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Emmanuel Goldstein Profiled 78

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-read dept.
Danny Ra sent us a link to a really interesting story about 2600's Emmanuel Goldstein. It's mostly about him, and his involvement with the recent DeCSS hoopla, and it's definitely worth a read since his case stands to change the face of the Net. The worst case scenario is of course the banning of links.
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Emmanuel Goldstein Profiled More

Emmanuel Goldstein Profiled

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  • 2600.... isnt that an old Atari Console? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Ah for the days if 8-bit Adventure!

  • I hate to say it... (Score:3)

    by xtermz ( 234073 ) on Wednesday October 25, 2000 @03:23AM (#678029) Homepage Journal
    but as much as i dont like the guy, he needs to be given credit where its due. He has the balls to stand up to the MPAA and fight for the rights of all DeCSS users. Plus he's taken on the SS, the FBI, the court system, etc etc. Part of me thinks of him as a media whore, but yet he still has done alot to contribute to the electronic community and protect us from the bass-ackwards view that the media and society has on 'hackers'.

    "sex on tv is bad, you might fall off..."

  • Unbanning links. (Score:3)

    by pallex ( 126468 ) on Wednesday October 25, 2000 @03:34AM (#678030)
    Apart from the fact that it is completely futile to ban links, its probably time for a website to host a links database - just thousands and thousands of URLs, anyone can submit a link,no testing would be done to even ensure it was a link. then instead of saying `get your decss source here` you`d say `check out link #139523 from the links site`. the site would be mirrored, and you could submit the same site multiple times.

    Anyone see any problems with this? It could be mirrored easily, would compress reasonably well, and i cant see how it could be the subject of a legal threat. `Your honour, we found the defendant openly passing on a single, 32-bit number!`
  • I think you mean "1984", there was no Goldstein in "Catcher in the Rye". That was Holden Caulfield.
  • Thanks mate, upgrading my threshold now :(
  • I have got the Atari 2600... Until today I was not able to play the Indiana Jones Adventure Game to the end...simply because I don't understand it. The snakes always bite me until I am dead. Well I still can play Donkey Kong...
  • > When will you people realize that it is all about page impressions? The slogan should be "Page Impressions from Nerds.

    >Advertising Revenue Matters."

    You're so right! And to double the add revenues, just post some stories twice! But you've to becareful with that trick, it's better to wait a few days before reposting the same story.

  • What happens to 2600 if he loses? (Score:3)

    by b0z ( 191086 ) on Wednesday October 25, 2000 @03:52AM (#678035) Homepage Journal
    There's a good chance that he will end up completely losing, and that the supreme court will refuse to hear this case. I don't want it to happen, but as cynical of the broken U.S. "Justice" system as I am, I have to think about this. If Emmanuel Goldstein owns 2600, and he ends up needing to pay lawyer fees for the MPAA, it sounds like he stands to lose 2600 as well, at least he would end up completely bankrupt.

    Personally, what I would do would be to put 2600 in the hands of someone else, much as Bill Gates did with Microsoft. He can still be as involved with the magazine itself, just not fiscally.

    I may be completely wrong about all this since I am not a politician, lawyer, accountant, or some other form of scumbag. :o)

  • First news about the appeal (Score:4)

    by Apotsy ( 84148 ) on Wednesday October 25, 2000 @03:58AM (#678036)
    After Judge Kaplan's decision, the MPAA said all the talk of an appeal was "posturing". Since then, I expected to see them forced to eat crow due to numerous news stories about the appeals process going forward. Instead, I find ... nothing.

    This is the first story I've read about this since the decision. I must say I'm very glad to see it. I was beginning to wonder if the appeal was going to happen or not. I'm also extremely happy that someone like Mr. Corely is willing to actually go to court to back up what he believes in. Would I have the guts to do the same if I were in his position? I don't know. I would hope so, but you just never know until you're actually in the situation.

    Side note: Anyone else find it ironic (or maybe just an odd coincidence) that the author of this article's name is just a couple of letters off from that of the friend-to-artists-and-consumers-alike Hillary Rosen?

  • The guy is from a book called 1984 by a man called Eric Arthur Blair who wrote as George Orwell. It was published in 1949, and had its title taken from the year of writing (1948) with the last 2 digits reversed.

