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Jon Johansen Interviewed
wuzfuzzy writes "Depending on your point of view, Jon Lech Johansen is either your hero or adversary. To the copyright industry, Jon Lech Johansen has been a detriment to their policy of control since the advent of DeCSS (Decrypt Content Scrambling System.) To those who cherish freedom, he has been a pillar of hope in an age when DRM (Digital Rights Management) threatens to overtake mainstream media. After two trials, the courts finally ruled in Jon's favor. However, there is much more to Jon Lech Johansen than DeCSS. In this interview, Slyck hopes to bring to light the many facets of Mr. Johansen, and the numerous projects he is involved with."
When your DVD player tells you "This operation is not allowed" when you try to skip commercials, it becomes pretty clear that DRM really stands for Digital Restrictions Management.
Exactly! When I buy a DVD (not rent) I expect to have complete control over how I view that content. My DVD player has no right to restrict me from fastfowarding through any part of that media.
Any DVD I purchase that does not allow me to fastfoward any part is immediately ripped, stripped, and burned. That's my right. Thank you Jon!
Right On Jon! I already paid for the DVD I don't see why I should be forced to sit though adverts after that.
Just let me navigate the content of my new DVD in the manner I choose thanks very much!
It is just a pity that the studios/player manufacturers are not going to listen to the public on this matter.
From the interview:
People who claim that the iTMS DRM is a "good compromise" have naively bought into the impending doom propaganda.
He has a point - the DRM that comes with iTunes is already creeping up in restrictions from the point at which you first agreed to it. Perhaps you should take another look and think again if it is really worth it to you?
I remember all the comments here about how no one would buy anything with DRM attached... but then it turns out that yes, most of Slashdot indeed would buy it willingly. How very dissapointing.
Beep beep.
the most interesting thing he's done recently in my opinion was hacking the VC-1 codec from SMPTE into VLC. Something that provides real hope for linux and mac users trying to view WMV9 encoded video content
not to belittle the rest of his accomplishments, but I feel this one has the greatest possible advantage in legitimate terms
Business Voyeur
This paragraph struck me as odd:
"Another myth is that DeCSS is illegal because it uses a "stolen" key. A CSS key is 5 bytes. How anyone can think that it's possible to "steal" 5 bytes is beyond me. 5 bytes do not have any protection under copyright law because it's not an original work. It's probably possible for 5 bytes to be protected under trade secret law, but CSS hasn't been a trade secret since DeCSS was released and mirrored all over the net. Is someone who names their child "Frank" (5 bytes) stealing Frank's name? It's absurd."
If those 5 bytes are a key to unlock something.. ehm.. I think comparing that to someones first name is a bit weird. If someone has my credit-card code, I would say they stole my code.
For the record, as I do not want this thing to be flooded with "Great , go ahead and support DRM", I'm 100% against DRM. They have been spending a thousand times more on DRM-development than what they claim they have lost by illegal copies. DRM is only good if you want to finance the legal department and throw money out of the window, because no DRM will be 100% safe, and all DRM-schemes that I've seen passing by were broken, sometimes even before their official release. Not to mention they cause enormous headaches with their paying customers, and I don't think paying customers are the kind of people they want to piss off.
Why do things have to be so black and white? I don't care one way or the other. DeCSS Jon is marginally better than Mitnick, because Jon actually produces something and is Fighting the Power (TM) and Sticking it to the Man (TM)... and that's a good thing. I don't agree with all that he does, but at least he's out there in the proverbial trenches doing what he thinks is right rather than just stealing music (or credit card numbers, like Mitnick) just because he can. He's also not a famewhore like Mitnick, trying to turn a moment of dubious fame into 3) profit!!! Mitnick proves that Scott Adams is right: people get promoted because management knows their name, and one only gets one's name known when it's attached to some disaster. Thus, companies hire criminals like Mitnick as "security experts" because they've heard the man's name.
I put Jon into the same category as Linus... someone pushing the boundaries of the electronic world, and our rights therein. Someone has to be the pioneer, if mainstream society is to struggle with the issues brought up by the envelope-pusher.
To those who cherish freedom, he has been a pillar of hope
Since when did George Bush's writers start submitting slashdot articles?
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
For me the paper was largely useless to start with. The point is people really are asshats and will simply stroke you off for not being comformant with "the list".
... well it proves how immature he is. School is as useful as you make it. If you just treat it as a 9-5 it can be very ineffective. But if you treat is as playground of knowledge and use the time to learn as much as possible you leave school with the ability to pick up new things, etc, etc, etc..
I have companies like IBM, Sony, BitMover, etc... using my software and yet I'm unfit to work for them... That basically tells you that the people who "do work" and the people who "do hiring" are not the same and don't talk.
Not trying to ride on JJ but if he's trying to be hip by saying "school is useless"
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
You might have said that sarcastically, but a lot of people think this way. This kind of worldview emerges if you follow the current trend of relentless corporate-goverment culture restrictions policies to their logical conclusion.
Separately, I offer two analogies based on the last sentence in your comment:
1) The fact that record labels will not consider selling music online without onerous restrictions underscores Jons point.
2) Saying that iTMS has the least restrictive DRM scheme is a lot like the difference between the Minimum Security wing of a prison (iTMS), and the Maximum Security wing of a prison (the goal of the labels); in the end, you're still in prison.
Governments are not necessary.
1. Put in movie, wait until it queues up 2. Press Stop 3. Wait 3 seconds 4. Press Stop again 5. Press Play 6. Movie will begin at 00:00:00 Problem solved. Seriously, try it.