Not this time, though. Because this time, there are far more of us zealots than they realize.:) And this time, we're not just a few marginalized phone phreaks, or what have you.
I think the recent proliferation of Linux and other free software has been a tremendous education for computer professionals everywhere; they've learned to value freedom.
DeCSS may be a small issue, (at least, for those of us without both a DVD drive and Linux:P). But is another piece
Yup. Which is why I care a lot about the outcome of this case, even though I'm so disgusted by this whole thing that I'll probably never want to own a DVD.
Well, you can write unencrypted DVDs, right? (Yikes, I hope so.) So, you could decrypt the DVD with DeCSS, then write an unencrypted DVD. My undestanding (quite likely wrong) is that the "blank" DVDs have a secret section pre-burned to indicate that their contents were written by a consumer.
Now, certainly there are machines in existence which can write to the secret section, since the DVD was created in the first place. The point is, they're not letting this get sold to just anybody.
It's a joke of a copy-protection system when you get right down to it.
Well, the key wasn't in the software, it's on the DVD disk.
The DVD player will give it to you (not through a regular read() though) once your software has "authenticated" itself to the DVD drive. The point of this is to only allow you to view the content using "their" proprietary software which will respect their various big brotherisms.
The process of your system "authenticating" itself to the drive is what had to be reverse-engineered. It's some hash function thing; the DVD drive gives you some random data, and you perform some "secret" hash on it which, if you get it right, proves you're "in the know".
I can't believe how weird this whole DVD copy-protection scheme is. It rests entirely on proprietary software not being reverse-engineered and proprietary hardware not being tampered with.
The consumer own his or her copy of the DVD. Copyright law already allows the owner of a copy to make copies for personal use, including copies necessary TO VIEW THE MEDIA.
Exactly. Well said; this is the entire point.
Anyone can copy encrypted DVD media to a blank DVD and play it anywhere.
It's worrying me that everyone has this impression, since it's just not true.
Commercially available DVD hardware will neither directly read nor write the section of the disk which holds the decryption keys. So, prior to DeCSS, it was not possible for consumers to copy encrypted DVDs.
but can't you still make a bit-for-bit copy of a DVD with encryption in place
No, that's the whole point.
The so-called security works because all commercially available hardware plays along.
It works something like this: there is the regular disk itself, with the encrypted data. Then there is a special part of the disk, with the keys. Your player will not allow you to read directly from the section with the keys.
Furthermore, commercially available DVD writers will not allow you to write to that sector.
So, if you do a bit-for-bit copy onto a blank disk, you'll end up with a new disk with the special "hidden" section different, and it won't be playable.
Unless, of course, you can crack the encryption.
Which was the intent all along: DVD-players for Linux.
Actually, piracy isn't an issue at all, as has been said many times.
As has been said incorrectly many times.
You don't *need the key* to do a bit-for-bit copy of the DVD media.
No commercially available DVD players will allow you to read or write the section that holds the keys. So, your copy will not have the keys, and other normal DVD players can't play the encrypted contents.
The fact is, DeCSS does make DVD piracy easier. Repeating otherwise over and over again doesn't make it any less true.
Let's not cloud the issue with the piracy issue. Whether or not DVDs are easy or hard to copy has no bearing on this case, which is really about our rights as consumers.
Anyhow, people keep saying you can copy DVDs without cracking the encryption. A lot of people refer to this link: http://opendvd.org/rickletter.html
Yet, to my knowledge, *nobody* has actually done this. If anybody has actually successfully copied a DVD, I'd like to hear about it, because there seem to be a lot of misconceptions on this issue.
Of course, whether or not DVDs could have been directly copied without DeCSS is irrelevant to the legality of this case; the defendants are well within their rights regardless.
...is that "defensively" trademarking the term "Linux" in every nation/state/economy/whatever under the sun just reinforces a dangerous legal precedent for owning trademarks on general terms which are already in wide use.
