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'Winston Smith' Speaks Out On MS Reader Convertor

Posted by timothy on from the gotta-read-on-my-zaurus dept.

David H. Rothman writes "'Winston Smith,' an unemployed American high school dropout self-named after 1984's hero, told my TeleRead.org site why he and buddies turned out Convert Lit to crack the Microsoft Reader e-book format. Winston makes clear he is pro-fair use and anti-piracy. Alas, new DMCAish legal restrictions in the United Kingdom will force the Dan Jackson Software site to shut off the Convert Lit downloading later this month. Just as in the States, free speech and fair use apparently matter less in the UK these days than they used to. According to Dan Jackson, Winston 'is indeed the real author of Convert LIT.' Meanwhile, if you're in a country without DMCAish thuggery and can host Dan at a new location, email him ASAP."

15 of 192 comments (clear)

  1. Heh, later this month... by DrEldarion · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Stop downloads of it later this month? They may as well just leave it up, because by then there will be about a million different sites available to download it from. Especially now that the Slashdotters know about it, people will host it just to spite Microsoft.

    -- Dr. Eldarion --

  2. Where is Alan Cox in all of this? by bconway · · Score: 4, Interesting

    AC has always badmouthed the US as no longer "the land of the free" and made other off-the-cuff remarks, also saying that he'll be leaving his country if such laws were passed. Yet, suddenly, he's become very quiet. Does he have any plans of following through, or does he just make idle threats? I find it sad someone so prominent in this community would be all talk and no walk.

    --
    Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
    1. Re:Where is Alan Cox in all of this? by DAldredge · · Score: 3, Informative

      That would be a shock to Alan Cox, since he lives in the UK.

      He has also taken a year or so off to get an MBA and learn welsh.

    2. Re:Where is Alan Cox in all of this? by EvilAlien · · Score: 3, Insightful
      There are still plenty of places without DMCA laws and the ability to buy American products.
      Such as Canada, the new Land of the Free... at least as long as our benevolent dictators don't bow to pressure and adopt laws similar to the DMCA.

      Besides, its not about American products, its about ideas. The US comes up with great ideas, like cars, Internet and so on that get implemtented better elsewhere. The freedom present in the US (should that be past tense?) creates an environment great for ideas (notice how intellectual property law in the US aggressively protects ideas)... but the Germans and Japanese sure do make better cars ;)

      --
      perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
  3. What are they teaching kids these days? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Winston Smith is not the hero of 1984. Big Brother is the hero of 1984. Big Brother has always been the hero of 1984.

  4. A new email address might be more useful... by bergeron76 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Uhm, after posting his [unobscured] email address on the Slashdot Frontpage, I tend to think that we might want to find the guy a new email addy first...

    --
    Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
  5. Re:Here's A Suggestion by LostCluster · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Exactly. This is cracking open a bank vault with hardly anything in it. It's still a vault, and the cops are gonna come after anybody who breaks into it.

    If you wanna do a Rosa Parks-like stand of civil disobedience, go ahead, but also pack your bags for the slammer. The fact is, civil disobedience means breaking the law and paying the price, the theory being that if enough people do it it'll get attention and hopefully cause the law to be changed, or at least cause the local officials a headache trying to arrest 10,000 people when the local police department only has enough cells for 3. Somehow, a small number of hackers breaking a non-used scheme isn't quite the same effect...

    You're better off pointing out the DRM schemes that can be hacked with a single key. That's a much better test case than this...

  6. Does it matter any more? by TheSHAD0W · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I wonder if it's worth putting effort into distributing an e-book cracking program when e-books are falling out of style. Amazon is getting out of the business and they may be setting a trend. The lack of a decent micropayment system is sounding the death knell for legitimate electronic distribution of content, protected or not. Meanwhile pirates are busy scanning and distributing their own copies which they don't bother placing content controls on.