    It begins It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him.

    The text is here [rambler.ru] Try reading it to find out the difference betweem Smith and Goldstein

    THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF
    OLIGARCHICAL COLLECTIVISM
    by
    Emmanuel Goldstein

    Winston began reading:

    Chapter I
    Ignorance is Strength

    So Winston Smith, you will agree is the better name to assume

    Another ONtopic comment here [slashdot.org]

  • Has anyone actually read Valenti's deposition in the DeCSS case? It is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen, and Goldstein's idea to sell the DVD of it is pretty funny.

    Read the deposition here [harvard.edu].

  • I think it is perfectly reasonable that they are suing him - basically he is trying to make it possible to copy DVDs. "What's wrong with that?", you might ask, but obviously it just means that someone (or many) will use the code to remove the encryption and pirate DVDs, so the film industry loses money. This goes on now with tapes - but DVDs can be copied (with the code that's at issue), to give perfect results - unlike most of the pirate videos I've ever seen.

    Also, it seems this guy is just doing it for a laugh, trying to become famous in some high level law case. I'd bet quite a bit of money on him not winning - I'd say he has no chance. Still, only in America...

    Freedom of speech and freedom to do what the hell you want (which is basically what he stands for), is all very well, but the film makers have to have some rights too - i.e. to make money from their efforts, and not be ripped off by crackers trying to make a swift profit out of piracy.

    Just my 2-penny's worth...

  • Concern for Goldstein... (Score:4)

    by Gendou ( 234091 ) on Wednesday October 25, 2000 @04:07AM (#678040) Homepage
    Is Goldstein (and his lawyer) really the only individuals at the pinnicle of this fight against the MPAA? It sounds like he's loading up quite a debt on his shoulders and so far, the situation is looking grim.

    Yet he refuses to give up.

    Aside from owing 8 million dollars and change for court costs on the side of the MPAA, what else is going to happen to him? I some how doubt that the couch change of a community of hackers is going to do much good - and the EFF certainly doesn't have that kind of money.

    I don't know... his situation seems pretty shitty to me - these massive risks, the uphill battle. Should those who feel threatened by the MPAA find a different strategy to beat the nasty licensing (and other various attrocities) that the MPAA are looking to impose?

  • Re:Freedom to rip people off... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    No, you idiot. DeCSS isn't used to copy DVD's, it's used to allow you to play DVD's on non-standard equipment (like any DVD player under Linux). It's always been possible to make an exact copy of a DVD, and that's not what the issue really is (even though that's what the MPAA is claiming).

    The issue is for the MPAA to be able to charge you again to use something that you've already bought; they force you to buy an "approved" DVD player, and get a kick-back from that sale as well.

  • Oh, Hillary *Rosner*! (Score:3)

    by EricWright ( 16803 ) on Wednesday October 25, 2000 @04:12AM (#678042) Journal
    Whew! For half a second, I thought the article was written by Hillary *Rosen*... then I stopped hearing Twilight Zone music and learned to read.

    Is today Monday? anywhere? It sure feels like it.

    Eric
  • The "defendant" isn't just passing a single number--he's not just saying "42," he's saying "link 42 on the links page" or somesuch.

    I'd bet five bits the court would find a links page legally equivalent to a direct link... and the rest of us would find it a waste of time.

  • Re:Freedom to rip people off... (Score:4)

    by b0z ( 191086 ) on Wednesday October 25, 2000 @04:26AM (#678044) Homepage Journal
    Your ignorance of the whole situation is showing. You must have been reading the MPAA version of the case only, and not cared to listen to what it's really about.

    basically he is trying to make it possible to copy DVDs.

    Wrong. He is trying to make it possible to watch DVD's. Also, in any case, if it were about copying DVD's, it is something we are allowed to do as long as we don't do it to make a profit. The DMCA, which was passed by politicians that are in the pockets of the entertainment industries, are against that, but since we have clashing laws now, it is up to the courts to decide.

    obviously it just means that someone (or many) will use the code to remove the encryption and pirate DVDs

    Yes. And to continue with your logic I will make the following statement: obviously it just means that someone (or many) will use automobiles to go over the speed limit and run over people. The primary use of cars is not so you can speed and run over people, but to get you from point A to point B. The primary purpose of deCSS is so you can make a software DVD player, such as one for linux. Just because it is potentially possible to use something wrong sometimes does not make it bad.

