Interview: Jon Johansen of deCSS Fame (UPDATED)

This week's interview guest, Jon Lech Johansen, has been all over the news (and all over Slashdot) lately. He's the guy behind the whole deCSS thing. Jon has been getting interviewed all over the place, but I'm sure you have questions for him that the "straight" media people would never ask. So go for it! One question per post, please. 10 - 15 chosen questions will be forwarded to Jon Tuesday, and his answers are scheduled to appear Friday.

Update: 01/31 14:52 by michael : Several people have pointed out that LinuxWorld ran an interview with Johansen today. So, rather than repeat the same questions that LinuxWorld asked, people should check out that interview and see what questions they still have about the situation...

[OT] Linus and teenaged girls

I remember a quote Linus had in an interview a while ago. They were talking about Linus becoming famous, and he said something like "yes well I still don't have 15 year old girls throwing their underwear at me. I think the 15 year old geek inside my is still kind of disappointed about that."

Poor Linus :). Though I'd imagine having 15 year old girls throwing underwear at you could put a strain on a marriage.

BTW if someone can find a link to the exact quote, I'd appreciate it :)

Age and hacking and perspective....

Not to play up the age card, but I for one was very surprised to learn that a 16 year old achieved such a mature bit of hacking. So my questions are:
- What got you started down the road to geekdom and when?

- At 16 you've ignited a powder keg of controversy on issues ranging from property ownership, censorship, software platform independence and the need for greater separation of business and state. How does it feel to have such fame and how are you handling the pressures? Any tricks up your sleeve before you hit adulthood (18 y. o. here in the US)? :)

- How is your family handling this? Are they supportive? Not so? Be sure to sit them down and let them know, in very clear terms, that you have a huge community of the brightest minds supporting you and that regardless of consequneces, you have done a Good Thing (tm).

- ...and finally, what else do you do besides code? As important as what you've done is, I'd frankly like to hear about the other aspects of who you really are besides the computer stuff. I think it'd be interesting to shed some light on what other geeks do with their time when they aren't geeking out.

Bart G

Re:What're you going to do?

Setup and Question for Jon Johansen: In the past we'd give a kid a computer, to keep them from going out into the street and getting into trouble. Now, it seems keeping a kid at home with a computer looks like nothing but asking for trouble. Do you think industries like the MPAA are purposefully trying to make using a computer potentially more harmful for a high school student to use than going out into the streets and getting involved with things such as hard drugs? They can't be helping make the computer safer for kids if they are going to go around the world arresting them.

Re:Why Windows?

I like this questions, because as far as i followed all the development, DeCSS was never
meant to be helping the Linux development, but
more to help making "backups" of DVDs on VideoCDs.
This may sound unfair, but it is the harsh truth. In fact this guy here even denied giving out the sourcecode of DeCSS for helping the Linux Community (yes, its true) - he gave it only to *one* person under a special license.

All the 'we just wanted to play DVDs unter linux' is nothing more than a well-working PR campaign to help protecting some people who just wanted to break copyright.

Although i don't think that Jon should be threatened as hard as he is now by the MPAA, he shouldn't on the other don't made a saint without questions like the one above.

Its true, DeCSS was windows and binary only. This couldn't help linux. Face the truth: There is only one reason for reading out DVDs under Windows: Recompressing it as MPEG1/VCD and burn it on a CD, and this is what 99.9% of all DeCSS-Users are doing.

Lessons learned

First, a word of caution. You might wish to have your lawyer review any answers here. It strikes me that any answers from you can and will be used against you, if it's at all possible.

With that in mind, I'm curious about what lessons we all can learn from this. Specifically, assuming that someone were about to do something similar, what would be the best way to avoid being prosecuted?

The easy and obvious answer is to do so anonymously (which begs the question of the best anonymous means to do so). But I'm wondering about the situation where one didn't want to do so anonymously. Are there any viable defensive strategies here?

Finally, thanks for your efforts. We are all in debt to you.

Is there a legal defense fund? Can I contribute?

