Uggy

http://www.norge.no/english/

(Norge = Norway in Norwegian)

If he don't have the money, then he can probably get a good laweyer court appointed and paid by the courts.

Wait until he asks for help. Save the money for someone who really needs it.

BTW, Jon Bing, _the_ Norwegian expert in this field says that the case against Jon Johansen is rather good.

I think it depends on which viewpoint one presents, we've had a heated debate about this at work today, and it's about 50/50.

Prime minister of Norway:
Kjell Magne Bondevik
Statsministerens kontor
Postboks 8001 Dep
0030 Oslo
Norway
Phone: +47 22249090
Fax: +47 22249500
Email: statsministeren@smk.dep.telemax.no

The lawyer representing MPA:
Espen Tøndel
Simonsen Musæus DA
Postboks 727 Sentrum
0105 Oslo
Norway
Phone: +47 22936500
Fax: +47 22936550
Email: etondel@simu.no

Jon Lech Johansen:
(I've got his address, but I'll leave that out. He probably doesn't need a lot of /. geeks calling or writing now. Send him an email if you want to talk with him.)
Email: linuxdvd@mmadb.no

Amiga - Back for the future!

As a celluar designer who knows some of the hooks the various governments put into cell phones, perhaps taking his away does him and his case a big favor.

BTW.. If I was saying or doing anything that might piss off somebody I sure as hell wouldn't want any kind of cell phone (or for that mater most electronics) around.

It is shocking how much our toys leak... Ever wonder how they count radio listeners in autos... Clue.. think IF and mixer.

Consider 2 way pagers... how much effort do you think it would be to add to your engine computer? all 3 year old cars identify your location and serial number starting ... now! I think some of the current engine computers could preform this function as an idle task in their software without requiring much if any extra hardware. All it would require today is immunity from laws suits if a transmit/receive caused the brakes to fail or the engine to stall.

Consider the new push for active marketing. As you move around your web browsing cell phone will report your postion to retail outlets close by. its lunch time and that burger joint offers you a private coupon not to walk on by

your boss traces you going to an interview over lunch by registering to follow your cell phone and fires you when you return

This feature is no more than 1 year away!

Now backing up, when it is transcoded and in accordance with the CALEA wiretap law (USA) or other nation's applicable ruling the lines are "Y"ed and run to the local FBI offices or equivlant. According to CALEA the FBI has the right of access to all data calls and a random 1/3 of voice calls.

All this is in addition to the CALEA 911 location laws, Call Tracing rules and other prying bs...

All good providers keep "Call Detail Logs" known as CDLs. These record every activity for most of a call. Location, signal strength, number of legs, walsh codes, call quality, neighbor lists .....on and on...

Like functions exist for all other cellular modulation techniques or they are in violation of CALEA. This includes Analog, GSM, TDMA, IDEN, everything...

Ok, some smart ass says "I will make a call from wireless to wireless". AH but to bill a call it needs to enter the MSC. This means that a transcoder circuit needs to be setup even if it might be bypassed for the call. So "Y" the output to the FBI and meet the CALEA demands.

So the next smartass comes by and says "I will run voice over ip. Fine except all data calls are monitored. There is one way and I leave it up to you to figure it out.

This is routine in Norway, as plenty of criminals are stupid enough to get caught this way all the time...

The norwegian police probably wants to find out who Jon has been working with to reverse engineer the DVD-player....

Well, look at it this way.. how much of this thread has been "logical" and calm discussion? Most of you want to hack and mailbomb people just doing what they are paid for.

I don't think we need radio and newspapers and court documents to slander /. posters. /. posters are doing it to themselves.
"Got, Root, What is difference?" -- Pitr of User Friendly

In other words offensive and extremely off topic

IMHO: crap!

What the…? I think I saw a penguin...

How quaint that the whackos who demostrate to save the whales, and the snail darter, and the desert rodents, feel that it's ok to destroy Norwegian culture.

Why is it that Slashdotters go ballistic over every minor technical GPL violation, but encourage breaking commercial license agreements. Rather than "us vs. them" or "little guy vs. big guy", how about looking at "right vs. wrong".

If you don't like the conditions attached to DVDs, then don't buy them.
Kristopher Johnson

Why is it that Slashdotters go ballistic over every minor technical GPL violation, but encourage breakingcommercial license agreements. Rather than "us vs. them" or "little guy vs. big guy", how about looking at "right vs. wrong".

In fact, I'm somewhat pissed at him for doing it. When people do this sort of thing, it gives lawyers the opportunity to get more and more draconian laws passed. It also makes open source types out to be lawless. He opened Pandora's Box when he did that, and now we all have to bear the brunt of what is issuing forth.

Is cracking encryption illegal?

cheers,
sand

The future is Rollerball.