    Also, it seems this guy is just doing it for a laugh, trying to become famous in some high level law case.

    Yes...haha...those silly things such as freedom of speech and such...what a laugh. Who needs those silly dangerous things? Next some jerk like Goldstein will come say we should learn to think for ourselves! What a joke!

    I'd bet quite a bit of money on him not winning - I'd say he has no chance.

    Yeah, there's a big chance of him not winning, since the country is run by a bunch of corporate whores.

    Freedom of speech and freedom to do what the hell you want (which is basically what he stands for), is all very well, but the film makers have to have some rights too - i.e. to make money from their efforts, and not be ripped off by crackers trying to make a swift profit out of piracy.

    Well, freedom of speech is a RIGHT given by the constitution. There is no right to make a profit, and the intellectual property laws that are currently on the books are a joke. There is no intellectual property to sell, despite what we are told. You either perform a service, or provide a product. The original idea of I.P. was to encourage people to make things to sell, and give them an artificial monopoly for a short amount of time. However, it has become something completely different. Noone has the right to make money, only the right to try.

    And, by how you ended it, it is clear that you still know nothing about this court case. It is not about piracy, but about freedom. Not the freedom to do "Whatever the hell you want" but the freedom to do what the law says we can do according to fair use. Some people say that it's about free speech, I don't have a complete opinion about that yet so I won't say anything more about it. However, this definitely is not about piracy, but about consumers rights. In that respect, Goldstein and Nader should be teaming up. :o)

  • Re:Concern for Goldstein... (Score:4)

    by Restil ( 31903 ) on Wednesday October 25, 2000 @04:29AM (#678045) Homepage
    After you've crossed the bankrupcy point of no return, it doesn't really much matter how large of a bill you rack up, as you'll never be able to apy it anyways. If you're gonna be ruined, might as well pound it in good. After all, theres always the slim chance you might win in the end, therefore making the whole problem go away.

    Still, I think its sad that laws have to be fought in this way. A court can basically nullify a law, but its a gamble as if the court upholds it, you stand to lose BIG TIME.

    Personally, I'm wondering if this whole battle is really the right fight. DVD's are really nothing special. They're a more compact form of CD, but the issue isn't really the storage mechanism, but the encryption. Eliminate the encryption, and the DMCA has no place.

    Of course, the MPAA and the DVD consortium control the content distribution of all the major motion picture companies and its highly unlikely that they will conform to distribute movies on any format that is not sanctioned by the MPAA.

    I'm wondering if a transition won't soon take place. CGI is getting better all the time. Eventually it may be possible to create movies with no real actors at all. Of course, live acting will always have a place, even if only in voiceovers, but the cost of the actors is a significant percentage of a movie's production cost. As for CGI, as better software is developed, hopefully some of this might be developed under a GPL type license, and CPU speed increases, CGI will become more capabale and less expensive. It could very well happen that blockbuster motion pictures could be produced for 1-2% of their current cost, which means that production companies other than those covered by the MPAA might get a leg up.

    IF this happens, and the MPAA were to lose some of their clout, they would lose some of thier monopolistic control over the type of media we have available. They wouldn't be able to license out their encoding technology, nor would they NEED to sue someone to "protect" it.

    -Restil
  • CSS does not directly make copying DVDs impossible. CSS just encrypts data on the DVD so that it can only be played by certain DVD players.

    There is nothing stopping you from taking a DVD and recording it onto another DVD, encrypted bits and all. The copy will work and appear exactly as the original. This can, and already is being done. Just like it can be done for any other media you probably own or use.

    The purpose of CSS is to code DVDs for a specific country. Movies sold on DVD in Japan can only be played on DVD players sold in Japan. Basically, if you travel the world and buy DVDs, you'll only be able to play them if you buy a DVD player from each region. While this is highly immoral, this isn't even what we're (I've contributed money to this, http://www.eff.org/) fighting for.

