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Jon Johansen DeCSS Trial Next Week
daniel_howell writes "Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten has a story on the imminent start (after delays in finding judges qualified to hear the case) of the trial of local teenage Jon Johansen for helping to write and distribute the DeCSS program to play DVDs on a home computer. The article notes that under Norwegian law it is perfectly legal to make a copy for your own personal use. The Norwegian press is generally supportive of Johansen, and Aftenposten is usually good at posting updates to big stories like this on its English pages, so watch this space to follow the story as it unfolds."
#!/usr/bin/perl
# 472-byte qrpff, Keith Winstein and Marc Horowitz
# MPEG 2 PS VOB file -> descrambled output on stdout.
# usage: perl -I
# where k1..k5 are the title key bytes in least to most-significant order
s''$/=\2048;while(){G=29;R=142;if((@a=unqT="C*"
b=map{ord qB8,unqb8,qT,_^$a[--D]}@INC;s/...$/1$&/;Q=unqV,qb
^S*8^S>=8
)+=P+(~F&E))for
From a text file that came with DeCSS (I'm at the cap, don't worry):
- The Truth about DVD CSS cracking by MoRE and [dEZZY/DoD] -
Date: 4th of November 1999.
By: [dEZZY/DoD], [MultiAGP & German dood of MoRE]
This document is written cooperatively by the two groups
that independently and simultaneously cracked the DVD Content
Scrambling System, in order to straighten out mass media
confusion.
DoD -> Drink or Die: "warez bearz from Russia and Beyond"
MoRE -> Masters of Reverse Engineering
[dEZZY/DoD] alone is the author of DoD DVD Speed Ripper.
MoRE is a new group and they are the authors of DeCSS.
Lately, Jon Johansen of MoRE has been pretty much all over
the news in Norway, though he had NOTHING to do with the actual
cracking of the DVD CSS protection. Yes, it was MoRE who did
DeCSS, but the actual crack was not a team effort, MoRE didn't
even exist back when the anonymous German (who is now a MoRE
member) cracked it...
Most of the papers chose a headline very similar to this:
"15-year old Norwegian cracked the DVD-code".
They probably did this because they wanted to make a big
Norwegian "Wooohoooo" out of it. This was also pretty much
the contents of the TV show "Vestfold-sendingen" where they
brought up matters from Vestfold, Norway where Jon Johansen
lives.
In most newspapers they vagely included the name MoRE, and
that DeCSS was a team effort, but neither MoRE nor DoD liked
the headlines. Jon's comment on this matter is:
"I never told the media that I had cracked the dvd encryption.
What I told them, was that we (MoRE) had made an app called
DeCSS which would decrypt dvd movies and let them be played
off your hd, or off dvdrs if you have a dvd burner. I always
used _we_ and _MoRE_ when talking to them. I never said anything
about me or my position in the group.
Now that the storm is over, I see that all they were after,
was to get a big story. They even included some of "my" quotes,
which I never said. When media starts making up stuff, it's really
sad. I know that this has been done before in Norwegian media,
regarding the cooperation between a computer group at my school
and the school people in charge of the network. All I can say is
that I'm very sorry that the media twisted my words, and even lied,
to make it appear as I had done the cracking myself. I'm pretty
sure that I will do everything to avoid the media in the future,
but if I'm forced to talk with them, I'll have to get them to
sign an agreement. Again, I apologize on the behalf of Norwegian
press, and I hope that this document will make everything clear.
The truth shall set you free."
DoD DVD Speed Ripper was developed by [dEZZY/DoD] at the
same time as DeCSS. The first release of DoD's app (which
came out a couple of weeks before the first release of DeCSS)
did not work with all (WB) titles, like The Matrix. This was
known by [dEZZY/DoD] at the time of his release. MoRE decided
to wait until they could fix this. In short time, [dEZZY/DoD]
solved the problem and MoRE's top coder/disassembler from
Germany used that information to get DeCSS working with every
movie before they released it, along with a GUI. DeCSS was then
the first application which decrypted ALL dvd titles, since DoD
had not released a new version to the public. How MoRE got
their hands on the information by [dEZZY/DoD], seems to have
something to do with the Linux community...
Why Drink or Die didn't want to release a new version so soon,
was because warez sites nuke programs that are too close in
release (minimum 2-3 weeks). Meanwhile when DeCSS came out, it
caused DoD to delay any Windows release until a GUI version of
their Speed Ripper was done. However, they released a Linux
version of their ripper late October 1999. As for the new Windows
version of the Speed Ripper, [dEZZY/DoD] has been very busy with
his education and hence the ripper is extremely delayed.