I feel like maybe our lack of confidence in our trademark systems is becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Well, if a company released an OS they were calling "FooBar Linux", Linus could most certainly sue, if and only if the OS wasn't really Linux.
i.e. M$ could not release a version of WinNt called "Linux 2000" or something like that, although they could certainly release a distribution of Linux called "Linux 2000". In fact, I hope they do.:)
Just a random data point to show that at least some of the public is getting interested in electric cars: my employer (HP in Cupertino, California) lets people re-charge their electric cars in the parking lot for free.
In about a year, when my current car will most likely be completely dead, I hope to get an electric car myself, probably a hybrid. I'm looking forward to a cheap, pleasant, guilt-free commute.:)
1. "get educated, mang!", i.e. become fluent in a foreighn language, a time-consuming and difficult process
or
2. Do the best they can now, which is obviously good enough since you understood the article, thus reaching a large audience of people who care about this issue and want to hear about it ASAP.
I don't think that calling themselves "LinuxTECH" is bad; I'm not sure why UYLUG cares about this. It sounds like an accurate description of what their venture is supposed to be.
Whether or not it's fair to use www.linux.com.uy is something I'm not decided on. It's certainly legal, though.
But I'm entirely in agreement that trying to trademark "Linux" is immoral and illegal. It would be like a car dealer trademarking "car"; it makes no sense. Good luck nipping this insanity in the bud, UYLUG.
Well, Y2K has received a lot of hype. And NYC is the big American New Year's event. So, they're figuring that if somebody wants to celebrate Y2K by blowing something up, Times Square would be the obvious target.
As far as the manhole covers go, it just makes sense, to ensure that nobody plants a bomb under one, right?
I doubt anything is going to happen, particularly with all those cops around, but if I were them I'd be nervous too. It's their job to be paranoid about stuff like this.
Personally, I'm gonna spend Y2K on a friend's couch in a pleasant little suburban neighborhood in California, drunk as all hell.:)
Yeah, they definitely should have mentioned OpenBSD. I never cease to be amazed at how proactive those guys are about auditing code.
Not that I necessarily recommend OpenBSD to everyone, since security is only one of many features you need to consider when choosing the right tool for the job. But that isn't the point, here, is it?
Anyhow, it's nice to see the security benefits of free software getting some mainstream press for once. People who work on computer security have known this for years.
I think you're right about 666 being a code name for Nero. Only, they didn't call him "Nero" back then, they called him "Neron". And they didn't write vowels in old hebrew, so his name written down was "NRN".
Disclaimer: I work for HP. However, I don't work on or near this product; I know as much about it as you do. What follows is just my opinion, based solely on common sense and observation. HP may violently disagree with this, although I doubt it.
Anyhow, one thing that bugs me is that some people here seem to be assuming that this is some sort of move to cut development costs or something, in the hope that the free software community will somehow magically equate to a free labor pool. A new slant on the "free beer" side of things, I guess.
But this isn't like a word processor which is useful if you stick it on one machine; it's only worthwhile if you can get a bunch of networked devices using it. In other words, these sort of projects require a certain amount of critical mass in order to be successful at all. And in this day and age, people have grown sick and tired of being locked into proprietary protocols, with good reason. So if HP wants the world to start using their protocol, the only way they can do it is by releasing that protocol as free software.
Even if it were *more* expensive to develop it as free software, they'd still have to do it that way.
There is a difference between GNU getopt and stpcpy.
stpcpy is provided to allow easier porting of weird applications which use it. The man page makes this clear. I'm all in favor of this sort of thing; if some other system provides an interface which we don't have but can easily provide, we should do it. I see no problem here.
GNU getopt is different, because this isn't providing somebody else's interface for "backwards compatibility" or ease of porting or something, this is a GNU extension. Making GNU-specific extensions is, I agree, dangerous. On the other hand, progress must happen. In each case, the benefits of progress must be weighed against the drawbacks of fragmentation. And GNU tends to go overboard on the GNU-isms, I do agree with you.
abiword has a pretty good word importer, using the mswordview engine wv.