    Apparantly, CSS is a weak algorithm. In fact, it's so weak that it can be cracked brute force in a very short time on a PC. The MPAA is trying to stop the spread of INFORMATION that can potentially be used unlawfully. Not only that, but according to the DMCA, they can sue simply because their encryption algorithm was broken!

    This raises so many more issues than just piracy. This is a violation of free speech, of fair use, and still other things highly immoral that don't fall conveniantly under any law. It's conveniant to just file this under "Pirating scum tries to rip off artists", but there really is a lot to this story.

    This isn't Emmanuel Goldstein running a service that lets you download DVDs for free. This is Emmanuel Goldstein (among others) having the book thrown at him because of what he is printing, or linking, or even just saying!

    The interpretation that YOU have is exactly what the MPAA is trying to promote.

  • The worst case scenario is of course the banning of links.

    You mean the banning of links to illegal material.
  • Yeah but if we blow up Hollywood, we'll lose all the archives of "The Tick" and "What's Happening?"

    Seriously though, I don't think that there is anything we, as the average joe, can do to help any more than donating money to the EFF. What we need is a way to sue the MPAA, or the companies that they are represented by, for something that we can win. I'd go for the whole "too much sex and violence" thing for this case, but it could result in some unconstitutional laws against free speech. Perhaps movie theater owners can sue them for anti-competitive business practices when sending movies to theaters...I don't know what really but they are the bad guys, so they have to be doing more wrong than just what we know of.

  • With the last line.

    -- Yes, I'm an utter fool.

  • No, linking is transitive. (Score:5)

    by jamused ( 125583 ) on Wednesday October 25, 2000 @04:41AM (#678050) Homepage
    Linking is transitive...that's the whole point of the Web. If it is illegal to link to illegal material, then the page that contains that link is itself illegal material, and any pages that link to it, and any pages that link to those pages, and so on.
  • Having read all these responses, and agreeing with most of these, I do see the MPAA's side of the story. Since most pirating is done in ASIA, all the MPAA has to do is code DVD's sold in ASIA so that they can only be played by a player set for ASIA. That localizes the piracy and prevents asian copies from spreading out into the rest of the world (asia just used as an example). By using DeCSS, those asian pirates could encode a DVD to be played anywhere, hence opening the market for piracy. CSS sounds like a good plan, and I'm sure it worked for a while. However, now that it's broken the cat's out of the bag... no way to get it in. So what do they do? They sue. What should they have done? I think they should have just decrypted all their DVD's. That way, there'd be no reason to pirate.
    I'm sure I'm going to get moderated down for this, but hey...
  • I enjoy listening to Off the Hook since Emmanuel goes on some rant on how a vending machine ripped him off, and for that he thinks there's some huge corporate conspiracy against him to take his 65 cents away.

    He's a high-tech andy rooney. For once I just wish he would tell Rich the Rebel to go screw off for once, when he calls up(which is on every show, first time. he's OTH's own troll) and discovers if you press so-and-so buttons on a payhpone, you get this and that operator.
  • ...and I was hoping for an Emmanuel Lewis profile! (as small as it might be :) )

    -k
  • The "defendant" isn't just passing a single number--he's not just saying "42," he's saying "link 42 on the links page" or somesuch.

    Not necessarily. Observe:

    Hey guys: 42.

    --
    Links page: http://127.0.0.1 [127.0.0.1]

    --

  • Don't we already have that? It's called a search engine. If I want to provide a link to something, I just say take a look at entry number 4 on this page [altavista.com]

  • Hope lies in the proles.. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    For some reason, the line "Hope lies in the proles" seems terribly ironic to me right now, especially taken in the context of (basically) an entire internet community doing absolutely nothing to change their situation.
  • Ummm... yeah it is. The presedence set here is not just that you are responsible to what you link to, but are responsible to what is linked to from that site as well. And on and on. By creating one link, you become responsible for the entire content of the internet. Now, while this may not be strictly enforced (when's the last time someone *really* got busted strictly for giving their friend a copy of a video game?), it is one more charge they (the immortal them... one day I'll find out who they are) can bring against you when they suddenly decide they don't like you. In colleges, something along these lines can be used to deny someone net access, or even computer access entirely. Besides... I should be able to play DVD's on a toaster if I own the disc and the toaster (I heard that somewhere...)
  • Most every link will eventually connect you to something "Illegal"
    where do you draw the line if linking to something Illegal is made itself a crime..
    2 links-deep? Fine I link to a search engine...
    3-Links? ok I link to a page that links to a search engine...
    etc...
    once they legislate to 7 or more links you can include most any site out there in a lawsuit....
    Microsoft linked in 7 links to the illegally published version of Kerberos that it wanted Slashdot to remove... Should they have sued themselves??
    Banning links to illegal material would be the same as banning all links in essence...
  • I run a Website.