Why should a doctor use surgical tools rather than a swiss army knife for heart surgery? Because a swiss army knife is an inadequate tool for heart surgery. By contrast, a computer with a DVD drive is an adequate tool for watching movies on DVD. For evidence, I offer the thousands of computers already used for that purpose, with Windows DVD software.

Now I repeat what others have said: I bought the DVD disc in the store. By doing so, I did not buy all rights to the content (the film), which remains the intellectual property of the publisher, movie studio, what have you. What I paid my $20 for was the right to watch this movie whenever I want on my own equipment, without rebroadcasting it or making it available for "public viewing" (as per the FBI warning that is standard on all VHS videocassettes). It should not matter what equipment I use: if I want to use a 5-inch TV rather than a 40-inch TV, that's my right. If I want to use a Sony DVD player rather than a Panasonic DVD player, that's my right. If I want to use my Windows computer instead of a Panasonic DVD player, that's my right. (This has been amply demonstrated by the fact that the MPAA has not gone after the thousands of consumers who bought Windows DVD software). And if I want to use my Linux computer to play DVD movies instead of my Windows computer, that should be my right also. That is why everyone is so "up in arms" about this: DeCSS is (currently) the only thing that makes it possible to watch DVD's under Linux, and we're upset because the MPAA's attempted crackdown against DeCSS is going to take that right away from us.
-----
The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
"The Source will be with you... Always."

US Code Tile 17, Section 117 states that once a users has bought a commercial software, he simply owns it and can freely reverse-engineer it, copy it, patch it.

M$-like shrink-wrap licenses are totally unenforceable.

--

User tried to understand - must be terminated for curiosity crime

Thats exactly why software is no longer sold. If you check the license agreement, you have NOT bought the software. You have bought a license to use the software, so you don't own it, and can't do what you like with it.

Did you never wonder why its a license agreement not a sales agreement?

Given the power of lobby organisations, it's far from immoral for a Norwegian programmer to show some such obsolete American companies what air-castles they are building.

The point is, though, that we're not stealing! We (we as in Open Source community) cracked it 'cause it has to be cracked in order to gain fair use privilages. It is our right to be able to play it on anything we want, it is our right to make backup copies, and it is our right to convert it to other media if we want to, as shown in several case precendents. CSS prevents people from exercizing fair use, and that is why the CCA are idiots for prosecuting people for cracking it. If anything they will make tons of money because of it; we're attempting to broaden their market for them.

Here's my DeCSS mirror. Where's yours?

Is there a law that says that when you buy a dvd, or a video, or a tape, or a book, you should be able to play it, or see it, or... the way you choose?

Isn't this quite like books, I can't just release a translation of a book just because the publisher decides not to translate it...

Regards, Andrej

IANAL, but I think the answer is yes. Copyright law doesn't ban any use of a DVD other than distribution of copies, public performances and a few other rights explicitly reserved for the copyright owner. This applies to other copyrighted works as well: there are only a few rights that are reserved exclusively for the copyright holder. Playing a DVD on a linux box is not one of those reserved rights.

The undermining of this sensible aspect of copyright law is why shrinkwrap licenses are IMO so evil: they represent an attempt by software producers to rewrite rights you have under copyright law through the introduction of a legally dubious ex post facto contract.

Your translation analogy is flawed. Distributing a translation is legally no different from distributing the original. But you are allowed to produce your own private translation if you wish to read a book in another language. That's just fair use; just like viewing a DVD on your linux box.

Further disclaimer: this is based on my own layman's knowledge of copyright law.

That nice fast box you have? The one with a PII (or what ever)? Do you think IBM would have invented a box to compete with their mainframe lines if they had any choice?

We have these nice fast boxes because Phonix and others reverse-engineered the box. IBM would NOT HAVE produced computers as powerful as today's, because they compete with thier smaller midrange computers. This is just one instance where you have more because someone r/e'd some technology.

How about Microchannel? Ever see a technolog drop off so fast? One of the preconditions for licensing M/C was that you had to pay for all the ISA cards you made without a license. Thus shows that restrictive licensing, like virture, is it's own punishment.

BOYCOTT . It's the only way to make big companies listen to us. BOYCOTT

Is there a law that says that when you buy a dvd, or a video, or a tape, or a book, you should be able to play it, or see it, or... the way you choose?

Why, yes, there is. It's called the fair use doctrine and it means you can make fair use of a copy you own of copyrighted material.

And yes, it also applies to books. If you own a copy of a book, you can translate it into whatever language you like for your personal use.

No, DeCSS makes it no easier to pirate. Right now I can go out rent a DVD download the *encrypted* image to my harddrive. Write the encrypted DVD to my DVD writer. Voila! I have an exact copy of the original DVD which, by virtue of being an exact copy, is playable by the same hardware as the original.

Sure, if you have a DVD burner that can burn a "real" blank DVD, not a DVD-RAM.

Here's my DeCSS mirror. Where's yours?

So it that piracy... or liberalisation?

