TI vs. Calculator Hackers

Nyall writes "So a bunch of TI calculator programming enthusiasts got together to factor the keys Texas Instruments uses to sign the operating system binaries for the ti83+ (a z80 architecture) and the ti89/v200 (a 68k architecture) series of calculators. Now Texas Instruments is sending out DMCA notices to take them down."

Comments

first post

[Anonymous Coward]

55378008

Math

[daveywest]

Somehow, this just doesn't add up.

Re:Math

[Yvan256]

TI has a new calculator based on the original Pentium?

Re:Math

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Z80 is pre-x86 architecture, i.e. pre-pre-Pentium, and 68k is pre-Power PC architecture.

So technically, this should have sarcasmed with "oshwho".

Re:Math

[elfprince13]

As a long time member of the TI community, I have to say that I'm glad Slashdot is covering this. TI consistently works against the enthusiast community, and this is blatantly obvious in their new Nspire line of calculators. The 83+/84+ line has been their one concession to sanctioned assembly programming, and they still threaten legal action against anyone who starts delving into operating system stuff.

Re:Math

[Mister Whirly]

every time anyone has said "woosh" it's been non-funny and every other time it was just as deserving of its own "woosh"

whoosh

Wikileaks link

[Brian Gordon]

I'm a lurker in that community and I have to say I'm extremely disappointed with TI. The community has had to reverse engineer every component of the hardware with no help from TI, and has done an amazing job writing development tools and mapping out which memory addresses do what.

Here's the wikileaks link to the keys.

Re:Wikileaks link

[Anonymous Coward]

And thousands of people will mirror it....

What will they do with people outside the US where the DMCA does not apply?

The ease of which students can make their own programs is one of the reasons my college asked us to buy TI-brand calculators and not Casio (which is the other choice they give.. hp is not supported at all :-p)

Meh...

Re:Wikileaks link

[Lumpy]

What will they do with people outside the US where the DMCA does not apply?

Get the US government to invade them?

Re:Wikileaks link

[Anonymous Coward]

And here's the Freenet key for the zip file: freenet:CHK@cua6vt6OGoe8dBOY2D4PR13jt~FvyvmHlMJKXPcXUgs,gFqVGC6lWjlSdE0cizGzWcyE5Y9f5J0QyWo-GNmLluY,AAIC--8/keys.zip

Re:Wikileaks link

[TrentTheThief]

I wonder if it's mirrored here: http://crystalwind.com/index.html

Re:Wikileaks link

[dgatwood]

The DMCA doesn't protect hardware in the U.S., either. Since AFAIK TI doesn't sell copyrighted software that is protected by DRM, this is clearly not a DMCA violation, and unless TI's lawyers haven't read any of the cases that have clarified this beyond a reasonable doubt, it also qualifies TI for perjury charges for deliberately making a false DMCA claim---not that any attorney general will actually have the guts to make an example of them....

IMHO, all these folks need to do is file a proper DMCA counter notice and then go about their business. Of course, IANAL, and they should consider getting advise from one.

Re:Wikileaks link

[nmb3000]

what makes the TI calculators better than, say, Pi Cubed (and a few other apps) for the iPhone?

Primarily the fact that it is a calculator and not a phone. The TI-89 has better numeric capabilities, great graphing ability, and a nice display. It can also run for months on a single pair of AA batteries.

That, and it doesn't cost more than $800 a year to operate.

Is it the interface, dedicated keys? RPN?

Yes, yes, and no. I can't imagine trying to use a tiny little touch screen for any serious calculator use.

Re:Wikileaks link

[stephanruby]

What will they do with people outside the US where the DMCA does not apply?

Put them on a hacker terrorist watch list and disappear them the next time they partake in a terrorist training camp (e.g. a math conference).

Re:Wikileaks link

[dgatwood]

No, this likely falls completely and totally outside that law. This project is not about brute forcing crypto keys used to prevent decrypting the firmware. AFAIK, the firmware and apps are not encrypted. This project is about brute forcing keys used to SIGN firmware. The only time a signature is covered by the DMCA is if it is used to prevent people from using illegal copies of software that for some technical reason could not be copied with such a signature (e.g. game titles installed on a hard drive). Since no TI-83+ hardware is EVER sold without a copy of their firmware, such an argument is moot. Anyone with access to the hardware also has a legally licensed copy of the firmware. Therefore, the signature does not prevent people from obtaining copies of the firmware illegally in any useful way, and as such, is not a copyright protection mechanism under the DMCA.

