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EFF Warns TI Not To Harass Calculator Hobbyists
Ponca City, We love you writes "The EFF has warned Texas Instruments not to pursue legal threats against calculator hobbyists who perform modifications to the company's programmable graphing calculators. TI's calculators perform a 'signature check' that allows only approved operating systems to be loaded, but researchers have reverse-engineered signing keys, allowing tinkerers to install custom operating systems and unlock new functionality in the calculators' hardware. In response, TI has unleashed a torrent of demand letters claiming that the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act require the hobbyists to take down commentary about and links to the keys. 'This is not about copyright infringement. This is about running your own software on your own device — a calculator you legally bought,' says EFF Civil Liberties Director Jennifer Granick. 'Yet TI still issued empty legal threats in an attempt to shut down discussion of this legitimate tinkering. Hobbyists are taking their own tools and making them better, in the best tradition of American innovation.'"
"Hobbyists are taking their own tools and making them better, in the best tradition of American innovation"? I think you misspelled "Pirates and cyber-terrorists are stealing money from TI's hardworking engineers at virtual gunpoint."
someone show apple this news. :/
What about all the similar crap that goes on with other devices? iPhone, XBOX, Wii, NDS, plus loads others?! EFF, why aren't you defending user's rights there?
Maybe they are afraid someone will write a decent RPN code for their calc?
Or maybe they'll change the startup screen to say "58008" upside down
Do you or your partner snore? - Visit www.snoring.com.au
The product was not sold as a computer or development platform. It was sold as an end user product with documented functionality as described in the user's manual. Sure enough, when the hacks disable their machines TI will get the support call. Most slashdotters will probably flame me for this.
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
How many people have to buy the overpriced calculators because they are required for an exam.... by required I mean "approved" for use on an exam. Think about it, a calculator costing $100 dollars? What year is it again? If you could program them yourselves suddenly all those "approved" calculators aren't so trustworthy not to solve the exam for students.... although honestly if a calculator can solve the exam then probably the exam isn't testing much...
Once TI backs down, others will smolder. Then I can finally modify my Tektronix 465 scope to become a mind probe. Once its calibrated of course.
It's really hard for me to see how TI has a case under the DMCA at all. They're claiming the anti-circumvention clause, but it doesn't seem to apply here.
The anti-circumvention clause makes it a violation to circumvent copy protection -- but what the hobbyists are circumventing in not copy protection, it's a validation key. Without the key, you can still read and copy the existing OS without a hitch. The key is needed to put you own intellectual property on the device, no to copy theirs.
The key itself was never published by TI, and as far as I can tell was never registered with the copyright office, so copyright doesn't apply to that (even if it can apply to a number, which I doubt.)
So where's the copyright violation? this looks like a criminal (bad faith) abuse of the DMCA to me.
No. The DMCA reads "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title".
How does TI's signing system do that? The TI system just prevents people from loading a new OS onto devices that they already own. It doesn't protect access to work.
The DMCA is a bad law, but it's not so broad as to say "everything to which a technology company with a market capitalization of over $10 million objects is henceforth illegal."
All sorts of companies produce the exact same hardware and then have a registry bit/flag hidden somewhere to enable the more expensive features. nVidia and their Quadro cards comes to mind... Or Intel and their underclock/overclock crap... the chips are identical, one is stamped with a different number and frozen at a different multiplier.
TI probably has some features disabled or unavailable in their lower-end models, hack the software, and lo and behold, the actual hardware can probably do most of the same stuff the more expensive model can. I can see why they wouldn't want people *SHARING* this information with the general public.
Actually, come to think of it, if TI loses on this one, I'm quite eager to start 'testing' satellite TV signals again... After all, it's just some keys used for signing, right? I purchased my hardware receiver for money, right? Quite the slippery slope, isn't it?
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Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
As the EFF lawyers clearly explain in their letter to TI, you are quite wrong.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
When will companies realize that kicking and screaming about an issue they can't legitimatize will kick them in the testicles? Will T.I. really lose oodles of greenbacks because Joe geek likes to mod his calculator to play Mario or run Linux or watch porn (last item questionable). I highly doubt people hacking their calculators will cut into revenue, if anything it will increase it by bolstering interest in the extended possibilities of their products.
Technophiles do not like to buy equipment they are legally castrated for modding or learning about the inner-workings.
When profit is valued more than satisfaction of customers...oh wait..*status quo* *status quo*.
