Slashdot Mirror
Digg.com Attempts To Suppress HD-DVD Revolt
fieryprophet writes "An astonishing number of stories related to HD-DVD encryption keys have gone missing in action from digg.com, in many cases along with the account of the diggers who submitted them. Diggers are in open revolt against the moderators and are retaliating in clever and inventive ways. At one point, the entire front page comprised only stories that in one way or another were related to the hex number. Digg users quickly pointed to the HD DVD sponsorship of Diggnation, the Digg podcast show. Search digg for HD-DVD song lyrics, coffee mugs, shirts, and more for a small taste of the rebellion." Search Google for a broader picture; at this writing, about 283,000 pages contain the number with hyphens, and just under 10,000 without hyphens. There's a song. Several domain names including variations of the number have been reserved. Update: 05/02 05:44 GMT by J : New blog post from Kevin Rose of Digg to its users: "We hear you."
I don't think Slashdot editors are that clever.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
LOAD "SIG",8,1
Figures. The funniest part of that quote is missing! Before Von Neumann uttered that sentence, he first stated that "The generation of random numbers is far too important to leave to chance." :-P
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
"Censorship is a government telling someone what they cannot read, hear, see, or think."
You might want to try that one again chief, the act of censorship isn't only carried out by governments. By your logic media private outlets couldn't censor information.
See the following to get a fucking clue:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship
n. censor 1. A person authorized to examine books, films, or other material and to remove or suppress what is considered morally, politically, or otherwise objectionable.
tr.v. censored, censoring, censors
To examine and expurgate.
The string allows one to circumvent copy protection measures. Under the DMCA, publishing such information is a thought crime punishable by scrotal piercing.
If Slashdot gets a DMCA section 512 notice, they can probably safely trash it. The number isn't copyrightable; it's not a creative work. More likely they'll get a C&D accusing them of violating DMCA 1201 (17 USC 1201(a)(2) and 17 USC 1201(b)(1) ). Then it's the 2600 case all over again -- and DVDCCA won that one.
Or is it a trade secret? No, trade secrets are secrets.
Do trade secrets need to be filed or declared somehow? Is a trade secret intellectual property that must be removed when a theatening (maybe DMCA) notice is sent? No, the only protection "trade secrets" have is legal hammers for pounding those who reveal them (does not apply to reverse engineering though!). The classic example is an employee of Coca-Cola entrusted with access to the "secret formula" leaking it to the public. Coke has no legal power to stop the public from knowing or using their trade secret, but they can sure sue the crap out of them, and might even have the feds put them in federal pound me in the ass prison.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Standard Disclaimer: IANAL -- By United States Copyright law, and I believe the laws of all signees of the Berne Convention (163 nations), a work is "copyrighted" the instant it is recorded in some tangible form. There is no need for it to be registered with any legal body. The United States Copyright Office does offer a registration service, but it's more a matter of convenience than of necessity.
Now, a sixteen digit hexidecimal number almost certainly fails to meet the minimum requirements for novelty and authorship (whatever the hell such qualities are referred to legally) and thus is not under the protection of copyright. However, the distribution of encryption codes undoubtedly falls afoul of the draconion terms of the DMCA, which has basically nothing to do with copyright.
The US Copyright Office runs a fairly informative website that's well worth the 10 or so minutes it takes to skim --> http://www.copyright.gov/
You can't win, Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
I've been observing the revolt at digg throughout the day. The editors can no longer keep up with the posts. The entire digg front page (and most of the "Upcoming stories") is flooded with posts about the HD-DVD key.
Someone tried to create a Wikipedia page documenting the revolt, but that too was taken down.
Since AACS was broken 6 weeks ago, the MPAA and AACS LA have been sending out a flurry of DMCA takedown notices. However, as this example shows, the takedown notices seem to be delivered via USPS Express Mail. As mentioned, the current explosion has more than 300,000 pages mentioning the key (I don't know how many link to the Doom9 page). IIRC, Express Mail costs about USD $8 [usps.com seems to be off-line at the moment]. Sending out 300,000 notices at $8 a pop would inject $2.4M into the coffers of the United States Postal Service. Perhaps they would even roll back the rate increase that went into effect today [yeah, right].
