capture the plaintext
after decryption. And he can write a software program that allows others to do it automatically. This cannot be stopped.

If you assume secure hardware, the scheme works. (In fact, the industry wants to extend the system all the way to the monitor, and
eventually do the decryption there.) The attack works because the hacker can run a debugger and other programming tools. If the
decryption device and the viewing device (it must be both) is inside a tamperproof piece of hardware, the hacker is stuck. He can't
reverse-engineer anything. But tamperproof hardware is largely a myth, so in reality this would just be another barrier that someone
will eventually overcome. Digital content protection just doesn't work; ask anyone who tried software copy protection.

Note the last paragraph. To work, you have to have a tamperproof device from the DVD to the screen and the speakers. i.e. no computer, no TV, no stereo. A completely sealed system that destroys itself on opening. Like Bruce said, tamperproof is a myth, and if it's not tamperproof, the scheme doesn't work.

Re:Oops

[jeffry_smith]

Another, key concept from Bruce's article:

The fatal flaw is that the entertainment industry is lazy, and is attempting to find a technological solution to what is a legal problem. It
is illegal to steal copyrights and trademarks, whether it is a DVD movie, a magazine image, a Ralph Lauren shirt, or a Louis Vitton
handbag. This legal protection still exists, and is still strong. For some reason the entertainment industry has decided that it has a
legal right to the protection of its technology, and that makes no sense.

Basically, if they feel their copyright is being violated, they should take the violators to court, not make everyone else pay by restricting OUR rights.

Re:This is a good thing...

[eudas]

'War on Piracy'. Or maybe 'War on Cyber-Terrorism'. That sounds better -- I think it'd get more funding for some government agency so they could make a 'Cyber-Delta Force'. heh.

eudas

Not quite ...

[IntelliTubbie]

Distribute the descrambling tool separately and explicitly inform anyone who downloads the tool that they are permitted to use the tool to descramble your work for their personal use unless they are an employee, lawyer, consultant, etc. of the MPAA or one of its member companies or they communicate the results of the descrambling to any of those people.

Wouldn't that be like stuffing a kilo of cocaine into a box with a shrinkwrap license? "You have the right to open this box, unless you're with the DEA." In any case, once probable cause is established -- which would take very little time, especially if you distributed the scrambled code over the Internet -- I would expect that your scrambled DeCSS could be unscrambled, legally, with a warrant/court order. In which case, of course, you're screwed.

Cheers,
IT

Re:Not quite ...

[kel-tor]

"probable cause" is a term used in criminal cases to define where a 'law enfocement' officer can begin to assume that a criminal law has been broken. For some reason the US Attorneys offices doesn't seem to find naptster's or 2600's conduct to be criminal (as in the trafficing of copywritten material-- and they and the 'law enforcement' officers do go after the backalley piracy rings).

in a civil case, Jack Valenti does not have any rights to 'probable cause.'

--

really hard to read isn't it ? try this

[titomane]

i think that's a little bit more complicated than your explanation so i'm gonna give you my point of view.

When you talk about drugs : why did they failed (and why will they'll never be able to) in stopping drug dealing ? because they can't stop drug consumming.

I'm afraid to say that but every man (perhaps not the exalted ones like great martial artist's which can generate their own drugs in their own brain without the need of buying it !) every mammlian and who knows all the living ? (i'm not sure for the trees or bacteria), feel the need of taking drugs. And i'm not specifically talking about the 'evil' drugs that are regarded as the corruption of our society. You can ask me : why do they need it ? They need it because their situation is not good enough for them :

• you take coffee 'cause your tired,
• you take soft drugs, another mediatic word, because it helps you to erase the bad things of the day or just to help you make 'la fiesta' (i'm talking about alchol, cannabis and television here),
• >LI>you take prozak because you're really not happy and a little bit stressed,
• you take heroin because you're affraid of living,
• you take crack because you're tired of living...

I can give you a huge list of things that can be called as drugs. Every society in every period of its history had its own drugs to content people and avoid them to try to change the society itself.

So you can't stop their flow because the society need it and when it generate a such huge pack of gold/dollars/power that you want to control it. So you put it on a 'black list' of evil things you call it hashich instead of cannabis/hemp and you control the flow...