Here's my DeCSS mirror. Where's yours?

Can European PC owners just buy the US version of the Windows-approved DVD software and then watch US DVDs before the film hits cinemas in Europe?

A coppied DVD is NOT broken. The encryption only effects playback.

The entire point of the encryption is to keep you from playing DVDs with different country codes.

Region coding has nothing to do with CSS. The "region code" is just a single byte on the disc, it's entirely up to the players to enforce it.

Sure it does. Look at your own words: it's up to the player to enforce regionalization. Therefore, if you want all consumer players to enforce regionalization, you need to control who can create a DVD player. You do that by keeping the CSS access-control system a closely held secret, and requiring implementation of region control - and any other access-control measure you want - as a precondition of receiving the CSS spec. Any player manufacturer who doesn't play along can't create a player capable of reading CSS-encoded DVDs, which means their player can't play most commercial movies, which means it's not going to be very useful to most people. which means all the player manufacturers have to play along.

At least, that's the way it works as long as you have to go to DVD-CCA in order to learn how to decode CSS-scrambled data. CSS has everything to do with regionalization - though the link is economic, not technical.

Right now I can go out rent a DVD download the *encrypted* image to my harddrive.

If CD's aren't encrypted, why must DVD's be? Obviously the RIAA isn't losing massive money by having their CD's being unencrypted (though they claim they are by mp3's, but that's totally unrelated).

Also, doesn't the MPAA have a friggin' clue about bandwidth? Due to the sheer size of DVD movies, if one was to form some illegal W4R3z database, it isn't just trivial to upload/download movie after movie, like it could be for MP3. There's a huge size problem here.

Yes, you, Mr. Lawyer. I know you're reading this.

They are enforcing a tying arrangement between the content of DVDs and the players by licensing. Tying is generally considered illegal under antitrust laws; this was one of the allegations against MS: tying IE to Windows. Anyway, they charge huge amounts of money for these licenses, so not only are they (illegally) enforcing their monopoly, they are lining their pockets in the process! This is why they are threatened by DeCSS. If players became freely available, they would lose their iron grip on the market. This is why they are abusing the court system to scare off potential codevelopers of LiViD and other free players.

Here's my DeCSS mirror. Where's yours?

This is not intended as flaimbait but, I just don't understand what the big deal is... so they want money for licensing their product. What makes this any different from CD players? Don't the makers of CD players have to license the technology from Sony/Phillips or whoever? The fee might be a lot more but, what's the difference?

Maybe I'm totally misinformed and don't really understand what's going on but, I don't see the problem here.

They don't want to support DVD players on LINUX. Where does it say that they have to? I agree that their decision to not do it is a tremendously stupid thing but, what law says that you have to be intelligent?

If they ignore us, they lose in the long run. I wish they wouldn't but, just like I have the right to use LINUX (and the right to not be forced to use it), they have the right to support it and to not support it if they so choose.

Just my $0.02

If you beleive I'm mistaken, please let me know by responding with a decent answer to my question (flames &> /dev/null &).

q

#define QUESTION ((2b) || !(2b)) /* Shakespeare */

Also, CSS disallows fair use--and this is deffinitely wrong. You have the right to make backup copies of software, and copy protection alienates this right. This is why you don't see copy protection schemes in use with commercial software--because this has already been fought over in the courts back in the eighties. This is not a proprietary standard that only the DVD Consortium uses; it's an IEEE hardware standard I'm sure. Therefore, it must be treated as such.

Here's my DeCSS mirror. Where's yours?

Tying one product to another (i.e., making you pay for one procuct in order to use another that you would otherwise not need or want) in order to enforce a monopoly is illegal under antitrust laws, and this is what is being done with DVDs and playback software.

OK, this I can understand but, isn't that sort of like the same thing that happens with VHS players? I know it's probably an apples/oranges kind of comparison but, don't you have to purchase a VHS player to view VHS tapes?

I'm not trying to be dense, I just don't see the big difference. I mean, what about the option of not bying the DVD disk in the first place... couldn't they argue that you already know that you must have a DVD player to view the movie on the disk? Granted software is not the same thing as hardware but, if you view them both as just another product, isn't it the same?

Also, CSS disallows fair use--and this is deffinitely wrong. You have the right to make backup copies of software, and copy protection alienates this right. This is why you don't see copy protection schemes in use with commercial software--because this has already been fought over in the courts back in the eighties. This is not a proprietary standard that only the DVD Consortium uses; it's an IEEE hardware standard I'm sure. Therefore, it must be treated as such.

If you're right about this part, then I can understand about the fair use thing. Is it an IEEE standard though? And assuming it is, does that mean that you would have to license it from IEEE or that it's a public domain thing?

q


#define QUESTION ((2b) || !(2b)) /* Shakespeare */

As for the IEEE thing, don't quote me. I'm assuming it's IEEE, as logically it would be... I'll have to check on that tho. If it is IEEE, then it is public domain. (btw, I'm referring to the hardware, not the encryption)

Here's my DeCSS mirror. Where's yours?