In short, unless TI uses DRM software resident in their firmware to protect OTHER titles from copying, this clearly falls WELL outside the realm of the DMCA. Bear in mind that there are legal precedents for what I'm saying here. Similar cases have been tried in the past (e.g. Lexmark). The courts have consistently ruled that such circumstances are not protected. Now if TI has an app store and sells applications that are coded to your particular calculator in some way, they would have a case. Otherwise, using the DMCA in this way goes way beyond silly.

Streisand Effect

[quanticle]

You'd have thought that Texas Instruments would have learned when the Blu-Ray consortium tried to stop the spread of the '09 F9 ...' key.

Re:Streisand Effect

[spinkham]

And just in case you forget how badly that went down, here's a reminder...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSQIoXf294E

DMCA Misrepresentation claim viable

[zavyman]

It's highly unlikely that the factors of an RSA private key are subject to copyright protection. Therefore the groups may have a viable claim for DMCA misrepresentation under subsection (f):

(f) MISREPRESENTATIONS- Any person who knowingly materially misrepresents under this section--
    (1) that material or activity is infringing, or
    (2) that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification,
shall be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys' fees, incurred by the alleged infringer, by any copyright owner or copyright owner's authorized licensee, or by a service provider, who is injured by such misrepresentation, as the result of the service provider relying upon such misrepresentation in removing or disabling access to the material or activity claimed to be infringing, or in replacing the removed material or ceasing to disable access to it.

Texas Instruments may just have Diebolded itself.

Re:DMCA Misrepresentation claim viable

[Nursie]

Copyright?

Wouldn't this be more likely come under the circumvention of cryptographic protection techniques which the DMCA also outlaws?

Re:DMCA Misrepresentation claim viable

[zavyman]

Two sections of Title 17 (Copyrights) are relevant. 17 USC 512 (safe harbor) and 17 USC 1201 (anti-circumvention). The notice is styled as one under 17 USC 512:

It has come to our attention that the web site www.brandonw.net, contains material and/or links to material that violate the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"). This letter is to notify you, in accordance with the provisions of the DMCA, of these unlawful activities. Pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA, we request that you remove any whole or partial reproductions of and/or disable links to the following:

...

I hereby confirm that I have a good faith belief that use of the Illegal Material in the manner complained of in this letter is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law, that the information in this letter is accurate, and that, under penalty of perjury, I am authorized to act on behalf of TI, the owner of the exclusive rights in the TI-83 Plus operating system software that are allegedly misappropriated using unlawful methods.

TI appears to be claiming that the copyright in the TI-83 Plus operating system software is infringing. This therefore appears to be a notice under 512(c)(3). Anti-circumvention is a totally different section of the copyright code, 1201. There is no takedown procedure for access control circumvention materials.

But with regards to anti-circumvention claims: It appears that TI is claiming that the signing keys circumvent a "technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title." This is a term of art.

(A) to "circumvent a technological measure" means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and

(B) a technological measure "effectively controls access to a work" if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.

Are signing keys necessary to gain access to the TI 83 Plus operating system binary? As far as I know, no. My understanding is that they are only used to prepare operating system images for installation onto the calculator.

Re:DMCA Misrepresentation claim viable

[Cubeman]

The keys are not required to access the binary. There is no encryption; the keys are just to verify that the OS image hasn't been corrupted. The entire binary has always been completely accessible from both the PC side (before transferring) as well as on the calculator. Furthermore, the community has had the ability to load its own operating systems on the TI-83 Plus since 2002. TI had stated in 2004 that they had no problem with independent third-party OSes being loaded, as long as (understandably) no one distributed modified TI OS files. The only new development here is that third-party operating systems can now be loaded onto the calculators without any hacks or preparation. In other words, they can be loaded in a user-friendly manner like the TI OS is loaded, and transmitted from calculator-to-calculator without having to run a special program beforehand. This is a huge deal in gaining acceptance for third-party operating systems, because end users do not want to have to pull out a battery during validation or run a strange program before loading the OS. They'd rather just click and be done.