Do you really think that the 500 billions of dollars generated by drug markets (that's an estimation of course :) is only controlled by the men you called criminal ? none of the good lawyer, bank chief, politician take thier own part of the gold eggs chick ?

mmmh if you think this you're a fool i'm affraid to say that ! But why did i say that ? don't be affraid this is not my introduction or 'mise en abîme' like we can say in my own langage (didn't you hear the french accent ?).

Like drugs men feel the need for liberty or at least the impression of liberty. And the liberty to do such little things like :

doing what you want with a film that you bought is a kind of liberty you see ?

and this is why we've got such differents reactions people fighting for freedom (an illusion i'm affraid to repeat that :) can be aggressive like cracker who disseminate DeCSS, idealists who want to fight in the name of justice and with the law on their right. this men fight with what they have :)

and i finidsh with this : when you say

'Furthermore, while lynchings and murders did occur in times past, I do not believe there was ever an organized genocidal type effort. Fortunately such a thing never emerged but if it had (and had enough backers) it might have worked. Conversely the civil rights movement steadfastly refused to obey racially discriminitive laws (in a non-violent manner) and eventually in fact these laws did disappear.'

i'm not sure but are you really speaking seriously ?

perhaps i didn't understood but ask jewish, amerindian people if there was not in their past an 'organized genocidal type effort'

oucha it was really hard with my bad english, i hope that i've not made any confusion !

and i repeat it's only MY point of view, feel free to agree with it :)

Re:DVD Image Encoded With DeCSS

[Desdinova77]

mmm my guess is that logo is copyrighted.

OT: Quit buying DVD's already!

[Stephen VanDahm]

This is gonna get modded down, but, hey, I can afford it. :-)

I've bought tons of movies: its so unfair that I can't play them on the plane without rebooting. Having to keep a whole operating system around just to watch movies is pretty harsh.

Don't buy DVD's!! Ever! Maybe I'm being a bit of a zealot, but it just seems that every DVD that people like CmdrTaco buy creates more revenue that can be used to fund these bonged-out lawsuits. If you're sick of the MPAA, quit funding them -- I have, and I won't buy a DVD until either all this bullshit gets resolved in the consumers' favor or until someone convinces me that I'm full of shit.

I know that nothing I do as an individual will make anything better, but I like to think that, by doing what I can, I've at least somehow earned the right to bitch about it.

Take care,

Steve


========
Stephen C. VanDahm

Re:OT: Quit buying DVD's already!

[Pres. George W. Bush]

Bravo!

Re:OT: Quit buying DVD's already!

[GlobalForce]

Forever & Amen.

Re:OT: Quit buying DVD's already!

[CoolAss]

Excellent point. You need to add one more factor, though. A protest will only work if you stop buying them and DON'T steal them.

In other words, let the economics resolve the problem. If you steal the movies, then the economics becomes impossible and you will never get anything better. If you don't steal them, and you don't buy them, the prices will decrease until they reach a point where you are willing to buy them again.

Simple econ people. Stealing is NOT a way to protest, but boycotting is.

Re:OT: Quit buying DVD's already!

[stinky monkey]

So how's that 8 track workin out?

Linking to illegal software?

[btlzu2]

Won't Slashdot get sued, thrown in jail, tortured, and otherwise persecuted for linking to the source code for DeCSS? I think CmdrTaco is going to get lashed with a wet noodle for this one.

Re:Linking to illegal software?

[arielb]

I certainly hope so. It's about time some of these punks learned a lesson. Stealing is wrong

Re:Linking to illegal software?

[wdf]

No...just Cowboy Neil.

Re:SLashdot, please don't encourage the criminals.

[TSN]

No, it is called civil disobedience. And, if it gets you locked up, so what? The point of civil disobedience is that you know what you're doing is illegal, but you're showing that you don't think it's wrong. Learn that there is a difference. Just because there's a law against something, doesn't mean it's immoral.

This isn't an attempt to circumvent the law. No-one is claiming that posting DeCSS isn't against the law. There is a law barring it. The point is that disobeying that law isn't morally wrong, and it gets across the point that one disagrees w/ that law and wants it changed.

If you want to blindly follow every law handed down from On High (read: the top of Capitol Hill), vote me into Congress. I think I could have a lot of fun w/ that kind of power over you and your ilk...

Awesome, especially with the holidays coming up!

