If there is a war, then it is clear that the prisoners should be covered under the Geneva convention.
As has already been pointed out to you several times in this thread, they are covered. They are being covered under the illegal combantant clauses.
Your options are to argue that they should not be considered illegal combants (hint: check out what constitutes an illegal combantant before making this argument) or drop it.
I like my IE6 with its Google toolbar and Web development tools ("view partial source", anyone?)
Do tell, what/where are these web development tools for IE you speak of? Also, I second another posters comments about the DOM inspector and javascript debugger in Mozilla, they are quite nice. None the less, if I could extend IE's developer friendliness, I'd like to see it.
Primarily famous for being sued however (seriously)
they have unleashed an idea that has changed everything
I have to give them some credit for this, but only some. Napster is basically IRC with a search engine (protocol wise). Neither being new ideas. Transferring MP3s over the internet wasn't new either.
What they managed to do was popularize it by making it easier. This was an important contribution in many ways. However, they could have done this without trying to become some for-profit company riding the dot.com boom. Had they NOT followed the money, they might still be around today changing music distribution for the better. But they got greedy, got sued, and now all the innovation is happening with other parties.
True, however you invented this "exact copy" constraint to strengthen your position (which is my point, that/. can't just be honest about this). It doesn't negate the fact that DeCSS can be used to aid piracy. MP3s aren't exact copies of CDs either, doesn't mean mp3 isn't convenient for pirates (of course, that doesn't mean mp3s [or DeCSS] should be outlawed).
DeCSS is not needed nor aids in copying DVD movies
As the replies to your message and many other similar threads on slashdot indicate, it's quite clear that this is widely believed here. I just don't get it. It's quite clear that while DeCSS is not needed it most definately does aid in copying DVD movies.
Why the furious attempt to deny that by such a large part of the slashdot crowd?
That needs to be the soundbite that every lay-person needs to hear
You don't need to (falsely) deny that it aids in DVD piracy to construct a compelling, understandable arguement against outlawing DeCSS. Doing so only hurts your credability.
Re:As long as I can connect...
on
Taming the Web
·
· Score: 1
I think this scenario while true, is a lot like the "But I can't write a program that solders new connections onto a chip for you" scenario.
Of all the people using P2P now, how many of them are going to try to setup your proposed selenium photocells/mirrors network?
The point is, "they" don't have to make P2P completely impossible, they just have to make it hard enough that the average user won't bother. Without critical mass, P2P is close to useless.
I remember BBSes and Fidonet too. It was cool, but nowhere near as cool as the internet. And that has as much to do with the ubiquity of the internet vs. BBSes as much as it does with the underlying capabilties of the two networks.
Say Alice writes a memo and send it using an MS email client that automatically encrypts it. Bob intercepts this email (illegitimately) and uses his Linus email client to decrypt it. He has used a device to defeat access restrictions on a copyrighted work. Bang! DMCA applies.
I don't think the DMCA does apply here. The DMCA says you can't create a device that:
(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof
The "Linus email client" is presumably primarly designed as an email client with decryption capabilties as just another feature. If it wasn't for this "primarly designed" language, the legitimate recipient's email client would also be a circumvention device.
Furthermore, I'm not sure that the purpose of the encryption in the first place was to protect the rights of the owner. I'm assuming it was to prevent prying eyes. However, this ambiguity is a good example of the creeping featurism you mentioned (which I completely agree with).
a) Breaking encryption isn't illegal across the board. Only if the encryption is used to control access to copyrighted works. If the encryption exists for some other reason, break away.
b) There is a specific exception for interoperability.
c) Even excluding B, it's illegal to make a device whose PRIMARY purpose is to circumvent copyright control restrictions. If the primary purpose is something else, like an email client/server or a file sharing client/server or an office suite, then it isn't covered by the DMCA anti-circumvention clause.
I can't believe the number of posts that don't understand this (specifically, part A)
Emacs is an aircraft carrier in the age of cruise missles.
Good analogy. Although vi might be smaller and suitable in most situations, emacs allows you do it all. Recon missions, radar jamming missions, escort missions, you name it.