The answer to the original question lies our government and legal system's ability to cease giving them the fucking pacifier every time they cry wolf.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
Thank you EFF for confronting the corporate greed machine where it concerns this electronic frontier. Now we need to find lawyers to confront them on every other issue where citizens and consumers are ripped off and enslaved by corporate monoliths and their shareholders. People come first. Not Corporate interests. Wake up America. We need better elected officials, apparently.
if it was THE LAW that if you could not use a wrench in anyway but as directed by the manufacturer would it still be perfectly valid for WRENCH COMPANY to sue anyone they see using it as a doorstop, or anyone who glues a rubber ball onto the end and calls it a mallet?
If the law is wrong, then it's also wrong to take advantage of it.
> TI probably has some features disabled or unavailable in their lower-end
> models, hack the software, and lo and behold, the actual hardware can
> probably do most of the same stuff the more expensive model can. I can see
> why they wouldn't want people *SHARING* this information with the general
> public.
So can I. So what? "Inconvenient for TI" is not a synonym for "illegal".
> I'm quite eager to start 'testing' satellite TV signals again... After all,
> it's just some keys used for signing, right? I purchased my hardware
> receiver for money, right? Quite the slippery slope, isn't it?
No. It's fundamentally different.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
From my slashdot-learned knowledge of the DMCA this seems to be exactly what the DMCA is designed to prevent.
Insanity: voting in the same two parties over and over again and expecting different results
That's why those types of things are done with fuses, so that's it's virtually impossible to re-enable features that have been fused out. It's certainly impossible to do purely in software.
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
You think you're the first to discover this? I was doing it 10 years ago and it wasn't even new then.
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
The DMCA is totally ridiculous, but it's the only thing TI can grasp onto in this situation. TI graphing calculators are the de facto standard for many high school and university level math classes. It's easy to verify that one has had the memory erased when it's in an untampered state. Of course there are somewhat sneaky ways to make it look like it's been erased without close inspection, but performing the reset in front of someone made it almost a certainty. If the hack causes schools to move away from such an "untrustworthy" device, TI stands to lose many sales of those overpriced gadgets.
in the best tradition of American innovation
But how can this be innovation if no-one is making any money from it?
-- Braden's law of data: All data spends some of its lifetime in an excel spreadsheet.
The numbers they are distributing are the prime factors of the RSA key used by the calculators. The factors were determined by a general number field sieve calculation; this was effective because the keys are only 512 bits long.
The public key itself - the modulus - might be subject to copyright. However, the prime factors were never copied from TI - they were mathematically determined from the modulus. Attacking them because they distribute numbers mathematically derived from a copyrighted number is new legal territory.
If numbers derived from a calculation on a copyrightable number are themselves "derivative works" in the copyright sense, it would cause far-reaching problems well beyond calculators. For one thing, it would be illegal to distribute SHA-1 hashes of copyrighted material without permission.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
Except that, to my understanding, the DMCA applies to copyrighted material and copyright protection systems. I doubt that TI actually copyrighted the signing key, and even if they did they'd have a hard time proving that this a violation, considering that they (the hobbyists) didn't have an original to copy to begin with. In other words, can the result of a calculation be considered copyright-able?
The "copyright protection system" angle doesn't work, either, on account of this system quite clearly NOT being created to protect copyrighted material.
My sig can beat up your sig.
If you're going to be such a pain - I think you should stop using any and all free software now! give it all back.
No. In Feist vs. Rural Telephone, the Supreme Court ruled that in order to qualify for copyright, a work must exhibit at least some degree of creative expression, and reaffirmed the notion that facts cannot be copyrighted. Unless some creativity went into creating the encryption key, I cannot see how it can be copyrighted. (IANAL, of course.)
-- I'm quite eager to start 'testing' satellite TV signals again... After all,
-- it's just some keys used for signing, right? I purchased my hardware
-- receiver for money, right? Quite the slippery slope, isn't it?
-No. It's fundamentally different
I take a TI calculator, using keys obtained from internet forums I sign my hacked version (or homebrew, or whatever) and load it onto my device and expose functionality that I am not entitled to access from the hardware.
I take a Nintendo DS, using keys I obtained from internet forums, I sign my homebrew game and load it onto the device. I am now playing games on my DS that are not sanctioned by Nintendo (replace Nintendo with Sony Playstation, Apple iPhone, Microsoft XBOX, etc.).
I now take a DirecTV receiver, using keys I obtained from the internet, I load a firmware version on the device that allows me to tune into channels that I don't have in my 'package'.
Please, humor me, as I'm not seeing how this isn't a quick and logical argument that if I can do the first thing, why can't I progress to the last thing using the same legal arguments along the way? I paid for the hardware in all cases.