[LrdZombie]

Great, now that I can easily get a copy of DeCSS, I'm gonna print it up in red and green text and use it as gift wrapping paper this year! What are they going to do, confiscate my presents?

"How the MPAA Stole Xmas" :)

dotdotdot

[delmoi]

I've bought tons of movies: its so unfair that I can't play them on the plane without rebooting. Having to keep a whole operating system around just to watch movies is pretty harsh.

Um, you can use deCSS right now, can't you? I was under the impression that unencrypted DVDs could be played in linux...

Re:SLashdot, please don't encourage the criminals.

[TSN]

This law was created by OUR REPRESENTATIVES. WE THE FUCKING PEOPLE !!!!

I don't know about you, but I'm not a representative. If someone in Congress does something I don't agree with, I have to sit back and take it, simply because he/she/it "represents" me?

How would you like it if someone came to your house and stole your car, simply because they did not agree with property laws ?

If someone did that, I wouldn't have a car anymore. Now, if someone came along, highlighted my car, hit Ctrl-C, went back to their own driveway, and hit Ctrl-V, I wouldn't have a problem.

Well, then do it.

[Crutcher]

This would be ugly, but get the ACLU involved, make it nice an legal, and create an obviously insane restricion, /but keep it legal!/

Then 'sue' a group of 'violators'. I think its called a test case. You could probably go pretty far with this if you had some solid legal help.

and it would kill the DMCA :)

-- Crutcher --
#include <disclaimer.h>

Re:Well, then do it.

[tongue]

Actually, that's a pretty good description of the current DeCSS case...

We Will Never Surrender

[WillAffleck]

Though they may bring unjust war against us, contrary to the law of the land in which they seek battle unto us, we shall persist.

Though they stop up port 80, we shall push forth on port 8080.

We shall never surrender - for, when the battle is counted and the dead are honoured, they shall say unto themselves: "These were Geeks, and they had Code."

And free bheer ...

Playing DVDs on the plane

[haggar]

It's specifically forbidden, at least in Europe, but I remember it was forbidden on the plane to Fort Worth, too. That's why the ThinkPads come with a dummy CD/DVD, to be inserted in place of your CD or DVD, when you need the laptop to work during flight time.

What am I missing here, or is CmdrTaco totally unconsiderate?

Re:Well, who do you think should go to jail?

[B'Trey]

Did they? I'm not saying that they didn't. But from what I've seen of the congressional hearings and read in various publications, the evidence and the question of exactly what they knew when is far from conclusive. There's a real aura of mob mentality around the whole thing. I'd rather a few guilty people go free than innocent people be punished.

Re:Well, who do you think should go to jail?

[nysus]

Ummm...have you been following the news? Both Firestone and Ford knew about this and did nothing.

Re:ideas for spreading decss code

[cpt kangarooski]

Oh, that's easy.

A movie. A documentary about DeCSS, with some percentage of profits going to the various legal defenses. And which could include a number of different copies; source, executables, a subtitle track, flashing it on the screen, all the keys in the keybook (not just Xing).

I'd buy a copy. Hell, I'd probably give 'em out as Christmas presents.

Maybe someone can get ahold of Michael Moore... it sounds like it would be up his alley.

Re:Well, who do you think should go to jail?

[B'Trey]

Yet another reason not to move to Australia. If you want to live in that type of environment, go right ahead. I'm all for punishing people who are guilty of malice or gross negligence that harms or kills others. But I'm even more for rational, common-sense laws and the principle of innocent until proven guilty.

Don't put words in my mouth, please.

[tswinzig]

I never said DVD's always look better than LD's.

What I said was DVD's are BETTER than LD's.

1. The best DVD's will always look better than the best LD's.

2. The best DVD's will always sound better than the best LD's.

3. The best DVD's will always have more content than the best LD's.

To wit, Braveheart may not look as good on DVD (I don't know, never watched the LD version), but does the LD version have the movie, in Dolby 2.0/5.1, a french soundtrack, english/french subtitles, a great "the making of ..." documentary, and an entire commentary track by Mel Gibson?

Thank you.

-thomas

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

DVD's, Movies, etc...

[jea6]

I don't understand when the ability to watch movies at your convenience became a God given natural right. If you don't want to follow the rules, feel free to break them at your own peril. But quit whining about how the consequences for breaking the rules is a violation of a non-existant right. Your first amendment rights (for the gringos) do not allow you to steal or facilitate the theft of another individuals property, no matter how lofty the goal.