Of course, delivering that many notices by physical mail would be prohibitively expensive, not to mention an ecological nightmare. The $2.4M would probably be better of spent combating the real pirates, rather than bloggers and video consumers.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
/> /> /> /> />
<svg xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.0">
<title>Freedom flag</title>
<desc>As ridiculous as it sounds, even numbers have become "intellectual property" that corporations can claim ownership
of.</desc>
<rect width="100" height="300" x="0" y="0" fill="#09F911"
<rect width="100" height="300" x="100" y="0" fill="#029D74"
<rect width="100" height="300" x="200" y="0" fill="#E35BD8"
<rect width="100" height="300" x="300" y="0" fill="#4156C5"
<rect width="100" height="300" x="400" y="0" fill="#635688"
<text x="410" y="275" font-family="Verdana" font-size="36" fill="white">+C0</text>
</svg>
hex09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0 :-P
Something needs to be common between every DVD, otherwise you couldn't make players that can play every DVD.
The keys are actually different for each DVD, but they are derived from a common secret, and hashed and mixed about etc. The system is actually quite clever, and not a single symmetric key by any means. But no matter how you slice it, there will always need to be a common shared secret which is used to derive the means to unlock the media. That shared secret isn't the key itself, but the "processing key" which is in part used to derive the real key for each disc (to put it in very simple terms).
I.O.U One Sig.
idjit.
7. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.
Actually it's February 11th.
J
I also gave Digg a try when it first came out, and what ruined it for me was the obvious lack of maturity. For example, right now the front page of Digg is completely full of "OMFGZ!!111! DIGG PWNED" articles.
The lack of maturity also lets a lot of articles that aren't really interesting get to the front page. What's "new" or interesting for a 13 year old isn't usually new or interesting for everyone else.
To make it worse, when I tried it again a few months ago they had modified the comment moderation system a bit, and people who went against the group-think were heavily modded down, regardless of if they were correct. On Digg you can say "The sky is blue", link to pictures, and have a dozen references, and still get modded down if the "group" says the sky is green.
It's like all the bad of Slashdot, but an order of magnitude worse. All for the slight possibility of seeing a rare interesting article before it reaches Slashdot. No thanks.
Back in 1999 there was a big revolt over a judge ruling a piece of source code illegal under the DMCA. People started wearing it on their shirts, and asking "Is my shirt now a device that can be used to circumvent copy protection?" People started even singing the source code as a form of artistic expression.
Learn more here
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/
You infringe nothing, and the copyrightability of the key is irrelevant. Frankly, a discussion about circumvention has nearly nothing to do with copyright; ignore copyrights, and infringements, exceptions and defenses that go with copyrights. Circumvention is basically sui generis.
17 USC 1201(a)(2)-(3) says this:
The key, in this context, is a part of a device which likely falls under 1201(a)(2)(C) if not (A) and (B) as well. Disseminating the key is unlawful, apart from its use. It's not an infringement, but it's still illegal. The particular offense would be called trafficking.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I don't think people are "passing it around with the intent to circumvent a patented product'", they're passing it round because they've been told not to, and they feel that's unreasonable. Call it a campaign of civil disobedience. I wouldn't be surprised if the number of times it's been posted far exceeds the number of HD-DVD movies that have actually been sold.
Also, I'm not an IP expert, but I'm fairly sure you can't patent a password, and I would question the assertion that distributing one is illegal.
This sig is false.
After tons of bad press, they've reversed position..
Gee. Took them a while.
This is precisely why I dislike people talking about the DMCA, as opposed to the particular portions of Title 17 that happen to be at issue. The DMCA did a lot of unrelated things.