    One of the pages on my site contains the full text of the Bill of Rights.

    Fifty other sites link to that page.

    I post DeCSS on that page.

    Through no fault of their own, fifty people are now in violation of some ridiculous law.

  • Re:Freedom to rip people off... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    First off, it's not possible to make an exact copy using the available DVD-R media. The field where the encryption key resides isn't writable.

    So first you need to run it through DeCSS, then you write the decrypted content to a DVD-R disk.

    Without DeCSS, you can't decript the video stream in order to write it to the DVD-R disk.

    And DVD-R media will fall in price drastically, just like CDR media has. Unless a bunch of people screw up the legal status of the format, and force the death of DVD-R technology, like the pirach that killed DAT.

    Honestly, sometimes it seems like a lot of the people involved in this discussion were born with the inability to understand reality.

  • Re:Freedom to rip people off... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There is nothing stopping you from taking a DVD and recording it onto another DVD, encrypted bits and all.

    Nothing, that is, except for the fact that the encryption key, which you can read, can not be written to the location on the DVD-R disk where a DVD player requires it. So your raw-copied encrypted DVD content isn't directly copyable. It has to be run through DeCSS before a playable pirated copy can be produced on DVD-R media.

    Why the ignorance abounds here would be startling, if it wasn't for the easy explanation of an ulterior motive.

  • Re:Valenti's deposition (Score:5)

    by Apotsy ( 84148 ) on Wednesday October 25, 2000 @05:16AM (#678063)
    Yep, I've read it. His constant "I don't know"s and "I don't recall"s are just like Clinton in his sexual harassment lawsuit, and Bill Gates in the anti-trust trial. Their lawyers appear to have given them the instruction beforehand: "Say nothing. I mean nothing. Just answer every question as 'I don't know'." The technique has a grand tradition, going back many years. Remeber the Iran-Contra scandal? Ronald Reagan swore under oath that he pretty much didn't know anything about what went on in his office!

    If what these people say is to be believed (and since they are under oath, it presumably is), then it could be taken as proof of their complete incompetence, and thus they should be removed from their positions of power and replaced by someone who at least knows what planet they are on. The fact that this doesn't happen just goes to show everone knows their supposedly sworn testimony is complete bullshit.

    Just once I'd love to see some really powerful person who thinks they're above the law get nailed for giving Reagan-esque testimony. They answer "I don't know" to some question, and the defense produces a tape of them talking about said subject, proving that they do know. That person goes to jail for perjury, and everyone lives happily ever after!

  • I'm pretty sure the law suit is against the website/magazine and I don't believe he could disassociate himself from it that cleanly. And despite help from numerous other people in terms of article submissions and such that magazine lives and dies with Emmanuel. (Just an opinion)
  • i cant see how it could be the subject of a legal threat. `Your honour, we found the defendant openly passing on a single, 32-bit number!`
    Well I can't see how `Your Honor, we found the defendant openly passing an address to an article of speech' to be something the MPAA could press charges on, but here we are!
    --
  • So every web author will have a team of lawyers making sure there is no trail of illegality stemming from the links one one's own page? No, this mean the banning of links for fear of litigation.
  • Exactly. Or some notation, like

    (42)

    as part of your sig, or even as part of your anti-spam obsfuscation :

    bert@hot(42)mail.com

    or whatever. Illegal email addresses...whatever next?!
  • Problems? Yeah, spam. The pr0n companies would be on top of this in a second, overloading the database with tons and tons of pr0n links. Maybe 1 out of a hundred would be good links. MAYBE.

    Cire
  • is of course the banning of links.

