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Researchers Want Right to Bypass Protected Spyware
Dotnaught writes "Computer security researchers Professor Edward Felten and Alex Halderman have asked the U.S. Copyright Office for an exemption (pdf) to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) so that they can circumvent copy protection technology used to protect spyware. The DMCA currently makes it illegal to bypass digital locks almost regardless of what they protect or the user's intent. As noted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Copyright Office theoretically grants exemptions, but in reality discourages anyone from asking. What's significant about the application submitted by Felten and Halderman is that they knew about the dangers posed by Sony's XCP DRM software a month before the news became public. But they delayed publication for fear of prosecution. During that time, many more consumers fell victim to the spyware propagated by Sony."
This strikes me as a horrible idea.
I fear that by building these loopholes, we will actually be legitamizing the DMCA as a whole... And we will be losing 1 more datapoint in our arguments against this monstrosity...
hard core geek-ware
I am grateful to live outside the United States when I see lawyers, judges and DMCA bureaucrats shackling reasonable fair use and fair experimentation research.
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
Just another reason why politicians shouldn't be writing laws concerning subjects they know nothing about.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I'm glad to see this. Up to now I thought the only thing the U.S. Copyright office did was register the official names of stars in cooperation with some official sounding international registry about which I know very little.
(sic)
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
Part of me wishes Sony had not withdrawn their software voluntarily and had put up a legal fight, such that the courts could have struck down parts of the law as unconstitutional and or invalid. An appeal to the US Copyright office has less legal weight and force of precedence, IMO.
What's significant about the application submitted by Felten and Halderman is that they knew about the dangers posed by Sony's XCP DRM software a month before the news became public. But they delayed publication for fear of prosecution. During that time, many more consumers fell victim to the spyware propagated by Sony.
This story deserves the Slashdot Censorship Icon.
I wonder of the victims can go after the copyright office for contributory neglegence? Probably not but it's fun to think about.
Darn, looks like I missed "first post" by --><-- that much.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Am I the only one seeing that American 'democracy' is doomed to become a corporate dictatorship?
It would have taken a lot of gall from Sony to sue anyone who would blow the whistle on their rootkit. Their public image has been damaged enough as it is with the rootkit scandal to damage it even more with a stupid lawsuit.
In the US, it is legal (with restrictions) to own a gun. It is not legal to go out and randomly pop a cap in someone's behind. The tool, or mechanism, is legal, but the act is not.
Contrast that to the restrictions being argued against. The tool, circumvention of copy protection technology, is illegal. The act, distributing copies in violation of copyright, is also illegal.
Why is circumventing copy protection illegal? Because the **AA want it to be.
Say I want to rent a bike for the day. I license the use of the bike, and am provided with a bike lock. Is it illegal for me to pick that lock? Even if you go by the **AAs' ridiculous licensing theory, it still doesn't make sense to have circumventing copy protection be illegal.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
As someone who has worked in sensitive research areas, I have to say it is about time this came up. There were many times in college when we could not tell our sponsors straight out what we were doing because technically it was illegal. We were doing legitimate research, but because of how poorly written the DMCA is, we could have gotten in hot water because of what we were doing.
What makes it even worse... our sponsor was the Department of Defense. I can not give any specific details becaus of a NDA, so you will have to take my word on it, but what we were doing was of great value to our serving men and women. This is something that is most definitely sorely needed.
Government's view of the economy: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving,regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it.
Your argument doesn't work against those wanting the excemption. Your argument actually applies to employees of the Sony corporation who knew that they were installing a rootkit on computers and what damage it could do. This is closer to the Nuremburg Trials situation wherein Nazi officers claimed that they were only following orders.
At Nuremburg the court held that if you know something is wrong/evil you are obligated to not do it no matter what your superior officers tell you to do.
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
If you know that someone is doing something mean, nasty and evil.... you let someone know. Plain and simple.