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Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
The DMCA reads "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title".
One might try to argue that the "work" being accessed is the OS already loaded; I'd think that that argument would fall flat on account of the existing OS being overwritten by the process, not modified or copied.
One may also argue that the "work" being accessed is the hardware itself. That argument itself is utter crap, on account of the hardware not being protected by copyright to begin with, failing the "protected under this title" portion.
My sig can beat up your sig.
A prime number can represent information which is forbidden to possess.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_prime
This goes back about a decade to the AACS encryption key controversy.
Yeah, neither argument holds water. Tthe owner already has license to access the copyrighted software that is the TI operating system. The garage door opener case pretty much closes off that avenue of logic.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
TI seems to have a perfectly valid case here. This seems like a clear breach of the DMCA. The law itself is completely unacceptable, but don't blame the company for a bad law, blame the legislators.
Even if you were correct (and, well, you're not) one can still question the ethics of a company for permitting its attorneys to intimidate others using said bad law. You seem to think that just because a law is on the books that that any use (or misuse) of that law is acceptable. It isn't, and TI's upper management should know that. And if it so happens that they're arrogant and stupid, their legal staff should have so informed them.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Actually, come to think of it, if TI loses on this one, I'm quite eager to start 'testing' satellite TV signals again... After all, it's just some keys used for signing, right? I purchased my hardware receiver for money, right? Quite the slippery slope, isn't it?
Yes. Finding keys on smartcards in order to watch TV program you haven't paid for is the same as finding keys on a calculator so you can put your software on it.
Man, you are a fucking genius.
Because in the case of direct tv, you're paying for the service, not the hardware. If i go down to Best Buy and shell out $200 or whatever for a new TI-89 Titanium (my classic TI-89 is starting to look somewhat stayed...), then I never need anything from TI again. I take that thing, and I'm done. No real need to plug it into anything; TI doesn't beam the CAS down via CDMA wireless signal like some sort of Kindle thing.
Basically, with the calculator, the hardware itself is the FINAL PURCHASE, whereas with DirectTV, you're basically renting the hardware as a means to access a service, which is what you're actually paying for in the end. Cheating on what you're paying for as far as channels go is clearly wrong. Modifying a piece of hardware that once bought never needs to have any interaction with the mother company again is completely different.
Although a Ti-83 can definitely be enhanced by a custom OS, the usefulness of a Ti-83 would greatly decrease for students if custom OS's existed. On many standardized tests, including the SATs and ACTs, the tests specify which calculators are permitted for the test. They have a very specific list, based on which ones they think are not too powerful and would give an unfair advantage to a test taker. All ti-83's are allowed on either test for example. But if the makers of the test knew that people could have ti-83's that had undocumented, unfair functions (such as symbolic algebraic solving as in the ti-89), the test makers would most likely disallow these calculators. Why do you think TI still sells the Ti-83 plus, a calculator created in 1999? Certainly hardware abilities and processor speeds have greatly increased in the last 10 years. The reason is that test makers will not accept calculators with very powerful abilities. They want the student to solve the problem and not the calculator. When browsing calculators at education.ti.com, each calculator has a page called "exam acceptance" (ex. http://education.ti.com/educationportal/sites/US/productDetail/us_ti83p.html?bid=2). That is because TI sells a large number of its calculators to students. The custom OS's could greatly hurt TI's reputation in the eyes of its biggest supporters: the test makers.
Not really. The argument about the AACS key was not that the number itself was copyrighted, but rather that the number was the means to circumvent the protection measures controlling access to a copyrighted work. Thus, distribution of the number was a violation of the DMCA.
I'm not aware of anyone claiming that the number itself was copyrighted. Some people have suggested that line of argument in this case, but if TI really wanted to pursue this in court, they'd have to register the signing key with the copyright office (you have to do this prior to starting litigation). I'd really like to see them try to register a small number!
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
"All I wanted to do was program in pictures of boobies rather than type 5138008..."
-1 really?
The stories and info posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only fools would take it as fact.
Well since the TV signals are copyright protected content, hacking the protection for that content would clearly be covered by the DMCA. Woof. That was the sound of your strawman going up in flames.
The "legal list of allowable calculators" is precisely why the scientific calculator development is pretty much stagnant. I have an HP50G but it is basically a repackaged HP48 with a marginally better screen. But even the 48G was not allowed in the last math class I took that allowed calculators.
