[wordup] more on the dmca

[Adam Shand]

For those that are wondering why I'm getting all worked up about this (I
don't normally get all worked up about hackers getting arrested).  This
happens to co-incide nicely with one of my major issues.  The
perversion of copyright law by corporations.

For those of you outside the USA the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright
Act) has no direct bearing on you, unless of course you want to learn from
the USA's mistakes and try and avoid this sort of disaster where you live.

I would encourage that.  The DMCA is is the law that Dmitry Sklyarov was
arrested for breaking at Defcon.  The thing is that that he didn't
actually do anything *inside* the USA.  Everything he did was done in
Russia where his actually were legal.  In fact from what I understand (and
I haven't confirmed this yet) in Russia it is illegal to sell software
which it is impossible for the end user to make personal copies of (for
backups or personal use), so in one sense he was actually helping Russian
citizens use Adobe's eBooks legally.

Further the DMCA is supposed to protect against reverse engineering of
"non-trivial" encryption and security systems.  Adobe wisely chose to use
an encryption scheme called ROT13.  For those that aren't familiar with
ROT13 you can get a pretty good idea by replacing "ROT13" with "Pig
Latin".

All the above information is correct to the best of my knowledge, however
I haven't had time to 100% verify it.  If I have mispoken myself someone
please correct me (or I will when I have a chance to sit down and read a
bit more) and I'll be sure to notify the list.

URL: http://www.visi.com/~tneu/voidwhereprohibited.html

First Amendment - Void where prohibited

You may not know it yet, but the freedom to speak truthful information has
been abolished.

Oh, you can still chat with your friends - they don't have enough of a
police force to stop you yet.  They'll get around to you next.

Right now they're after the security experts.

You see, the computer software, motion picture, and music industries have
bought themselves a law - and for them it's a good one.

It basically makes it illegal to distribute information about any security
system used by these industries, if the information is detailed enough for
a computer to use. (thus becoming a "device" under law)  The law is called
the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and was signed into law by Clinton
in 1998.

For a recent example of this law in action, we can look at Adobe - a
software company that makes software for releasing books in electronic
form.

The security system they use is so weak as to be negligent.  It is the
digital equivalent of a bank, leaving its doors unlocked and having a
post-it note with the combination of the vault on the vault door.

When confronted with the problem - they responded, not by fixing the
problem - No!  Why do that when they have this brand new law to use
instead!

Adobe's strategy was to leave the security system hopelessly broken and
vulnerable, and just have anyone jailed who tries to talk about it.  I
know I wouldn't want to trust my information to this strategy - but they
evidently think that they'll be able to keep this a secret from their
customers by arresting anyone who dares tell them.

A Russian security expert is currently facing the possibility of 5 years
in prison and a $500,000 fine for visiting this country and trying to tell
(and demonstrate to) people how flawed the security systems in Adobe
products really are!  These same security systems were sold to people as
being "industrial grade" - people have been charged thousands of dollars
for these products, because Adobe advertised this format as secure.
Every Adobe ebook customer who has put their trust in Adobe's security
system has been swindled - as Adobe substituted something that could have
been written by a first year high school student instead of using real
encryption.

In order to prove that the security system is flawed, this security expert
provided a demonstration program that would "unlock" Adobe's security.
Even though this program was created and marketed in another country - and
thus would not be subject to US laws at all, the FBI arrested the expert
after he finished giving a speech on the subject of the security system at
a security conference.

The FBI claims that since his demonstration program was available over the
Internet to all countries, his publication of the program on the Internet
automatically made him subject to jurisdiction in the US courts.

This is a VERY dangerous precedent.

Imagine:

* Web site operators of religious web sites in the US being arrested when
  visiting foreign countries for speaking out against the doctrine of the
  Muslim faith (which is illegal in some Muslim dominated countries).
* A web site operator in the US that has historical information on World
  War II might be arrested for operating the web site if they ever visited
  France - where many of the German propaganda videos are illegal..
* The Chinese government might arrest visitors from the US for having
  spoken out against communism in their own country!

This precedent basically subjects every citizen publishing on the internet
to the laws of every country - and as we all know from Social Studies
class - not every country has a First Amendment like we do.

How can someone even know the laws of all of the countries in the world?
Putting something on the Internet should NOT automatically place the
account holder under all world laws.

If this outrage is not stopped, the First Amendment might as well be
repealed - since the laws of the least free countries in the world will be
binding on the entire internet. .

You can help fight this battle by:

1. Writing your Representatives and Senators in the US Congress expressing
   your outrage with this incident and demanding that the law be repealed.
   The law in its entirety can be read at
   http://www.eff.org/IP/DRM/DMCA/hr2281_dmca_law_19981020_pl105-304.html

2. Donate to Dimitri Sklyarovs defense fund at
   https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dmitry%40shmoo.com&item_name=Dmitry+Sklyarov&no_shipping=1
   or to the EFF who is providing his representation at
   http://www.eff.org.

3. Boycott Adobe products.  Hit them where it hurts, their pocketbook.
   Don't upgrade your current Adobe products.  Visit
   http://www.boycottadobe.com for more details.