And for those of you who are jsut trying to watch the movies under Linux, tough luck. If you don't like playing by the rules set out by a proprietary industry: hack away but beware that the law of the land will probably respond more quickly than a change to the law of the land. The industry may need you as consumers and early-adopters, but that critical mass has been past already.

And if voting hasn't worked, and voting with your wallet hasn't worked, you may be on the wrong side of the argument for the dumbed down mass audience. But honestly: did you vote last go round? Did you stop financing the MPAA? You have got to do better than a t-shirt and ascii art before "heavily-biased-in-favor-of-industry" legal system is going to see it your way.

This type of protest has one loser: the public at large. This is just the type of excuse that the industry will use to hike up prices (like the insurance industry uses with fraud). Maybe it doesn't actually hurt the bottom line all that much (like the software piracy figures pushed by the SPA), but all that is needed is the excuse or perception, then we all pay 49.99 for "The Matrix".
</rant>

Tell you what, lets move open-source to the entertainment industry in general and see where that leaves us. Sony is free to release a movie as long as its GPL'd. Then we splice away for true niche entertainment. Then the hacker-distributors shareware the royalty payments from mod's to product placement back to the distributors. Sell the Coca-Cola Star Wars Ep2 instead of the Pepsi Ep2. But everything has to include a crypto hash for authentication and Free Net. Any payments are done with one-time stored value credit card numbers from the corner drug store web site (like calling cards).

Never mind. I'm going back to my warez, kiddy porn, divx'd decss'd "for demo purposes only" movies, and Metallica "I didn't know Enter Sandman was not in the public domain" MP3's. Let the FBI sort it out.

Re:Idea to allow playback of the newest DVDs in Li

[ferrocene]

It takes about 2-15 seconds to grab the key, not hard at all. I have a list of several dozen...

They're all in the format of 04 2F A0 01

Re:Well, who do you think should go to jail?

[B'Trey]

Apples and oranges. If you drink and drive, you know that you significantly increase your chances of having an accident. It isn't at all clear that Firestone and Ford knew they were endangering lives, or even that they were actually endangering lives in the first place. Prove that they were, and send them to jail. But prove it first.

Something to worry about

[Amon CMB]

Remember how DeCSS started? It happened when Xing accidentally slipped up and left the code un-encrypted in one of their programs, then those hackers found out and obtained the source from there.

Although I like to see the anarchy of all this, I hate to think that it was all because of a simple mistake. If Xing never had made the mistake, do you think CSS would've been cracked by now? What about future video formats, where the encryption could be higher and the "mistakes" not be made?
- Amon CMB

Your pointless (?) moderation:

[Nicolas MONNET]

(Score: -3, Anal Retentive)

next: post Loki source everywhere

[arielb]

I'm sure Loki games will be more popular if slashdot decided to post a link to the source code of some of their games. Of course Loki wouldn't make any money and go broke but at least it's for the "cause" so it's good, right?

Another way to spread DeCSS

[Kirkoff]

I Know that this should probibly be with yesterday's discusion, but I thought of it today.

Let's say I have 3 computers:

• A - Wants the information
• B - Has the information
• C - the people who don't like this's computer

Person A sends a ping to person B. The packet body says somthing like "DeCSS.c request". The echo-reply says somthing like "recieve computer.c.com:198.67.200.99". That is the hostname/IP of computer C. Then computer B sends pings with the source address of computer A to computer C. Computer A captures all of the packets from computer C which happen to be the file in 600b chunks or some such thing.

If the information was say DeCSS and computer C were the computer for MPAA.com then the MPAA would be giving out the source code. IANAL, so you'd probibly get screwed. Also I'm still learning to code, so don't expect this code from me. I don't even know that this would work (althought it sounds to me like it should.) Have fun!

--Josh

Another way to get the word out...

[rkent]

Yeah, I guess this was bound to happen sooner or later. I was also thinking it would have been funny to distribute DeCSS in an ILOVEYOU sort of virus; then MPAA would have to sue everyone.

(BTW, why the heck is this under "movies?" I turned off movies stories months ago so I wouldn't have to see anymore Star Wars trailer links, now I'm missing out on DeCSS... wtf?)

Re:SLashdot, please don't encourage the criminals.