It seems like the MPAA has just about unlimited amounts of cash, and I'm guessing you don't. Do you have somebody taking care of funding your defense (i.e., the EFF), or can I send some money to a legal defense fund for you?

Exactly what were you charged with

Hi Jon; When reading the popular press one gets the impression that you were charged numerous vioaltions of the law. What exactly have you been charged with?

Very important question regarding CSS

Jon:

Gregory Maxwell made a very interesting comment on the LiViD mailing list last week:

> Just because wired said it happend one way, that doesn't indicate that it
> didn't occure some other way entirely.
>
> A few days (perhaps a week or so) after the Xing CSS and key codes were
> cracked, someone released a no-player-key-needed method of finding CSS
> title keys and thus deriving all the player keys without ever knowing one.
>
> If you believe such an ingenious feat of cryptoanalysis occured in such a
> short time, I believe I have a bridge to sell you.
>
> The 'xing' crack was irrelevent. Because of inherit weeknesses in CSS
> (beyond it's 40bit key, which are too technical to discuss here now) we
> needed zero player keys.
>
> The CSS code has been out there for well over a year. I think people were
> waiting for the right time to make it public (i.e. cryptoanalysis that
> defeated the need to have a master key at all; and the death of DIVX),
> some moron decided to jump the gun about two weeks too earlier, and
> released the Xing player key to make it work.
>
> Had they waited another week the cryptoanalysis would have been done and
> NO vendors player key would have been required.
>
> As it stands, the Xing key may have been artificially derrived (say from
> the IBM key) and it was coincidental (or worse) that the key turned out to
> be Xings.
>
> So to be clear: Xing's players weaknesses (was it actually weak, or are we
> taking MoREs word for it) is irrelevent. CSS code was out before that
> player existed. The CSS algo is fundmentally broken (no playerkey
> required key recovery in 2^16 operations in 2^26 bytes memory) well beyond
> it's short key legnth.
>
> It would have been possible for someone to use such an attack (or another,
> say IBM's player key) and generate that Xing key without ever analyzing
> Xing itself.

( see entire comment at: http://livid.on.openprojects.net/pipermail/livid-d ev/2000-January/002777.html )

Do you have any response to this? The crux of the lawsuit in California is that they claim it is illegal to reverse engineer a program if a dialog box tells you not to. They claim that Xing was reverse engineered because their player key was supposedly the first one found.

In the light of Gregory's e-mail, is this true? Was Xing involved at all? Or is that an unsubstantiated lie from the DVDCCA?

Were you a "moron" for releasing your program before the means to decode CSS without ANY player keys was discovered?

The Slashdot Defense Makes No Sense!

Anyone else think it's scary that people are quoting Slashdot comments, probably out of context, in a court of law, attempting to present some kind of "accurate representation" of the community and its opinions?

Man, if I was the other lawyer in that case, I'd read a few "Naked and Petrified" comments and destroy that "Anonymous Coward" guys testimony.

No, I know, they could just look at my user number, and make me an "expert witness"! :P

I guess my question for Jon would be "Do you think tactics like using posts from one user, out of context, from an online forum should be allowed as testimony to represent the views of the community at large?"

Geez, I like DNA testing much better compared to this crap. With DNA testing, I'm 99.9999% certain as to someone's identity. With Slashdot, I've got the other 0.0001% certain about their identity, that they mean what they say, that they have any idea what they're talking about... etc., etc.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].

A quick question

Everything that's been published (which isn't much) suggests that the response by the police was very disproportionate to what you'd been accused of. However, I don't know how police normally respond to white-collar crime in your part of the world.

Do you feel that your case is being handled in a particularly unusual way and, if so, how so?

Re:DeCSS and MPAA (Not a question)

Why are they making this out to be a piracy issue when it's clear that it's not?

It's this type of weighted question that really irks me about Slashdot readers. It's analogous to Jim Gray's line of questioning towards Pete Rose at the annoucement of the Century Team (where he basically tried to pressure Rose into admitting he was guilty or apologizing for something Rose doesn't think he's guilty of).