I started using an HP28S in college back in 1988. Back then, many teachers did not know what the calculators were capable of. Of course, I had one professor who did, and in fact LOVED them, and so made the tests that much harder to be used in conjunction with said devices.
Anyway my point is the calculator manufacturers are definitely in a pickle. They can't make their calculators too good, or their primary market - college students - can't use them.
If people can hack the OS of "approved" calculators, you can, as you note, basically sneak in anything in what appears to be a normal calculator.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Precisely my point; I recalled that there WAS precedent, I just couldn't recall the case that established it.
My sig can beat up your sig.
>It's really hard for me to see how TI has a case under the DMCA at all. They're claiming
>the anti-circumvention clause, but it doesn't seem to apply here.
They are going to claim anything and everything, because there is a lot of money at stake. If people crack one of TI's "exam approved" line of calculators such that anyone can download a new, unapproved OS (or other data) onto it, odds are good that schools will yank that entire line of calculators off of the "exam approved" list.
Bye-bye sales for that line of calculators.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
> The DMCA is a bad law, but it's not so broad as to say "everything to which a technology company with a market capitalization of over $10 million objects is henceforth illegal."
Don't worry. They plan to fix that whenever they get the chance...
Now that's an easy question:
TI calc, you use the hack to upload a firmware/os that you/someone created and that you're free to use (supossing that it's a open source or free version, I guess that there are no "buyable" new firmware/os for the TI)
Nintendo DS with the hack you can load hombrew, wich is fine and dandy, but you can also load ROMs of comecially available games, with falls right into the DMCA domains.
DirecTV you use the hack to view comercially distributed media (TV series, movies) that you didn't pay for, wich AFAIK falls again into DMCA domains.
Do you notice the trend?
There's nothing disabled or unavailable. The calculators are miniature computers. The higher-end models simply run different software. Now, since the TI-89 series uses a 68000 and the TI-83 Plus series uses a Z80, you won't be able to get anywhere, but if you want to write the features in yourself, go for it. You don't need to change the OS either to do this. You can write an application that interfaces with the existing OS.
Lawsuits are a convenient way of getting the law changed or at least ruining it for those that abuse it. If one can prove the point that the law is unacceptable by demonstrating it using this case, then the law is unenforceable from that point forward.
What would you have people do? Write desperate missives to their congressmen imploring on them how ridiculous this law is in theory using hypotheticals? How far do you think that has ever gotten anyone?
If HP allows people to homebrew on calculators, they are providing a hardware medium in which non-TI software can be used.
This means that schools will not allow those calculators to be used (and definately won't require them). Since a material portion of revenue comes from sales to students, the students who don't write their own calc apps will be the ones who don't buy the calculators.
Schools tend to work on the sense of "we approve this brand/publisher/company", not "we approve this product." Therefore if one calculator can't be used due to the possibility of cheating, and its a graphing calculator, no graphing calculators can be used.
This is an issue of HP having the power to complain, but not the right. Normally, you will see a business attempting this because the long term effect on sales and public opinion is less than the effect of not doing so. In the short term, HP will have to come out with a new calculator, require schools to make students sign over their rights to do anything with the calculator unless its an HP approved usage, students that can't afford the caluclator will get a subsidized cost based on income, and voila, now HP is too big to fail and required in schools. I'm exaggerating, of course, but not as much as I reasonably should be.
Of course HP wants to sell more calculators, HP correctly realizes that they can't sell more calculators by giving up their main market format for a niche.
Actually, that's not really true. Yes, they are cut from the same die. However, it's very well documented that there are different levels of quality within a batch of CPUs. Lower quality CPUs will die sooner if run at full speed. By selling the low-quality chips from the run downclocked, they produce equally reliable but lower-grade chips.
If you could program them yourselves suddenly all those "approved" calculators aren't so trustworthy not to solve the exam for students.... although honestly if a calculator can solve the exam then probably the exam isn't testing much...
I never really understood why my high school and college math instructors insisted on writing exams that required me to work to a result such that a calculator was required. A well-written exam that tests knowledge of evaluating the arithmetic or calculus properties of a given function would obviate the whole issue of the trustworthiness of a calculator. It would also save students from what I always found to be frustrating, stressful, and easy-to-make data-entry errors.
The only reason to write tests requiring calculator use below linear algebra and diff eq, in my opinion, is to evaluate detail-orientedness, a word of even whose spelling I am not aware.
I read the headline as TI the rapper
Hmmm. My college classes didn't bother with this rote memorization stuff. You were allowed to bring an index card with all the formulas you could fit onto it. Believe me, it was no guarantee of a grade.