But if you just want to fuck shit up, use vi!
(more seriously, emacs and/or mini-emacs clones are available for virtually all systems as well, but vi does enjoy a slight lead in that department)
I know it's not quite as impressive to the/. crowd as an AI algorthim, but you could always ask the chick what her number is.
My guess is if the computer could give it to you, when you call her up and explain how you got it, she won't be quite as impressed as you are with how you got it.
I do see your point. However, I think you are overlooking whether such an advanced AI is even desirable. Although the example you used is a particularly good example of a situation where such an AI is useless, I think there are a wide range of situations where trying to replace humans/human interaction with computers/AI interaction is just a bad idea. Computers playing chess is only interesting because it's a challange and a learning opportunity. Once computers playing perfect chess games is common, no one will really care anymore.
What gets me is how it seems like DS is arrested for violation of American law for things here did in Russia, really.
The theory is that since Elcomsoft used a U.S. based company for accepting payments, they exposed themselves to US laws. Specifically, the FBI argues that the sale took place under US jurisdiction.
I don't think that's a particularly good argument, but it doesn't seem to me that it's entirely bogus in all respects either. I haven't seen a realistic debate about it here on/., but it seems to me this is subtle enough to be worthy of discussion.
Russian law requires that users be able to make a back-up copy of legally acquired software. Adobe's protection makes it illegal in Russia.
I see lots of people mentioning this, but they always leave out the explanation. What prevents you from backing up either an ebook or the ebook software? I've never seen a backup program that detected encryption and refused to back it up.
Except that it has been pointed out again and again that code is speech.
I agree completely, I even addressed that in my post. However, you said you considered explaining it "with simple examples even a non-geek could understand". That excludes code and is therefore not covered by the DMCA.
The DMCA is a bad law. Let's make our elected officials know why we don't like it. We sure as hell can't assume they are going to understand that code is a form of speech. If we skip that explaination and jump straight "this law prohibits discussion" we aren't going to be taken seriously.
Regarding the lame encryption in ebooks, I keep seeing this come up
again and again. However it seems to me the people that are raising
this issue are missing the point.
As I understand it, AEBPRO does not take advantage of
cryptographic weaknesses to decrypt the files. YOU ALREADY HAVE THE
DECRYPTION KEY. As others have pointed out, if you have an ebook
but no decryption key (i.e. you aren't supposed to have the ebook file
in the first place), AEBPRO isn't going to allow you to read it.
It doesn't matter how strong or weak the encryption is. Better
encryption would make it harder for someone who doesn't have a key to
decrypt the book without it. If you already have the ebook
legitimately, you have the decryption key (you need that to actually
read the book).
Adobe's complaint boils down to their entire scheme involves trust
that doesn't really exist. They are assuming the only way you can read
an ebook is to use an unmodified version of their software. That's a
piss poor assumption. However, there isn't really dick they can do
about it (other than just give up on the idea entirely).
They can't prevent people from hacking the software to allow you
to save unencrypted versions. They can't prevent people from writing a
third party utility to decrypt the document, no matter how good the
encryption is, if they need to give users both the executable code and
the key to do the decryption as part of the normal operation of the
software.
There are only so many ways this can be dealt with, and increasing
the encryption strength isn't one of them. You can use closed systems
(one that you can't inspect or modify the software on) as the
only platforms that ebooks are available for. You can add such a closed system to
existing hardware (e.g. CPRM). Or you can rely on laws that make it
illegal to do what is technically impossible to prevent (e.g. DMCA).
I figured I'd end with a write-up explaining just how lame Adobe's
encryption was, complete with simple examples even a non-geek could
understand. Then I realized that by doing so, I could find the FBI
knocking on my door.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Exaggerating the situation
isn't helping. The DMCA is a bad law, but it does not outlaw talking
about encryption or talking about the DMCA. The DMCA says you can't
create or distribute a program primarily designed to break a copyright
protection scheme.