Here's my DeCSS mirror. Where's yours?

OK, I think I get it now... thanks for the info. :)

q


#define QUESTION ((2b) || !(2b)) /* Shakespeare */

Exactly where do we draw the line? Where are they allowed to tell US, the consumer, where and how we can use our personal products? Yes, they have the copyright to the material on the dvd, but so long as I use it without infringing their copyright, I should be allowed full liberty with the product. Hell, I paid for it.

Now if that means I have to write a program to allow playback in linux, because I choose not to use another operating system, then that is a right I have. If I have to write a program to increase the brightness, or to enhance the audio because I am handicapped in some way, then I should be allowed to do so.

The difference between your CD player example and this is that we OWN a DVD drive, and we OWN the dvd. We have all necessary parts to view a movie legally, minus software to play it, which was written based on the way DVD's were found to work. If the recording industry told you that you could not use xmms, playcd or gtcd or your other linux cd audio player, you would be outraged! You own a cd-rom, you own the audio cd you are trying to listen to, and you have valid software to play it.

It's a personal freedom. It's the freedom to write software that manipulates something you own in a predictable and desired way to get the intended result in a not-intended context.

Dominick

Shameless Plug For Copyleft ANTI-DVD/CSS T-Shirts. Support the EFF as $4 per shirt is donated:

http://www.copyleft.net/

MPAA hires Norwegian lawyer

Lawyer takes a look at Norwegian law and twist and turn this to his liking

Lawyer goes to Økokrim (Economic crime unit) and files a something I don't remember the English word for.

Knock on the door...

One word: "Backup", my dear, backup early and often.
--
"It's a ligne Maginot-in-the-sky"
My father, on the Strategic Defense Initiative.

Sure I would. But I'd release it via some anonymous mechanism. And while I might not have been inclined to put any effort into cracking an encryption scheme before, now the idea is becoming appealing, just because it's a way to attack a group of people who are behaving like shitheads.

Also it is an example of how corporations are seeking to bully individuals and prevent any of them from deciding to provide for themselves instead of depending on corperations to provide the "next leap" in technology.

The part that I am interested in is. Why now? Why did the Norwegian government choose to move now? Were they being pressured? Surely there is some motivation behind this happening now and not earlier. Or am I just too suspicious (when corporate profits are involved I am always suspicious.)

Pool
-sig still alpha.

Right, what they need to do is get busy making some better software and stop throwing their money down the rathole that is developing in trying to keep their feeble software "protected".

How do these people hire programmers anyway? I mean, at this point, who would want to work for them? Maybe THAT is why they need to protect their crappy software, they don't have anyone left to develop anything to replace it.

Rather than a legal defense fund, maybe a general strike against companies involved in this crap by self respecting coders is in order. Make it stick too ... if you work for one of these companies you should barred from participation in any opensource projects.

If this is the case, then the quesiton of who nudged who to get this to happen may be of real interest.

While starting a legal fund or encouraging the EFF to act sound like great ideas, I'm not entirely convinced that viewing a webpage on bridge is going to help a great deal.
But I'll do what I can.

First of all, what exactly does this mean? What inherent rights do people in .no have? Are you actually guilty now, or is there a trial, or what?

Secondly, economic and environmental crimes? Why does the same organization do both?
Celebrity deathmatch: Katz vs. Dvorak

As far as lumping together economic and environmental crimes, it seems that what they both have in common is that they are non-violent crimes with a potentially wide-ranging impact. That's just a guess on my part. Why, in the U.S., are NASA and Veteran's Affairs funded by the same appropriations bill? Just an accident of history...

.no is a civilized place. .no was the third country connected to the original internet, after the US and .ca, and .uk got connected through our link.

.no is even more civilized than the US, as we don't have the death penalty here.

.no is basically just another european country. The only differnce is slightly higher cost, slightly colder, slightly more tech savvy than continental europeans, and that we're not a proper member of the European Union, in much the same way that Puerto Rico is not a proper US state.

I've never heard about any norwegian conviction where the defendant was forbidden to use computers afterwards. How could anyone live in a civilized society without computers?

"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." -- Pablo Picasso

Does anyone know how exactly how these events could have transpired, i.e. how law enforcement agents could have been wielded against Jon based on what he did? What did he do that was illegal, or what are the police claiming? Are they answering to a higher power, that is in turn answering to corporate interests, through the WTO or something similar? (I mean officially, we all know they do it under the table anyway....) What is the power/legal structure invoked here?

Exactly that happened in Sweden a few years back. A swede called Zenon Panoussis decided to make the 'bible' of the Church of Sicentology (which members of that sect must pay the sect many thousand dollars to read) public. He posted it on the Internet. What followed is a long but very interesting story (you can read it at http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/~d1dd/cos/zenon-eng.html). It might seem like the entire story was made up, but I can assure you it was not.

