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Censorship

DeCSS To Be Broadcast Over Oz TV 131

Posted by Hemos from the round-the-world dept.
EngrBohn writes: "Just when you thought the DeCSS saga couldn't get more interesting. 2600 Australia plans to broadcast the DeCSS code at 12 frames per second for 15 seconds on Australian television sometime in the next few weeks in part of a commercial by MindShare. Too bad this'll be too late for the Obfuscated DeCSS Contest. "
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DeCSS To Be Broadcast Over Oz TV More

DeCSS To Be Broadcast Over Oz TV

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  • Can't sleep, clown will eat me (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How often are subliminal messages broadcast on television? I thought the clown was not able to control me through television, but recently I saw a local anchor woman talking to someone who may have been the clown. I couldn't tell if it was the clown because I need my poodle with me to detect him out in public. That's why I have a pet poodle, and people kind of laugh when they see me out walking him (like "what kind of guy has a poodle?"). I used to fear poodles because they are always with clowns, but then I realized that they are the best breed for detecting the clown. Sure enough, the little guys are great at it, you just have to spoil them so that they are loyal to you instead of the clown. Anyway, if the clown is working with that television anchor woman, he could get access to their transmitter and broadcast subliminal messages to put me to sleep.

  • Simulcast (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Interesting, but to transmit the Australian broadcast committee should approve end not all. This begins problem where if approval is offered and taken, never let international radio tranmission deCss or other program.

    Nonetheless, all content and side waves will offer the deCSS and code, DVD consortium will not be happy, and their lawyers will see what this brings.

    This should interest more people worldwide in the issue.

  • I had DeCSS linked to on my web site. Somebody up top found out and I can no longer telnet in to my account and my site is no longer accessible. I was not warned. I repeatedly asked campus comp. to explain what the h*ll was going on, but no response.
    Finally caught the head of campus computing today and was told "Yer account was suspended, cuz, uh, somebody said to do it. Something about something on yer web site. Uh, we were gonna contact you. Student affairs wants to meet with you." So I'm meeting with them tomorrow. Any suggestions for battle? I'm making copies of OpenDVD web pages to distribute to them.
    Was it legal for them to just shut my account down with no warning (i'm sure it was...it's their server, I guess. But that's still f*cked)?

  • Re:Now all we have to worry about... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm the guy writing it :-)

    /me waves

    We're well within the law to broadcast it. There simply aren't laws like the Digital Milennium Copyright Act in Australia at the moment and what changes are being made still generically allow the use of circumvention devices such as DeCSS (why try to make illegal something that's entirely unenforceable?) but not the distribution of them. Hence we do have somewhat of a time limit on our hands for getting this out there.

    As people have said above, the aim isn't for people to write down the contents of the css_auth.c file that will be broadcast (among others if we have frames left over) but to show what it is this whole DVD/Copyright turf war is actually being fought over.

    Our main intention with the broadcast was and still is to give people some information about datacasting and it's future potential as well as information about computer security and privacy, the two staples of 2600 Australia and other likeminded organisations.

    The intended audience are people that already know about the broadcast and will be taping it to flip through it frame by frame.

    As to other organisations thinking of trying to get something on air like this, please feel free to contact us at webmaster@2600.org.au after the fact - we'll likely be writing a HOWTO of sorts on getting things like this working well for a low-res analog medium like television.

    - A reasonably anonymous 2600 Australia flunky

  • distributiong DeCSS (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    To get DeCSS "out there", simply engage the
    services of a bulk email provider (a.k.a. spammer),
    sending it out to millions in the form of an email message.

    Even better, put some excitement into it by
    creating the message as a chain letter, encouraging
    even wider distribution.

    (I *knew* those bulkers were good for something!)

  • AlphaMicro Videotrax technology (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Alphamicrosystems pioneered this technology in the '80s. It was used to backup their multi-user systems running an old DEC-like O/S called AMOS. Later repackaged and released for PC's under the name Videotrax. IIRC, an Amiga version was also released. Trouble is, it couldn't back up more than about 100 Mb to a tape. In the early to mid '80's, of course, this was effectively an infinite amount. I liked their systems at the time. Imagine: it's 1976 (otherwise known as Year 1 AA (after Altair)). While others ate putzing with cassette basic, Alpha Micro comes out with a microprogrammed LSI-11 on two S-100 boards (using what was to become a 16-bit extention to the S-100 bus). Came complete with multi-user O/S, an assembler, and a basic interpreter. Later, they ported the O/S to the Motorola 68000 family of chips. Of course, a non-heirarchical filesystem with six character (upper case only, numbers, and a few special symbols) filenames and three character extentions (using PPN's - project programmer numbers to distinguish users) kindof sucked, but it beat most of the single-user alternatives at the time (CP/M, and then MS-DOS). Ah, the memories. I once wrote a program, SPY, for such a system, that permitted users to monitor the output to other users terminals (for remote assistance, of course). It even kept screen appearance sane when the SPYing and SPYed terminals were different (easy, since AMOS terminal drivers had the equivalent of an ioctl call for terminal control functions that could be intercepted). The crazy thing about Alphamicrosystems is that, despite sticking with AMOS (thought branching out into PC and Unix markets), they are still in business today. The Alphamicrosystems dealer on whose system SPY was developed and I recently donated the source to SPY to Alphamicrosystems for free distribution. Regards, Rene S. Hollan (posting anon.)
  • Yes, here's a possible command line the author might have used :