    NOO! Links is my favorite web browser!
  • Can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of Emmanuel Goldsteins?

  • Re:What happens to 2600 if he loses? (Score:3)

    by ichimunki ( 194887 ) on Wednesday October 25, 2000 @05:46AM (#678071)
    The lawsuit's defendents are clearly stated on this document [2600.com]. Both Mr. Goldstein and 2600 are listed. Either way, I doubt Mr. Goldstein would be afforded the typical protection of the State given to white collar criminals by the legal shenanigans surrounding business incorporation. Protection of corporate directors and principals from any real responsibility for crimes committed by the entities they supposedly control is typically reserved for large companies who have through decades of marketing efforts convinced the citizenry that to attack their company is to attack the American Way. This is not the case here as 2600 is a solid dissident voice and has already been ascribed outlaw tendencies by the Judicial system far beyond those merited by this single act of disobedience.
  • If it was on DVD, I'd buy it! It would be one of those memorobilia type of things for me. And it would also prove to the public how poorly Valenti goes against DeCSS. In the depositions, its very unclear what he is even standing for. He only knows "its bad", but with the public, its a different story - and he seems so well informed.

    www.buymeaferrari.com [buymeaferrari.com]
  • Surprising that no one's posted this link [dorsai.org] w/this article already. I do so now out of a sense of moral duty to please that booty.

    TIA for the +5 Informative score which this comment will no doubt garner.

  • you mean 'lynx'? yes, it is a great browser indeed!

    But to ban links, and then am I guilty as an accessory to a crime because I clicked on the link that /. published? Or is that like guns where the manufacturers hold no liability in the use of their products?

    www.buymeaferrari.com [buymeaferrari.com]
  • Ronald Reagan swore under oath that he pretty much didn't know anything about what went on in his office!
    Perhaps so, but in Ronnie's case that was quite true!

    Hacker: A criminal who breaks into computer systems
  • Ironically, a page that only prints the URL will be completely legal. Look at the DeCSS page [2600.com] at 2600 [2600.com]. This is the future of illegal links. Judges such as Kaplan may not see the free speech issues involved with linking but he certainly does with printing. These rulings will accomplish nothing except cause more people to right-click and copy and paste.


    -------

  • Let me just fire up the old time-traveling device, calibrate it for the "2600 and EG looses court case", and see what pops out...

    Ah, here we are...

    • 2600 - The Hacker Quarterly


    Editor's Corner

    Hello! This is the new editor, Jack Valenti, welcoming you to the exciting first issue of 2600 after the MPAA's recent Supreme Court victory over Mr. Corely (his real name wasn't Emmanuel Goldstein, you know). I think you'll be very excited about the changes. For one, we're switching to a full color format, at the request of our new advertisers from Verizon and Intel, and making the magazine much larger, so you can find it much easier on the store shelves. But not for long, soon we will be offering the magazine only by subscribtion, so, if you want to continue getting all this excellent news and information, please send your name, address, age, telephone number, email address, and a sample of hair to the address below, and we'll get you on the special supscriber list.

    I think you'll be very excited about the quality of the new arctiles. We're no longer printing any random submission, only the best articles from giants of the technology world. Some of our upcoming articles:

    Watermarking of Digital Music - You can help decide what can't be broken! (Hillary Rosen)

    New Security features in Win2000 - It's no longer hackable! (Bill Gates)

    How to get DSL (What houses are for sale within 100 ft of the Central Office)

    Why would you surf naked? (Why open-source software is insecure)

    ...

    ...Sorry, I can't transcribe anymore. I have to call this number and get the new McAfee FireStorm Digital Baricade!!! They say it's completely hack-proof!!!
  • "Maybe 1 out of a hundred would be good links. MAYBE."

    Doesnt matter! I`m not suggesting people use the page/dbase as a place to just browse for links, simply that once a site has been allocated a number, it`d be there for you to lookup.