Basically, the documents were submitted to the swedish government in such a way that they, by the swedish constitution, were public and obtainable by anyone. What happened next was that a congressman from the USA (Carlos J. Moorhead (republican)) officially asked the Swedish government to sidestep Sweden's constitution. When they refused, he claimed that not following the wish of the USA was 'illegal and unjust'.

If a sect can have so large an impact on a congressman that he asks another country to sidestep it's constitution, imagine what a big corporation can do to the entire congress.

Exactly what pressure was applied in this particular case we will probably never know, though. But you can count on that the Norwegian government didn't do this by it's own initiative.


-- Soon we'll be out, amongst the hard world's strife. Soon we'll be sliding down the razorblade of life... [Tom Lehrer]

Moderate me down, whatever.

Sigh... suppose Red Hat has enough money to build a Space Station yet, so these things can be made from space where there really are no laws? Or at least one of those Big Floating Cities that can hang out in the middle of an ocean somewhere?

2. General Rules

2.1 An organization may only register one domain name for itself.

2.2 An organization must document it's exsistance to NORID when applying for a domain name. This is normally done by presenting the organization number from the Brønnøysund register (National register of all organizations/corporations).

2.3 NORID decides whether a registration is to be performed, and whether the registration will be directly under .no or in the geographic nametree or i a category domain. Appeals go to NOK - NORID's complaint department.

3. Who may apply

3.1 The applicant must represent or be a member of an organization registered as such in Norway, see section 2.2. Normally it's required that the applicant presents an organization number registered in the Brønnøysund register for the organization. Registration of domains for sub-levels of the organization are not allowed.

3.2 The registered address of the organization must be in Norway, or on Svalbard.

3.3 Individuals may not register domain names directly under .no. Individuals must register a domain under the category domain priv.no, which is administered by EUnet Norway.

I hope this explains why the domain is registered to Micro Media ADB and not Jon Johansen's father.

It's worth metioning that there are loads of dummy organizations solely registered in order to get funny domain names. Examples from the top of my head, and what they translate to are:

• inni.no: inside something
• eller.no: or something
• ikke.no: nothing

Jon Johansen is not the person who rev. eng'd CSS auth, something that no one seems to care about (at least not the DVD-CAA and MPAA :)

The person(s) who did are indeed very silent, and will of course stay that way. Anonymous source postings through an anonymizer should hold up quite well as an un-nameable source for CSS info ... (not saying it was done that way, not saying otherwise either)

If Norwegian law is anything like Swedish law, they'll have a hard time convicting him, and I have a feeling that is what will happen. They could probably have nailed him if he had made a tool to decrypt things that could be questioned if you own (i.e, decrypting satellite channels you haven't paid for) - but there's no question about it that you do own the encrypted contents on the actual DVD ...

... and I may do that in any way I wish;

- even if that means breaking an encryption. You say this isn't the case in Sweden - well, I live here, so tell me where you found that information :)

_Restricting_ my right to view the movie I bought is on the other hand quite dodgy. There's no software license I have to agree to when buying a DVD that says I can only view it using means given to me by the MPAA or DVD-CCA ...

Many people (myself included) feel that copying DVDs for personal use falls under fair use, and so should be legal. To do this with DVDs, one needs to break the encryption.

This is incorrect. You do not need to decrypt the disk to copy it. You can do direct copying without decrypting.

This is a very important point. The encryption only prevents playback on systems that don't have MPAA sanctioned players. See this letter on the topic.

Don't let the MPAA incorrectly define what the issue is in this case.

[I hereby grant full permission for any and all to retransmit, archive, republish and broadcast all of my postings to Slashdot, past, present and future]

I heard it on radio this morning, but the source they mentioned was slashdot. Now there are confirmations in the online newspapers too. The big serious paper Aftenposten tells that they have confirmation from the police.

This looks real.

- Gravity is a myth; the Earth Sucks.

I think the misconception you, and many slashdotters, are having is that Norway is known for it's loose crypto laws.

-o Question authority! Yeah, says who? o-

However, the Norwegian police has a history of not understanding technology at all. They used to do stunts like this in the BBS days, seizing everything even remotely linked to computers, including even stereos etc. They didn't get many convictions...

The problem is that the police has to investigate all complaints, and when the complaint comes from big companies, they are usually taken seriously, whether or not they have any case or not.

I'm pretty confident that Jon Johansen will win the case, though - the courts are usually quite reasonable in cases like this.

But the key to getting the police off his back is PR. The Norwegian police will probably realize very soon that they've got a very thin case, and if they get bad publicity for it too, they might end up just dropping the case.

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer...
-- Director of R&D - Screen Media AS - I speak for myself...