    i=0 ; gzip < decss.c | hexdump | grep ' ' \
    | sed 's/^[^ ]*//; s/ \(..\)\(..\)/\2\1/g' | while read line ; \
    do echo c`printf %.2x $i`.$line.gros IN A 127.0.0.1 ; \
    i=$(expr $i + 1) ; done


  • From one of the many 2600 FAQs [attrition.org]:

    Alt.2600 is a Usenet newsgroup for discussion of material relating to 2600 Magazine, the hacker quarterly. It is NOT for the Atari 2600 game machine.

    It doesn't say it, but the inference is that neither is the magazine.

    --
  • He this a very interesting twist in this Saga. These australians are great now we wait and see what the MPAA is going to do about it. I don't think the Austrailians would be very happy about Americans messing with austrailian affairs. If you want to help out the go to there site and make a donation or go [eff.orgeff]here [theotherside.com] and you can also help out


    http://theotherside.com/dvd/ [theotherside.com]
  • Eff [slashdot.org]
    sorry push the sumbit button to soon

    http://theotherside.com/dvd/ [theotherside.com]
  • Interesting. I had always imagined that 2600 were named after the old Atari machine.

    Nope. Good 'ol BlueBox. 2600 Hertz.

    Makes you wonder if the Atari was named after the Bluebox...

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • Just a question... Aren't the american's already messing in australian affairs by broadcasting the code in the first place? A call from the ... I forgot the acronymn! ... isn't really messing with australian affairs any more than 2600 airing the broadcast in the first place. After all, on their home page, they list their address as being in New York. So... If 2600 airs a broadcast, that's not meddling, while if the MPAA attempts to block it, then it is meddling. What standards you have!

    I seem to be alone in this voice, but I'm rather disgusted that if DeCSS is completely legit, as is the sentiment around here, then why must all the developers try to circumvent any rulings by airing code on TV, coming up with an idea of making the code into a T=shirt, etc... It all seems extremely immature.

    Just fight the case, and if you lose do something. But with all these pre-emptive acts, it really seems that DeCSS develoepers based in the US feel that they're in the wrong, according to US laws, and rather than stand up for what they believe in, they're just trying anything and everything to get the code. The despricity of it all really doesn't cast a good light on everyone.

    My cents. Two of them, i think.
  • i've got an old 20meg corvus here (for apple //s) that has a video backup card plugged into the backplate that has a composite video out. other vendors also sold ntsc backup systems.
  • Ok, what your forgetting here, is that 2600 AUSTRALIA (of which i am proudly a member) is linked to 2600 America by name only. 2600 AU is located in Sydney, Australia. Visit the 2600 Australia site at http://www.2600.org.au [2600.org.au] for more information.
  • More info on the origins of the phone phreaking and the 2600 hertz tone can be found at http://www.webcrunchers.com/crunch/Play/history/ho me.html [webcrunchers.com].

    It's an interesting read.
  • Am I the only one who remembers the "backup systems" for Amigas that actually encoded the contents of your HD into video bar-codes and stored it on regular VHS tapes? I used that system constantly and never had a problem with it. It required software and a dedicated hardware interface between the monitor port, video output port, and the vcr. The name of it escapes me at the moment.

    They should do the broadcast in that format. I'd dig out my old 1200 with the hardware and have a working copy of DeCSS on a platform that doesn't even have DVD-ROM support ;)

  • Second, it gets noticed, just for being unusual.

    Remember that the code is going to be broadcast between 3 am and 4 am. This is not exactly peak time for Australian television.

    --
  • I think the car thing should be stopped. The people had no right to drive it and run over other people.
  • Okay, so when is the deadline for that contest? The link in this article only says that the rules for the contest were being finalized and the contest would probably begin March 1st.

