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Federal Judge Rules Against Reverse-engineering

Posted by chrisd on from the freedoms-going-going-gone dept.

zurab writes "A federal judge in Boston threw out a challenge to the DMCA brought by the ACLU for a Harvard Law School student. Ben Edelman decided to ask court's permission to reverse-engineer the Internet filtering software made by N2H2 in fears of being sued by the company. Of interest is a quote from the ruling: "there is no plausibly protected constitutional interest that Edelman can assert that outweighs N2H2's right to protect its copyrighted material from an invasive and destructive trespass." Full story on Yahoo."

10 of 477 comments (clear)

  1. my school uses that.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    and its so freaking intrusive. it once banned slashdot for "vulgar language" (how often do you see that on /.?

    btw, fp!

    1. Re:my school uses that.. by JessLeah · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Wait, wait, WTF? Since when are/should "message boards" be banned from schools?! Isn't the whole point of school (supposedly) to facilitate intellectual conversations.. DISCUSSIONS, which of course is what said "message boards" are for?

      So these schools using Bess/etc. are basically saying "Go to msnbc.com / aol.com / cnn.com all you want, since they're nice big corporations, but don't discuss things amongst yourselves?" What is the justification given? Or is none at all given (as is typical nowadays)?

      I am confused.

      My good friend works at an office using WebSense (which both of us now call WebSenseless). It has, in the past, blocked her from accessing many perfectly legitimate sites, including my own site-- when I was trying to use my site to send her a technical document. It was very annoying.

      All these years, and censorware still hasn't gotten better? This is pathetic...

      --
      Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
    2. Re:my school uses that.. by NeoSkandranon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You make one big assumption---that given the run of all the message boards on the internet, students will only go to the "good" ones---that is, the ones that promote discussion and whatnot.

      All I can say is, it must have been awhile since you were a student. The purpose of blocking message board sites is so kids dont dick around when they're supposed to be working, tying up what might be already scanty bandwith (my highschool had 1400 students with several labs and all teachers' computers on a 64k ISDN line.) doing things that are not at all school related.

      --
      If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
    3. Re:my school uses that.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      A couple years ago, I saw a reverse-engineered list of the keywords that Bess considered illegal. In addition to the standard seven unprintable words, there were many context-sensitive words like "breast". But the really disturbing find was "MacMillan" - a rival publishing company.

      OK, I'll admit some of the politically sensitive oversimplifications in their scientific textbooks were obscene, but not enough to ban them for.

      Tried to find the link again, but this is the closest I could come up with on short notice:
      http://danny.oz.au/freedom/censorware/ifi lter.html
      I know it's not an authoritave source, but this is slashdot.

    4. Re:my school uses that.. by Minna+Kirai · · Score: 5, Insightful

      have the right to protect their copyrights.

      Reverse engineering is independent of copyright violation.

      To break a copyright, you make copies of the material.

      Reverse-engineering means you come to understand material already in your possesion.

      It does not damage copyright at all, except via circular reasoning.

  2. Already Exempt by rgmoore · · Score: 5, Informative

    While the judge's reasoning in this case appears to be wrong, the outcome of the his decision is correct. Part of the anti-circumvention clause states that the Copyright Office was to hold hearings to decide on specific classes of work that should be exempt. They only picked two, which were:

    1. Literary works, including computer programs and databases, protected by access control mechanisms that fail to permit access because of malfunction, damage or obsolescence.
    2. Compilations consisting of lists of websites blocked by filtering software applications

    In other words, what the plaintiff wanted to do is not illegal, so he has no standing to challenge the law. You can read about it here. FWIW, that may not be true for long. The Copyright Office is holding another round of hearings, and one of the scheduled topics is whether this exemption should be continued.

    --

    There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.

  3. The encrypted protocol? I have it right here... by joelparker · · Score: 5, Funny
    The encrypted protocol? I have it here,
    and I can post it on Slashdot right now,
    right after I answer the knock at the door...

    Cheers, Joel

  4. In other news... by eyegone · · Score: 5, Funny
    The United States has imposed martial law in Baghdad. Rape and murder will be tolerated, but anyone who violates a copyright will be shot on sight.

    --
    "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
  5. Re:A sad state of affairs... by fliplap · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The problem is, everyone on slashdot would rather just complain on slashdot instead of actually writing thier representative a well worded letter.

    I was actually thinking about this the other day. What about a slashdot sponsered letter writing compaign that gave people a tangible reward for writing a good letter to thier congress(wo)man.

    They could have everyone write an email about what really matter to them, any topic, preferably a technological one as thats what scores points around here. Then have them mail them to thier representative and CC a copy to contest@slashdot.org as well as post it as a comment. Say, 10 highest rated letters win a free subscription (however many page views that is). The cost would be negligable, but the impact of tons of well worded emails coming from intellegent people would have an amazing impact. So, editors, what do YOU think? --btw, the letters should be worded better than this post.

  6. READ THE FREAKING OPINION!!!!!!! by ajakk · · Score: 5, Informative

    Am I the only one who actually read the Judge's VERY CORRECT opinion? The case was being brought under Declaratory Judgement, ie. I am suing N2H2 because they are about to sue me. The Judge ruled that there was not any proof that N2H2 was about to sue, so the case was thrown out. This ruling had nothing to due with the validity of the DMCA or the scope of reverse engineering exception.

    --
    Come play Heroes of Might and Magic Mini online.