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DMCA Invoked Against Garage Door Openers
boijames writes "In the latest bit of DMCA lunacy, copyright guru David Nimmer turned me
onto a case that his firm is defending, where a garage door opener
company (The Chamberlain Group) has leveled a DMCA claim (among other
claims) against the maker of universal garage door remotes (Skylink)."
I was able to find a website for The Chamberlain Group (the garage door manufacturer). Skylink (the remote manufacturer) also has a web site. Neither appears to have any information about the lawsuit.
I called Chamberlain's tech support number and got the number for their corporate offices: 1-800-282-6225. They said to ask for the legal depatment. If somebody with better journalism skills than I would like to follow up and ask all the questions that people have raised here, we would all appretiate you.
After reading the motion for summary judgement, what it looks like to me is this:
The manufacturer effectively implemented a OTP (one-time password) scheme in their remotes and receivers.
As anyone who has used OTPs knows, you have to know which password comes next in the sequence to get in.
Because the manufacturer couldn't think of a good way to get around this problem, they made the receiver accept a reset code that forces it to resync on the next code received.
Now they're bitching because someone else figured this out and using the reset code to allow their third-party remotes to activate the receiver.
There's a lot of bullshit about burglars and stuff, but what it basically comes down to is they thought up a great new security scheme, and then drove a ten-ton truck through it in the name of convenience. Tough shit for them, I say.
I don't think so... I think that US will try to force simmilar legislation on other countries (by means of commercial treaties, intelectual properties agreements, etc).
Since the US is such a commercial and industrial giant most countries will change laws to not loose commercial oportunities and we'll get at, some point in the future, a estagnation in inovation (or at least, innovation that doesn't pay royalties to some IP-only company).
Brazil has some of it's plants patented by foreign companies, that used breachs in their country of origin to patent these plants as medicines as if they had discovered it's medicinal properties... someday I'll discover that some IP fscked company has patented guava-tree leafs as a medicine for stomachache and that is an inovative use, but that is as fact known in Brazil since the days of my grand-grand mother (and before that, probably) and nobody patented it (how do you patent common-sense or folklore?).
This is dishonest from a ethical point of view? Yes, but companies aren't known for being ethical, they exist to profit.
IP laws are popping from everywhere. I think that some day you'll have to pay a tax for saying "Mickey".
I pity the guys living in US, but I pity them 'cause I see that as what will come to the rest of the world. They are only suffering first, we're the next in line...
If would be if the the signal from remote to the tv was encrypted. As it is currently tv companies don't encrypt thier signals.
And when this case is wrong by the company bringing the case, I don't think many tv manufacters will bother to do so since the market for additional remotes is not big enough to hassel the customer about.
Brazil has some of it's plants patented by foreign companies, that used breachs in their country of origin to patent these plants as medicines as if they had discovered it's medicinal properties... someday I'll discover that some IP fscked company has patented guava-tree leafs as a medicine for stomachache and that is an inovative use, but that is as fact known in Brazil since the days of my grand-grand mother
The exact thing has happened to India. Ayurvedic medicine consisting of herbs has been patented in US whereas these compositions have been known in India for centuries.
Would this was so. But, note how long silly lawsuits have been going on and being ridiculed in the press with absolutely no action being taken by our 'representatives.' I would include a reference to a coffee-hot lawsuit except that defenders of the right to be stupid would start flaming me.
The US Congress is a wholly-owned subsidiary of corporate america, reporting directly to the Disney corporation. As long as they can get away with having their cake (money from corporations) and eating it too (getting reelected by the voters they are screwing) they will. It stands to nature, at least the corrupt cesspool-like nature of anyone who would become a politician.
One solution: vote. And ask questions of the people you are voting for, like: who, exactly, do you plan to represent? Me, or NYSE:DIS?
Milo
yeah. It looks like the skylink sends a resynchronize signal to the garage door, then uses the default code to open it. (page 7 of the motion to dismiss pdf file)
The claim is that by 'rebooting' the garage system and then using guest:guest instead of dealing with the standard password system, skylink is circumventing their protection to a copyrighted work.
So, it's like having a building with a super-duper unpickable lock on the front door, but with an unlocked door on the side.
My questions:
1. could using this 'side door' be considered circumvention under the orginal (misguided) spirit of the law?
2. Where's the copyrighted work? They seem to claim it is the rolling code algorithm, but the rolling code program is never accessed. Maybe they'll claim that they've copyrighted the inside of my garage... Maybe lexmart can get in on the deal if I start keeping my printer cartridges inside my garage.
I don't think the DMCA was mentioned in any of the earlier filings. It looks to be a patent infringement case that some overzealous lawyer figured he'd add this cool DMCA thing to.