I assume you have plenty of money to fight frivolous lawsuits filed against you when you heroically denounce evil deeds, right? For the rest of us, when the law muzzles us, we tend to shut up because otherwise we'd go broke. Sad but that's how it is, and I suspect you'd probably do the same despite all your Slashdot bravado.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
At the very least I hope Sony is fair when they sue people under the DMCA and that they sue Scotch tape manufacturer 3m... I mean you can use Scotch tape to circumvent copyright protection on Sony CDs and isn't that a violation of the DMCA even though Scotch tape has many legal uses...
If a company ever tried to bring charges against me because I released a fix to their crippleware/malware/spyware/lameware to neuter it or remove it completely, I would be citing 'home defense' laws.
They brought their property, on to yours, with the intent to cripple or hinder use of your equipment, without adequately informing you and without your express permission. In my world, this is the same as home invasion. Just the same as a fat man standing over your computer yelling at you or fucking with your machine's innards when you weren't looking.
Its absolutely retarded that this is even LEGAL. The only reason they haven't been able to apply the DMCA to car innards is because they know that the person OWNS that piece of equipment, and putting in measures to defeat it would be taken apart in all of ten minutes. And spread the information. Eventually it would lead to bad press, as a useless piece of metal would be trying to keep you from having access TO YOUR OWN car. Same thing with computers and software..but people don't think they're as important as things meatside.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Nope. At Nurenberg they were on trial because they'd definitely done SOMETHING! They were not guilty of acts of ommission, like forgetting to tell you that they'd installed DRM software onto your computer BEFORE presenting you with an EULA and asking if you wanted to allow them to install software on your computer.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
How can it be moral or ethical to prevent someone from examining how something they use and integrate into their computer? A person should have the right to know what they are buying, renting, or using when they pay for it. They should know exactly what a computer program is doing, especially when the computer is also used to buy items online and check health care stuff. I expect to know what I am buying whether it's a a hamburger (does it have something I am allergic to? Is it prepared safe ?), a paper plate, a car (do the brakes work as normal), or software (does it make my system vulnerable, can it affect other software?).
And no, them saying it won't does suffice (unless I get a massive payment if it turns out they are wrong). Not even third party certification would work (although they would never agree to that anyway).
I think that there are both pros and cons to this idea. the pors: spyware will be easier to kill and we will have less of it. cons we are opening a whole new loophole for hackes and other evil meaning people/. this idea in moderation is a good one.
Perhaps they kept thier mouths shut not only out of fear, but to use the situation as an opportunity to do exactly what they are doing. By waiting until it was public they have legitimized their claims without fear of a lawsuit.
In other words, you cannot tell us what you did for the DoD due to the NDA, but then neither can you tell the DoD what you did for them. The secrets will die with you, brother!
Interesting... It would be laughable in some other context, but I feel your pain.
Because as far as I know, anything being protected by copy protection might be spyware. So if they pass this, anyone can argue away cracking anything!
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Does anyone know if similar laws to the DMCA exist is the UK? I'd be seriously worried if they do. I'm of the opinion that you have a right to bypass any technology used to protect spyware. It's a pretty deceitful form of software, it's effectively carrying out surviellence against you, you should be able to respond to it.
So . . . why do software manufacturers (including malware manufacturers) have a right to dictate what I will do with my hardware. Certainly, if I start making bootlegged copies of software/data available I can see where I have abnegated the implicit agreement between myself and the software vendor (damaging the apartment), but so long as such transgressions remain securely within the bounds of my equipment they should have no right to complain (I furnished the apartment with the most hideous furniture in existence, but the apartment remains undamaged).
So does this mean that if I go out and copyright a new computer virus with the USPTO, I can sue the federal government and the anti-virus manufacturers when they crack open my code to figure out how to stop the virus from damaging computers? I would love to see someone try that one. It would almost be worth going to jail for a while if I could patent a nice new form of self-propogating worm, then upload it onto the servers of the *AA. Then, when they figure out how to stop the worm, I can sue them for millions because the only way they can figure out how to stop it is to circumvent my copyright protection and reverse engineer my application. I might spend a while in jail, but I would probably have a smile on my face the whole time!!!!!