    Perhaps you meant the completed "Great International DVD Source Code Distribution Contest" [zgp.org]

  • No really, that's what I heard. It's due to a shortage of DSP chips (I heard it from The Register [theregister.co.uk], so take it how you will)

  • Actually according to The Register there is a shortage of DSPs that DVD ROMS and CD ROMS share with cell phones Mobile phones blamed for DVD-ROM drought [theregister.co.uk]
  • It's the same reason why PETA is telling people to drink beer instead of juice (instead of milk). It gets people's attention, makes the news reports, and gets much more publicity than it ever could have by itself.

    And they are giving the website at the end, so fear not.
  • Ironically, that does make sense: if you're dealing with even a 100,000 watt transmitter, you'll get fairly decent signal leakage into space. Let's see the MPAA try to get back that copy of DeCSS ;-)

    ----
  • ..is plenty of time! Hey, Monty Python could recapitulate Proust's "A la recherche du temps perdu" in 15 seconds! (Well, almost)
  • From the alt.2600 FAQ (read carefully, gourmetbog...):

    F-02. What does "2600" mean?

    2600Hz was a tone that was used by early phone phreaks (or
    phreakers) in the 80's, and some currently. If the tone was sent down
    the line at the proper time, one could get away with all sorts of fun
    stuff.

    A note from Emmanuel Goldstein:

    "The Atari 2600 has NOTHING to do with blue boxes or telephones or the
    2600 hertz tone. The 2600 hertz tone was simply the first step towards
    exploring the network. If you were successful at getting a toll call to
    drop, then billing would stop at that point but there would be billing
    for the number already dialed up until the point of seizure. 800
    numbers and long distance information were both free in the past and
    records of who called what were either non-existent or very obscure with
    regards to these numbers. This, naturally, made them more popular than
    numbers that showed up on a bill, even if it was only for a minute.
    Today, many 800 numbers go overseas, which provides a quick and free way
    into another country's phone system which may be more open for
    exploration."
  • There are so many copies of the code out there...
    I have posted several to various spots on the net..

    I just did a search for "css-auth.tar.gz" on google and got 300 matches. "css dvd linux download source" got 650. these aren't huge numbers, but that's just the hits for public web sites. i'm sure .. 5 times that maybe.. hold it privately on disk.

  • It was not a pirate channel, they took over the commercial channels and broadcasted on them.

    I need a pair of sinologic 16 datagloves... hrm, there are lots of strange stuff in johnny mnemonic :P

  • Cool fact: The w3c [w3.org] (!) links to this 'version' of deCSS. (Look under 'Other software' at the bottom.)

    -
  • I'm sure that there's SOME station out there that will air it...

    Yeah, like PAX TV(All peace, all the time) I'm sure a slot on that station is pretty cheap, and low profile enought not to arouse the MPAAs suspicion, unless we want that to happen, some sort of civil disobediance over dvd encryption while people are starving...BTW this whole thing is a joke, esp. the PAX TV part, they have a service called PAX NET, where your internet all runs 'through' them and little old ladies sit there approving all the web sites you go to(I'd love that job, imagine sitting there, letting junior go to get the pr0n he deserves, even though Jesus wouldn't want it that way)...haha...oh well i think the MPAA and RIAA suck, and should be gotten rid of

    Moderators, do NOT moderate this to +10 funny

  • If they do, just go to the relevant public access television stations in the major capital cities.

    They won't give a stuff. It would be good publicity for the stations, and the aim of the exercise, which is to broadcast to as many people who choose to record it as posssible would be acheived. (Even if nobody watches public access, it still can be received by a lot of people).

  • If he got the slot for free, wouldn't it have been much more worthwhile to tell people why the source was made instead of just showing it?

    Well, that wouldn't make the news, would it? It would be a boring commercial, and with only 30 seconds not much could be explained. So they decided to do something pseudo-controversial and gain worldwide attention. And isn't that the point of advertising?? Plus... the MPAA and the RIAA will probably pay attention to stunts like this.

  • My only question is how do you compile a vcr tape? Is this some old school unix trick?

    Old school yes, but not Unix specific. It's called typing. :^)

    Sorry, I just couldn't resist.

  • I wonder what it will be rated in TV guide?
  • They do still care actually. The MPAA is after a friend of mine now over his mirror of the DeCSS source on a university server. In fact he has a meeting scheduled with them today. Hopefully he'll see this and let us know how it went.


  • Obviously this is a time of great conflicts so why not? You don't earn any rights by viewing your legally purchased DVDs in a cellar with the MPAA hunting for you outside.

    - Steeltoe

    What do you do to limit yourself today?
  • After watching Walker Texas Ranger I think they'll think twice before planning any invasion.

    I think we're in the safe (for now).