On another note: It's important to realized that the police may decide to go after people like this, but the courts rarely tolerate it. I'd be really surprised if the governments case stick up in court.
-- Director of R&D - Screen Media AS - I speak for myself...

1. Sir Isaac Newton, for 'cracking' mechanics and thereby enabling anvils to fall on poor innocent cartoon animals. Hasn't he ever heard of animal rights?
2. Aristotle, for 'cracking' the secret of floating and thereby enabling sh*t to float.
3. Anyone who has ever made any progress in human history, since we know progress has never led to any good

I'm all for patting oneself on the back, but still... :P

Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.

They're comparing getting arrested and being thrown in jail to getting arrested and being thrown in jail. The difference is, even after Galileo's arrest and conviction, he was still free to do scientific research in his house, and the police surveillance couldn't have been too close or onerous, becauise Galileo did manage to smuggle out his manuscripts to Holland. By contrast the chances are excellent that Mr. Johansen, if convicted, will be deprived of access to his computer for several years.

And you're next, Gormley.

Have fear, WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net

...and then I saw this. It's a shock to me, I'm having a hard time dealing with this.

The MPAA has gone way, way too far. I am so ticked off I can hardly see straight. I'd feel better if I thought we had a chance in hell of defending ourselves against this. Before tonight, I thought we did. Now I'm not so sure.

Fuck them.

Seriously, I am *so* tired of all of the kids here. Be a bit serious people. Myself, I am Norwegian, and I've seen all the junk the press has written here - made me be uncertain about what I thought first. But I know now.

How many dozens of oekokrim-email addys isn't it up here? It won't help! It's the film-industry that went against him and the other two who made this programme. The technology wasn't even invented by these 3 guys, Jon even challenge the media now by saying he can show them how to copy the film to the disc without using the ** program. It's not about copyright or breaking the laws, just about playing the film from where you want to, really.

For Norwegian readers, the Norwegian paper Dagbladet actually wrote a more "true" article about the case than most of the other Norwegian papers.. you can find it at http://www.dagbladet.no/nyhe ter/2000/01/26/190256.html. For those of you who want to sign the petition against the treatment of him, go to http://www.nytt.no/dvd. He (Jon Johansen) is also available for asking a question or two on the Norwegian paper VG's page, Thursday 27.01 at 5 pm Norwegian time (gmt +1): http://interaktiv.vg.no/CGI/in tervju/intervju/jonjoh. Send in a question if you feel like it. I feel mostly everything is said. And wish for the best.

What I also is a bit proud of, is that the government of Norway is actually reacting to this case in the Parliament. Erik Solheim from the Norwegian party SV asked in the questioning-hour about the rules we have for the Internet and our policy. The Minister of Culture said she couldn't answer to this case because it is still under investigation. At least, the government knows about it by now.

Laerk [you can find me at EFnet, #ultimat]
[:You don't *have* to be an asshole all your life. Take the day off.]

The constitution provides for the government layer becoming corrupt. It is almost time take advantage of that clause! Before we can do such, we must prepare. The first thing we need to do is give the government a one-finger salute, we must tell them we will not be oppressed! We must gain our Sovereignty! Check out Freedom Bound. Enough of this Gestapo BS. Peace

Mirror the source. Nobody's knocked on my door yet, and I've made a dozen offers for people to mirror from my site. The RIAA does not read slashdot. =)
Join the EFF and pay attention to the action alerts.
Alert the press! Get our side out there! They think we're pirates - this isn't about piracy, it's about interoperability.
Start a legal defense fund for *all* DeCSS victims.

That being said, here's why they're doing it: Scare tactic. They want to "get tough" on the "pirates" and scare people into submission. Ain't gonna happen - don't let them. Fight back - we're talking about something central to the open source community: the right to reverse-engineer to promote interoperability and open standards. This just reeks of proprietary do-it-our-way-or-the-highway. Fight back! I know alot of us aren't political enough - but consider donating a few bucks and also mirroring the source. Post to slashdot. Sign up to become a DOE for the case. But do something - get involved.. or we may wind up with another kevin mitnick - en masse.

This is a full-fledged war now against the open source movement: they're trying to stop reverse-engineering and black-box everything. They can justify and rationalize all they want - but it's really about them trying to gain/maintain their monopoly on distribution. It's high-time we kicked our ass into gear and get people like Ralph Nader on board. This is about consumer rights - something any average joe on the street should understand. WRITE TO THE PRESS NOW. Give a counter-point, make it so your mom can understand the key points.

-o Question authority! Yeah, says who? o-

Agreed. Know your rights, and stand your ground.

Most of the world's businesses are controled by a small number of families. Maybe we should find out who owns most of Toshiba and start applying a little bit of pressure there. Maybe we should map out and publish the lines of influence between all these individuals. Knowledge is Power.

