Slashdot Mirror
Blogger Threatened For Publishing JS Hack
An anonymous reader writes "Internet radio station Atlanta Blue Skye LLC has warned a Romania-based technology enthusiast that his blog has been 'copied' and turned over to its lawyers. The issue stems from his posting of a widely known workaround for bypassing JavaScript functions that try to disable a mouse's right-click context menu functionality, and the radio stream information gathered from the Properties function of Windows Media Player."
Mr Radu-Cristian Fotescu appears to have licensed his work under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 license which would allow the radio station to copy his work.
However, it does not allow for commercial exploitation of his work so we enter a grey-area. Is the use of his work to prosecute a lawsuit for monetary damages a commercial exploitation of his work?
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
The user is in control of web content or any code a website decides to run on the client, clueless bullshit like this isn't even funny.
In other news, the recent js dependent google.com facelift is less useful to me because I have javascript disabled. It seems that most sites expect users have javascript enabled these days, sad that google deliberately broke their site. If I don't know if I can even be bothered hacking a functional interface when there are other search engines that work perfectly.
The user is in control of their machine, not the web site!
It's really too bad the blogger is taking this so personally, continuing to blog about it, and cannot spell. None of these make him a sympathetic defendant... and if it eventually gets to court that's going to matter a good deal. Like it or not, hackers have a bad public reputation, and if this punk gets in front of a jury and spouts off the way he has been on his blog, his case is sunk regardless of whether the written law is on his side. Each time he goes on a rant he gets closer to defamation and now it's a whole new ball game.
Word of advice to those who blog about corporate enterprises... if you get a notice from a company threatening suit for whatever you said, take it seriously and get some legal advice before you try the whole David and Goliath thing. Your conduct after the event in question is just as much at issue as whatever initially upset them. I'm not saying roll over and comply, but figure out how to best manage the situation to protect yourself and convince the corporate bully you're not some 22 year old idiot who is going to make the case ten times easier for them because you can't keep your mouth shut.
Only 120 characters... who can summarize their entire world understanding in 120 characters?!
Suppose the Atlanta blue Skye LLC knew they were launching a claim that ignored basic realities, including basic realities of the internet, that is distribution of information and how-to; If this can be shown to be the case, then the Atlanta Blue Skye LLC should be open to frivoulous lawsuit charges. Here are the merits of such a case: 1) There are 1,420 web pages that include the term "Bypass Javascript" (from google.com) 2) As the other posts have mentioned, even major browsers have ways of disabling script. This clearly represents the realm of basic technical understanding. To not know this, and then suppose that doing so would be illegal, is to ignore what has long been established by the major shapers and designers of the modern internet. This is what counts for frivolousness.
Still, though, just as a crackable WEP WiFi point is no longer a "open invitation", circumventing an access-control device that is easily circumvented does not mean that it was open.
I think a better argument would be that there was no "hacking" of a poorly-made access-control mechanism, because the mechanism was flat-out not an access control device in the first place.
Interpretation and execution of the JavaScript language that the right-click blocking used is an optional browser feature, so the blocking itself is inherently optional. Furthermore, the feature of JS that they were trying to exploit (the modality of the alert() box) is not specified as an access control feature, nor is it specified (and it's certainly not guaranteed) to function in a manner that would control access.
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
The original email message is posted here. The message headers are as follows:
The Text of the message:
This doesn't look like a legitimate email to me in the least - from the earthlink origination to the cheesy wording of the message. Sounds like Slashdot has either been blog-spammed, or this guy is another chicken little.
Which is why internet law needs to be moved to a more global organization. As it stands now, when you break an American law online, do American laws apply because the law is being broken in America, or not because the person breaking it is out of America? AFAIK, all of Blogger's hosting happens inside the US, which, depending on interpretation, could mean that this blogger committed a crime in the US, and just happens to be currently outside of the country (like if I robbed a bank and ran to Mexico).
Clones are people two.
They at least hid the actual embed in an iframe, so you can't just see the stream URL by selecting View Source (which doesn't need right-click at all!). Of course, the iframe URL is in the page source, so you can navigate to that page DIRECTLY and voila! there is your player (without any ads) and, of course, you can view source that page and see the embedded player's URL (again, without right-click, which is still disabled in IE). The URL for the player (128kbps) is http://www.atlantabluesky.com/jazz/DISPLAYS.html.
Ironically, the whole reason for the blogger posting this workaround and the URL streams in the first place is because he wasn't able to listen to them anymore in Linux/BSD, or in any browser except IE. I've confirmed that EVEN WITH the Windows Media Player extension for Firefox installed, the stream can't be played (haven't booted into Linux to try that, I'll take his word for it though). Ironically however, the right-click capture doesn't even work in Firefox, so you can right-click on the (non-connecting) player, select properties, and view the stream URL to your heart's content (and yes, this is with the ability for javascript to catch right-click enabled... their scripting is just that bad, I guess).
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Let me tell you, some laws do not apply inside our borders, either. Not since a certain dim little jackass, his sneering, decaying boss and his pet bully Alberto took office.
Yes, this is flamebait, and it comes from deep in my heart. Sincerely. If you are one of the 26% of Americans to whom this flamebait is addressed, I hope you get the message. I'll lose one kind of karma, but gain another.
You are welcome on my lawn.
When the commercials start: go to the bathroom, get a snack/drink, perform small errands, talk to other people in the room.
You're violating your contract, don'cha know?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
...used to be a good radio station that played stuff that you didn't hear on mainstream radio. That said, I hate that stupid anti-right-click Javascript code, and think that its use is the last refuge of scoundrels. I often use the right click context menu to go back or forward, and the stupid Javascript code impedes efficient navigation of a website.
If someone wants to copy your photos, HTML source code, or whatever, that won't stop them.
Sent from my iPhone
Isn't this kinda equivilent to the guy who received a DMCA notice for holding down the shift key while inserting a CD in order to not load the DRM installed on it?
It is also very important to note that this is an obfuscation that can be accidentally cracked by somebody who has that option enabled for other [valid] reasons. If somebody cares about security or just doesn't like the annoyance of sites that change the context menus, they have the right to surf that way. You can hardly sue somebody for circumventing a measure they didn't even notice.
Sure. Nice try. Next time don't be so gullible.
--frank[at]unternet.org