OK, then how about I flame you for not knowing the reason for the big award in the hot coffee lawsuit:
Woman spills hot coffee in her lap and gets big $$$. Sounds absurd, but McDonald's was not just an innocent vendor of coffee who failed to warn a customer not to put the coffee cup in her lap. No, the problem was the McDonald's was heating the coffee water to 190 degrees in order to get more yield from a given quantity of coffee grounds. There's nothing wrong with that per se, but they were serving the coffee at 190 degrees. Anything over 160 degrees is dangerous. At 190 degrees, burns are practically guaranteed. At 190 degrees, styrofoam will become soft. You see where this is leading? McDonald's had been warned numerous times in the past not to serve their coffee that hot, but they continued. Then someone got hurt and required a lot of expensive reconstructive surgery. McDonald's claimed it was her own fault for putting the coffee cup in her lap. The judge, however, seeing that McDonalds knew 190 degree coffee was dangerous, but decided to negligently endanger customers in order to maximize profit ruled against them. He levied punitive damages equal to five days' coffee sales, which turned out to be several million dollars. McDonald's no longer serves their coffee at 190 degrees, but it took more than just warnings to make them stop. It took a big punitive damage hit.
This case, I think, is one of the few cases where the system actually worked, and it just frosts me that people still think that it was a frivolous lawsuit with McDonald's as the innocent victim.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
"Rolling Code" systems have a feature that a wrong code will reset the receiver to the value sent.
Says the door is expecting codes in the following sequence A B C D E F. Currently, the garage door is expecting C. You press the button on your remote, it sends C. Now suppose that due to some mishap, this is not received. A next press would send D which the garage door would reject, bceause it is out of sequence. Thus, a simple bodged transmission would forever desynchronize the garage door and the receiver. In order to avoid this, a bad code resets the receiver. After sending your D, the garage stays shut, but will reset itself so as to expect E next time. A next press on the operner will send E, which matches.
The way those universal remotes work is that you have to press the button on your real opener twice when recording. When using it, the universal remote will play the two sequential codes back as recorded: the first code resets the receiver, and the second opens the door!
That way, the universal remote "works" in the sense that it does open the door, but it removes any security associated with the "rolling code" scheme: a burglar who sets up a sniffing device near the door now gets two sequential codes, and can open the door too!
I hate to break it to the company that makes these things, but most theives don't have ultra high tech gadgets to get into people garages. They do it the old fashion way. Bust in the side door or window, then press the button inside. Or they break into the car (lots of times unlocked) that's sitting in the driveway and use the remote from the car.
Rolling codes just make sure that your neighbour with the same garage door system (which is everyone in surburbia) doesn't open your door when he comes home and wants to park in the garage. There are only 2 (yes, that is 2) garage door manufactures in the US, and I beleive that Chamberlain makes about 80% of the units (rebranded under other names like Sears) so there is a higher then 50% chance all your neighbors have the same/simlar units from the same manufacturer.
I actually bought an "encrypted" system that sits on top of an older garage door opening system that doesn't have any code rolling after my car got stolen in my garage. The way it works is you map the "button" wire to that receiver device, sync it's encrypted remote to it and then it's basically a relay that "presses the button" with an encrypted link.
:).
I Was trying to find articles about how secure it was, if there was any backdoors (like, ANY flaws that any good car thief would know about and render the whole system completely useless).
Thanks to slashdot, I won't be able to sleep until I finish wiring the alarm system in the garage as well
DMCA or not, if a company claims their device is 100% secure, you should have the TOTAL FREEDOM to either post the flaw publicly or ask them for a compensation to keep your mouth shut (I like that idea). It's not extortion, since their claims are false and they are giving a false sense of security to the people who are buying such systems. Don't make claims if they aren't true. Period.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
I would include a reference to a coffee-hot lawsuit except that defenders of the right to be stupid would start flaming me.
OOPS, TOO LATE!
The only ones exercising their right to be stupid in the 'infamous' McDonald's hot coffee case were McDonald's themselves.
If McD's had been free of fault, the woman spilling coffee on her lap would have only resulted in mild discomfort and stained clothing. Instead, she got serious burns and required immediate medical attention. If she had tried to drink the coffee, she would have damaged her mouth and throat quite badly.
Do you deserve to have the skin on your genitals peel off for a single act of clumsiness? Of course not, no one does. McD's was sued and punished because their behavior was unsafe and led to injury. It was a completely legitimate lawsuit.
The FAT people suing FAsT food chains because they didn't know eating FAT would make them FAT, on the other hand...
Hi, there's a bit on the web about it, check out this link, it seems the DMCA can "outlaw" numbers :)
i llegal-primes.html
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/Stego/
RJ
Last.fm - join the social music revolution
And McDonald's wasn't warned about the danger from some outside party. They commissioned their own study about it. Then they evaluated the risks to their customers (and of potential lawsuits) against the rewards of a higher profit margin on coffee, and acted in an economically rational (but unethical) way.
And the court ruled according to its evaluation of the evidence.