That means that if the encryption scheme in question is not currently
being used as a copyright protection scheme, you can break it and show
the world how you did it. It also means that you can TALK all you
want about schemes that are being used, just don't release code.
By all means, write your elected officials and tell them what's
wrong with the DMCA. However, don't add stuff you made up to
make it seem scarier. You can make the point that for computer
scientists using code is a commonly preferred way of expressing an
idea. You can make the point that since releasing code can violate the
DMCA, there are free speech issues. Add in "I can't even discuss this
issue without risking arrest" and you lose your credibility.
I'm going to address the "lame encryption" issue in a seperate message.
I appreciate your opposition to the DMCA, but I just think the
problem is worse than you actually yet realize. Everything I wrote is
true.
I appreciate your opposition to the DMCA as well, but I don't
think this is the way to go about critizing it. Your slant is so
extreme that not everything you wrote is true. For example "Now,
however, it gets you arrested" or "as Adobe just has in arresting a
foreign programmer".
Those are pretty close to true, but "crack a code, go to jail" type
statements [I'm making that one up] just cause you to lose
credibility. They do not help people realize the true extent of the
problem. If someone unaware of this issue hears the Adobe version ("We
are just protecting the rights of authors") and then hears the
Slashdot version ("Talk about flawed security, get arrested"), whose
side do you think they are going to find more credible?
The DMCA and this particular arrest are bad enough as they are. There
are plenty of issues to discuss, with very compelling arguments, even
leaving the distortion out of it.
Here are two things in particular that I wish the Slashdot crowd
would quit deluding themselves about:
1. This arrest was not over exposing/discussing flaws in the
ebook format. It was about releasing a program that removed the
protection. (Adobe's displeasure yes, arrest no)
2. Adobe can not simply "come up with better security" to address this
issue. As I would expect at least 90% of the Slashdot readers to know,
this will never work in the enviorment it is being used in (untrusted
clients such as home PCs). If you can read the damn book, you can
extract the contents. The only way ebooks can work is either a)
legislate that which is impossible technically (DMCA) or b) make the
client trusted (DRM in hardware or otherwise).
I know, I know. Mod me down to (-1, not following the slashdot
flock). And don't forget to tell me I'm an idiot and then proceed to
point out all the problems with banning "digital lock picks". After
you've done that, feel free to realize that my entire point is that
the DMCA is so fucked up to begin with, there is no reason to
exaggerate the situation to help people understand why it's wrong.
How do you figure? I really liked using Napster for bootlegs. Such as Dave Matthews Band, and Phish. Yes, they're legal. But you know what? They were blocked by Napster's filters.
Ironically enough, Metallica is also a band that allows people to trade bootlegs. If you remember when Metallica submitted a huge list of users to have banned from Napster for copyright violations, they excluded people who were sharing only bootlegs. At least last time I checked, all metallica, bootleg or not returned no results since they put the filters in place.
If we continue bashing people when they take steps towards openness, no one will ever see a benefit for moving in that direction.
But if we congratulate them everytime time they make a token gesture, token gestures will be all we'll ever get.
I don't think that's true for all companies, but Microsoft has consistently shown that what they consider to be the right direction has nothing to do with the criteria most people would use. I don't think we can interpret this as a sign of anything other than that they don't consider the IE icon on the desktop to be as important now (and they're probably right).
If their primary motivation was openness, I would have to give them some small amount of credit. But it's not, so I don't trust/like them any more than I did yesterday.
The system you describe sounds a lot like Gnutella and I don't see any reason to believe that the problems that plague Gnutella wouldn't also plague this idea. In fact, since the song itself is passed through the entire chain of friends, it would probably be worse.
You may want to check out Mojo Nation. It attempts to solve some of the problems with Gnutella. It's interesting, but not in widespread use. It's actually a lot more like Freenet than Gnutella.
And finally, as to who has committed a crime? You commited contributory copyright infringment. Or at least, that's what the RIAA will say (and if what's going on with Napster is an indication, the courts will probably agree).
Maybe they should concentrate more on forcing companies who provide servers and services to make sure things are secure.