My software never has bugs.
It just develops random features.
And this would be bad because...?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Given that all these technological measures only break Windows because of Autorun, why doesn't MS issue a patch to disable it.
All that would be required is a simple popup when you insert a CD: "This disc appears to be an audio disc. Do you want to play it as normal, or would you like to install the program that is on the disc".
I see a lot of applications of the DMCA are similar to that of gun control laws. "If guns are criminalized, then only the criminals will have guns." In this case, the saying may as well read, "If programming is criminalized, then only the criminals will program." The problem with a law as broad in its scope as the DMCA , is that it does not recognize that all programs, by design, are often amended, put together, and modified by not only the original designers, but even the end users. While there are ways for an end user to in fact take advantage of their unique position in the supply chain to steal others work, the sad reality is that if you outlaw their input into the product itself, others along the chain will seek rents on their utility of the product, whether it be the RIAA, who seek to litigate current market realities out of existence, or spammers, who would steal the time and effort of good law abiding citizens in the protection of their soft and hard computer assets. Perhaps the saying may as well read, "Legislation is a broad tool, all too often too powerful in scope, and not subtle enough in design."
Look. If American corporations and the American government actually wanted to work together to eradicate spyware (as opposed to working together to make lots of money), we wouldn't have spyware. We also wouldn't have spam, viruses, or any number of other nasty things. The fact of the matter is that almost all sorts of online nastiness can be used to benefit the already super-rich. Example: Spyware used to benefit Sony (or so they think), viruses used by companies to insert, well, spyware... spam used, of course, to advertise the products of big companies (directly, indirectly, or "The makers of Viagra paid a marketing firm, who paid another marketing firm, who paid a slightly sleazier marketing firm, who sold a list to an even sleazier one, who sold it in turn to an even sleazier one, who ended up spamming you about buying Viagra")...
They. Don't. Give. A. Fuck. In fact, tacitly I think they like this sort of online plague, since they know damned well that only the 'little guys' (read: their competition and their user base) will ever get in trouble for breaking the DMCA, or spreading spyware, or releasing viruses, or spamming-- but they never will.
It will be a cold day in Hell when Sony actually experiences any pain over this. N.b.: A pathetic boycott by 0.1% of 1% of nerds, who in turn make up 1% of the population, will not cause them pain. Also, a $100,000,000 *kof*slaponthewrist*kof* "fine" will not cause them pain either.
The DMCA was conceived as a way of keeping the rich rich. Full stop. End sentence.
And to those of you who think that the combined might of the Fortune 500 companies and the American government couldn't eradicate spyware, spam, etc. if they REALLY wanted to, think again. It's as simple as implementing new security standards and specs, testing them with the cooperation of the security community, setting a worldwide/nationwide rollout date, then requiring everyone's software to support them as of that date. Think "Attention (ebay|Yahoo|Google|MSN) Users: After JULY 23, 2007, you must have upgraded your Web browser to support the new HardenedHTTP specification. Browsers which support this include: Mozilla Firefox 2.0, Netscape 8.1, Opera 9.01, or Internet Explorer 8 Beta."
Yeah, it'd cost billions. But these companies and the US government, put together, have TRILLIONS.
They don't care, though. They'd rather bring their considerable resources to bear upon the tricky problem of making their CEOs and Board members a few more billion apiece. Consumers? Pfeh, they don't even have people to read their email for them. Who cares about them?
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
Sony wouldn't have had a DMCA fight by continuing to ship the software. That's not illegal under the DMCA, nor are they being sued under its provisions.
The researchers who determined how it worked, and how to workaround and/or remove it would have had to carry the burden of the fight if Sony charged them with violating the DMCA.