Breakfast served all day!
It often requires pencil and paper to re-enable tho
Yes, Liberty is a very slippery slope. This is why the enemies of liberty try to avoid any compromise with it.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Here are the three keys: TI-83 (Plus): n=82EF4009ED7CAC2A5EE12B5F8E8AD9A0 AB9CC9F4F3E44B7E8BF2D57A2F2BEACE 83424E1CFF0D2A5A7E2E53CB926D61F3 47DFAA4B35B205B5881CEB40B328E58F p=B709D3A0CD2FEC08EAFCCF540D8A100BB38E5E091D646ADB7B14D021096FFCD q=B7207BD184E0B5A0B89832AA68849B29EDFB03FBA2E8917B176504F08A96246CB d=4D0534BA8BB2BFA0740BFB6562E843C7 EC7A58AE351CE11D43438CA239DD9927 6CD125FEBAEE5D2696579FA3A3958FF4FC54C685EAA91723BC8888F292947BA1 e=11 TI-84 (Plus): prp77 factor: 67070508990537181066342707695603050521324524613874331879259881495826493920589 prp78 factor: 186923771200711284770368041572205320486346816476524340240220962467860568859381 n=EF5FEF0B0AB6E22731C17539658B2E91E53A59BF8E00FCC81D05758F26C1791CD35AF6101B1E35 43AC3E78FD8BB8F37FC8FE85601C502EABC9132CEAD4711CB1 p=94489014C63CC9E1E1ADB192DBBDD1F78F90A630DA9C86EFC4CBCA44E5B4D54D q=19D431AF2794229620B884E3750D622D1C74F2E4569DC15486FC8D5A3BCDFE2F5 d=2A3E1B2010F318D9BD7C7E19300980B055A0E2A9554B77E7142E23CDF7C7CA13C233A3D462FDFC 968B1F9CEAF2AC2CF305147992AD9E834192ACEBB517DB9941 e=11
TI - 89: prp76 factor: 2231124525637629443181963045297394875470510167130210300957267082210173784611
prp79 factor: 3226885534240147415018248397410101286362761128614350056368675111071170873486957
same for me with some chem/physics classes.. could write anything you wanted on one 3x5" index card to use during exams and you handed the card in stapled to the finished exam.
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Yeah. Because nobody from any other continent tinkers with electronic goods.
TI-83 (Plus): n=82EF4009ED7CAC2A5EE12B5F8E8AD9A0 AB9CC9F4F3E44B7E8BF2D57A2F2BEACE 83424E1CFF0D2A5A7E2E53CB926D61F3 47DFAA4B35B205B5881CEB40B328E58F p=B709D3A0CD2FEC08EAFCCF540D8A100BB38E5E091D646ADB7B14D021096FFCD q=B7207BD184E0B5A0B89832AA68849B29EDFB03FBA2E8917B176504F08A96246CB d=4D0534BA8BB2BFA0740BFB6562E843C7 EC7A58AE351CE11D43438CA239DD9927 6CD125FEBAEE5D2696579FA3A3958FF4FC54C685EAA91723BC8888F292947BA1 e=11
TI-89: prp76 factor: 2231124525637629443181963045297394875470510167130210300957267082210173784611
None of that has any relevance to the DMCA...
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Now if we could get Jennifer Granick to feel the same way about proprietary software
I know almost nothing about the satellite TV system, but I'm fairly certain that it is encryption that you're trying to break not a signature.
Trying to break the satellite TV system would be attempting to break the encryption to gain access to the content, which seems to me probably would fall under the DMCA.
The distinction is that in the case of the TI calculators you are hacking them to add content, where as with satellite TV system you are hacking it to access content.
It seems to be the trend for companies to throw the DMCA at anything any time something comes up that outside their original marketing vision or makes them look bad. There should be a top level category to track all these stories.
The HP-48g/x came with a decent library of functions and constants for you to play with, organized by subject, with pictorial explanations.
It also came with a IR port for transferring files to other HP calculators.
Every device since that one is kind of disappointing. In pretty much every way, due to the enthusiasts machine-coding everything in sight for speed and posting on hpcalc.org...
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
No. The DMCA reads "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title".
How does TI's signing system do that? ....
It effectively protects access to TI's protected circuitry.
Heck, I had a TI-89 which could actually *do* algebra and calculus. Solve for any variable, find limits, do derivatives and integrals etc. Of course, it didn't show its work which made it rather less useful on tests and homework, but at least I could start with the answer and try to figure out the process to reach it. =D
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
Actually, come to think of it, if TI loses on this one, I'm quite eager to start 'testing' satellite TV signals again... After all, it's just some keys used for signing, right? I purchased my hardware receiver for money, right? Quite the slippery slope, isn't it?