How about forcing MS to put out security patches for NT/2000/IIS as soon as they find out there is a problem. Then making
sure that these patches are readily available.
Well, if this is going to accomplish the goal of making the internet more secure, they are also going to have to require you and everyone else to install those patches as soon as they come out. Sounds like this would help MS more than hurt them if you were legally required to apply every "security" patch they came out with. Of course, you would be legally obligated to buy every new incarnation of windows by extension.
And what about open source projects? You don't really think legislation would be passed that would force this on companies but not on everyone else, do you? Every linux distro would be held to the same standards as MS.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I like this treaty, but I don't think government making sure companies make secure products is any better.
OK, maybe somebody can explain this part to me. I would think RICO statues would only apply in criminal cases and this, I'm assuming, is a civil case. How is it that RICO is invoked here?
Now on a related note, what about the idea of selling back licences. That I would like to see. Is there any legal way for
someoen to force MSFT to buy back licences (depreciated of course) to their products if they are unwanted?
Do a slashdot search on "windows refund". The most recent story is Here.
Summarized: Perhaps, but it will probably be a big pain in the ass. The story linked above was about a big protest. I'm not sure what the results were, but I'll make a prediction: jack squat.
Slashdot Mirror
As has already been pointed out to you several times in this thread, they are covered. They are being covered under the illegal combantant clauses.
Your options are to argue that they should not be considered illegal combants (hint: check out what constitutes an illegal combantant before making this argument) or drop it.
Do tell, what/where are these web development tools for IE you speak of? Also, I second another posters comments about the DOM inspector and javascript debugger in Mozilla, they are quite nice. None the less, if I could extend IE's developer friendliness, I'd like to see it.
had, not has (same goes for the momentum)
the most famous brand on the net,
Primarily famous for being sued however (seriously)
they have unleashed an idea that has changed everything
I have to give them some credit for this, but only some. Napster is basically IRC with a search engine (protocol wise). Neither being new ideas. Transferring MP3s over the internet wasn't new either.
What they managed to do was popularize it by making it easier. This was an important contribution in many ways. However, they could have done this without trying to become some for-profit company riding the dot.com boom. Had they NOT followed the money, they might still be around today changing music distribution for the better. But they got greedy, got sued, and now all the innovation is happening with other parties.
True, however you invented this "exact copy" constraint to strengthen your position (which is my point, that /. can't just be honest about this). It doesn't negate the fact that DeCSS can be used to aid piracy. MP3s aren't exact copies of CDs either, doesn't mean mp3 isn't convenient for pirates (of course, that doesn't mean mp3s [or DeCSS] should be outlawed).
As the replies to your message and many other similar threads on slashdot indicate, it's quite clear that this is widely believed here. I just don't get it. It's quite clear that while DeCSS is not needed it most definately does aid in copying DVD movies.
Why the furious attempt to deny that by such a large part of the slashdot crowd?
That needs to be the soundbite that every lay-person needs to hear
You don't need to (falsely) deny that it aids in DVD piracy to construct a compelling, understandable arguement against outlawing DeCSS. Doing so only hurts your credability.
Of all the people using P2P now, how many of them are going to try to setup your proposed selenium photocells/mirrors network?
The point is, "they" don't have to make P2P completely impossible, they just have to make it hard enough that the average user won't bother. Without critical mass, P2P is close to useless.
I remember BBSes and Fidonet too. It was cool, but nowhere near as cool as the internet. And that has as much to do with the ubiquity of the internet vs. BBSes as much as it does with the underlying capabilties of the two networks.
I don't think the DMCA does apply here. The DMCA says you can't create a device that:
The "Linus email client" is presumably primarly designed as an email client with decryption capabilties as just another feature. If it wasn't for this "primarly designed" language, the legitimate recipient's email client would also be a circumvention device.