Sony had to pull it because of: a) Immense bad PR; and b) Being sued for every instance still out there under Spyware/Computer Invasion laws. Sony's only hope for defense (a huge lie, btw, in light of what has been revealed since this story first broke) is, "We didn't know it was bad when we shipped it, and the moment we found out it was bad we recalled it and offered replacements."
I hope this won't save them because they truly deserve to go all the way down over this, and should serve as a severe warning to every other remaining company that this is just plain Wrong!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Just don't publish from the USA.
Alright, I'm a little confused here. We have laws on the book which prevent breaking into computers and installing "spyware" without the user knowing about it, but if that "spyware" is encrypted/hidden/copy protected in any way, it is also illegal to remove it??
Is it just me, or is the US government getting too stupid for its britches??
My Sysadmin Blog
Researchers: "Give us the right to bypass protected spyware!"
U.S. Copyright Office: "No problem. That'll be $10,000,000; small, non-sequential bills, please."
Are you...Are you some kind of genius?
No, ma'am, I'm just a regular Slashdot reader.
Hey script kiddies and virus creators (I know at least SOME slashdotters are. Come on, admit it, you're out there!), want to help kill DMCA?
In your next trojan horse and virus releases, implement some sort of DRM which will make it illegal for anyone to remove the utilities. You can then prosecute Symantec, etc. citing DMCA violations. This will show just how evil the DMCA really is.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
I have a DVD with public domain content on it (Private Snafu cartoons, if you care). The tool to circumvent the copy protection of the disc is illegal, yet the underlying content is free to copy.
To use your analogy, it is as if it were legal to shoot people, but guns (the tools) were illegal.
I generally do not see much of any coverage relating to the issues surrounding the DCMA and all the hoopla coming from it. Seems like all of the news about it is on Slashdot or the Register. Why are the big news outfits not publishing anything on this???
My suspicions are that "keeping it quiet" is a tendancy being brought about by a select group of lawyers that work quite possibly in the entertainment industry, and are looking to covet their bank accounts and the future deposits thereof.
I mean;.. we all know the silly thing is entirely political apeasement to a small group, and that somehow the thing got in and passed with very little fanfare. What is disturbing is that it takes all this to convince folks to take a look at the language of this thing, and research it against constitutional law. Odds are that you would find that it nullifies much of your rights without you ever even committing a crime!
Yea, I know... "Black hellicopter" and all... but.. sure does make you wonder what the heck is going on!!
Cheers.
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
This is an illegitimate law and should not be given any consideration to fix it. The process is broken. I urge all of you to contact your representative, and hound the he double L out of them. It is not the role of government to protect the very monopolies that it finds quilty. Software, tobacco, a broken healthcare and insurance industry. Do not even get me started on the glutteny of the energy industry. If our future and much of our present doesn't threaten us, stay tuned it will. These greedy pigs have got to be beat away from the trough. The lust for more power and control only gets worse left unchecked.
Laws that require a bunch of exemptions need to be revisited. It's just like when software gets too many nested conditionals - you know the logic needs to be cleaned up or scrapped. Has anyone ever tried to apply complexity measures to portions of the law?
If the government told you to jump off a cliff or chop your own hand off would you? No of course not and even if they made a law saying that all left handers must chop off their left hands and become righties you still wouldn't. When the laws are ridiculous and the governement is out of control people need to stop obeying and change them out even if it's bloody and hard. The US govenment used to be like a block of cheese that had some mold (corruption) on the outside which you could avoid and still enjoy the center. Now the whole thing is moldy and the room smells like feet so something has got to be done, unless of course you enjoy the smell of toe cheese.
What they did was against the law and they need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Anyone that utilized the information to remove the rootkit should also be prosecuted. This has become a large conspiracy and should be treated as such. The federal and state attorneys general should be contacted and urged to prosecute everyone involved.
If you really want the DMCA overturned, use the system to fix the system.
no sony music here this holiday season...