More is less. Resistance is futile.

wouldn't things liket that be public record if they are a corperation? if so, where would one find records of ownership like that?

or am i totaly off here...

e-mail me if you wish, i don't know off the bat how i could help, but i would really like to.

-------
i hate my sig

I have no clue where to find these things out, but as you said.. so long as they own public corperations in Western countries we should be able to find out.

I was thinking of just using 'controlling interest' as a criteria.. so that if someone had a controlling intrest in company A, but A has a controlling interest in B, we just list A and B in that guy's portfolio. I'll bet these people don't like the spotlight very much, and it would be nice to have them scrutinised as much as our politians. Then, personal relationships will be reported by the media.. which is also helpful.

I had the same problem. It's really just a matter of configuring /etc/ppp/pap-secrets correctly, but the documentation is horrid. It's one of the first things I did with my shiny new linux box too. It took almost 6 months before I could do anything really useful (besides "chown sig11.sig11 ./.* -R" -- oops), but eventually you'll get the hang of it.

I've converted most of my friends, drop me a line if you need any help. Always willing to seduce people to 'da dark side. Oh yeah, and hopefully we'll be able to work out the problem with ppp that's causing your posts to be all out of whack and non-linear. *smirk* ;) I'd seriously recommend going with one of the Mandrake betas - it's very easy to setup and the partitioning (one of the harder things to understand in a linux install) is vastly simplified. E-mail me for the 411 if you want to go that route and I can give you some step-by-step - I do tech support by day.. and hack code by night.

-o Question authority! Yeah, says who? o-

Like closing anon.penet.fi???
--
"It's a ligne Maginot-in-the-sky"
My father, on the Strategic Defense Initiative.

Do unto others what has been done to you

Donations to the EFF are tax-deductible in the US, too.

I just read some silly article in Yahoo! mag that my coworker had about Geeks (vs Suits) and it became newly clear to me how far the divide is. Your average morlock has no idea how threatened their future rights are; they just don't understand the issues.

The EFF does, and someone's gotta do the icky lawyering....
>> Boss of nothin. Big deal. >> Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.

Do unto others what has been done to you

Agreed... especially with the way you spelled "peace"!

Do unto others what has been done to you

Make no mistake about it. Corporattions are drawing a line in the sand with this move. The outcome of this battle will determine weather or not open source can survive. Hey where are our so-called leaders? ESR? Perens? Young? Torwalds? Augistine? your silence is defening. Speak now or forever hold your piece.

And let's not forget RMS.

This is an excellent point. Where ARE all of the leaders?

In that IRC chat Bruce Perens was aksed about this and did speak briefly about it. His opinion can be found HERE.

And I wouldn't count on Linus to get TOO involved in such a controversial issue right now considering that he works for Transmeta and they probably don't want any negative press of any kind right now.

But that still doesn't explain the 2 guys with the initials. One in particular. They're usually around and usually speaking very loudly. I believe they are needed more than ever to support us in this, what might be the most important battle we ever fight.

I believe their support is needed even if this particular story turns out to be bogus.

----- I wonder if Arkady was a linux user?

-jwb

Here's my DeCSS mirror. Where's yours?

To their credit, Chris diBona and Bruce Perens seem to have taken some stand. Linus has always been apolitical by nature - it's part of the formula for his success, his unwillingness to deal in 'shoulds.' RMS, I expect to weigh in angrily against the MPAA, and dismissed as hopelessly anti-business.

While this isn't a test-case for it, perhaps in the long run we will see RMS' concern that cashing in means muting one's voice, borne out.

Anyone who seriously considers the events of the past year understands that the monopolies in place for content distribution are outmoded. Five years from now the distribution systems of the 20th century will have been almost wholly replaced. Information is not physical and has different distribution properties. The monopolies were established primarily because creation and distribution of the physical medium requires infrastructure and capital. Remove the physical medium and the market must change.

Anyway, enough banter. Here is a copy of the letter I sent to the EFF after sending my donation. I urge each of you to consider contributing or volunteering your time to the EFF (why not at least visit their page?)

To whom it may concern:

I just completed registration for a $250 benefactor membership and donated an additional $50 to EFF. I thought I would share with you the reasons for my support of your cause.

In recent years the EFF has been visibly in support of electronic privacy and a person's right to freedom from censorship online; and against short-sighted legislation, prosecution, and abuses of the trademark, patent, and copyright systems. There have been numerous occasions where the presence of the EFF, and its cooperation with EPIC, the FSF, the ACLU, and other entities safeguarding our rights both online and offline, has indeed made a difference.

During many of those times I felt myself either too poor, or too busy to contribute to your efforts -- choosing instead to hope that others would contribute, and hiding behind their efforts. It is not that I am no longer constrained (if anything I am more busy than ever before), but I have stood on the sidelines far too long, and it is now time that I give money, if I cannot afford more of my time to help.