That is perfectly legal as long as your 'testing' involves transmitting your own signal into the receiver and convincing it that it should display it. Much as the TI hobbiests are loading their own firmware and convincing the hardware to run it.
Because in the other cases you are not accessing someone else's IP, you are supplying your own. As I said above, the last point would be you take your DirecTV reciever and using keys you found on the internet get it to decode and display the Quasar1999 show.
you need to go after the smart card to get channels not the box.
When they found out that hackers had found a way to bypass the web interface on their MyBook NAS, and gain access to a Linux shell prompt their reaction was...
...To issue a firmware update that had a "Enable SSH access" box in the setup page.
Lots of geeks I know are buying the WD box precisely because it's hacker-friendly.
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds important)
The key itself was never published by TI, and as far as I can tell was never registered with the copyright office, so copyright doesn't apply to that
You don't have to publish or register anything for a copyright. You can stick in a drawer somewhere if you wanted and you would still have protection.
But I bet you could argue that this number was really a trade secret. Trade secret protection would be thrown out the window since reverse engineering revealed the secret.
(even if it can apply to a number, which I doubt.)
Every executable binary program on earth is basically one giant number. In fact, anything that you can store as information can be broken down that way.
Not a typewriter
All sorts of companies produce the exact same hardware and then have a registry bit/flag hidden somewhere to enable the more expensive features. nVidia and their Quadro cards comes to mind... Or Intel and their underclock/overclock crap... the chips are identical, one is stamped with a different number and frozen at a different multiplier.
Sometimes there's a valid reason to do this. Semiconductor manufacturing involves fickle processes and wafers are expensive. So when a chip comes off the line and fails testing on some of its cores/pipelines/cache, it makes more sense to disable the faulty bits and sell the chip for a lower price rather than throw it out completely (see http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/geforce_6800_unlocking/ for an example).
You see this all the time with analog chips. Often components will be put into "bins" of varying grade, with the grades being sold for different prices (eg. see http://www.linear.com/pc/productDetail.jsp?navId=H0,C1,C1154,C1004,C1013,P37595). Often the higher grades are slightly better performing (can withstand higher temperatures, lower noise etc.). Sometimes you can get lucky and get an exceptionally well performing low-grade part.
You don't have to publish or register anything for a copyright. You can stick in a drawer somewhere if you wanted and you would still have protection.
Yes, you are correct. My error. Nonetheless, it still isn't a copyright issue in this case.
Every executable binary program on earth is basically one giant number.
True, but not material. Any creative work can be expressed as numbers, but that doesn't make all numbers creative works. In this case, the key is not a creative work -- it's just a number derived from a mathematical algorithm. It is not an expression of any creative work.
s/Liberty/Theft/ ... unless you think watching TV you haven't paid for isn't stealing a service that costs money to produce.
Yeah, we also had custom OS on our Ti-83s back 10 years ago, so that they couldn't be started without a PW... so if someone wanted to cheat and a teacher came too close all you had to do was to close down your unit... until the teachers figured out the hardware reset button :-( Then we had to go back to putting the formulas obscured in scource code.
Main reason to have the custom OS was to play games written in assembler though, Tetris ftw :-)
Just because my rights make it more difficult for you to pick my pockets doesnt mean you get to ignore them.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Because in the case of direct tv, you're paying for the service, not the hardware. ....
Basically, with the calculator, the hardware itself is the FINAL PURCHASE, whereas with DirectTV, you're basically renting the hardware as a means to access a service, which is what you're actually paying for in the end. Cheating on what you're paying for as far as channels go is clearly wrong. Modifying a piece of hardware that once bought never needs to have any interaction with the mother company again is completely different.
If I manage to unlock features in my TI calculator that exist in software, but I did not pay for those features when I bought the hardware (I'm just speculating that this might their concern), then this would be exactly analogous to direct TV channel cheating.
I don't even get why people use that argument. I for one happen to feel that public airwaves...are...public. Maybe not mine to clutter, but they're mine to listen to, record, and do whatever the fuck I feel like with the data--use it as a source of entropy, or decode, combine, and remodulate into a tv show. You don't want me to do it, take a measure to keep your signal off my antenna on my own property.
The only question is whether or not it requires me to break an agreement on a contract or damage property that belongs to someone else. And even then, I don't see how they can reasonably claim any damages other than the cost to replace the hardware.