Re:Exactly.

[plague911]

They are more successful than HP calculators. As a MS/Phd engineering student I haven't seen a HP calculator in 6 years except at a store.

Re:Worst move ever,

[qoncept]

I really have to wonder what dope modded the parent post as insightful. Enthusiasts aren't any manufacturer's target audience. There are (say) 10 million kids who need a graphing calculator for college or high school, and (say) 100 that are hacking them. Claiming those few are the key to success is just plain wrong.

Re:Screw calculator binaries; how about x64 driver

[Xtravar]

1. Get a USB traffic sniffing application
2. Run the TI driver on a Windows XP VM and record the traffic as you transfer files.
3. Write your own driver with libusb-win32 and pray that it works
4. Become hero to the TI community!!!

subterfuge

[davidwr]

Someone in TI's legal dept. who knows what the Streisand Effect is wants these keys publicized.

Well, we can hope that's the reason.

DRM in a calculator?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm shocked to hear that TI is even bothering to sign things. What exactly could be in a calculator that you would want to protect from hackers or end users?

"Oh no, a virus has replaced all my Fourier transforms with Laplace transforms!"

Its the usual castle gate mentality

[Viol8]

While the TI engineers would probably be happy to share the info, a bunch of management suits still living in the 1960s want to keep everything secret and in-house because they're sure They Know Best as to what everyone wants. Well we all know where this sort of blinkered thinking leads - users eventually just give you the finger and move elsewhere especially if a large part of your core market is the very type of hacker (in the old sense of the word) that they want to stop.

And who are they kidding anyway , these are just fscking calculators! They can't even argue that installing new stuff on them is going to lose them any income anyway. Its not like the average user upgrades his calculator OS every year!

Re:Its the usual castle gate mentality

[644bd346996]

The TI calculator division is all about placating teachers and standardized testing agencies. If it's too easy to install custom software in a relatively undetectable fashion, then the calculators won't be approved for testing and classroom use.

It's not TI that's the control freaks - it's the teachers.

Re:Its the usual castle gate mentality

[fermion]

It is about teachers and standardized testing, and that is one of the reasons why the software in the TI calculator needs to be secure. But it is unlikely the primary reason. Prior to use on test, TI has an application that clear the calculator to essentially factory state. This application only runs from the calculator installed, and cannot be transferred to other calculators. This calculator could be modified to actually reinstall an OS, which would be time consuming, but the safest thing to do for testing. Control freak teachers do run the application. Most don't. Real control freak teachers don't even let students use a calculator because there is nothing a calculator can do that a students should not be able to do faster. It takes more time to put in the equation of a graph or table than to just find the roots or the regression equation by hand. The problem is those middle of the road teachers that have sympathy for the students who can't add two integers, but still want them to, at least in some cases, manipulate variables by hand.

The desire to keep the code secure is in a fact a desire to insure sales. For instance, the TI application for the computer is not free, and, IIRC, not site licensed. If the ROM were available, like it is on most of the HP calculators, then someone could easily develop an OSS application and make drive TI sales away. I know that some applications are available, but they require a calculator to download the ROM, and the solutions are not as elegant as the HP calculator.

Re:Its the usual castle gate mentality

[HeronBlademaster]

If it's too easy to install custom software in a relatively undetectable fashion, then the calculators won't be approved for testing and classroom use.

They're already disallowed by many teachers because students learned they can simply type their notes into the calculator. (Who needs to remember equations when the calculator stores them for you?) The TI-89 and TI-92 are not allowed in ACT tests because they're designed to allow note-taking (the 92 more than the 89, but still). (That particular requirement made my parents buy a new TI-83+, even though I already had a TI-89.)

Honestly I've always disagreed with resistance to calculator use. Why can't I use a calculator to do calculus, or physics? The hard part isn't remembering the equations, anyway; the hard part is remembering which equation to use. Storing the list of equations in the calculator doesn't magically make you know which equation to use, it just helps you remember what the equations are in the first place. Sure, you could probably type notes into the calculator telling you which to use when, but all that effort is going to make you learn it anyway, so it most likely wouldn't make a difference.