...our new gorgonzola overlords!
I'd like to see "autorun" treated like "autoplay" for disks of ALL types:
If you go to the properties page of your CD drive, you will see an "autoplay" tab. For each type of non-data disk, you can select an option.
Add an option for two additional type:
* Disks that automatically run a program
with the options:
* Enable autorun
* Disable autorun and treat CD as another type of CD
* Do nothing
* Prompt for choice
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Under what article or amendment to the constitution is the federal government explicitly given the power to restrict what can or cannot be done to bits contained on a disk owned by a researcher? If the federal government is not explicitly given such a power the law should be declared unconstitutional by the courts.
10th amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
And in fact, your right to reverse engineer software is explicitly protected in the constitution, in the form of the 9th amendment.
9th amendment: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
In other words: The constitution actually names certain rights like speech and bearing arms and the right to a fair trial. Even though the constitution doesn't name every right you have, you still have those rights. Just because they are not listed by name in the constitution is not an argument against the constitutional protection of those rights.
quantum bit (225091)
Did you hear your little brother was born the other day? Quantum Byte was born weighing in at 8 bits and 0 ounces.
And won't it be exciting to own a DVD player that can shake a robot finger at you for playing DVDs without CSS encryption?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
The DCMA, the US's favorite export.
Actually the DMCA as well as its EUCD european counterpart are both implementations of the TRIPS international treaty which was brought to us by our loved and highly democratic World Trade Organization.
It also seems that EUCD is yet more restrictive than DMCA, actually the french implementation of EUCD, if adopted by the parliament at the end of the month, will simply make it illegal to publish free software .
It's more than time for all this nonsense to stop.
"As noted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Copyright Office theoretically grants exemptions, but in reality discourages anyone from asking."
That makes it sound so sinister. Isn't this the real purpose of any bureaucracy? To limit peoples access to things to which they are theoretically entitled, without having to prevent their access entirely. The same thing could be said about insurance policies, or any kind of social services offered by the US government, or retailer return policies.
Sigh... You don't seem to understand the difference between SMTP and HTTP. You also forgot part of the announcement:
It may be just that simple... but that's not very simple.
This comment advocates a
( ) technical (x) legislative (x) market-based ( ) vigilante
approach to fighting spam . Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
(x) Users of email will not put up with it
(X) System administrators will not put up with it
(x) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
(x) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
(x) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
(x) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
(x) Asshats
( ) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
(x) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
(x) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
(x) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
(x) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
(x) Extreme profitability of spam
(x) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
(x) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasu
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
no matter how rich and prestigious any corporation or government is - the embedding/hiding/including of spyware/malware/virus/trojan/rootkit etc... in any media that gets used on a computer should be outlawed and posted on news and websites specific to reporting such incedince. whatever gets the word out to the public...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Slashcode bug # 497457 - unfixed since December 2001 - Go look it up!
o/~ Join us now and share the software
Sounds like the defence used in the Nurenburg trials.
Wow, Godwin's Law in the FP. You lose!
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
Wish I had mod points instead. You never seem to have them when you need them....
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
How did the makers of spyware get the information about the OS functionality in teh first place so that they could subvert it?Unless they were getting their info from Microsoft DIRECTLY!
How did this get modded "+2: Interesting?" Believe it or not, people have subverted operating systems for decades without the help of Microsoft or the maker of the OS. It's called "hacking."
ALL spyware violates the DMCA and all the spyware writers are liable to arrest.
Not true either. The DMCA states, in effect, that anything protecting spyware may be reverse engineered but not that the spyware itself is in violation. Quoted from page six of the link:
Since the purpose of spyware is, of course, to "collect or disseminate personally identifying information," this clause therefore states that any protections on spyware my be lawfully removed.
I may have missed something (the DMCA is kinda long, y'see) but that's the jist of it.