It doesn't provide 100% M$ Word support yet, and it doesn't do Excel. Still, it's something and it's here today, even though it's not at version 1 just yet.
I haven't checked out koffice yet, but those screen shots look really nice.
Of course, I'm a big old dork replying to a joke article as if it were serious, but...
If you look at http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-doc.html you'll read: As a general rule, I don't believe that it is essential for people to have permission to modify all sorts of articles and books. The issues for writings are not necessarily the same as those for software. For example, I don't think you or I are obliged to give permission to modify articles like this one, which describe our actions and our views.
The GPL was specifically designed for information which is itself, in essence, a tool. Information which expresses ideas, philosophies, religious views, and so on, ought to be modifiable and copiable, but under distinctly different terms and conditions, to avoid misrepresenting the originaly author.
Don't get me wrong, the over-abundance of broad copyright laws is a big problem in non-technical writing, too. (It slows down the evolution of our culture, in my opinion.) It's just that the GPL isn't the right fix.
When it comes to politics, we as nations should *want* to be judged, with the harshest criticisms possible, afforded by a free press and free speech.
It is only in an atmosphere of absolute intolerance for the slightest government transgression that we can hope to improve.
> Those with justifiable animosity towards Communism, generally have valid critism of Capitalism as well.
Which is as it should be. We should strive to be equal opportunity whiners.:)
Seriously, I show no mercy in complaining about the flaws of China's system, and I expect, rather I demand, that the same degree of scrutiny be turned against my own nation as well. (It needs it, too.)
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, incubus. How's sushi? :)
> Is what the css-auth authors did illegal? I don't think so.
Which, all misconceptions aside, is the heart of the matter. Cheers!
The sad thing is, it would not be unprecedented
Yeah. And in the past, we lost. :(
Not this time, though. Because this time, there are far more of us zealots than they realize. :) And this time, we're not just a few marginalized phone phreaks, or what have you.
I think the recent proliferation of Linux and other free software has been a tremendous education for computer professionals everywhere; they've learned to value freedom.
DeCSS may be a small issue, (at least, for those of us without both a DVD drive and Linux :P). But is another piece
Yup. Which is why I care a lot about the outcome of this case, even though I'm so disgusted by this whole thing that I'll probably never want to own a DVD.
Cheers!
Well, you can write unencrypted DVDs, right? (Yikes, I hope so.) So, you could decrypt the DVD with DeCSS, then write an unencrypted DVD. My undestanding (quite likely wrong) is that the "blank" DVDs have a secret section pre-burned to indicate that their contents were written by a consumer.
Now, certainly there are machines in existence which can write to the secret section, since the DVD was created in the first place. The point is, they're not letting this get sold to just anybody.
It's a joke of a copy-protection system when you get right down to it.
Well, the key wasn't in the software, it's on the DVD disk.
The DVD player will give it to you (not through a regular read() though) once your software has "authenticated" itself to the DVD drive. The point of this is to only allow you to view the content using "their" proprietary software which will respect their various big brotherisms.
The process of your system "authenticating" itself to the drive is what had to be reverse-engineered. It's some hash function thing; the DVD drive gives you some random data, and you perform some "secret" hash on it which, if you get it right, proves you're "in the know".
I can't believe how weird this whole DVD copy-protection scheme is. It rests entirely on proprietary software not being reverse-engineered and proprietary hardware not being tampered with.
The consumer own his or her copy of the DVD. Copyright law already allows the owner of a copy to make copies for personal use, including copies necessary TO VIEW THE MEDIA.
Exactly. Well said; this is the entire point.
Anyone can copy encrypted DVD media to a blank DVD and play it anywhere.
It's worrying me that everyone has this impression, since it's just not true.
Commercially available DVD hardware will neither directly read nor write the section of the disk which holds the decryption keys. So, prior to DeCSS, it was not possible for consumers to copy encrypted DVDs.
Correct me if I'm wrong
OK, you're wrong. :)
but can't you still make a bit-for-bit copy of a DVD with encryption in place
No, that's the whole point.
The so-called security works because all commercially available hardware plays along.
