Re: Supposed SaS "encryption" weak - Coments and Infor about wrong claims

[Nick FitzGerald <nick () virus-l demon co uk>]

Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu wrote:

> 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.
>
> Note the word "effectively".  Also note that Adobe managed to make the case
> that rot-13 was effective......

This raises two interesting (at least to me) points:

1.  How pathetic were the "expert witnesses" for the defense that they 
could not show that suitably trained chimpanzees could break ROT13 
simply by eyeballing -- a "technology" so "weak" is clealry no 
technology...

2.  Recalling the recent case of the "Shift-key subverts audio CD copy 
protection" (or whatever) thread, could similarly miserable lack of 
technology (aka the "solution" developed by the shysters who sold that 
rubbish to BMG, etc) _ever_ be successfully defended under the claims 
of the DMCA?  It strikes me that a "technology" so miserable as to be 
"defeated" by a normal, well-known, albeit non-default, but available 
through MS-provided tools (TweakUI...), mechanism as disabling autorun 
for CD drives could never have stood up in any "sensible" court.  
Perhaps the makers of this bogus "technology" recognized this very 
early in the piece and that is why they withdrew the DMCA-inspired 
action they (reputedly) planned against the discoverer/publisher opf 
this information.

OK -- there's a thiurd point; more a question...

3.  On this latter issue (the bogus copy-protection system), imagine a 
US citizen who just happened to have two systems which were "normally" 
(by their definition of the typical uses of the machines) configured 
with CD autorun off and on respectively.  On noting that the reputed 
"copy-protection" of said discs did not work on the "autorun off" 
machine and did work on the "autorun on" machine, would their actions 
to that point, or their subsequent publicizing of their observation, 
count as "circumventing a technological measure..." under the act??


Regards,

Nick FitzGerald

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