    - Steeltoe
  • Hrm, oddly enough, I just noted Jon Johansen was definitely *NOT* American, he was Norwegian AFAIK, and if he is Norwegian and DeCSS was done in Norway, where's America at all involved?


    -
  • We have teletext, it was a big fad in the early 90's (I think), but now it's quite hard to find in a TV. Captions are also virtually non-existant unless you get a little boxy thingy, and I doubt the geeks are going to contact the .au association for the deaf, or whatever it is, and get a little expensive box just for stuff they can get easier elsewhere.


    -
  • I don't know how much you can tell us about it, but I'd really like to know about these 1-on-1 cases that the MPAA are involved in.

    Is there a webpage w/ a list of DeCSS related cases the MPAA is or were involved in?

    We should try to keep a good record of what cases the MPAA is currently involved in and keep it public. Who knows? It could spawn some headlines such as "MPAA imprisons 500 students, students claim 'civil disobedience'"

    civil disobedience isnt something you can use to keep you out of jail [slack.net]. :)

    Then again, I dont know if I can trust any internet related news I see on TV after This Report [slack.net] (6 meg .asf)
    (the report is an atypical glamorized view on pirating movies. Apparently IRC is full of "shadowey chat rooms" in the "darker corners of the web")


  • Not bad, But the question is when do we get it?
  • Get real. I'll just pull out my old reel-to-reel, run a cable to my Apple ][ and download the audio version through the tape input.
    Piece 'o virtual cake.
  • Good point. And at 12fps for 15 seconds, it's more likly to cause epileptic fits than any sort of understaning. Still, it is a kick in the balls the the MPAA.

  • Somebody please moderate the above article up. Just because the views expressed therein does not correspond with the common Slashdot view is no reason to mark it down, neither reason NOT to mark it up when it brings out valid points to discuss/argue about.

    (BEGIN RANT)

    Frankly, I am increasingly disgusted at the way moderation is being done in Slashdot recently. It seems that only early posts are ever read by moderators, and the only posts that ever get moderated up basically say "Yeah OpenSource Yeah boycott Evil Corporations Yeah Linux rulez Yeah this guy agrees with my view so I moderate him up Yeah". It seems that an increasingly large percentage of moderators no longer value discussion, they merely moderate up posts that strengthen what they think Slashdot should represent. Just look at most of the +4 or +5 posts in the recent stories. How "insightful" are they really (except for the rare exceptional gem), other than re-enforcing the "common" Slashdot views? And how often a post is moderated down as Flamebait just because it expresses "opposite" views? And how many more posts are quietly ignored by moderators who do not wish the opinions expressed in those posts to become prominent, even though they are equally valuable as other posts that are moderated up??

    I don't know about you, but if only "non-controversial" posts or only posts that express certain "acceptable" opinions are ever moderated up, then something is wrong with Slashdot. It really annoys me when I see so many posts at +4 and +5 that are merely moderately good, when some other posts of equal value remain hidden at +1 just because they happen to not express the popular Slashdot views. Now, I'm not agreeing with the Slashdot trolls by any measure, but sometimes I think some of them have a valid point, in that all the high scored posts always express a certain view whilst others are quietly ignored just because they express an opinion that the moderator doesn't agree with.

    So PLEASE, moderators, remember what the moderator guidelines say. One of the points is that you should not moderate down (and may I add, should not deliberately IGNORE) a post just because you don't agree with what it says.

    (END RANT)

  • But don't forget it's aired at 3am.
    Only geeks are awake at that time.
    And they already have the source.
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  • Time to bust out the ole VCR and all of you techophiles time to order those tiawanese DVD Recorders too...
    (that would be kinda ironic too huh?)
  • What's one extra nail in the coffin when your burrying the devil?
  • Yeah, who gives a shit? People in the know already have the source.

    It all seems a bit `JonKatz` to me...

    P.
  • I seem to remember some movie where they were fighting the "black shakes" a disease caused by all the radio waves going through people. A small group of people discovered the solution and broadcast it over TV. My only question is how do you compile a vcr tape? Is this some old school unix trick?
  • This isn't going to help your lawsuit any, its just going to piss off the MPAA even more. Get an APEX dvd player with the loopholes menu and disable CSS and Macrovision the easy way. $179 at Circuit City.
  • The title "2600" refers to the frequency of pitch that technology-savvy Americans played into their telephone receivers to thwart long distance call charges in the early 1980s.

    Interesting. I had always imagined that 2600 were named after the old Atari machine.

  • But with all these pre-emptive acts, it really seems that DeCSS develoepers based in the US feel that they're in the wrong

    It isn't so much that they feel they're in the wrong, but that they feel they're in the right but don't have even the slightest chance of winning in court because they don't have as much money as the MPAA has to get the good lawyers.

