It's not a matter of owning the rights to anything, it's a matter of the agreement you signed. If you agreed not to tell anyone what you're working on, it doesn't matter what words you use.
That said, I doubt your NDA is that strict, but it all depends on the text of the particular agreement you signed.
You're absolutely right. Now, what does that have to do with my post?
In the parent post of mine, someone postulated that the government had decrypted Mitnik's files, but didn't tell anyone because they were afraid that Mitnik would sue them for violating his privacy.
My analogy was supposed to show how stupid such an argument would sound. I can see how it can be interpreted as a bad analogy arguing in favor of the government's position, but that isn't what it is. I was just arguing that the government has every right to break his encryption if they can.
That said, why/how did you read my post without reading the parent? The parent was moderated higher!
I'm absolutely sure that you're wrong. If they can seize the other files, why not the encrypted ones? Imagine a similar line of argument: "Your Honor, when the cops who had a search warrant used bolt cutters to remove the padlock, and found documents incriminating me for embezzlement, they violated my privacy."
5th Amendment doesn't keep people from being required to provide a blood sample for DNA and I'm pretty sure it doesn't keep them from being required to turn over keys to a safe if the court issues a warrant.
Wrong. If the cops come to your door with a search warrant and ask you you for a safe key, you don't have to get it and bring it to them. You don't have to tell them where it is. They can then proceed to tear apart your house looking for it, but if they don't find it, that's just their tough luck. Anyway, a much better analogy would be a safe with a combination lock. There might even be case law on that.
Of course, he could claim that he forgot the key. That might be hard to believe, but people claim to forget things that should be much easier to remember than an encryption key without getting jailed for contempt. It would set a very dangerous precedent to start jailing people who say they forgot something, because some people actually do forget important stuff.
"Emulate" is much more appropriate, since we'd have no way of knowing if the machine really had a consciousness or simply just appeared (very convincingly) to have a consciousness.
That just means that consciousness is inadequately defined. The reason we can't test whether the machine is conscious is the same reason we can't test whether you or I is conscious: we don't have a test, or even a means of agreeing on whether a test is valid.
Twins are/identical/ genetically...down to all those wonderful neurons the author says we will replicate. Does that mean twins are the same person? Obviously they are not.
Um, identical twins' neural patterns are completely different, for two reasons.
Random variations in development. Identical twins do not have the same fingerprints or retinal patterns. Presumably, their brains also exhibit minor developmental variation, and are not identical at the time of birth.
Different life experience. This is the clincher. It should be exceedingly obvious that identical twins aren't identical all the way down to the level of neural interconnections. If they were, you'd get the same response from both of them when you asked what their name was. Since this is not the case, their brains are not identical. QED.
Think of the security consequences of your sysadmin being able to access those "for your eyes only" documents that you decided to delete for safety, only to be undeleted...
If you have plaintext documents you want to keep secret on a system whose sysadmin you don't trust, you have much bigger things to worry about than undeletion. If the ability of the sysadmin to undelete files is a security issue, it means you should be using an encrypted fs.
It seems quite likely that you are right, and that the document is being distributed in breach of a court seal.
As evidence, read the disclaimer on the cryptome.org site:
Caution: It may be illegal for California and New York residents to download the file above. Before downloading read the contents below. Have lawyer on hand. Or say fuck it and enjoy the forbidden fruit of intellectual censorship. Rest of world is free to grab it, for now.
Morever, the same document is available from the EFF, except it is missing the Appendices which included the DeCSS code. Could that be because those Appendices are... under seal?
Caution: It may be illegal for California and New York residents to download the file above. Before downloading read the contents below. Have lawyer on hand. Or say fuck it and enjoy the forbidden fruit of intellectual censorship. Rest of world is free to grab it, for now.
I don't know what this person is thinking. If they are distributing a sealed court document, it's not just California and New York where they can get in trouble.