DATABASE WOW WOW
Violating copyright is a civil matter... if found guilty it results in damages and compensation to the copyright holder. If there are real damages done, then compensation is deserved.
By invoking the DMCA, it becomes a CRIMINAL matter, which can involve jail time, and who knows what else in the future. I'm sure the **AA would push it to a capital offense if they could. Even if there was no financial damage done, you can STILL get jail time. This is a BIG difference from copyright, and is way out of line with the intentions of the Founding Fathers.
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
But, I'm confused. Isn't reverse-engineering broad enough to cover researchers dissecting it?
A while ago I read a government summary of the DMCA and I believe there is an exemption for research. If so they don't even need to make a reverse engineering argument, their work is inherently exempt.
its tough to do something when most people think that the goverment is acting in their best interest's every step of the way and when you do talk about it people dismiss you as a crackpot and being a crackpot doesn't help your cause at all does it? Another thing... if the government told you to jump off a cliff they probably wouldn't just say "hey jump off that cliff". If they were going to do something that insane they'd probably do it in such a way that you didn't have much of a choice and thus WOULD jump off the cliff.
I only read the government's own summary of the DMCA but I recall reverse engineering, research, and maintenance were inherently exempt. After reading the summary the EFF website seemed to be overstating or fud'ing things a little. They mean well, but keep in mind that anyone with an agenda is going to color things to support their take.
Should be hidden in some DCMA protected software so that even discovering the viral code requires a DCMA violation... I am not a programmer, but at least that situation would model the need for security researchers to be able to do their work.
So wait, if someone wrote a virus which contained a copyrighted work by the author, somehow protected by a DRM system, somehow embedded right in the virus itself in a way that meant you couldn't analyse the virus without violating the DRM, would that virus be protected under the DMCA? even from the US government? What if Microsoft, for example, decided one day to submit updates to all the worlds Windows machines which locked them down completely and locked everyone out of their own system bringing half the world to a stand-still and demanded that no-one attempt to fix their system without paying Microsoft a 'reactivation' fee? Would their system be protected under the DMCA, what if it encoded a copyrighted bit of text just for good measure? How can we use and abuse the DMCA in such a way as to disrupt it and show it as the retarded legislation it is?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Refactoring IRS laws:
Repeat that for a few thousand lines, and you have our tax code. Serious code smell. Refactored, we would probably get:
Boom! A thousand lines out, right there. The problem is, the "contributor" property of "congressman" is not supported on the "Laws of the United States" API, and supporting it would break alot of things us citizens believe in (like one man one vote, minority rights, individual liberty, etc.)
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
then it ever use to be.
Who modded the parent as Flamebait? The US has moved far from it's democratic ideals. It may not be any China or North Korea, but it is a far sight less free and democratic then it ever use to be.
To wit:
1) DMCA
2) Patriot Act
3) Congressional gerrymandering.
4) Copyright extentions and patent law broadening.
5) Air travel ID requirements
But, alas, this is not how it got reported. He blamed the DMCA, and that's what got spread around as information. But it got worse than that...because of this reporting, the perception became that the DMCA in fact bars not only reverse-engineering when it comes to copyright controls, but reverse engineering of everything else as well. So some companies bandied it about as an intimidation tactic (either believing the prohibition to be true, or simply counting upon the empty threat to dissuade people...which it did) and some people stifled themselves out of fear. In fact, the DMCA only applies to technical controls to prevent copyrighted content from being pirated (or to technical means that prevent unauthorized access to copyrighted content...like songs from Napster, after you cancel your subscription). Even more so, it has an exception (Section 1201(j), to be precise) specifically for the purpose of security research. Check it out here if you like. It states:
It has no teeth to prevent security research whatsoever, except in the all-too-common eyes of the misinformed.