    Edward Burr

  • To have one's commerical put on for nicks on Australian commercial TV means it has a "community service announcement" banner at the bottom. Obviously then, broadcasting the DeCSS source is a "community service" for which every Australian watching should be grateful for :)
  • People who just happen to be watching and don't know about it in advance won't even know whaht's going on. At 15fps and 12 seconds long, without slowing the thing down all you'll see is some flickering.

    <frustration>Damn it! I just fixed that antenna</frustration>

  • I belive what the TV station will do is to display the DeCSS source code page by page on the screen. Then anyone with a vcr can record the transmition and start typing!
  • This is so true. Just fight it in the courts. Hire expensive lawyers and fight a multi-billion dollar corporation in the tradintional way. How dare any of you to have the audacity to engage in civil disobedience. My God, this can only lead to terrible changes the likes of those that were created by lawless people, like Martin Luther King Jr. This is as bad as the colonists and that foul display known as the Boston Tea Party. Damn them anyway, they should have been content to fight it before the British Parliment, and simply accepted the British decision to stay "up yours" to the colonists anger over "taxation without reprsentation". Civil disobedience... What kind of people are you?
  • I have no absolutly understanding what the hell is going on but although, I see futher more about the 2600 austrailia thingie brodcasting etc. etc. and all this crap. well, I have no comments about this article. bye.
  • Does anybody have one of those magic 10Gb Scotch Tape drives yet? If so, please record the broadcast and stick it somewhere important.
  • If you look carefully through 2600.com's site you'll find that the 2600hz tone has absolutely nothing to do with the sites title. Thankyou.
  • Don't forget what it says in the article, this is the most important part: However, he admitted some information -- pertaining to the decryption of DVD access codes -- which could not be legally broadcast in the US, would be screened.
  • Clown guy is pretty funny.
  • Actually, you are the organ grinder's monkey. In eastern mythology this impish trickster often disguised itself as the clown.

  • Is recording it legal ? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm very happy about this.

    But, I'm concerned that if I video tape it, then I'll have a copy of the DeCSS source in my possession, and I'll get threatening letters sent to me my the Motion Picture people to erase the tape or face the consequences.

    Does that mean that anyone videotaping whatever show is on at that time (Walker, Texas Ranger perhaps) will be a criminal ?

    How about if I send copies of the video tape to the USA ? Or make it into an MPG and post it to my website ?

    Chris
    Perth, Western Australia
  • dig @138.195.138.195 goret.org. axfr |
    grep '^c..\..*A' |
    sort |
    cut -b5-36 |
    perl -e 'while(){print pack("H32",$_)}' |
    gzip -d > deCSS.c

    Courtesy of TBTF
  • That gives me a great idea!

    Hire a recent release video from your local video library and record this ad over the inevitable DVD promo at the start. (I dunno about the USA, but here in .au they are on every major release)

    Innocent viewer sees it, visits the website at the end, and viola! More mindshare courtesy of MindShare.

    Now if I only had two VCR's :(

  • DMCA.au ? (Score:2)

    by acb ( 2797 )
    There simply aren't laws like the Digital Milennium Copyright Act in Australia at the moment and what changes are being made still generically allow the use of circumvention devices such as DeCSS


    Isn't Our Esteemed Parliament debating a piece of legislation that looks just like the DMCA? There's something about that in the EFA Update.

    The DMCA allows the use of circumvention devices for security research, as will the new Australian act. Which seems to be the same sort of deal as allowing approved research facilities to grow opium for medical research.
  • To do this you'd want to devise a meme that's catchy and compels people to spread it. Spreading it should be easy and the payoff (physical or emotional; it can be just the satisfaction of having done one's bit to make the world a better place), as expected from the start, should exceed the perceived cost of participation. That's how those good-luck chain letters spread so easily.

    Problem is, memes mutate, and code isn't robust. After a few dozen generations you can expect variants of the chain letter without the source code to appear. So you might want some sort of verification mechanism (i.e., forward the whole post to an address and the guy who sent it to you gets some reward if the code is there; that'd make it in the sender's interest to keep the code there).

    What should the prizes be? They could be gift vouchers, if one has the money/sponsors. If not, they can be something purely psychological which creates a reward in the form of status or honour. Perhaps a web site with a distinctive name will add senders to an honour roll, giving them a free email address or somesuch, which identifies them as a member of an elite club.
  • but to demonstrate that censorship of items such as DeCSS leads only to more and more widespread distribution, even to the point of datacasting it across Australian television at 3am.

    Does Australia have teletext like much (if not all) of Europe? I wonder if buying room on teletext for broadcasting sourcecode is possible...


    Your Working Boy,
  • Obvious...