Incidentally, the same document is available at the EFF's site, but it's missing the Appendices with the DeCSS code. Could it be because those Appendices are... sealed?
I'm fairly sure that split electrons, even theoretically, can't be used for FTL communication. Tachyons have never been observed, and no one has any idea how to create them. However, IANAPP (I am not a particle physicist).
You're quite right that latency will be a problem if we colonize other planets. The speed of light is high enough to solve almost any latency problem on this planet by laying cable, but it is already a problem with satellite connections.
Non-profit libraries and archives have certain limited exemptions from copyright law. MP3.com, a publicly-traded company, does not share these exemptions. That's just the way the law is written.
What I thought was interesting is that the actual enjoinment given by the judge is:
The named Defendants... are hereby enjoined from: Posting or otherwise disclosing or distributing, on their websites or elsewhere, the DeCSS program, the master keys or algorithms of the Content Scrambling system ("CSS"), or any other information derived from this proprietary information. [Emphasis mine.]
Nowhere else in the injunction does the judge use the word "named" to refer to the defendants. Does that mean that the 500 Doe defendants are not compelled to obey the injunction?
I could be wrong on this, but won't it pop up a message when they try to save it, saying "This document is in text format. Important formatting information could be lost."?
You are totally mistaken. The prohibition against reverse engineering in question is Section 1201, subsection(a)(1)(A): "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. The prohibition contained in the preceding sentence shall take effect at the end of the 2-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this chapter."
Subsection (a)(1)(D): "The Librarian shall publish any class of copyrighted works for which the Librarian has determined, pursuant to the rulemaking conducted under subparagraph (C), that noninfringing uses by persons who are users of a copyrighted work are, or are likely to be, adversely affected, and the prohibition contained in subparagraph (A) shall not apply to such users with respect to such class of works for the ensuing 3-year period." (Emphasis mine.)
If my understanding is correct, no user of classes of materials published by the Librarian according to subparagraph (C) can be charged with violations of (A), period.
However, I'm actually quite confused as to how people in this current case are being charged with violating S. 1201 (a)(1)(A) anyway, since it isn't supposed to take effect until October 28, 2000.
Please read the document. If you send a e-mail, you must include your comments in a MIME attachement in Adobe PDF, MS Word >= 7.0, or Corel Word Perfect >= 7.0 format. If you send a letter, you must include a disk with your comments in one of those three formats, or fifteen copies of your printed copies. Also, you should address the questions they ask in Section 5.
Remember, they are soliciting serious, intelligent comments. I am sure that a well-written, comprehensive e-mail in the proper format (MIME attachment in PDF, Word 7, or Word Perfect 7) will receive more attention than a one page snail mail rant. In particular, they prefer that snail mail submissions include a file on disk. If you don't include a disk, you must send 15 copies or they will probably ignore you.
Also, read the whole document before you write your comments! Address the questions they ask in Section 5. Whining about CSS without explaining how it relates to what they are asking will not help anything!
Well, first, not all out-of state purchases have to be reported. Second, if he's an independent contractor, he either already cheats on his taxes or is scrupulously honest (since he's basically keeping track of his income for the IRS already). I'd just guess based on his actions so far that he's the honest type.
Err... my bad, that phrase I quoted doesn't come from fair use doctrine, it comes from EULA boilerplate. Clearly, no one would be stupid enough to grant such a license in the case of disposable DVD's. Oh well, it was still an amusing thought.
You're right, actually. I was thinking that the allowance to "make one copy for archival purposes in case of loss or destruction of the original" was part of US statutory law. Then I realized the reason the phrase came to mind: it's part of standard End User License Agreement boilerplate. Obviously, no such phrase would be part of a license for a disposable DVD:)
Slashdot Mirror
It's not a matter of owning the rights to anything, it's a matter of the agreement you signed. If you agreed not to tell anyone what you're working on, it doesn't matter what words you use.