The MPAA is making this out to be a piracy issue because to them it is a piracy issue. It doesn't matter to them that you or any other Slashdot reader doesn't think it's a piracy issue. To them it is a piracy issue, because whether or not the program was intended to do so, the fact remains that it does make piracy easier. There's no getting around that. Now it's up to the courts to decide whether it really is a piracy issue and whether or not the MPAA has a valid complaint. You can argue that all you want.

I'm sorry, I don't want to answer questions that are going to someone else, but honestly, this is completely weighted. You're asking a question that automatically prejudges an answer and also requires that the person take a side they may or may not agree with. Jon may have a different answer than me, but I'm still of the opinion that blatant "leading" such as this should be pointed out immediately, especially since they get pushed up so high by moderators who share many of the same biases.

And that's before we get to the fact that your asking Jon to shed light on motives that he has had no part in shaping.

Slashdot strikes again

Funny how a bunch of fools can use their freedom of speech to harm a cause. After reading the interview on LinuxWorld, I am beginning to think that the open source movement may just have just shot itself in the foot, then stuffed said foot in its collective mouth.

There have been articles on Slashdot about the increasing use of Slashdot for mainstream articles, looks at the open source movement, etc. Apparently that has yet to sink in. Believe it or not, someone actually reads your posts, and when you say "fuck the law", that can (and has) been used against you.

I think the DVD case (among others) will be very important for the future of the Internet. It will decide reverse-engineering, home use, encryption, the reach of major companies (with major lobbying power), and the rights of consumers. And I would like to see strong encryption, the freedom to reverse-engineer, etc. But, this will only come if we play it smart. Support your cause without turning into 9 year old potty mouths. Don't give the opposition ammo.

clarification...

it's been suggested that someone in germany did the hack, not yourself. who did what?

in another interview you were asked why decss was written for windows when the idea was to make a player for windows. you stated it was made for windows while linux's ability to deal with the dvd fs was being sorted. why didn't you just copy the vob file? (not enough disk space?) did the computers the police took have linux versions of the decss code?

lastly i think it would be good to get a bitof tech clarification since i know next to nothing about dvd's. say a person was able to decrypt the vob. what exactly could they do with the resulting file? just watch the movie? or are the value added features on dvd's contained in the vob? perhaps a quick run through of dvd tech,or a link to it would be enlightening to those of us not up on dvd.

Mirroring

There are several efforts underway to keep the mirrors alive and well - I am involved in several of these presently and we have over 50 mirrors out right now on the internet.

It's not a question of erasing all copies of the source - that is impossible. Rather what do you think the reprecussions of this mirroring will be? As of yet, nobody has knocked on my door asking me to stop mirroring...

DeCSS and MPAA

What is your opinion on the position the MPAA has taken regarding DeCSS? Why are they making this out to be a piracy issue when it's clear that it's not?

Do you have any plans to talk to media outlets that will listen to your side of the story? Do you KNOW of any such outlets? I believe the word needs to spread to everyone who has ever touched a DVD movie, the net, or even a computer. The only problem with that is it is SO SEXY to portray people like you in a mischevious light, and to make you out to be the bad guy. WE know that's not the case, but every medium and their company (save Slashdot) paints this as a "they-want-to-copy-movies" situation. How do you think we should educate the masses, and through which mediums?

-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

Re:DeCSS and MPAA (Not a question)

Your response is no less weighted: "The MPAA is making this out to be a piracy issue because to them it is a piracy issue." We know this is their public position, but it seems hard to put together even a compelling prima facie argument for this position. Digitally-distributed content (as CDs) have been around for a while, and the music companies are richer than ever. Ditto software, despite minimal copy protection. Why are movies different? The MPAA has yet to answer this question, even in a cursory way.

OTOH, the encryption system that is virtually useless for combatting all but the most unlikely piracy is very effective at controlling the market for players. And there are boatloads of compelling financial motives for the movie publishers to want control of a market besides content distribution. They have read the writing on the music industry's wall -- the business of packaging content physically for distribution and selling those units is going to be a lot less profitable in the coming years.