Now, don't get me wrong; I think the DMCA is an awful law. I despise how short-sighted it is, and it's a step backwards (particularly with the way it's effectively incompatible with the notion of fair use). But Dr. Felten did everyone a disservice by purporting that the DMCA in any way prohibits or hinders security research. In the name of (in my opinion) enhancing his own visibility, he created the very dragon that he claims to be fighting.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Page six of the pdf makes the exact argument that is needed, on whole, to begin to dismantle the onerous aspects of the DMCA and is nearly perfectly written to do so, because it shows how a legally purchased disk cannot even be listened to on a user's PC even though there is no specific allowance in the DMCA for such a behavior by copyrightable-content producers. Great stuff!!
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Here's the text I am referring to:
The act of listening to a CD on a personal computer is lawful under any reading of the Copyright Act. Playing a CD on a computer for one's personal enjoyment implicates none of the exclusive rights granted to copyright holders under 106. No copies are made or distributed; no derivative works are prepared; and no works are publicly performed. Nonetheless, without an exemption rational consumers would be dissuaded from engaging in this unquestionably lawful activity in light of the security risks posed by protection measures that are a barrier to access.
In other words, I have the right to listen to an audio CD that I purchase where ever I want, PC or CD/DVD player, and there is nothing any copyright holder can do to dictate otherwise. What I don't have the right to do is reproduce and distribute copyrightable content otherwise.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Well, we did vote for someone else. The DMCA passed on Clinton's watch, but no politician has yet to speak out against it. It will take time and sacrifice, but eventually the DMCA will be revealed to everyone for what it is, an unjust law.
And won't it be exciting to own a DVD player that can shake a robot finger at you for playing DVDs without CSS encryption?
What, porn?
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Your comment reminded me of Will Rogers(?) saying: "We have the best Congress money can buy." and Mark Twain's "There is no native criminal class--except Congress."
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
1.It should not be a DMCA violation to break protection if you have permission from the copyright holder of the work to copy the work (this would, for example, not make it a violation to break any protection on digital camera photos that you took yourself)
2.It should not be a DMCA violation to break protection if breaking the protection is necessary to enable its use by someone with a disabillity (e.g. to run it through a screen-reader or braile device for the blind or to add subtitles for the deaf)
3.It should not be a DMCA violation to break protection if the protection is being broken in the course of removing a program, driver, library or other software item that cannot be removed any other way (this would make it ok to break the DMCA to remove viruses or worms or sony rootkits or spyware or other such items). This exemption would only cover acts taken in the course of removing the program and not any acts taken otherwise (e.g. to copy the program or to make it run when it refuses to run)
and 4.It should not be a DMCA violation to break protection in order to create a 3rd party clone of a hardware device or component which is used up or wears out and, in the course of normal operation acording to the manufacturers specs, would need to be replaced. (this would mean it wouldnt be a DMCA violation to create 3rd party printer cartridges, car parts and so on)
After reading your comment, the replies and your replies to them, I am struck by the defeatist attitude on the part of your critics, and indeed, the critics of all proposed ant-spam (etc.) remedies. They are defeated already because they have given up--the "form critique" I keep seeing on this forum is evidence of that. Right now I get little spam, some is flagged by my ISP, and most of the rest is caught by SpamAssasssin or Bogofilter, depending on what client I am using. We are not defeated until we give up. Thanks for the food for thought.
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
Second first, language is in constant change, so any law is stale as soon as it is put in writing. (You thought that it was only computer hardware and software ...) That means that any attempt to enforce "right" action is going to be full of holes, and, the more effort given to enforcement, the more holes. Thus, a legislative body doesn't even have to try to leave themselves loopholes.
Campaign reform was a bad idea, and now it needs to be reformed again, no surprise. The best reform would be to make the representatives more answerable to their constituency, but that's too obvious. Besides, the legislators will then mewl that such things leave them open to (ahem) bribes. (And?)
First things second, it is us^H^Hwe who have voted these guys in and who do not refrain from voting them out. We need geeks who will be willing to learn how to be sociable enough to get elected.
Big sacrifice, I know, but that has always been the first condition for a free society.