Just because you got congress to pass a law doesn't make it just or worth obeying. You *can't* cheat an EM wave. Even if I hack the hardware--as long as I don't damage their network (is it passive, unlike hacking a cable modem to give me more bandwidth)--who the heck are you to claim damages beyond the cost of the equipment?
What's next--prohibiting me to look at certain patented colors?
One may also argue that the "work" being accessed is the hardware itself. That argument itself is utter crap, on account of the hardware not being protected by copyright to begin with, failing the "protected under this title" portion.
The real failure is that DMCA covers copy protection that prevents _unauthorized_ access. That's why Lexmark fell flat on their face, because they prevented access to the software in their printer, but the owner of the printer was actually _authorized_ to access the software. The owner of the hardware is authorized to use it.
I truly wonder what happened to "I buy something, it's mine and I'm free to do with it whatever I damn please unless it harms somebody else".
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
If you install Linux on your PC when it came with Windows, thus giving yourself a full development environment, when the PC itself didn't come with that software capability in the first place, then that's the same according to your rebuttal.
Installing a new OS on your TI or on your computer is more like buying the DirectTV dish then re-purposing it as part of some amateur radio operation, not unencrypting channels in DTV's data stream.
The data stream is encrypted, and decrypting that data stream would be the same as your neighbour sniffing and decrypting packets you send over wifi just because they're traveling through the public air waves.
But, I think you'd be against that, though.
The reason they probably want to keep it locked down is because their calculators are accepted in school exams, and that's because they have a fixed feature set that prevents cheating. If a well-versed student jailbroke his calculator he could use it for things his teachers didn't expect, allowing him to cheat on exams. What they should do is release a calculator locked down even harder for exams, along with one that isn't locked down at all.
in the best tradition of American innovation.
Sir Frank Whittle (British) and Dr. Hans Von Ohain (German) - indepently invented the jet engine. ... ...
Sir Alexander Fleming (Scottish - discovered penicillin.
Leonardo da Vinci (Italian) - inventor, artist, mathematician, painter, etc. etc.
etc.
I fully support what the EFF do but innovation is not simply limited to America - can I suggest in future they use the adjective "human", rather than "American", in similar statements? Otherwise, they're just affirming the stereotype that many of we non-US residents have, namely that Americans have no interest in the world outside their own shores.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
If colleges need to let students take calculators, but not calculators that are too powerful, why doesn't the college provide the calculators at the start of the exam? People can use their laptops/powerful calculators for everything else.
I am sure if they alienate their customers some other company will come along and encourage it on their calculators and steal TI's business
Security through obscurity is bad.
Security through judiciary is worse.
"The public key itself - the modulus - might be subject to copyright. "
If it is a *public* key it is meant to be copied.
In any case a key is just a number, how the heck can you copyright a single number in isolation?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The school hands out calculators at start of test, collects them with the completed papers.
Given the amount of money public schools blow on sports, it's not that expensive to do.
Let me rephrase: I am suggesting that TI's real concern might be that their -existing- software will be modified. That is cracked in order to give you features you did not buy.
Real calculator enthusiasts prefer Casio calculators
I liken this to the original GBA days of long past. There were instructions online on how to make a phillips head screw driver open those stupid Nintendo Y screws for the purposes of installing a back light. Nobody from Craftsman started hunting people down for modifying their precious screwdrivers. Moreover, nobody from Nintendo tried to stop you from adding a backlight to your GBA either.
Let me rephrase: I am suggesting that TI's real concern might be that their -existing- software will be modified. That is cracked in order to give you features you did not buy.
Why would they put in significant features that aren't enabled? The margins are slim enough that not putting the features in in the first place increases profit.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
You definitely misspelled "combo".
Why TI? Has anyone ever used a Casio? Why use key combinations when you have menus!
Why use an inferior machine when you have better for the same price?
If you buy a piece of hardware, you are entitled to use every single transistor in the package. It is 100% legal to change or replace the software in order to enable bits that the stock software does not enable.
Hardware cannot be copyrighted. If you own the hardware, you are free to do anything you like with it. You are not licensing it. You cannot "steal" "content" by enabling bits of it.
Just for reference, you do not need to 'register' your copyrights with the copyright office in order to have its protections. Every work is copyrighted automatically. You are granted more protection with registered copyrights as you've made it so others can confirm they are or aren't violating your copyright.