Assuming that the MPAA believes it's own position is assuming that the MPAA is stupid, which I'm not yet willing to do. It even further beggars belief to suggest that their system for "protecting against piracy," while pitifully ineffective at curbing piracy, is "accidentally" a cunningly effective system for controlling the DVD player market. It had to be by design.

So, it is "clear" that this is not "a piracy issue". The issue is where the rights of the consumers lie in using products they have purchased, and where the rights of the intellectual property owners end. You may argue that the poster's question is self-evident, or a waste of Mr. Johanssen's interview time, but it is not weighted. It is self-evident to anyone who reviews the facts.

phil

Re:Your dad...

Does he agree with your stance on DVD encryption, and the need for software players for Linux?

I've seen an interview with both Jon and his dad, so I can espond to this..
Yes. His father agrees with him. He understands the situation; that DeCSS was neccessary to make it possible to view DVDs on Jon's computer.

He didn't mention Linux in particular, but he said that it should be possible to view the DVDs on ones own computer.

DeCSS/pirate video

Although it seems quite clear that you had no intent of pirating dvd movies yourself, it is obvious that some people will use it with the intent of pirating movies. How do you feel about this? Do you feel responsible for this in any way, or are you satisfied that you did not make the program for this purpose, so it's not your problem. Right now, I think the high prices of dvd-recorders and media are the limiting factor in widespread dvd copying anyways. Do you think that the mpaa has the power to artificially control the prices of recorders and blank dvd's, in order to increase the cost of a pirated dvd beyond that of a store-bought one?

--

What exactly was your contribution to deccs?

And why did they choose you as a target?

------------------

Your dad...

Your father was also arrested when you were.

Did he know that you put DeCSS on his server, and what that software did?

Does he agree with your stance on DVD encryption, and the need for software players for Linux?

Gerv

When will be first DeCSS-based Linux DVD player?

Jon, I am 100% behind you, and cringe at the distortions of your efforts in the media. It is entirely clear that DeCSS has been developed in order to watch DVD videos on linux boxen, not as a means to "piracy". However, this point could be driven home a lot more effectively if there were actually a DeCSS-based linux DVD player. In understand that even with DeCSS, there are some technical problems getting DVDs to play on linux.

This is not a "when are you going to complete your player program" question. If I were a coder, I would help. My question is simply when do you see the first player actually being released? What are the remaining technical difficulties to getting DVD playback to work on linux, now that the CSS hurdle has been cleared?

Re:When will be first DeCSS-based Linux DVD player

It's misconceptions like this which cause problems.

DeCSS is not a Windows program, or a Linux program, it's source code. The reason that you have a Windows version is because somebody compiled it under that platform, not because someone wrote for Windows.

And he didn't write a DVD *player* at all, he wrote a tool to decrypt the DVD movie so it could be watched using a seperate player, something that could not be done before.

And you must be some kind of bad-ass k00l m0-f0 if you can copy DVDs using deCSS. The current DVD media won't allow for it, and only one movie would fit on today's hard drives.

So, to sum up. No, it's not a Windows program. No, it doesn't copy DVDs. Yes, it's needed to watch DVDs under Linux. And the court case is still going to be a pain in the ass because of people like you, spewing half-truths and total lies.

Re:Parliament care about Police action?

It has been noted in several articles that your case was mentioned in the Norwiegen Parliament.

Have they done anything about the treatement you, and your father received from the Police? Or have they decided to sit on the and let the MPAA run the show of things?

I can answer that question for you. The Norwegian Parliament doesn't bug into police affairs. The case was brought before the parliament - with requests to review the laws. Not to comment on the specific case.

If I understood the press right, The question was if the laws should allow more reverse engineering and more freedom than they already do.


--
"Rune Kristian Viken" - [e-mail] - arcade@efnet

Norwegian Police

How do you feel about the fact that the Norwegian police essentially played the part of hired goon to a large corporate conglomerate? It's bad enough when this happens in the United States, but the fact that the Norwegians did this has to surprise you quite a bit.