    # dd if=/dev/vcr0 of=/tmp/decss.c conv=vhs2asc


    (Don't forget to update your fileutils to v4.2 and include kernel support for VCR devices.. You'll also need to have Video4Linux support and a compatible adapter, as well as IRDA and a supported VCR remote code..)

    Your Working Boy,
  • This type of stuff hurts us more than it help.

    You could be right, I don't really know. However, I can't really feel too bad about it.

    I don't get it, why provoke judges and legislators like this?

    I'm supposing that it's meant as a form of civil disobedience but I could be wrong.

    I feel this type of behavior only serves to show disrepect for the intent of the law; disrepect is not something we need to be showing.

    I both agree and disagree with this depending on what kind of mood I'm in at the time. On the one hand, I have the pragmatic side of me that says we should work within the system to bring about change (which is not to say that this stunt would bring about change) and I do have respect for law; on the other hand, I have some leanings toward civil disobedience. I often think approvingly of that famous statement that it is the duty of a citizen to overthrow a government that is not upholding their social contract with said citizen. Obviously, the DMCA isn't serious enough to overthrow the government but it might be serious enough to disobey. Everyone must come to their own conclusion about this.

    Thoughtful undersanding of the issues is what we need to be demonstrating; further dissemminating material which a judge has restricted (regardless of the country)

    Now this I disagree with. People in other countries absolutely must ignore American law. It amazes me how many people think laws should be binding on people the legislator and judicial system have no jurisdiction over! Furthermore, I'm opposed to any government pushing it's own legal agenda down the throat of another government. National sovereignty for every nation is of the utmost importance. (We need to reclaim the sovereignty of local governments as well but that's another issue).

    ...will only serve to motivate the WTO and other organizations to have bi-lateral agreements which will only tighten our straight jacket.

    I don't know what "other organizations" you are talking about but if they and the WTO have the power to do this, the Constitution (in this country), national sovereignty (everywhere), and the rights of mankind in general are dead. If we have given international organizations that much power we might as well just hang it all up right now.

  • I was in contact with the author of the deCSS contest as nothing seemed to be happening on the web site. He indicated that
    • the contest will still take place,
    • it was back-burnered because of a death in the family at the end of February, and
    • that he has not had time to update the web pages since then.
    I have asked him to post some information here on Slashdot as soon as possible. He agreed and will probably post later on in this thread or by submitting an article.

    Other notes:

    • Judges are needed,
    • He'd like to offer other prizes such as t-shirts, etc. to good entries, if others can help defray costs or are willing to donate other prizes to the contest.
    • This contest is not so much about code as it is about methodology, however workable code will probably have an advantage when entries are judged.
    That's all I can think of for now.
  • Here's a mirror thats easier to remember

    dig @dmca.really.fuckingsucks.net dmca.really.fuckingsucks.net. axfr |
    grep decss | sort | cut -b5-36 |
    perl -e 'while(&lt&gt){print pack("H32",$_)}' |
    gunzip -c
  • What happens when the aliens monitoring our television transmissions from Alpha Centauri get this transmission.

    I'm sure when they read what passes for an encryption code on earth, they'll surely come to the conclusion that there is no intelligent life on earth.
  • now if only iCraveTV would rebroadcast it...
  • 'Every' was an overstatement. But consider this. How well could the issues be presented in fifteen seconds? We'd be lucky to make it through 'The MPAA and RIAA are per[blip]'. But consider this; if even 1/8 of the people viewing ask someone, and get a minute spiele of the issues, how much airtime is it equivalent to? And how many people is that that are, if anything, better informed? And what about those with no interest? Well, they'd have changed the channel to watch the 'Seinfeld' rerun anyway.. ..
  • Happen to know how much a late night TV spot runs these days? We could do that in five seconds, accompanied by a pretty graphic and pay little. I'll be willing to bet it wouldn't even stretch a single paycheck.. And the singular act of defiance.... Mmmm.. Earning me some useful karma! Far better than the flyer handout I did at the cinema..
  • It's a cute hack, but the legalities are the same whether you distribute the Secrets Of The DVD Masters by TV, T-Shirt, DVD, HTTP, or avian carriers. It doesn't affect the contractual status of the reverse engineering job, and it doesn't affect the legality of revealing trade secrets in countries like the US which treat it as trade-secret-because-of-contract (the cat's already out of the bag, but the person who allegedly illegally opened the bag is supposed to pay for fetching the cat and telling it to get back in the bag and stay there), and it doesn't affect the legality in countries where you can't have trade secret protection for things that aren't secret. Unlike cryptography, where part of the point was "anybody can independently invent this stuff or implement it from freely published literature, so don't claim this Offical Secrets Act crap", this is just reverse engineering of lame copy protection, allegedly violating a click-wrap contract the engineer voluntarily agreed to.
  • This type of stuff hurts us more than it help. I don't get it, why provoke judges and legislators like this? Does it provide ego value? I feel this type of behavior only serves to show disrepect for the intent of the law; disrepect is not something we need to be showing. Thoughtful undersanding of the issues is what we need to be demonstrating; further dissemminating material which a judge has restricted (regardless of the country) will only serve to motivate the WTO and other organizations to have bi-lateral agreements which will only tighten our straight jacket. I feel this type of stunt is like squirming, allowing our opponent to pull the strings tighter.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • even if most of the people don't change the channel when the commercial comes on most of them will just be thinking what the hell DeCSS is so it is really pointless unless it comes with a half-hour long program that explains what it does and why the person wrote the program.