You're describing, not all that accurately, the takedown procedure at 17 USC 512. The thing is, that only applies in cases of copyright infringement. But the current fuss hasn't got a thing to do with copyright infringement. It has to do with trafficking in circumvention devices under 17 USC 1201, which has no connection to 512 whatsoever. There is no 512 safe harbor for trafficking.
I'd say that they have more of a clue than you do.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
http://blog.digg.com/?p=74
Digg This: 09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0
by Kevin Rose at 9pm, May 1st, 2007 in Digg Website
Today was an insane day. And as the founder of Digg, I just wanted to post my thoughts...
In building and shaping the site I've always tried to stay as hands on as possible. We've always given site moderation (digging/burying) power to the community. Occasionally we step in to remove stories that violate our terms of use (eg. linking to pornography, illegal downloads, racial hate sites, etc.). So today was a difficult day for us. We had to decide whether to remove stories containing a single code based on a cease and desist declaration. We had to make a call, and in our desire to avoid a scenario where Digg would be interrupted or shut down, we decided to comply and remove the stories with the code.
But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you've made it clear. You'd rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won't delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.
If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.
Digg on,
Kevin
That was a classic article. You're right. Malda, Bates, Miller, et.al did it right that time. Instead of supressing the article, which lets face it, was pretty much as blatent copyright infringement as you can get, the damage was compounded.
And what's up with modern religions trying to copyright they're symbols? The VA can put it on a headstone but you can't see it in the list? You can't put it on a t-shirt? What the hell man? Sounds like someone is more concerned about getting their cut than salvation.
Digg is currently down. This was the top of the page right before it went down.
http://blog.digg.com/?p=74 [digg.com]?
Digg This: 09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0
by Kevin Rose at 9pm, May 1st, 2007 in Digg Website
Today was an insane day. And as the founder of Digg, I just wanted to post my thoughts...
In building and shaping the site I've always tried to stay as hands on as possible. We've always given site moderation (digging/burying) power to the community. Occasionally we step in to remove stories that violate our terms of use (eg. linking to pornography, illegal downloads, racial hate sites, etc.). So today was a difficult day for us. We had to decide whether to remove stories containing a single code based on a cease and desist declaration. We had to make a call, and in our desire to avoid a scenario where Digg would be interrupted or shut down, we decided to comply and remove the stories with the code.
But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you've made it clear. You'd rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won't delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.
If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.
Digg on,
Kevin
Ah, more people who don't read articles or do research.. Google was indeed sent a cease and desist letter and can be found here ( dated April 17, 2007 )
I don't need to test my programs.. I have an error correcting modem.
On the doom9 discussion forum where this all happened, everyone was very surprised to learn all existing discs have the same processing key. Those who seem to really know the details all say the AACSLA can use a different processing key on each disc, or small groups of discs. There is a lot of guessing as to how long it'll take them to change how they issue keys for new discs, but it seems certain they will improve soon.
Regarding this statement:
Something needs to be common between every DVD, otherwise you couldn't make players that can play every DVD.
That common element is a "title key" that is unique to that particular disc, and it is encrypted by a "device key" that is embedded inside the player (not on the disc). There are several intermediate decryption steps, where keys and other data are combined in complex ways. But ultimately, there is not some common thing among all DVDs.
The "processing key" is at one of these intermediate steps, shortly after the device key is used. The AACSLA could and should have used a different processing key on every disc or small groups of discs. The term "very lazy" was used on the doom9 forum. The AACSLA almost certainly will start changing the processing key for new discs. How soon, nobody knows.
Nobody has yet discovered (and made public) any "device key". It is rumored that someone may have one and is waiting to release it. The first step in the process involves 512 copies of a key, each encrypted with a different device key, so that any particular player will use one of the 512. The AACSLA can cause new discs to not work with existing device keys, which is what seems to have happened with the recent upgrades to the software players. If anyone ever captures the device key from a major brand hardware player (that is installed in millions of homes and not upgradeable), the AACSLA will have very difficult decision to make!