Programming background

Where did your original programming experience come from? I'm speaking in terms of your ability to reverse engineer the encryption and apply the key in a useful mannor.

Regret

Do you regret distributing your work? While I'm sure you must feel proud for standing by your beliefs, is the impact on your life harsh enough that you wish you have never cracked the encryption?

I'm sure everybody here is very glad you did, but we don't have to live under such scruitiny. Thanks for keeping up the fight for what's good.

Re:DeCSS and MPAA (Not a question)

I have to agree about weighted questions, but...

This may well make DVD copying easier. But it's only creating one more avenue.

Let's see. If you can lay your hands on DVD mastering equipment (which seems to be a possibility for a number of firms in Hong Kong) you can just create a bit-for-bit copy. Not protected against in any way.

If you've got a video capture facility - not that uncommon, comes with most TV cards - you can grab the image THAT way and then copy it out however you want. VHS and VCD seem the popular ways. Both are possible, though you may need a descrambler box as they've done some funny things with the data output to try and mess up the equipment.

There seems to be software out there to copy direct to VCD - I've seen it referred to and I once heard someone on another machine in a lab referring to their using it. Can't find a copy to prove it, though.

Theoretically (read I'm told this is possible but research hasn't turned up any links yet) you can write a fake video driver that grabs the data on the way through and can also do what it likes with it.

Then there's DeCSS. Which will, admittedly, produce a decrypted playback stream. But you play that how? You can't burn your own DVD as DVD-R discs are sold with a section pre-burnt blank precisely to stop this. If you can get round this then you really don't need DeCSS as you can just make a bit-for-bit copy, encryption intact. And this can't exactly be traded over the net like an MP3 - the resulting file is GIGABYTES large.

Let's say 4GB for example - well, that's 4096000 KB by my arithmetic. On a 56Kb modem running at maximum possible efficiency you might get 7KB/sec. If I started downloading it now and nothing went wrong on the way, it wouldn't be finished until 23rd March next year! Assume more realistic conditions - my modem normally connects at 31,200 - and I'd be waiting until Christmas 2001.

Somewhere in the film industry there's probably someone who genuinely believes that this is copy protection. They deserve our pity. The only practical purpose this serves is maintaining a stranglehold on who can manufacture players. And I can't see that as defensible.

This suit deserves being laughed out of court. Our perpetuating the MPAA's bogus argument should be avoided, in case we inadvertently give credibility to these individuals.

Disclaimer, before I get accused of being a pirate for researching this: I don't posess a DVD drive of any form. Or any DVDs. Or any pirate VCDs or VHS cassettes I've ripped on friends' computers. I do posess a CD-RW drive, purchased so I can make backups of my work.

Greg

A question of laws in your country.

Are "Shrink wrap" agreements enforcable in your country, and are you as a 16 year old subject to contract law? In the us, 16 year olds cannot enter into a contract, I'm wondering if it's the same with you.

Hey Rob, Thanks for that tarball!

Public Reception

In discussing this topic with "regualr people" (those folks who don't live and breath tech) I've found general support for the people and very little for the MPA(A).

What, IYHO, is the general reception you have felt about this issue? Have you been able to explain your position and have it understood? What are some of the stranger assumptions you have come up against?

Answering my own questions...

I just found this [openprojects.net] (from the livid-dev mailing list archive). It explains how DeCSS was done and by whom, as well as Jons involvement.

Please have a look at it. It clears up a couple of things...

Will you keep going, or cut a deal?

It's easy for people on /. to talk about not letting big corperations push them about, but I'd guess that it's a lot more difficult when you actually have to do so, in face of being arrested.

Considering that you compiled promptly with the original cease and desist order, do you envisage a situatition where you have had enough, and admit "guilt", to get off with a "warning", or will you struggle to be complete exhonerated?

IMO, It's important to resist, because of the precedent it could set, but it's on thing to talk the talk, and different to walk the walk.

--

DVD's have been pirated for over a year now.