Furthermore, I'm not sure that the purpose of the encryption in the first place was to protect the rights of the owner. I'm assuming it was to prevent prying eyes. However, this ambiguity is a good example of the creeping featurism you mentioned (which I completely agree with).
b) There is a specific exception for interoperability.
c) Even excluding B, it's illegal to make a device whose PRIMARY purpose is to circumvent copyright control restrictions. If the primary purpose is something else, like an email client/server or a file sharing client/server or an office suite, then it isn't covered by the DMCA anti-circumvention clause.
I can't believe the number of posts that don't understand this (specifically, part A)
He's a uniter, not a divider :-)
On a similar note, Aviel D. Rubin, another one of the authors here, was also one of the authors of the passport analysis that was recently mentioned.
Good analogy. Although vi might be smaller and suitable in most situations, emacs allows you do it all. Recon missions, radar jamming missions, escort missions, you name it.
But if you just want to fuck shit up, use vi!
(more seriously, emacs and/or mini-emacs clones are available for virtually all systems as well, but vi does enjoy a slight lead in that department)
My guess is if the computer could give it to you, when you call her up and explain how you got it, she won't be quite as impressed as you are with how you got it.
I do see your point. However, I think you are overlooking whether such an advanced AI is even desirable. Although the example you used is a particularly good example of a situation where such an AI is useless, I think there are a wide range of situations where trying to replace humans/human interaction with computers/AI interaction is just a bad idea. Computers playing chess is only interesting because it's a challange and a learning opportunity. Once computers playing perfect chess games is common, no one will really care anymore.
The theory is that since Elcomsoft used a U.S. based company for accepting payments, they exposed themselves to US laws. Specifically, the FBI argues that the sale took place under US jurisdiction.
I don't think that's a particularly good argument, but it doesn't seem to me that it's entirely bogus in all respects either. I haven't seen a realistic debate about it here on /., but it seems to me this is subtle enough to be worthy of discussion.
You can arm them after you shoot them :-)
I see lots of people mentioning this, but they always leave out the explanation. What prevents you from backing up either an ebook or the ebook software? I've never seen a backup program that detected encryption and refused to back it up.
I agree completely, I even addressed that in my post. However, you said you considered explaining it "with simple examples even a non-geek could understand". That excludes code and is therefore not covered by the DMCA.
The DMCA is a bad law. Let's make our elected officials know why we don't like it. We sure as hell can't assume they are going to understand that code is a form of speech. If we skip that explaination and jump straight "this law prohibits discussion" we aren't going to be taken seriously.
As I understand it, AEBPRO does not take advantage of cryptographic weaknesses to decrypt the files. YOU ALREADY HAVE THE DECRYPTION KEY. As others have pointed out, if you have an ebook but no decryption key (i.e. you aren't supposed to have the ebook file in the first place), AEBPRO isn't going to allow you to read it.
It doesn't matter how strong or weak the encryption is. Better encryption would make it harder for someone who doesn't have a key to decrypt the book without it. If you already have the ebook legitimately, you have the decryption key (you need that to actually read the book).
Adobe's complaint boils down to their entire scheme involves trust that doesn't really exist. They are assuming the only way you can read an ebook is to use an unmodified version of their software. That's a piss poor assumption. However, there isn't really dick they can do about it (other than just give up on the idea entirely).
They can't prevent people from hacking the software to allow you to save unencrypted versions. They can't prevent people from writing a third party utility to decrypt the document, no matter how good the encryption is, if they need to give users both the executable code and the key to do the decryption as part of the normal operation of the software.
There are only so many ways this can be dealt with, and increasing the encryption strength isn't one of them. You can use closed systems (one that you can't inspect or modify the software on) as the only platforms that ebooks are available for. You can add such a closed system to existing hardware (e.g. CPRM). Or you can rely on laws that make it illegal to do what is technically impossible to prevent (e.g. DMCA).
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Exaggerating the situation isn't helping. The DMCA is a bad law, but it does not outlaw talking about encryption or talking about the DMCA. The DMCA says you can't create or distribute a program primarily designed to break a copyright protection scheme.
That means that if the encryption scheme in question is not currently being used as a copyright protection scheme, you can break it and show the world how you did it. It also means that you can TALK all you want about schemes that are being used, just don't release code.
