Re: DVD problems, was: Early thoughts on 10.1
Re: DVD problems, was: Early thoughts on 10.1
- Subject: Re: DVD problems, was: Early thoughts on 10.1
- From: "R. Tony Goold" <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2001 12:36:54 -0400
The encryption method was NOT reverse engineered through a legal black box
method.
In the early days of DeCSS talk, I came across a web page containing
exactly such an analysis of CSS, pointing out its theoretical weaknesses.
If I can find it again, I'll post it.
Black box/closed room reverse engineering is fine and in
most cases completely legal.
Except under the DMCA, which effectively suppresses scientists who want to
publish their findings...
True, it is now a trivial effort to decrypt DVD content but had that PC
company not been so careless it would be a safe standard to this day.
Safe standard? They used a proprietary algorithm which wasn't subjected to
peer review, and which has later been found to be very flawed. They don't
even make use of the full key space! And 40-bit encryption? Come on. When
SSL was first being developed, people were already talking about 56-bit
encryption being obsolete. How can you possibly suggest that an encryption
method 65536 times weaker than obsolete is "safe"? They might as well be
using ROT13 :-)
What I said was that copyrighting is a billion dollar a year loss in
revenue
and it is. This is pretty much undeniable.
It's completely deniable until you present something to back up this
ludicrous claim.
And make sure to state the methodology used. I recall figures published by
Microsoft stating their estimated losses due to piracy. Know how they
calculated it? They took the number of Intel-compatible desktop machines
sold and multiplied that by an arbitrary constant K to determine how many
units of their software they should have sold. In this case, I believe
they were looking at MS Office. It seems they completely overlooked
non-Microsoft platforms (e.g., Linux) and alternative office suites (e.g.,
StarOffice).
Should recordable DVD drives reach that stage there is no doubt that DVD
piracy would become a global phenomenon ala MP3.
There's a similar piracy-enabling device called a Video Cassette Recorder
(VCR). Such devices cost the industry an estimated fifteen gazillion
dollars a year! Allowing these VHS reproduction devices will cause a
complete global economic collapse along with the loss of trillions of
industry jobs.
The anti-copying (hence anti-fair use) rhetoric has been going on for
decades, yet each of those industries has continued to gouge the public
and make billions in profits. Personally, I find it offensive that they'd
take away my fair use rights because they presume I'd use them for
criminal purposes. After all, this isn't the Napoleonic era; you're
innocent until proven guilty these days.
Sure. But I am simply trying to explain why Apple is not really in a
position to go against the MPAA. Especially since Steve Jobs is one hell
of
a conflict of interest with Pixar.
No disagreement there :-)
Cheers,
Tony