That said, I doubt your NDA is that strict, but it all depends on the text of the particular agreement you signed.
You're absolutely right. Now, what does that have to do with my post?
In the parent post of mine, someone postulated that the government had decrypted Mitnik's files, but didn't tell anyone because they were afraid that Mitnik would sue them for violating his privacy.
My analogy was supposed to show how stupid such an argument would sound. I can see how it can be interpreted as a bad analogy arguing in favor of the government's position, but that isn't what it is. I was just arguing that the government has every right to break his encryption if they can.
That said, why/how did you read my post without reading the parent? The parent was moderated higher!
I'm absolutely sure that you're wrong. If they can seize the other files, why not the encrypted ones? Imagine a similar line of argument: "Your Honor, when the cops who had a search warrant used bolt cutters to remove the padlock, and found documents incriminating me for embezzlement, they violated my privacy."
5th Amendment doesn't keep people from being required to provide a blood sample for DNA and I'm pretty sure it doesn't keep them from being required to turn over keys to a safe if the court issues a warrant.
Wrong. If the cops come to your door with a search warrant and ask you you for a safe key, you don't have to get it and bring it to them. You don't have to tell them where it is. They can then proceed to tear apart your house looking for it, but if they don't find it, that's just their tough luck. Anyway, a much better analogy would be a safe with a combination lock. There might even be case law on that.
Of course, he could claim that he forgot the key. That might be hard to believe, but people claim to forget things that should be much easier to remember than an encryption key without getting jailed for contempt. It would set a very dangerous precedent to start jailing people who say they forgot something, because some people actually do forget important stuff.
He didn't say that they're undervalued on an objective basis, he said that they're undervalued with respect to other overvalued companies.
"Emulate" is much more appropriate, since we'd have no way of knowing if the machine really had a consciousness or simply just appeared (very convincingly) to have a consciousness.
That just means that consciousness is inadequately defined. The reason we can't test whether the machine is conscious is the same reason we can't test whether you or I is conscious: we don't have a test, or even a means of agreeing on whether a test is valid.
Translation for /.ers clueless about Latin:
"In imago Dei" == In the image (or likeness) of God
Twins are /identical/ genetically...down to all those wonderful neurons the author says we will replicate. Does that mean twins are the same person? Obviously they are not.
Um, identical twins' neural patterns are completely different, for two reasons.
Think of the security consequences of your sysadmin being able to access those "for your eyes only" documents that you decided to delete for safety, only to be undeleted...
If you have plaintext documents you want to keep secret on a system whose sysadmin you don't trust, you have much bigger things to worry about than undeletion. If the ability of the sysadmin to undelete files is a security issue, it means you should be using an encrypted fs.
It seems quite likely that you are right, and that the document is being distributed in breach of a court seal.
As evidence, read the disclaimer on the cryptome.org site:
Caution: It may be illegal for California and New York residents to download the file above. Before downloading read the contents below. Have lawyer on hand. Or say fuck it and enjoy the forbidden fruit of intellectual censorship. Rest of world is free to grab it, for now.
Morever, the same document is available from the EFF, except it is missing the Appendices which included the DeCSS code. Could that be because those Appendices are ... under seal?
Indeed, read the blurb at http://cryptome.org/
Caution: It may be illegal for California and New York residents to download the file above. Before downloading read the contents below. Have lawyer on hand. Or say fuck it and enjoy the forbidden fruit of intellectual censorship. Rest of world is free to grab it, for now.
I don't know what this person is thinking. If they are distributing a sealed court document, it's not just California and New York where they can get in trouble.
Incidentally, the same document is available at the EFF's site, but it's missing the Appendices with the DeCSS code. Could it be because those Appendices are ... sealed?
I'm fairly sure that split electrons, even theoretically, can't be used for FTL communication. Tachyons have never been observed, and no one has any idea how to create them. However, IANAPP (I am not a particle physicist).