The threats to our liberty are greater than ever. The DMCA legislation is a catastrophe; the DeCSS lawsuit is a well-funded Blitzkrieg by the corporate stormtroopers of the MPAA. The RIAA is clearly out of control. Various states and governments are trampling our online rights faster than we can realize that we have them. The manuevering by the American government regarding cryptographic export controls, while deft, is an insult to those of us who understand the word "liberty".

In order to mount a defense against the threats posed by the greedy, power-hungry, ignorant, and immoral you need resources. I hope my meager contribution will be of aid in this fight.

I thank you all so much for your efforts.

It has been verified by most large Norwegian newspapers, radio stations and online news sources. Some of them include interviews both with Jon Johansen and the lawyer responsible for representing the MPAA.
-- Director of R&D - Screen Media AS - I speak for myself...

I've just contributed $100 to EFF, I highly recommend others do so also. I'm in the same boat as above - I've been letting others carry the weight for me, too long.

Note:DeCSS source code is NOT at the following location:

http://www.penguinboots.com/notCSS/

Regards,
Brice

As far as the more general case of hiding stuff in sound, yes, that happens too. This is a technique called steganography, and it can be applied to any digital data stream. Apparently I'm not the only one who's been using steganography to distribute the DeCSS source. :)
---
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?" "'Quined' quined" quines "quined."

Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.

Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.

You know a way I can keep my dvds and still burn them?

[I hereby grant full permission for any and all to retransmit, archive, republish and broadcast all of my postings to Slashdot, past, present and future]

How about something more along the lines of the early Luddites -- walk into stores in massive mobs and smash all the DVDs? =)

My heart goes out to this poor kid and his family for the abuse they're no doubt suffering. I hope we, as a community, can speak out against these injustices and stop them from happening again.

What can we learn from this, if you think you might be raided some day?:

1. Use an encrypted file system. Don't give the spooks any more information than they possibly can get.

2. Don't let them touch a fucking thing until you've spoken to a lawyer. I have a feeling it's very illegal for them to remove things from your home until you've had a lawyer look over the warrant.

3. Don't let them frighten you. Intimidation is their most powerful ally. I know I'd be shitting my pants if I were called in for questioning. Just remember, if you live in a reasonably free country, you're not going to lose anything by keeping your mouth shut, but you have a lot to lose by talking.

Whatever you do, *don't* let these government bastards take away your rights. Just because you're suspected of a crime doesn't mean you have no freedom.

And I call on every Slashdot reader to do something about this. Write letters, make phone calls, give money.

It's kind of funny, so soon after Kevin Mitnick was freed, that we have another martyr on our hands. This is one instance when I hope the hacker (and cracker) community will rise up and speak out for freedom.

Remember the writings of Jefferson and the other American founding fathers, and live by them.

But it can still cause more than enough of trouble to try to stop the police from following up a search warrant.
-- Director of R&D - Screen Media AS - I speak for myself...

Won't work. In Canada at least, in a criminal trial, the prosecutor could ask the judge for a sub-poena to obtain the key to decrypt your filesystem (as long as he can reasonably demonstrate that the contents of said filesystem would be relevant to the case).

If you really want to be safe, use invisible ink, write backwards on rice paper in PGP-encrypted text, and carry two butane lighters with you just in case!

webmaster@dagbladet.no
webdesk@aftenposten.no
Short messages: sidet@vg.no / Debate: debatt@vg.no
redaksjonen@nettavisen.no

One of them has a limited English translation:
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/

Here's the lawsuit in Norwegian: http://www.aftenposten.no/objekter/dokumenter/lawsuit.html

• You've already taken the first and most important step - you've taken an interest. Get informed. Get all the facts about the case, read the court cases. This is probably the most important thing you could do.

• Grab the most complete DeCSS/LiVid packages you can find and get them up on a mirror. Make sure other people know where the mirror is (i.e., post it at Slashdot). Foreign mirrors so far are the best bet; for now, look for jurisdictions outside the U.S. and Norway.

• If you're not a member of the EFF now, become one. They're our legal defense; they need our support.

• Buy a CSS T-Shirt at CopyLeft. It costs $15, and $4 goes to the EFF.

• Start talking about this to people you know; give them the source code. We geeks tend to think sometimes that online dissemination is the only way to travel - we forget how much we can do by simply getting out and talking to people.

• If you're a programmer, start developing software in expectation that this code will stand free. This will help create a framework of legitimacy.

• For God's sake, don't rant about boycotting DVD yet. Go out and start buying them. The MPAA claims that the release of this code will destroy the DVD market; if a boycott is successful, and the DVD market depresses, guess who the public blames? And then guess what happens with CSS-2 is cracked? This format is now free - the code can't be hidden again. Don't force them to implement strong encryption in a new format. Buy DVD.

• Host a list of mirrors on your website. The California injunction explicitly states that you are free to link to DeCSS-hosting sites. Take advantage of that.

Defendent #46