    1. Re:Does it matter any more? by FattMattP · · Score: 3, Insightful
      I wonder if it's worth putting effort into distributing an e-book cracking program when e-books are falling out of style.
      Yes. If they are falling out of style then that is even more of a reason to have a program like this. So that people can protect their investments. If ebooks fall out of style and no one makes software to read these anymore, what do you do when your device to read your ebooks breaks and you can't replace it? At least with this software the ebooks can be converted into other forms.
      --
      Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
  7. it does work by gooman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    All I can say is this thing helped me out of a jam a little while ago. The program is not polished by any means, but it does work.

    Our company had a document (Employee Handbook) converted into MS Reader format. (Don't ask me why.) The original files were lost in a disk crash. (Don't talk to me about backups either.) Now the document needs editing. I could have re-typed it, but I'm lazy. A quick Google and I find this program with a potentionaly offensive name.

    Hooray! I get to be lazy and violate the DMCA just to retreive a file owned and created by the company I work for. The incident only reinforced to everyone here the value of pdf files and that MS Reader is beyond worthless.

    --
    "Kittens give Morbo gas!"
  8. Wanted to use reader... by matchlight · · Score: 5, Insightful

    but I the first time I tried to do a little offline, off computer reading I realized that there was no print function. I didn't want to copy the whole thing or print it out for distribution. All I wanted to do is print off a chapter so I could hop in the car and read a little during my 5 hour drive during a weekend visit.

    The people making anti piracy software have to realize that you just can't force people to act in a simple fashion so that it's easier for them. They have to realize that they have to find real and intelligent solutions that work and still allow Joe Legal user fair and useful access to the content that's being provided.

    After doing a small search for a conversion program (this was a while back now) and not finding one, I just ditched it and went another route.

  9. Later this month? by davidstrauss · · Score: 3, Funny
    Alas, new DMCAish legal restrictions in the United Kingdom will force the Dan Jackson Software site to shut off the Convert Lit downloading later this month.

    Slashdot may take care of that before they need to.

  10. Oh, where to start? by Call+Me+Black+Cloud · · Score: 3, Informative

    If it wasn't so late I might be motivated to write more - there are so many things wrong with this picture I don't know where to begin.

    You'll notice, when you follow the link, that you're really getting submitter David H. Rothman's weblog, where he states, "Winston in effect provides some great insights into why "Microsoft" is a hated name among millions and why e-books sales for the whole bloody industry are a pathetic $10-million or so a year--a fraction of Tom Clancy's annual income."

    Rothman has what's known as "target fixation" - he's so focused on the target (MS and DRM) that he'll fly his plane into the ground. Of course revenues are so little - no one wants to read books on a screen! Even in a convenient easy-to-carry PDA with super-font-res technology.

    If you read all the material relating to "Winston", you'll find Rothman seems to hold him up as a sort of hero of the cause, whose insights we should all read and heed. If you read Winston's writings, you'll find he's rambling, immature, and ill-informed. He does have one real insight: "Lack of a college degree is a true impediment to getting hired."

    I don't know how this stuff ends up on the front page of Slashdot. A link to a guy's weblog...timothy strikes again.

  11. Speakers Corner by atcurtis · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Due to ancient laws of the land, there is one place in the whole of the UK where you cannot be sued or prosecuted for any spoken word.

    That place is Speakers Corner in Hyde Park.

    Just gather up the source for DeCSS and any other cracking algorithm and security vulnerability and read it out loud to the 'audience'. You may need to invest in a megaphone or PA system to be heard above all the other people there (which nowadays includes Taliban sympathizers, Pro Saddam activists, IRA/PLO/Islamic Jihad fundraisers, BNP/Neo-Nazi recruiters, Triad/Mafia/Organised Crime reps).

    You cannot be prosecuted for saying something there, political or otherwise.

    The only problem is trying to get someone to listen.

    --
    -- The universe began. Life started on a billion worlds...
    -- Except on one where stupidity was there first.
  12. Use the archived copy by MikeBabcock · · Score: 3, Informative

    If you can't get to a website for one reason or another, don't forget to check web.archive.org.

    http://web.archive.org/web/20030118042411/http:/ /m embers.lycos.co.uk/hostintheshell/ is the most recent link to the above site, and the .tar.bz2 source download link seems to work as well. Make sure to replace that date with a '*' to see other possible copies from other dates.

    --
    - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)