It works something like this: there is the regular disk itself, with the encrypted data. Then there is a special part of the disk, with the keys. Your player will not allow you to read directly from the section with the keys.
Furthermore, commercially available DVD writers will not allow you to write to that sector.
So, if you do a bit-for-bit copy onto a blank disk, you'll end up with a new disk with the special "hidden" section different, and it won't be playable.
Unless, of course, you can crack the encryption.
Which was the intent all along: DVD-players for Linux.
Amen, brother. This is about consumers' rights.
Actually, piracy isn't an issue at all, as has been said many times.
As has been said incorrectly many times.
You don't *need the key* to do a bit-for-bit copy of the DVD media.
No commercially available DVD players will allow you to read or write the section that holds the keys. So, your copy will not have the keys, and other normal DVD players can't play the encrypted contents.
The fact is, DeCSS does make DVD piracy easier. Repeating otherwise over and over again doesn't make it any less true.
Let's not cloud the issue with the piracy issue. Whether or not DVDs are easy or hard to copy has no bearing on this case, which is really about our rights as consumers.
This is slightly off-topic.
Anyhow, people keep saying you can copy DVDs without cracking the encryption. A lot of people refer to this link:
http://opendvd.org/rickletter.html
Yet, to my knowledge, *nobody* has actually done this. If anybody has actually successfully copied a DVD, I'd like to hear about it, because there seem to be a lot of misconceptions on this issue.
Of course, whether or not DVDs could have been directly copied without DeCSS is irrelevant to the legality of this case; the defendants are well within their rights regardless.
If Xing had encrypted their stuff properly, we wouldn't be having this discussion now
True. We'd probably be having it about a year from now.
We welcome you to share the entire contents of your hard drive to the net.
You're talking about reading somebody else's personal data on their hard drive. I'm talking about the generic ability to read your own drive.
Big difference!
...is that "defensively" trademarking the term "Linux" in every nation/state/economy/whatever under the sun just reinforces a dangerous legal precedent for owning trademarks on general terms which are already in wide use.
I feel like maybe our lack of confidence in our trademark systems is becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Well, if a company released an OS they were calling "FooBar Linux", Linus could most certainly sue, if and only if the OS wasn't really Linux.
i.e. M$ could not release a version of WinNt called "Linux 2000" or something like that, although they could certainly release a distribution of Linux called "Linux 2000". In fact, I hope they do.
Just a random data point to show that at least some of the public is getting interested in electric cars: my employer (HP in Cupertino, California) lets people re-charge their electric cars in the parking lot for free.
:)
In about a year, when my current car will most likely be completely dead, I hope to get an electric car myself, probably a hybrid. I'm looking forward to a cheap, pleasant, guilt-free commute.
So, as non-native English speakers they could:
1. "get educated, mang!", i.e. become fluent in a foreighn language, a time-consuming and difficult process
or
2. Do the best they can now, which is obviously good enough since you understood the article, thus reaching a large audience of people who care about this issue and want to hear about it ASAP.
I think they made the right choice, don't you?
I don't think that calling themselves "LinuxTECH" is bad; I'm not sure why UYLUG cares about this. It sounds like an accurate description of what their venture is supposed to be.
Whether or not it's fair to use www.linux.com.uy is something I'm not decided on. It's certainly legal, though.
But I'm entirely in agreement that trying to trademark "Linux" is immoral and illegal. It would be like a car dealer trademarking "car"; it makes no sense.
Good luck nipping this insanity in the bud, UYLUG.
Well, Y2K has received a lot of hype. And NYC is the big American New Year's event. So, they're figuring that if somebody wants to celebrate Y2K by blowing something up, Times Square would be the obvious target.
:)
As far as the manhole covers go, it just makes sense, to ensure that nobody plants a bomb under one, right?
I doubt anything is going to happen, particularly with all those cops around, but if I were them I'd be nervous too. It's their job to be paranoid about stuff like this.
Personally, I'm gonna spend Y2K on a friend's couch in a pleasant little suburban neighborhood in California, drunk as all hell.