You're quite right that latency will be a problem if we colonize other planets. The speed of light is high enough to solve almost any latency problem on this planet by laying cable, but it is already a problem with satellite connections.
Non-profit libraries and archives have certain limited exemptions from copyright law. MP3.com, a publicly-traded company, does not share these exemptions. That's just the way the law is written.
What I thought was interesting is that the actual enjoinment given by the judge is:
The named Defendants ... are hereby enjoined from: Posting or otherwise disclosing or distributing, on their websites or elsewhere, the DeCSS program, the master keys or algorithms of the Content Scrambling system ("CSS"), or any other information derived from this proprietary information. [Emphasis mine.]
Nowhere else in the injunction does the judge use the word "named" to refer to the defendants. Does that mean that the 500 Doe defendants are not compelled to obey the injunction?
It seems everyone thinks Jon Johansen is the person who reverse engineered *whatever* to get hold of the CSS algorithm??
Interesting, but not true. Relevant for the case?
YES, this is very relevant! Contact Robin Gross of the EFF with any evidence that you have.
The tool ps2pdf is part of Ghostscript, and can be used to create PDFs from PostScript files.
I could be wrong on this, but won't it pop up a message when they try to save it, saying "This document is in text format. Important formatting information could be lost."?
You are totally mistaken. The prohibition against reverse engineering in question is Section 1201, subsection(a)(1)(A): "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. The prohibition contained in the preceding sentence shall take effect at the end of the 2-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this chapter."
Subsection (a)(1)(D): "The Librarian shall publish any class of copyrighted works for which the Librarian has determined, pursuant to the rulemaking conducted under subparagraph (C), that noninfringing uses by persons who are users of a copyrighted work are, or are likely to be, adversely affected, and the prohibition contained in subparagraph (A) shall not apply to such users with respect to such class of works for the ensuing 3-year period." (Emphasis mine.)
If my understanding is correct, no user of classes of materials published by the Librarian according to subparagraph (C) can be charged with violations of (A), period.
However, I'm actually quite confused as to how people in this current case are being charged with violating S. 1201 (a)(1)(A) anyway, since it isn't supposed to take effect until October 28, 2000.
BTW, IANAL.
Please read the document. If you send a e-mail, you must include your comments in a MIME attachement in Adobe PDF, MS Word >= 7.0, or Corel Word Perfect >= 7.0 format. If you send a letter, you must include a disk with your comments in one of those three formats, or fifteen copies of your printed copies. Also, you should address the questions they ask in Section 5.
Um, why can't you just use ps2pdf to make a nice Adobe PDF file to send them. It's part of Ghostscript.
Remember, they are soliciting serious, intelligent comments. I am sure that a well-written, comprehensive e-mail in the proper format (MIME attachment in PDF, Word 7, or Word Perfect 7) will receive more attention than a one page snail mail rant. In particular, they prefer that snail mail submissions include a file on disk. If you don't include a disk, you must send 15 copies or they will probably ignore you.
Also, read the whole document before you write your comments! Address the questions they ask in Section 5. Whining about CSS without explaining how it relates to what they are asking will not help anything!
Here's yet another mirror.
Well, first, not all out-of state purchases have to be reported. Second, if he's an independent contractor, he either already cheats on his taxes or is scrupulously honest (since he's basically keeping track of his income for the IRS already). I'd just guess based on his actions so far that he's the honest type.
Err... my bad, that phrase I quoted doesn't come from fair use doctrine, it comes from EULA boilerplate. Clearly, no one would be stupid enough to grant such a license in the case of disposable DVD's. Oh well, it was still an amusing thought.
You're right, actually. I was thinking that the allowance to "make one copy for archival purposes in case of loss or destruction of the original" was part of US statutory law. Then I realized the reason the phrase came to mind: it's part of standard End User License Agreement boilerplate. Obviously, no such phrase would be part of a license for a disposable DVD :)