Why do you think that DeCSS was made to be such a big deal. The movie pirating community has been copying DVD's with computers, using software just like yours for over a year now. I personally ahve copies of 3 different peices of software dating to march 99. So, what was all the ruckus over DeCSS?

Parliament care about Police action?

It has been noted in several articles that your case was mentioned in the Norwiegen Parliament.

Have they done anything about the treatement you, and your father received from the Police? Or have they decided to sit on the and let the MPAA run the show of things?

What overall is the people's (that are in charge) reaction to your arrest and questioning by the police and the manipulation of the media (somewhat) by the MPAA?

About the cops...

Did the arresting officers say or do anything that blatantly hinted that they were doing this because of pressure from the MPAA or the United States government? What kinds of questions did they ask during the interrogation? Were they looking for other people to arrest?

Wrong.

The MPAA is making this out to be a piracy issue because to them it is a piracy issue. It doesn't matter to them that you or any other Slashdot reader doesn't think it's a piracy issue. To them it is a piracy issue, because whether or not the program was intended to do so, the fact remains that it does make piracy easier. There's no getting around that. Now it's up to the courts to decide whether it really is a piracy issue and whether or not the MPAA has a valid complaint. You can argue that all you want.

This is not true! We do not know their real reasons, but ANY good analysis of the situation should take into consideration things like region codes and independent film distribution. The relevent facts are:

1) Region codes are illegal (under international law and many national laws), but very few countries enforce these law. The MPAA wants to protect their illegal use of region codes to provide crappy (delayed) releases in Eurpoe and extort additional money from Europeans. The biggest threat that DeCSS represents to the MPAA is that Europeans will buy DVDs legally before they are released in Europe's theaters.

2) The MPAA wants to control distribution. Currently, they have a strangle hold on independent films because they control printing. The real threat to their dominance from independant film would come if people started distributing independant films directly via selling DVDs.

There has been a lot of talk about fighting the MPAA by boycotting movies. I think this is a wonderful idea, but I think we would be more effective if we make it easyer for the masses to boycott movies. How do we do this?

The answer is: open Linux DVD theaters in European resterants and bars! If Europeans start seeing the new releases in bars before they come out in theaters they will be less likely to see the movie in the theater. This in one of the best ways to hurt the MPAA's pocket book, so if you live in Europe you shouldconsider helping you local bar wire up a regionless DVD player or a Linux box to play new releases from America!

And that's before we get to the fact that your asking Jon to shed light on motives that he has had no part in shaping.

This is correct, but it is likely that Jon knows more then the author of the original post.. and can probable provide additional hypothetical incentives (like the above) which are much more realistic then the MPAA's piracy argument.

Jeff

BTW> It would be nice if someone would post the address of a place to order a regionless DVD player.

Re:Why Windows?

I own DVDs. I don't own a DVD player. It belongs to one of my roommates, and is currently in our basement community room. If I feel like watching a semi-crappy-quality VCD on my 19" monitor in my room, I'm entitled to do so. If I need software like deCSS to help me, then so be it. For that matter, VCD's aren't that great looking. What's to stop me from dumping VHS tapes to VCD under fair use? Nothing. What's the difference in quality? It can't be much. We're crunching 70 minutes of video and stereo sound into the space normally required by raw sound at 44.1KHz.

Sorry, OT, I know.

Re:Lessons learned

>My suggestion would be to write a program to
>*PLAY* DVDs and not a program to *COPY*
>DVDs.

My suggestion (to you) would be to consider this:

DeCss doesn't "*PLAY*" or "*COPY*". It provides a means of descrambling/reading the CSS-scrambled content. So, while it could be used to create "something that rips the data from the disc and puts it, unencrypted, on the hard drive", this is not all that feasible for reasons which have been pointed out several times already on /. (for instance the amount of space which such a copy would occupy), it is also the foundation for a player app.