Yeah, they definitely should have mentioned OpenBSD. I never cease to be amazed at how proactive those guys are about auditing code.
Not that I necessarily recommend OpenBSD to everyone, since security is only one of many features you need to consider when choosing the right tool for the job. But that isn't the point, here, is it?
Anyhow, it's nice to see the security benefits of free software getting some mainstream press for once. People who work on computer security have known this for years.
I think you're right about 666 being a code name for Nero. Only, they didn't call him "Nero" back then, they called him "Neron". And they didn't write vowels in old hebrew, so his name written down was "NRN".
How NRN becomes 666 is a mystery to me, though.
Disclaimer: I work for HP. However, I don't work on or near this product; I know as much about it as you do. What follows is just my opinion, based solely on common sense and observation. HP may violently disagree with this, although I doubt it.
Anyhow, one thing that bugs me is that some people here seem to be assuming that this is some sort of move to cut development costs or something, in the hope that the free software community will somehow magically equate to a free labor pool. A new slant on the "free beer" side of things, I guess.
But this isn't like a word processor which is useful if you stick it on one machine; it's only worthwhile if you can get a bunch of networked devices using it. In other words, these sort of projects require a certain amount of critical mass in order to be successful at all. And in this day and age, people have grown sick and tired of being locked into proprietary protocols, with good reason. So if HP wants the world to start using their protocol, the only way they can do it is by releasing that protocol as free software.
Even if it were *more* expensive to develop it as free software, they'd still have to do it that way.
Just my personal opinion, of course.
My congratulations to you and Valerie. Best wishes and good luck!
:)
Oh yeah, and good luck with the business thing, too.
Cool; I never knew about this! How do you simulate the other two mouse buttons?
There is a difference between GNU getopt and stpcpy.
stpcpy is provided to allow easier porting of weird applications which use it. The man page makes this clear. I'm all in favor of this sort of thing; if some other system provides an interface which we don't have but can easily provide, we should do it. I see no problem here.
GNU getopt is different, because this isn't providing somebody else's interface for "backwards compatibility" or ease of porting or something, this is a GNU extension. Making GNU-specific extensions is, I agree, dangerous. On the other hand, progress must happen. In each case, the benefits of progress must be weighed against the drawbacks of fragmentation. And GNU tends to go overboard on the GNU-isms, I do agree with you.
abiword has a pretty good word importer, using the mswordview engine wv.
It doesn't provide 100% M$ Word support yet, and it doesn't do Excel. Still, it's something and it's here today, even though it's not at version 1 just yet.
I haven't checked out koffice yet, but those screen shots look really nice.
Of course, I'm a big old dork replying to a joke article as if it were serious, but...
If you look at http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-doc.html you'll read:
As a general rule, I don't believe that it is essential for people to have permission to modify all sorts of articles and books. The issues for writings are not necessarily the same as those for software. For example, I don't think you or I are obliged to give permission to modify articles like this one, which describe our actions and our views.
The GPL was specifically designed for information which is itself, in essence, a tool. Information which expresses ideas, philosophies, religious views, and so on, ought to be modifiable and copiable, but under distinctly different terms and conditions, to avoid misrepresenting the originaly author.
Don't get me wrong, the over-abundance of broad copyright laws is a big problem in non-technical writing, too. (It slows down the evolution of our culture, in my opinion.) It's just that the GPL isn't the right fix.
I know, I know... it was a joke. :)
> judge not, lest ye be judged.
When it comes to politics, we as nations should *want* to be judged, with the harshest criticisms possible, afforded by a free press and free speech.
It is only in an atmosphere of absolute intolerance for the slightest government transgression that we can hope to improve.
> Those with justifiable animosity towards Communism, generally have valid critism of Capitalism as well.
Which is as it should be. We should strive to be equal opportunity whiners.
Seriously, I show no mercy in complaining about the flaws of China's system, and I expect, rather I demand, that the same degree of scrutiny be turned against my own nation as well. (It needs it, too.)