Replies

A surprisingly good article from the usually execrable Salon - even a blind squirrel will trip over an acorn in the forest by chance.

What is so amusing (or frightening, depending on my mood) is that these entertainment types, who trumpet first amendment rights when it is in their interest, see no problem with infringing the first amendment rights of content consumers (that is, the rest of us) in criminalizing even the discussion of copying.

The Dems are so vulnerable on this issue, but leave it to our brain-dead GOP, God love 'em, to give the RATs a pass on it.

I forsee internet worms designed to broadcast security defeating software. Once launched, millions of people would receive them, and once out, the system would be worthless, as is DVD encryption.

As for degraded quality being acceptable, I have a copy of the movie "Oh Brother" taped off a theater screen and sold openly in the streets of New York.

makes it illegal to distribute or even discuss anything that circumvents digital copyright control.

Hello?
Another attempt at thought police?

Makes it real hard to decide which side to support. The "something for nothing" crowd or the thought police.

Hmmmmmmmmm. Let me think now....

Dude, make no mistake: If you think the DMCA was bad news, look out.

This bill, as proposed by Fritz Hollings, will make certain actions a Federal crime.

Sooner or later, someone will (if they have not already) will make it possible to record films or television shows onto blank DVD's, just as you currently can with VCR's. This bill, if passed, will make that illegal to do so even for your own personal use.

Major video retailers such as Hollywood Video and Blockbuster enjoy a healthy amount of sales in the used DVD/VHS market. The companies are merely taking product they own and reselling it to the public. Again, passage of this bill will give film studios the liberty to encode DVD's with software that will make resold product useless.

This is why us Freepers should contact our Senators and tell them to never let that bill reach the floor. It will violate our rights as consumers, and be detrimental to the video retail industry (because if someone wishes to resell a DVD they own, that is really none of the business of the film industry).

I have two things to say. First, DivX. Not the digital encoding and decoding software but the pay-per-view DVDs that Circuit City tried to sell and no one bought. Next, chipped Playstations. Sony put codes in their Playstations to prevent North American consoles from playing Japanese games or copies. People created "chips" that bypass the security system at the circuit board level. You open up your Playstation (voiding the warranty -- big deal) and solder a few wires onto various parts of the circuit board and, tuh-dah!, your Playstation can play games from Japan and even copies. The only thing this law will do is to turn millions of ordinary Americans into Federal criminals. Perhaps that will be enough to get everyone's attention if they try to prosecute.

"Media players in a personal computer could also be set to read similar 'flags,' both for audio and video. And, says Touretzky, everything will likely be encrypted. 'For example, instead of sending analog signals to your speakers, you send an encrypted stream of digital data, and the decryption is done in a sealed module built right into the speaker,' he says. 'Video is done the same way: Encryption is done in a sealed module built right into the monitor, so you can't bypass the encryption by tapping into the monitor cables. Disk drive encryption is built into the drive itself, etc., etc.'

In a former life, I used to break copy-protection schemes as a hobby. My PC had a sign on it: "The Cracking Lab."

Usually the lifetime of a new copy-protection scheme was about 2 weeks. Then a crack would be posted and it would spread across the country in days.

Once a friend brought me a primitive "dongle" for a Mac program. It was circuitry potted inside a 35-mm film can with epoxy.

We x-rayed it, and discovered it was a simple L-R-C circuit. We plugged it into a circuit analyzer and had the schematic and values on the net the next day.

I was so into the hobby that I actually joined the industry group that was planning the "next level" of protection gadgets. I read the proceedings of their conferences and made 'helpful suggestions'. Ways of defeating this wonderful new standard suggested themselves again and again.

All of these schemes can--and will--be defeated.

What they don't understand is that all of their efforts are a drop in the bucket compared with the number of uncompensated hours that hobbyists are willing to put into breaking their schemes.

I am proud that I was one of those who was instrumental in breaking the back of the software copy-protection movement.

--Boris

P.S. You can still find my cracks on the net. I always signed them: "Let There Be Software!"