Bulldrek v3.0

Posted: **Sat May 05, 2007 2:52 pm**

The first thing that piqued my interest over there was this:

Just A Number
There's been some interesting things happening on teh Intarwebs.

A while back, a guy who was pissed off that he couldn't play his lawfully-purchased HD-DVDs on his Linux system due to a failure in the anti-copying system, did a bit of hacking and discovered a 16-digit hexadecimal code that unlocks the copy protection. He publicized the code on the internet, as a "fuck you" to BS antipiracy hysteria and crippleware.

The story would have gone away quietly. After all, the code requires specialized tools and technical knowledge to implement. It's not something that Joe User is going to be able to use to bring about the End of Civilization As We Know It.

Yes, it would have gone away....except the AACS Licensing Authority, which controls the anti-copying technology underlying HD-DVD, sent out hundreds of legal threats, cease-and-desists, and nastygrams to sites that had posted the key, claiming violation of the DCMA over posting of a number which they own.

They OWN A NUMBER.

Sad thing is, the way the DCMA is written, it's true. This is the purest example yet of why the DCMA needs to go. The MPAA and RIAA have pushed this through as law, and now we live in a country where a sixteen-digit number is illegal to possess, to discuss in class, or to post on a website.

Funny thing, though.

Since the legal threats where sent, people all over the internet have been posting the number. People have posted YouTube videos with the number. They've written jingles about the number. Most have just posted the numbers themselves. Over 590,000, according to the most recent Google search.

So much for putting the genie back into that particular bottle....

[edit: number removed because I'm not supporting this campaign at this time - WG]

Enough with corporate feudalism. You can't own a number.

I asked if he'd be comfortable with someone putting his social security number online, to which he accused me of straw-manning him. Fair enough, I guess, but I try to avoid asking questions to state my position. I ask questions so that I know for sure what you're advocating before I spend a lot of time crafting a counter-argument or rebuttal; to avoid straw-manning, in fact.

Depending on his answer to the question, I was going to point out the frightening amount of alphanumeric combinations that run our lives now. Your bank account is "just a number", your passwords and PINs are "just numbers", but the average person gets right upset (and rightly so) if those numbers get released to the wrong people.

And it's not like there's no legal precedent for this sort of thing. Microsoft doesn't sell you the Windows code, they sell you a license to use their particular string of code. Intellectual property seems pretty fascinating in this regard, too. They're just words, but you can sue if someone else tries to make money with them against your will. (By the way, I'm not trying to claim expertise on IP, if there's something I've missed, please correct me).

It's an encryption key. When you put the number in it's context (which some of these sites are presumably doing), it's like copying someone's house key and putting copies all over town. I don't like the ownership angle either, but I don't think that they're wrong for wanting to protect "just a number".

(Edit for grammar. Still probably missed something)

Posted: **Sat May 05, 2007 7:47 pm**

Well, your SSN or other vital numbers being released can directly damage *you* ... many people would argue that the release of 09-F9-11-02-9D-74-E3-5B-D8-41-56-C5-63-56-88-C0 does not hurt individuals, and that's often where people draw the line. Hurting a corporation may be fine, and hurting corporations that are involved in copy protection and campaigning for even tighte copyright laws is seen as even more sport for people who think that numbers like 09-F9-11-02-9D-74-E3-5B-D8-41-56-C5-63-56-88-C0 are just that, and without context -- which this post does not provide -- they're worthless.

Posted: **Mon May 07, 2007 12:41 pm**

Well, without context, ANY number or alphanumeric sequence is worthless. So I can see that flat out ownership of the number is kind of strange. However, the guy I quoted gave it context, so in that case it's not just a number.

I can understand the company's desire to do something about information being distributed that makes it easier to steal from them, especially when the information isn't something they can change easily. If people are telling everyone they meet that it's easy to shoplift from your store, you can change a few things around to improve your security. The DVDs in question are already out there. They can change their encryption scheme, but that will only affect new releases that aren't already on DVDs with the old scheme.

I admit that I'm curious about one thing. You work with intellectual property and copyright. Your post seems to agree with this campaign. Are you against their use of copyright here, and if so, why?

Posted: **Mon May 07, 2007 6:45 pm**

WillyGilligan wrote:However, the guy I quoted gave it context, so in that case it's not just a number.

Even in the context of the post, though, it's not actually useful -- you can't run right out and infringe using just that number. Other technology is required; just speaking the magic number to your HD DVD player won't magically unlock it. :-)

I admit that I'm curious about one thing. You work with intellectual property and copyright. Your post seems to agree with this campaign. Are you against their use of copyright here, and if so, why?

My relationship with Intellectual Property law involves a lot of accidental elbows in the ribs during the night.

In general, I think that continued legislation to tighten copyright law and extend the lengths of copyrights is a step in the wrong direction; I am against laws that make it criminal to manipulate items that you have purchased [such as your DVDs and DVD player]; and I am against laws that attempt to make converting data between formats illegal.

Posted: **Mon May 07, 2007 10:16 pm**

Adam wrote: In general, I think that continued legislation to tighten copyright law and extend the lengths of copyrights is a step in the wrong direction; I am against laws that make it criminal to manipulate items that you have purchased [such as your DVDs and DVD player]; and I am against laws that attempt to make converting data between formats illegal.

Nor do the technologies or laws work for long, in any case. Every time someone has come up with a sure-fire way to protect their CDs or DVDs, sure enough the people who make a sport out of breaking those systems... have. That's wasted money right there. Money that could have gone into the company bottom line, but is almost literally flushed down the bog. And the laws might make it illegal for anyone to copy Boondock Saints onto their hard-drive from the DVD they just bought, but it's not going to stop them from doing it. It's their disc, after all.

They paid for it. 20 years from now, those laws will be as obsolete as the "problem" they were made to combat, along with the technologies invented for the same purpose.

Posted: **Tue May 08, 2007 12:38 am**

Adam wrote:
WillyGilligan wrote:However, the guy I quoted gave it context, so in that case it's not just a number.
Even in the context of the post, though, it's not actually useful -- you can't run right out and infringe using just that number. Other technology is required; just speaking the magic number to your HD DVD player won't magically unlock it. :-)

Oh...I guess I'll stop doing that, then.

In general, I think that continued legislation to tighten copyright law and extend the lengths of copyrights is a step in the wrong direction; I am against laws that make it criminal to manipulate items that you have purchased [such as your DVDs and DVD player]; and I am against laws that attempt to make converting data between formats illegal.

Alright, I can respect that. I thought maybe you had some specific experiences with it that influence you. I realize that a lot of this is just shuffling around while the new tech and the current system figure out how to play nice, but what do you think the end result is going to be or should be?

Bulldrek v3.0

"It's just a number"

"It's just a number"