    Really, the number thing is just a way to abstract the site from a url. The links site itself could be moderated, people could mirror just parts of it that prove useful... i mean, i`ve not thought about it too much, and there are probably better ways of doing it, but the idea of going to a site, or getting the links page from a linux distro or non-US site, and then looking up a number seemed a quick and easy way of avoiding having to `deal` in illegal links.
  • That's all fine, except for one thing. Bankrupcy does not cover judgements. If a court rules that you owe somebody a ton of money, then you declare bankruptcy, you *still* owe them a ton of money. IANAL, but my dad, who IS, has made certain that I understand that fines and penalties assessed by courts cannot be gotten rid of by declaring bankruptcy.
  • "The worst case scenario is of course the banning of links. "
    Dear God! Slashdot might actually have to do some writing of its own then! That would be disastrous!
  • define illegal

    illegal in the hosting country?
    illegal in the authors country?
    illegal in the viewers country?
    illegal in any country that the traffic passes through?

  • Yeah, isn't that exactly the genesis of Yahoo?
  • If 2600 offered a DVD of the Valenti deposition, I'd buy one. And I don't even own a DVD player.
  • [bites the troll]

    http://artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~mikulas/links/

    Links, a text mode browser with a decent tables + frames rendering engine.

  • And why do you hate him?
  • DeCSS has not been ruled illegal. Linking to it has.

    So actually he means banning of links to any kind of material simply because it may at some point become illegal.

    --
  • "a program called DeCSS, which disables the Content Scramble System (CSS) that prevents consumers from making copies of DVDs."
    *sigh*
    will they *ever* get the idea? you can copy DVDs just fine without DeCSS - it is not removing copy protection, it is removing WATCH protection.
    --
  • I remember the days when Emmanuel used to hang in #hack on efnet and argue with kiddies all day about how he was elite - apparently because he had nothing better to do. This is a guy who has profited from teenage kids writing articles for him for free, in exchange for their chance to be in "2600" ooooh wow, 2600. 2600 was lame back in 93, and its even lamer today because its politically focused and imo slaps the real hacker community in the face. I can't see any legitimate hacker reading 2600 and not laughing his ass off. Emmanuel Goldstein isn't even his real name. He is the epitome of poser.
  • We should all just go back to Gopher, and declare EVERYTHING in all of the standard to be public domain, so no one could patent 'one click' this or 'linking' that or such... it'd be great! besides, all of the sites would be perfectly usable from an 80x25 text mode shell!
  • its probably time for a website to host a links database - just thousands and thousands of URLs, anyone can submit a link,no
    testing would be done to even ensure it was a link. then instead of saying `get your decss source here` you`d say `check out link #139523 from the links site`

    Hmmm...what you're suggesting makes a lot of sense. we want an easy way to describe the location of a piece of information . and we'd like this way to be standard across the whole internet. something like a UNIFORM (or universal) REFERNCE LOCATOR. hmmm...what an orignal and outstanding idea.



    abszero
  • You mean the banning of links to illegal material.

    Correction: illegal in the US. Norway has already shown they don't find DeCSS "illegal material" by releasing and apologizing to Jon Johansen, who originally distributed the software, because it was found the laws he was charged under didn't apply at all. Ignoring the ill-advised IP conventions my country has signed for a minute, there is no law like the DMCA making DeCSS illegal in my country, either.
    -------------
  • Apparantly, CSS is a weak algorithm. In fact, it's so weak that it can be cracked brute force in a very short time on a PC. The MPAA is trying to stop the spread of INFORMATION that can potentially be used unlawfully. Not only that, but according to the DMCA, they can sue simply because their encryption algorithm was broken!

    Why don't we just encrypt DeCSS with a weak encryption where each character is shifted one ascii value or something, then link to that, and if the MPAA manages to break our weak encryption, sue them under the DMCA and anti-circumvention measures? Just a thought, if they want to play why not beat them at their own game...

    Also curious what would happen if one of those nasty little email viruses proliferated doing something useful like copying DeCSS to your hard drive, instead of causing real damage. Would everyone who accidentally contracted and passed on the virus be a criminal? Who would the MPAA sue then? Could the MPAA go after M$ to ban Outlook as a means for distributing anti-circumvention material the way they've tried to ban links? Think of the endless possibilities...