[TSN]

Well, in that case, I'll stop holding this gun to your head and forcing you to distribute DeCSS code. Oh, wait... No-one's doing that, are they?

yup

[Cheezy]

"Having to keep a whole operating system around just to watch movies is pretty harsh." Aren't you forgetting solitaire? bleh.

Re:If DVD player written in Java, there'd be no is

[paled]

and it would require a beowulf cluster to run it.
Seriously, can anything in Java run fast?
With a PIII 550, a sigma designs Hollywood decoder, a voodoo 3 3000 AGP card and a SoundBlaster Live! - I still get frames dropped.

No way would anything Java-based play a DVD - without lots of GHz.

Disagreed

[he-sk]

What the DMCA provides is a method to prosecute access violations. For example, if I want to make a DVD that is only viewable by white people, I can. And viewing by a black person is illegal and prosecutable under the DMCA. Think I'm joking? An author of a protected work can set whatever limitations they want and the DMCA makes circumvention of that protection illegal.

I agree with you that CSS is about controlling access, but your anology is flawed. Limiting the viewer of a DVD to white people is simply discrimination and thus a violation of Constitutional rights. The DMCA would be useless in the defense, because it is superceded (sp?) by the Constitution.

But, luckily I'm from Germany where the legislative isn't as crazy as in the States.

Re:Disagreed

[tongue]

(I mean the actual written Constitution as intended by the writers, not the "living document" which only exists in the fevered imaginations of leftist jurists and their apologists).

Why do you think the Constitution (as written) included a method for amendments, if not to be a document that would change over time? The framers of the Constitution KNEW that political climates could and would change over time, and provided a way for the country to change with them. There's nothing worse than a pseudo-libertarian nut who ignores facts in evidence which are blatantly obvious, even to a casual (and international) observer.

Re:SLashdot, please don't encourage the criminals.

[EvilSoloman]

Damn, then I must be one bad muther, because when I know I have no way of getting caught, I break the laws I don't agree with. What I object to about that language is the fact that everyone below age 18 (and often above it too) is now characterized as an empty vessel, an automaton possessing neither will nor thought which immitates virtually everything it sees and hears. People of that school of thought seem to keep pushing back the blame. It was the guy with the gun in his hand that killed, not the gun, the bullet, his parents, Uncle Carl, Universal Studios, or Eminem. If I, being 17, was half as much an animal as those abusive wretches would like everyone to believe, I probably would have turned berserk on the 15 year old that accidently punched me in the jaw during a karate promotion yesterday. I did not. No matter how much of a bad week I was having after going through a whole bunch of unrequited love BS, how much it hurt, how many times I've played Half Life's Counterstrike, or the plethora of times I've seen The Matrix, ultimately, it was my decision to make.

No one can be truly compelled to do anything. They decision is ultimately theirs to make.

If you're going to cry out for the children, please, please do not include me. I don't need your help, or your pity. For example, I can say with near-certainty I am more politically aware & opinionated and more therefore qualified to vote than the vast majority of adults. And yes, I go outside the bounds of the law sometimes, but so do a hell of a lot of people, and it is by my will and my will alone that I'm doing this.

If CNN ignored them? If CNN ignored them, they'd probably get even louder and deadlier than ever. If I had a cause I was willing to die for, I sure as hell wouldn't simply give up when nobody took any notice.

By the way, I've never even heard of "apoxiutial," and apparently, neither has the American Heritage Dictionary, Webster's, or Princeton Wordnet. Tip: Using big words to make yourself sound important only works if they're actually words.

This is a good thing...

[killthiskid]

I think this is a good thing. IMHO, eventually this string of 'lawsuits' will bring 'the powers that be' to a position where they are fighting the very essence of the 'net and all things created by it: hyper linking. Add to that: billions of web pages and no way to stop the flow of information.

How many ways can you think of to spread information on the internet? A LOT! So, for better of for worse, information will be free. Just like the drug war does not stop people from using drugs and vietnam did not stop the spread of communisism, no amount of ANY THING can stop the spread of information on the 'net. (may be a far flung set of comparisions, but I do believe in the importance of the set of events occuring concerning this).

There may be lots of casualities along the way. It may become 'social unexceptable' behavior and driven underground... but it will never be stopped.

I'm very curious to see where the legal battle goes from here. Will we soon have a 'War on Information'?