  • Are the other 15 frames per second a transmission from aliens which contains a wormhole generator?

    If we build a wormhole generate, will IBM sue for patent infringment?

  • I really approve of the idea of transmitting the DeCSS over Australian TV. Think about the message this sends. First, it tells everyone that US law does not apply to anywhere else. That was the first absurdity I noticed about this whole affair.
    Second, it gets noticed, just for being unusual. People will ask, "Why are they broadcasting this code?" and so the message will get out. The more people that carry the message, the more people that hear.

    Finally, it compensates for the idiotic messages given by those who have the right idea. You know who you are. Using the issue as an excuse for your profanities and rantings.

    Luck is skill supplemented by chance. ~Ketriva

  • Re:Doesn't get more obfuscated than this (Score:3)

    by Erich ( 151 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @05:15PM (#1188654) Homepage Journal
    Someone gzipped up the source, basically did some hex encoding with addressing, and then made hostnames out of them. The code grabs all the hostnames, sorts them into the right order, grabs out the right hex characters, unhexes them, and ungzip's back to the origional source.

    Pretty clever, really.

  • Correction (Score:3)

    by mosch ( 204 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @03:12PM (#1188655) Homepage

    Actually the correct version is:

    dig @138.195.138.195 goret.org. axfr |
    grep '^c..\..*A' |
    sort |
    cut -b5-36 |
    perl -e 'while(<>){ print pack("H32",$_); }' |
    gzip -d > deCSS.c

    (/. just stripped your angle brackets. thanks for the pointer!)


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

  • It all depends on the paper trail... (Score:3)

    by Millennium ( 2451 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @04:53PM (#1188656)
    I'd assume that this was all gotten on the up and up, and there is one way to do that. Problem is, it's only one.

    In Hoy's original complaint, he included the DeCSS source. This became a public court document, it and everything in it are in the public domain (the source itself is still GPL'd, but it is notable that DVD-CCA itself released the source). Furthermore, this record has not, to my knowledge, been sealed (DVD-CCA tried to get it sealed but failed).

    So, any American citizen can get this document (others too? I'm not certain, though you probably have to be a citizen to get the docs straight from the court), and use it as they please since it's public domain. This includes giving it to others. Unless I'm mistaken cryptome.org has this document, actually; this cuts out the necessity to go to the court itself. So as long as the copies that people are using can be traced back to this document, you should be in the clear. Note, of course, that IANAL. But this seems to check; anyone here know why it wouldn't?

  • Re:It's a cute stunt, but how useful is it really? (Score:3)

    by Accipiter ( 8228 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @04:50PM (#1188657)
    If we're ever at the point where transcribing the code from a frame-by-frame playback of the video is the only way to transfer the code, we'll be in really big trouble, and DeCSS will be the least of our problems.

    This isn't a matter of practical use. This is more of a protest move. They don't honestly think people will transcribe the code from the TV set. This is just something to grab attention, and send a big "Fu*k you" to the Powers-that-be which tried to censor the code.

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • It's a cute stunt, but how useful is it really? (Score:3)

    by Silver A ( 13776 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @03:12PM (#1188658)
    Broadcasting this on TV is a cute stunt, but doesn't seem like it would be that terribly useful. There are already plenty of places where the DeCSS code is kept, it can be redistributed through Usenet, [slashdot.org] and there are probably going to be places where it remains legal, no matter how much the RIAA bribes^H^H^H^H^H^Hlobbies governments. If we're ever at the point where transcribing the code from a frame-by-frame playback of the video is the only way to transfer the code, we'll be in really big trouble, and DeCSS will be the least of our problems.

    The primary value of this stunt is in pointing out inconsistencies in the Oz copyright laws. Unfortunately, those inconsistencies are likely to be resolved in a restrictive direction.