By all means, write your elected officials and tell them what's wrong with the DMCA. However, don't add stuff you made up to make it seem scarier. You can make the point that for computer scientists using code is a commonly preferred way of expressing an idea. You can make the point that since releasing code can violate the DMCA, there are free speech issues. Add in "I can't even discuss this issue without risking arrest" and you lose your credibility.
I'm going to address the "lame encryption" issue in a seperate message.
I appreciate your opposition to the DMCA as well, but I don't think this is the way to go about critizing it. Your slant is so extreme that not everything you wrote is true. For example "Now, however, it gets you arrested" or "as Adobe just has in arresting a foreign programmer".
Those are pretty close to true, but "crack a code, go to jail" type statements [I'm making that one up] just cause you to lose credibility. They do not help people realize the true extent of the problem. If someone unaware of this issue hears the Adobe version ("We are just protecting the rights of authors") and then hears the Slashdot version ("Talk about flawed security, get arrested"), whose side do you think they are going to find more credible?
The DMCA and this particular arrest are bad enough as they are. There are plenty of issues to discuss, with very compelling arguments, even leaving the distortion out of it.
Here are two things in particular that I wish the Slashdot crowd would quit deluding themselves about:
1. This arrest was not over exposing/discussing flaws in the ebook format. It was about releasing a program that removed the protection. (Adobe's displeasure yes, arrest no)
2. Adobe can not simply "come up with better security" to address this issue. As I would expect at least 90% of the Slashdot readers to know, this will never work in the enviorment it is being used in (untrusted clients such as home PCs). If you can read the damn book, you can extract the contents. The only way ebooks can work is either a) legislate that which is impossible technically (DMCA) or b) make the client trusted (DRM in hardware or otherwise).
I know, I know. Mod me down to (-1, not following the slashdot flock). And don't forget to tell me I'm an idiot and then proceed to point out all the problems with banning "digital lock picks". After you've done that, feel free to realize that my entire point is that the DMCA is so fucked up to begin with, there is no reason to exaggerate the situation to help people understand why it's wrong.
Ironically enough, Metallica is also a band that allows people to trade bootlegs. If you remember when Metallica submitted a huge list of users to have banned from Napster for copyright violations, they excluded people who were sharing only bootlegs. At least last time I checked, all metallica, bootleg or not returned no results since they put the filters in place.
But if we congratulate them everytime time they make a token gesture, token gestures will be all we'll ever get.
I don't think that's true for all companies, but Microsoft has consistently shown that what they consider to be the right direction has nothing to do with the criteria most people would use. I don't think we can interpret this as a sign of anything other than that they don't consider the IE icon on the desktop to be as important now (and they're probably right).
If their primary motivation was openness, I would have to give them some small amount of credit. But it's not, so I don't trust/like them any more than I did yesterday.
You may want to check out Mojo Nation. It attempts to solve some of the problems with Gnutella. It's interesting, but not in widespread use. It's actually a lot more like Freenet than Gnutella.
And finally, as to who has committed a crime? You commited contributory copyright infringment. Or at least, that's what the RIAA will say (and if what's going on with Napster is an indication, the courts will probably agree).
Well, if this is going to accomplish the goal of making the internet more secure, they are also going to have to require you and everyone else to install those patches as soon as they come out. Sounds like this would help MS more than hurt them if you were legally required to apply every "security" patch they came out with. Of course, you would be legally obligated to buy every new incarnation of windows by extension.
And what about open source projects? You don't really think legislation would be passed that would force this on companies but not on everyone else, do you? Every linux distro would be held to the same standards as MS.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I like this treaty, but I don't think government making sure companies make secure products is any better.
OK, maybe somebody can explain this part to me. I would think RICO statues would only apply in criminal cases and this, I'm assuming, is a civil case. How is it that RICO is invoked here?
Do a slashdot search on "windows refund". The most recent story is Here.
Summarized: Perhaps, but it will probably be a big pain in the ass. The story linked above was about a big protest. I'm not sure what the results were, but I'll make a prediction: jack squat.