There is some additional backstory which is well known to attentive readers. The industry group that created and implemented CSS did not do it for copy protection - it is very weak in this regard, as copies of all of the data on a DVD can still be made, without descrambling, given the proper hardware. What the scrambling implementation is designed to do really is to prevent you from viewing a DVD movie that the manufacturer doesn't want you to see. This restriction can be based upon where you live (a restriction which is really important to the motion picture industry, as helps preserve or bolster regional distribution monopolies), or possible future restrictions, such as what brand or type of DVD player you have purchased.

CSS is yet another scheme to take power away from consumers through proprietary standards. If you buy a movie on VHS, it will work in your VHS player, regardless of your place of residence, credit rating, hardware manufacturer (generally) - if you buy a DVD that was published using CSS, this is not necessarily true. There are even steps being taken to make sure that movie DVDs can only be played a limited number of times - built-in obsolescence. And now the companies involved are saying that any attempt to allow consumers to use their DVD players in the same way they use their VHS players is piracy? I think the real pirates are on the other side here.

Possibly I am wasting my time with this reply - saw your other post on this story and it was the same mixture of authoritativeness and cluelessness.

Support in Norway?

Have you found any support from people (aside from family) in Norway? Has the public reaction to the arrest been favorable (i.e. in support of you) or negative?

Re:Why Windows?

let me just say, ARGH.

The guy being charged, Mr. Johansen never released a Windows program of any sorts. What he *did* release was the source code to decode the encryption.

With the source code, someone else created a Windows program to decode the DVD. While I'm on the subject. He also did *not* write the code to break the encryption, he was merely the one who posted it and stood behind it.

Hope that helps.

Previous work / experience

What kind of software work have you done before this? Have you always been interested in codes and/or code-breaking? Code-breaking isn't the type of thing that everyone figures out easily; do you find yourself a natural? On a side-note, would you take a job from the NSA? :-)

Xing EULA

Did you violate the End User Licence Agreement for the Xing player? Did you even accept it? Can the keys be extracted from the Xing player without accepting the EULA? Can DeCSS be recreated without exploiting the openness of the keys in the Xing player?

Would you still have done it?

Jon,

You've obviously witnessed the hoopla the release of the DVD code has created in the movie industry, and it's effects of prosecutions and even your home being raided. Thus said, if before you released the DeCSS code, you knew of all these consequences and controversies that would be created, would you still have released it? Or, knowing these consequences, what other steps may you have taken to release the code to the public?

Why Windows?

I think that the charges you are facing is rather ridiculous, but I have to wonder: Why Windows? If the motive of you and the group you worked with was to have a DVD player for Linux, why release this program that works only under Windows?

Real Life

How have your non-hacker friends in your normal life responded to your notoriety? Do you get weird looks in school, or at the supermarket? Any interesting propositions from the ladies? Does anyone even know or care about what you did?

Re:Question - morality of DeCSS

You say:

"Legally, the keys and encryption are (i believe) the intelectual property of the MPAA(or someone related)."

This is meaningless. Everything he worked with was sold to him; those keys were somehow mixed in on the disk and player, which he bought. Figuring out the key on the disk is no different than processing any other legally acquired copyrighted material -- is it against the law for me to count the number of words in the paperpack I just purchased, or otherwise analyze it ?

If I apply some stylometry techniques to some of the junk paperbacks out there and discover that one of those prolific authors is actually four or five, can I be sued for revealing the secret ? No, because if the publisher didn't want me to look at the book, they shouldn't have taken my money and given me the book. If the DVD producer had a secret, then they shouldn't have put it on hardware and disks that they sold all over the world. Instead they wanted to both have a secret and share it, and their math wasn't clever enough. Not our problem.

You say:

"It's like breaking into someone's home (by whatever means, violent or nonviolent) to steal or copy something of theirs that you feel you should have."

It's not like that at all. Some moneyd interests might approve of you saying so, since they want people to feel guilty about cracking those keys, but he didn't go to anyone else's home; he was in his own home, with property he purchased legally. In what way did he steal anything ? Immitation is not stealing.

You say:

"Since they're still the creaters/owners of the encryption, it's their right to determine who has access to the keys."

