[wordup] it just gets worse ...

[Adam Shand]

Via: Brett Shand <brett at earthlight.co.nz>
From: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=211491&thesection=technology&thesubsection=general

NZ software developer bows to US threat of legal action
28.08.2001
By ADAM GIFFORD

An Auckland software developer has been forced to dumb down his webcam
software after a Silicon Valley dot.com threatened him with prosecution
under the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Bob Prangnell said the reaction by Webcam site operator SpotLife to his
Webcam Watcher product was bullying with no legal justification - but
given the willingness of US courts to issue injunctions, he was taking the
threat seriously.

A Russian programmer, Dmitry Sklyarov, was arrested at the Def Con hacker
convention in Las Vegas in July by the FBI for allegedly violating the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act by demonstrating how to get around
security features in US company Adobe's new eBook system.

Mr Prangnell's company, Beausoft, makes a range of software to help people
do more with their digital cameras. Webcam Watcher allows users to monitor
thousands of webcams from their PC.

Mr Prangnell said webcams had practical applications, such as for security
monitoring or checking the length of the cafeteria queue, but their main
appeal was probably voyeuristic.

"A lot of people look at them hoping to see some tit," he said, but nearly
all the pictures were of people typing at their computers.

Some of those webcams are broadcast by SpotLife, a company founded by
webcam manufacturer Logitech, which has so far received more than $US50
million in venture capital funding.

SpotLife wants people who buy internet video cameras to pay it to
broadcast their webcam feeds. Initially, it gave a free low-use account to
anyone who bought a Logitech camera, in the hope they would upgrade to a
paid subscription.

After a recent restructure in which it laid off a quarter of its 200
staff, SpotLife switched to giving buyers a 30-day free trial, after which
they must pay to keep broadcasting.

It claims to have a million registered users. SpotLife offers subscribers
the option of creating "locked" shows, where visitors are asked for a
password to get to the next screen where the picture is displayed.

Mr Prangnell said that because Webcam Watcher only took the picture using
an http (hypertext transport protocol) "get" command, it ignored
SoftLife's browser-based password system.

"It's not even basic http authentication, where a window pops up which you
have to fill in. It's just a bit of HTML [hypertext markup language] and
CGI [common gateway interface] script."

SpotLife recently changed its site to exclude visitors whose browsers did
not accept cookies - data created by a web server that is stored on a
user's computer to allow the website to keep track of their activity.

It meant webcam monitoring programs could no longer access spotlife.com.

"It took me a few minutes to figure out what they had done, and then I
changed the program to make it send back a cookie," Mr Prangnell said.

Within four hours he had an updated version of Webcam Watcher on his site,
a feat which won him a surge in sales.

Then came the letter from SpotLife's lawyers, claiming he had broken a
raft of US copyright and computer fraud laws, as well as trespass.

"They say I've broken their protection scheme, but that's a joke - they're
not encrypting. You need something more secure than a wet paper bag to
qualify as encryption," Mr Prangnell said.

As a one-man band he does not have the resources to fight through the US
court system.

"I told them I will, without prejudice, take out the cookies and urge my
users to upgrade," he said.

The Herald was unable to get comment from SpotLife.

Meanwhile, Mr Sklyarov is out of jail and discussing a plea bargain.