    -Nez

  • Bah, I meant distributing copyright circumvention materials, not anti-circumvention... Just to clarify.
  • I once thought this as well (when i wasn't as l33t as I am today (and yes I AM BEING SARCASTIC)) but what I've come to learn (throuhg painstaking research, no less) that 2600 is infact a drop tone for payphones. This might not be what the 2600 stands for, but it would make sense. p.s. Look for phrogg3rzine to hit shelves soon (gotta plug my own zine) and YES, we blatently ripped off 2600's popularity on taht one
  • Yuck, I followed the link, silly me. I think I need a shower. Too bad I'm at work. Ai! Dame desu yo! Interrobang 1/2, waiting for a kettle of hot water
  • ...because Winston Smith's already been taken...probably before Corley was ever Emmanuel. See either your old Dead Kennedys album covers, or http://www.winstonsmith.com .
    AND...if you'd actually read the book beyond the first chapter, you'd know that Goldstein is the amicus hostis of the 1984 world. Does he even exist? I'm not even sure Eric Blair knew.
    Eric Corley is also an amicus hostis and I think he's even admitted it. Either way, it's a slippery political position, and sure to get you spat on from several directions. Lots of people love him, lots of people hate him, and even more people pay close attention to what he does. I think that was always the point.
    Winston Smith (as even the real Winston will tell you if you ask) is just a dupe of the State. I don't think Corley wants to be there.
  • Yet, he's the one who's fighting the MPAA. He's the one who's fighting DMCA. He's the one racking up massive legal bills defending your basic rights. What are *YOU* doing about the DMCA?
  • Nothing, that is, except for the fact that the encryption key, which you can read, can not be written to the location on the DVD-R disk where a DVD player requires it. So your raw-copied encrypted DVD content isn't directly copyable.

    That's true, with off-the-shelf DVD-R disks. If one were going to the trouble to pirate DVDs on a commercial scale, then I'm sure one could procure blank DVD-R disks on the grey market without that pesky limitation. ;-)

    All the, *ahem*, copy protected DVD-R disks do is prevent college students from financing their education by copying DVD movie disks. :-)

    Hell, in fact, if one were pirating DVDs commercially, then one could setup a production line with a commercial DVD pressing machine and avoid using DVD-Rs entirely.

  • To quote from the website linked to in the original article:

    "Goldstein lost the first round of the lawsuit, which the MPAA brought against him for publishing computer code that cracks the copy protection the movie industry puts on DVDs."

    Now, maybe I AM wrong, but I didn't know anything about it, so I read the article. And saw this. Because I read it, am I an idiot?

    So, if I believe that the quote above is right (which I did), then my comment was fair enough surely? So go tell the original writers.

  • Wasn't Emmanuel Goldstein the guy in 1984 who was the leader of the Eurasian power block? Or I just imagining that?

  • Yeah, that's where he got his name ( said so in the NYM article)
    ---------------------------------------- -----------------
    Surface dwellers can be so stupid.
  • Links is another text browser that does frames and stuff :) Search freshmeat for it "Links"
  • You are correct in that quote from the article. The MPAA is saying that the main purpose of deCSS is for pirating. Basically, what has happened is that this software was originally written by someone else to use to make a linux dvd player, 2600 published it, then the MPAA took some people (including 2600) to court saying that this is about piracy. The defendants say it is about making a linux dvd player, and it is within fair rights to be able to do so as there is no commercial linux dvd player on the market, and that reverse engineering is/was legal in the U.S.

    I don't think you are an idiot, although I do post usually in a bad mood, but the news media often focuses on the MPAA side of this. It would be like suing a manufacturer of butcher knives, because you say their primary purpose is for killing people. The knife manufacturers will say that the primary purpose is for cutting meat with them. That is where the confusion comes from, in that the MPAA has a lot more money to spend at advertising, and a better reputation than a magazine that is known to be controversial.

  • Even better than that:
    1. Post a web site where you have authentic-looking op-ed piece that takes the position of DeCSS being "wrong", draconian intellectual property laws being good, etc.
    2. The MPAA links to your website as part of a campaign to show that there is public support for them, a la Microsft's "Freedom to Innovate" network.
    3. Change the op-ed piece to instead be a copy of DeCSS.

    With good timing, you could do it at the right point during the appeal trial. "Your honor, the plantiffs have a link to DeCSS on their own website!"

  • Yeah, those chinks can be evil bastards. Curse the whole lot of them in one region code!

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