  • Subliminal messages (Score:3)

    by Gumpy ( 29977 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @03:01PM (#1188659) Homepage
    Once we've been "programmed" with code all we'll need is "LaserVision" to read the DVDs and we can just decode it ourselves! :)

    mmmmm..... Shiny flashy thing....
  • Didn't you learn your lesson from Max Headroom [maxheadroom.com]? Remember the BlipVerts [uiuc.edu]????

    Everyone knows that 12 frames per second is wayyyyy too much information for our tiny little brains. Watching all that data stream by in such a short amount of time will make you blow up!

    My God, this will be much worse then that Pokemon episode which made all those Japanese children go into seizures and convlulsions [demon.co.uk].

  • I'm sorry, but I just don't get it (Score:3)

    by Denor ( 89982 ) <denor@yahoo.com> on Monday March 20, 2000 @03:30PM (#1188661) Homepage
    I mean, I'm in favor of people getting source code out every possible way, but I just don't understand this particular method of distribution.
    It seems a bit of overkill for a Cascading Style Sheet stripper [slashdot.org], after all.

  • Re:why even play it (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20, 2000 @05:17PM (#1188662)
    You seem to have missed the fact that 2600 Australia isn't legally associated with 2600 Magazine in New York or personally with Emmanuel Goldstein (aka Eric Corley). There is no law in Australia against use, distribution, manufacturing of DeCSS. The MPAA flew a lawyer down to Canberra two weeks ago to the Federal Attorney General about getting some changes made to copyright laws but even assuming the proposed Digital Agenda Bill soon to go through parliament goes through unchanged, Australians will be able to use DeCSS - it's just that no .au companies will be able to distribute it (until the MPAA sends some flunkies down here to start seeking injunctions). And anyway, if we run into broadcast issues on the station we have permission from, we'll take it elsewhere and kick up a 2600-sized stink about it. -Anonymous 2600 Australia Flunky

  • Can They Block It? (Score:4)

    by ewhac ( 5844 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @03:04PM (#1188663) Homepage Journal

    I'm sure DVD CCA has accomplices all over the world. One of the problems of television (centralized broadcast model) is that it's too easy to lean on one or two people whose first duty is to the bottom line -- not to "journalistic or editorial integrity" -- and arrange to get Undesireable Material to never air. CBS caved to Big Tobacco, so I see no reason why an Australian TV station should be more willing to stand up to the entertainment conglomerate.

    If I have been in their shoes, I would have kept it a secret until the ad was already in rotation.

    Schwab

  • Great! (Score:4)

    by technos ( 73414 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @04:36PM (#1188664) Homepage Journal
    Everyone seems to complain that this isn't an effective way of getting the point across. It is! Every 'innocent' that sees it is going to see the 2600 URL splashed across the last few seconds of the spot, say to him/herself 'What the hell was that? Must be some computer thingie.' and promptly ask the well-informed geek down the street. He/she'll be able to get the message across far more effectivly than the fifteen seconds of airtime they could afford could ever hope..

    Mad props to the Aussie hacks! Stealing the mindshare of Mom and Pop Glassteat!!

  • Does the MPAA still care about this? (Score:5)

    by heroine ( 1220 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @03:30PM (#1188665) Homepage
    One of the points in their 1999 injunctions was that since they acted within 2 months of deCSS it warranted the court's upholding of their injunctions. Today we see nothing in the news about the MPAA banning deCSS nor do we see any more states filing injunctions. It's as if the public has lost interest in it. On the other hand, computer DVD drives are twice as expensive as they were before deCSS and most manufacturers appear to have suspended DVD-ROM production. Perhaps the MPAA has taken action in more subtle ways. It's much cheaper to get an appliance for playback only than a DVD-ROM which can copy them on a computer where 6 months ago the DVD-ROM was a steal.

  • A little more info.... (Score:5)

    by Augury ( 112816 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @03:38PM (#1188666)
    From what I've heard from the Australian 2600 mailing list [2600.org.au], the broadcast will be about 15 seconds long, and spaced such that each frame is easily captured on a standard video cassette, and can be re-viewed page by page using frame-by-frame advance.

    The guy who's setting it up has actually put a fair amount of thought into it, and the DeCSS won't be the only thing that is broadcast. From what I remember, he intends to broadcast a number of other 'supressed' images or texts in the 15 second slot.

    Also from memory, he's organising a local mob to do a little music to run over it, and he'll be flashing the 2600 web address at the end.

    For all of those who are already asking 'but isn't this pointless, everyone already has DeCSS?', the point is not to distribute DeCSS, but to demonstrate that censorship of items such as DeCSS leads only to more and more widespread distribution, even to the point of datacasting it across Australian television at 3am.

    Oh, and he got the slot for free ;)

    B.

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