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
The main article made the key seem previously more popular on the internet than it actually is. Sure, you can do a search for it all spaced out separated by pairs, but after you get through the first hundred or so, most of the Google results are completely unrelated.
Separated by dashes, there are 222 non-duplicated results.
A search for the full key, without spaces, yields just 32 results.
What on earth does the internet owe to you?
4 /pressrelease2.php
You want to do dope and cook your brain, go right ahead but do it in private.
& that's just the thing: we totally would. But even there you get in trouble. Like it or not, the internet is a fine way to start a political debate. Many of the usual routes are closed to concerned parties on this issue. http://www.changetheclimate.org/campaigns/02_18_0
This number would (or, at least, should) be regarded as a trade secret. Trade secrets do not need to be filed or declared, they are simply protected by confidentiality. While it is illegal for an insider, such as a company employee, to leak a trade secret, it is not illegal to discover a trade secret. Reverse engineering trade secrets is completely legal.
Someone posted a copyrighted portion of the scientology bible (or whatever they call it). Because it was copyrighted material, and a seemingly serious legal threat was issued, the offending comment was removed.
http://slashdot.org/yro/01/03/16/1256226.shtml
You know, I've stayed away from DIGG for all of the same reasons. I've even had my own blog posts end up on DIGG (I didn't post them) and, even though it was an opinion piece with a lot of people commenting that they agreed, the DIGG community modded the story as incorrect information (this causes a red banner to appear on DIGG) with a lot of comments from people I'd obviously pissed off (or on?).
After that, I paid attention to the main page until I kept seeing the "OMFGZ!!111! DIGG PWNED" articles show up every 20 minutes. This annoys me about as bad as a Wiki being "hacked" by some idiot kid.
But now, I don't pay attention to DIGG, even if one of my blog posts gets dug - don't care anymore.
I'm Piquan. I meet both of those criteria. I've also never downloaded a movie from the Internet*. Pleased to meet you.
* Except some legal ones.
I think one has to shut up for a while, I usually get them after a vacation. Never got any mod points, then suddenly after a week of absence, there they were. Maybe as a lure to come back for those that used to post a lot and got fed up with never getting any mod points. :)
It's been that way since then. Whenever I return from working double shifts to hit a milestone for a week, some mod points were waiting for me.
(And no, that's no attempt to get you silenced, that's just how it "works" for me)
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
I've been faced with the "pot is bad" people before.
They absorve all that crap on the media about how smoking pot is dangerous and pot-smoking people flood the hospitals and waste taxpayers money, and drive dangerously and are all junkies (picture: wasted crackhead types).
Now, i've lived in Holland, i know people that smoke pot and i can openly admit it.
When i ask any "pot-haters" if they know somebody that smokes pot, it turns out none of them does (surprise, surprise). At that point i point out that i know people that smoke pot and they're all absolutly normal people with jobs, families and you wouldn't be able to spot them on the street from everybody else. At that point they go silent.
As i see it, the reason why some Governments are winning the disinformation war about soft drugs is because most of those that actually smoke pot or have/had contact with people that smoke pot can't admit to it (they might be prosecuted because of it). In other words, they're being censored. This leaves us with an ignorant majority being fed the pre-packaged "pot is evil" message and a knowledgeable minority that cannot (or has to be very carefull when they) educate people to the fact that the official message is mostly lies (pot is highly addictive), wild exagerations (if we liberalize pot, thousands will flood the health services) and subtle omissions (like conveniently forgetting the small detail that tobacco is both more addictive and way much more dangerous to you health than pot).
If this is the same editor I'm thinking of, he had a tendancy to add his own malicious commentary, or edit the user submitted part of the article to swing the conversation away from the original intent. This finally caught up with him when he finally crossed the line and he was removed once and for all. This only occured for 2-3 weeks before his termination, so it sounds like there was some stuff going on behind the scenes we'll never know about, and his commentary was just the issue bleeding through on to the front page.
moox. for a new generation.