[dEZZY/DoD] already got the idea of reverse engineering a DVD
player for the CSS code back in late summer 1998. He was not able
to do it at the time since he did not have access to a DVDROM. In
the beginning of 1999, MoRE's German member also got the idea.
[dEZZY/DoD] and MoRE's German member got CSS decryption code
working at the same time (middle of September 1999), without
having shared info (although they knew about each other). After
[dEZZY/DoD] solved "the problem", MoRE's German member, as stated
above, implemented these changes and added them to DeCSS for
release.
Before DeCSS was developed and released, MoRE had already sent
the source for the decryption to their contact in the Linux DVD
community, Derek Fawcus . This is the reason
why one of Wired's news reporters was put on the case.
[dEZZY/DoD] also had relations in the Linux DVD community (who
does not want to be mentioned), but decided not to release the
source code publicly (at least not for the moment).
Enjoy the software!
- Jon Johansen [MoRE]
- anonymous German cracker [MoRE]
- [dEZZY/DoD]
is that the RIAA is suing a Norwegian for breaking a law that isn't in Norway. This is no different from Dmitry's case, unless you consider the fact that Jon didn't actually sell his program. And both should be found not guilty, and it doesn't change the fact that the DMCA is bad legislature.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
"Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten"
As opposed to Slashdotian newspaper Firstenposten?
This is only the beginning. If software patents take their hold in Europe they will lock up free software programmers all over.
Thats why software patents are against free speech. In history the establisment locked philosopher up. Now they will lock hackers, programmers up of violating code.
Shouldn't it have occurred to him that might not have been such a hot idea?
...which is why most legal experts believe the case will belly-flop. It's not a DMCA-ish law, but rather a law against hacking/cracking. The key issue here is that it must be unauthorized - if you hack MPAA and take it from their server, it's unauthorized. However, the DVDs are his property and as far as most legal experts think, you can do whatever the hell you want with it.
At least that was the situation at the time of DeCSS, now the new EU copyright directive is making that illegal in EU (and by EEC-agreement, in Norway too).
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Just my two bits...and a byte...haha...
We have so much time, and so little to do - strike that! Reverse it. Tryn Mirell
They will soon understand what "slashdot virkning" is...
[...]finding judges qualified to hear the case
Wow, good idea! I only wish it happened more often in technical cases. Better still, maybe judges should be required to attend a remedial computer class and barred (heh) from hearing computer-related cases until they pass it.
Here's a link to the DeCSS Descramblers courtesy of Carnie Mellon
University. This is what academia is all about.
Cheers,
Woot.
CSS does not prevent you from making a bit-by-bit copy of a DVD! You can mount a DVD and look at the contents, move the file to your hard drive, etc. You just can't decode the contents without using an approved method.
CSS is designed to prevent me from playing media I legally purchased in a device I legally purchased unless I use approved software.
(surely this is off-topic) ... is by using a technology that can be cracked by a teenager and be replicated/copied around the world. And instead of fixing the technology they buy legislators to make laws to come down on this kid and make him an example to the world.
Unless I like to invest (and trust) in mafia type industries, I would place my money somewhere else.
Frankly im surprised that he wasn't extradited to the US like others have been recently. It disgusts me that we (the US) think that we have the right to enforce our laws anywhere, at any time. If people dont have the benefits (and sadly I say that with no small degree of sarcasm these days) of being a US citizen or residing in the US, then they should not be subject to OUR laws.
An aside: I tried to post this at about 3:30 or so and the site was so slow that it timed out before my comment could go through, several times. Does anyone know why it was so slow?
"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals."
I love this line (emphasis mine):
"Norwegian prosecutors claim the program *can contribute* to illegal copying of DVDs."
Car makers better watch out - cars can contrubite to bank robberies and drive-by shootings.
When did the ability to do something start to mean that you actually committed the crime itself?
"Jesus saves, but everyone else in a 10 foot radius takes full damage from the fireball."
They just want someone to be punished for it so it will scare off other people from doing things like that. Seriously, even if you shut down the entire internet I'm sure we'd pass cds around with DVD rippers.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Quite true. As has been pointed out many times, copying and playing of copied DVDs was going on for some time before DeCSS was written. Any claims that you have to be able to decode something to copy it are bogus beyond all belief.
Dyolf Knip