Registration simply puts you as the copyright owner in a better position legally, but it is in no way required.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
'Fuses' haven't been 'Fuses' in years. As a general rule they are still referred to as fuses, but its generally just NVRAM or the like representing those 'fuses'.
Virtually all 'fuses' can be reprogrammed now days with a proper chip programmer.
Its possible in some cases to design a circuit capable of changing its own fuses although in most cases the device needs to be 'offline' during the procedure so changing fuses on a processor or ram requires that you are using some other device during the reprogramming.
I don't think anything has had a truely one time programmable fuse for at least 10 years.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
if it means that they can use the same mass produced chip in all their calculators, it can be a lot cheaper to just disable things than to have different production lines. This is what Intel did with the 486 SX. We're all just speculating here though right, no one knows of hardware features that were disabled?
I could see how they could be concerned that some of the software features of a higher-end calculator might be created in the new OS that runs on the cheap calculators, but can we all agree that's a ridiculous justification?
You sure about that? The microcontrollers I work with at work claim, in their documentation, that they're hardware-locked and once the fuses are blown, it's permanent, as do the claimed OTP count-down and configuration memory locations in Dallas one-wire chips I've been working with. It'd be interesting if they're actually just NVRAM: that'd give us some other options than the FIB stuff we've been talking about doing.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Ok, so what's likely really going on is that the device has a fixed cost and they sell the same device with different feature sets (software) at different prices.
Hobbyist have figured out how to buy the cheaper device and load the more expensive software, right?
If not, then WTF? TI's making the same profit on the device weather it was tinkered with or not. Learn from LinkSys. The WRT54G was being hacked to install DDWRT. LinkSys saw the value in this. When they released a new version of the WRT54G which no longer had the capacity for DDWRT, they released the WRT54GL aimed specifically at loading up DDWRT.
Embrace you customers, don't sue them! I realize suing them looks good on the books, and the 1 year term CEO can take the bonus and run before the long term results hit. But thinking like that will destroy a company.
My curiosity lies in the area Assistive Robotics, and TI's graphing calculator looked pretty good at handling external peripherals using LISP. There are other chips out there that can do the job. I quite frankly do not understand why TI gets their panties in a twist when people want to buy their products?
Your satellite reference doesn't apply here for many reasons but I'll give you two.
First because the signals are encrypted and you're breaking that encryption in order to receive them. This is clearly a DMCA violation.
Second, you're modifying your satellite receiver to receive access to a service for which you are not paying for. This is clearly illegal as a Theft of Service. How is this anything like the calculator issue being discussed?
Back in the mists of prehistoric time, when I was a physics undergrad, we obviously took a lot of math and physics. Like 6 semesters of math, and god only knows how many physics courses. Somehow, we got by without ever needing a calculator - I didn't even own one. I'm not really sure why we need to use calculators during exams nowadays.
Instead of attempting to prevent modding (losing fight), Ti should create a device that test makers can use to quickly check if a calculator is not standard. Plug it in, and it analyzes the calculator as it boots up, etc...
I could see how they could be concerned that some of the software features of a higher-end calculator might be created in the new OS that runs on the cheap calculators, but can we all agree that's a ridiculous justification?
I think it's just fine to flash such a device with new software from the ground up. You did buy the hw after all.
OTOH potentially enabling features (just speculating again) that the the producer did not mean for you to use, however clumsily such a lock may be implemented, is a grayish area. But since there is no EULA to accept (yet!) there is probably nothing the producer can do.
"Hey, TI ...leave our hacks alone!"
i frequently donate to eff through paypal. even tho my donations are not regular and small, i think every bit counts.
Read radical news here
[b]and it's kept calculator tech advancement practically stagnant.[/b]
Believe me, when I shelled out $280 for my HP28S in 1989 or so, it was money I happily spent to have a hand-held computer that could help me do calculus.
It's not the money that has stagnated calculator design. It is making them "exam certified". Schools are wise now to the power of these calculators. The ones that still allow calculators to be used at all have a list of acceptable calculators that can be used. Only calculators below a certain computational power level will be allowed. Anything more powerful won't be allowed, and, consequently, there is no market for it.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
When you graduate from high school and begin taking tests at a college level you may find that your TI-84 is far more complex than the calculators allowed in exams.
All physics, chemistry, and engineering exams I took in college allowed the TI-30XA or an equivalent approved by the professor.
A well-written test takes exactly long enough to complete that a students who knows the material will barely finish in time and students who smuggle in cheat sheets will run out of time while reading them.
I'll be your candy shop of infinite deliciousity if you'll be my discotheque of endless rump-shaking.