Setting aside for the moment how you can possibly own an encryption, I'd like to point out they sold him those keys on the disk and hardware.

Now, they didn't count on him being able to read it. But that is simply a bad business break. You can't expect the courts to go around throwing people in jail everytime some little piece of information makes your business plan out of date.

You say:

"And while their not including Linux does suck (i agree!), how do you feel that what you did for DeCSS is justified?"

Why does he have to justify anything ? If he took that damn player out in the woods and blew it to pieces with a shotgun just for jollies, well, it's his player. Instead he looked at it and figured out a bit about how it worked, and told some other people. What's wrong with that ? If the MPAA wants an uncopiable medium, why don't they make one and sell it ? Ok, so they did try, but they missed. Is that reason to take your lumps and try again, or is that reason to run to the government that always takes your soft money campaign contributions and demand that they start throwing people in jail ?

My question

When you first put DeCSS on your website, did you expect the fuss and attention it has gained? or was this a huge suprise to you.

Question

Now you know about all the hassle that has resulted from your posting DeCSS, the arrest, the press attention etc.. If you could go back and change your miund about posting it, would you?

Programming Background

Breaking commercial level encryption is quite a feat for a 16 year old. What is your background and experience in programming ? What platforms and programming languages are you familiar with ?

Does the U.S. have too much sway?

Do you feel that this entire "legal" debacle was prompted not by your own local jurisdiction's concern, but rather as a result of the U.S. government's ability to make a decision, then force said decision on everbody else? I.e. Do you feel that you were you arrested because *your* government decided to, or because the U.S. government decided to?
.------------ - - -
| big bad mr. frosty
`------------ - - -

What Should We Do?

As is a (thankfully) usual reaction to such a blatant injustice, the Slashdot community (and many others) have been scrambling to figure out ways to help you and others prosecuted in the name of this whole DeCSS fisasco.

As one (if not the) most persecuted individual as a result of DeCSS, what do you think the rest of the supporting world should do to help you out? What should the people who want to help do, besides the obvious posting of the DeCSS source and the general badmouthing of the MPAA?

------------

Compromise?

To what extent would you be willing to comply with 'them'(ie, the MPAA, the gov't...)? Is there anything(code- or principle-wise) that you would be absolutely unwilling to compromise?
===
-Ravagin

What do you think their real fear is?

Copying DVDs bitwise can be done.

One should suppose the movie business would like DVD going to Linux, opening a new market.

Therefore it's a little strange to see them suieing someone who lets players be more abundant. Do you agree that their real fear might be raw video from DVDs being modified and republished?

Any further developments?

Since the day you were questioned, nothing more has really come up in the Norwegian news media as far as I've been able to see.

I would be curious to know whether you have any indication from the police of when they might conclude their investigation and either bring charges or return your machines.

-- Eythain

Q for Jon

What do you think they should have used for their encryption and what do you think they will do next w/r/t encryption of DVD?

Bad press.

What do you think of all of the publicity that you have received over this. What do you want to say to the reporters/articles (ZDNET,CNET,Wired, et al) that have characterized you as a criminal hacker that is trying to ruin the entire movie industry.

kwsNI

What can we do to help?

I don't own any DVDs, and I don't personally care to watch them under linux. However, to me this seems like a more important issue of powerful corporations illegally violating a person's rights, and I'd like to join others in trying to do what I can to help.

I haven't seen a direct statement from you as to what type of help you need most right now, but I'm sure there are many who would like to assist.

Why?

Considering that you face criminal charges, shouldn't you be concerned that any statements you make here may be used against you at trial?

Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected

Being from a fairly liberal nation...

Being from a fairly liberal nation, it must be fairly puzzling to be made the "example" of by the american government. How has your opinion of your native country, and that of america been chasnged by all of your experiances- especialy considering you've cooperated for the most part?

What are the age limits in your country?

In the US, a 16 yr. old could not be tried as an adult, and therefore could not receive more than a few years in jail, even if he committed a murder.

How do you expect your age to influence the charges against you?

Question for Jon

When can I buy the book And will it have the source included?