I always hated losing points because I transposed two numbers or something somewhere in the calculation (which would not have happened had I been using a calculator), or because I'm simply terrible at doing math by hand. I honestly have no idea how I got a 4 on that AP Calculus test.

If I were hiring someone for a position that required a lot of math, and he proudly declared that he never uses a calculator, I don't think I would hire him. I would want my employees to use calculators - even if only to check their work.

Um... end rant.

Re:Its the usual castle gate mentality

[SuperMog2002]

I liked what my stats professor in college did: All tests were open book and open note, and you were allowed to use whatever calculator you wanted with whatever programs you wanted. The problems were tuned so that you wouldn't need a fancy calculator to do well, but if you knew this test was going to have Z-tests on it and you brought a program that could do Z-tests for you, more power to you. However, you darn well better be able to read the presented scenario and know off the top of your head that a Z-test is what you need in the first place. There was a strict 50 minute time limit, and if you were using your resources for anything more than a quick formula lookup or computation, you were doomed.

Re:Worst move ever,

[evanbd]

Those few calculator hackers (there are a lot more than 100 of them; they're a minority, but not that small a one) aren't just a few users. They're busy writing games and other useful programs. Those programs appear on just about every TI calculator out there, and plenty of people who aren't even remotely enthusiasts or geeks are using them. The enthusiasts have a disproportionate influence on how popular the platform is, because they make it more useful for everyone.

Re:Worst move ever,

[UncleTogie]

TI doesn't care what programs you write, in assembly OR TI-Basic. They do care if you overwrite their OS.

Funny, I don't remember agreeing to a EULA when I first opened the box and powered it up. Their right to ANYthing concerning their equipment ended when I bought it.

Re:Worst move ever,

[Jahava]

What makes them so smart? Is TI selling more calculators because you can play games on them, or because some kid has to buy one to do his homework? I had a TI-85 in high school and played games all through whatever math class I was in at the time, but I would have had one regardless of whether it did anything other than my homework.

My stance on the subject is that TI would stand to benefit financially to one degree or another from any and all of the following:

• Enthusiasts who prefer TI calculators because they are easier to explore
• Increased interest in a TI calculator because an enthusiast has built software for it that doesn't exist on other calculators
• Increased overall interest in TI calculators due to available software
• Increased quality of their product by observing the nature and intent of third-party changes
• Increased usage of their products by third parties (professors, etc.) who have co-opted their functionality into other areas
• Greater competitive edge through direct exposure to user feedback, also by monitoring enthusiast communities
• Increased sales of higher-powered (i.e., more expensive) calculators since they are capable of more resource-intensive modifications than the lower models
• Classes they can sell to schools about modifying their calculators
• Literature that they can sell on the subject of modifying their products
• Identification of quality persons from the enthusiast community for future hire

This is off the top of my head. As one who participated in the ticalc.org modding community when it was all Z-shell and assembly hacks, I can say for sure that I benefited from third-party applications and learned quite a lot by programming low-level software. A lot has changed since then, but I can attest firsthand to the benefits of an open TI calculator.

Really, though, what does TI have to lose? Has the enthusiast community as it stands actually harmed them? If so, I'm not aware of it.

No HP???

[volpe]

hp is not supported at all

I that they so shortsighted would be can't believe!

Re:No HP???

[volpe]

Oh well, I figured everyone would get it. HP Calculators use "Reverse Polish Notation" (RPN), also known as "postfix notation". Unlike ordinary "infix notation" calculators, in which you put the operator between the two operands, HP calculators take both operands followed by the operator, thereby eliminating the need for parenthesizing an expression. So, where you might enter "5 * ( 3 + 4 ) =" on an infix calculator, you'd enter "5 [enter] 3 [enter] 4 [enter] + * " on an HP calculator. Every time you enter a number, it gets pushed on the stack. Every operator pops the top two items off the stack, performs the operation, and pushes the result on the stack.

One can write English sentences the same way if one considers the verb to be the operator, while the subject and direct object are the two operands. Thus, what I wrote was the RPN equivalent of "I can't believe that they would be so shortsighted!".

Re:Exactly.

[klapaucjusz]

Hang on - it's 2009 and we're still arguing about calculators?

Vi sucks.