Tom Vogt wrote:
> Ed Gerck wrote:
> > I guess that there is no doubt that reverse engineering is illegal when the
> > software copyright owner so denies.
>
> I don't guess so. for example, norway has a law that allows
> reverse-engineering and explicitly says that this right can not be taken
> away by a contract, license, whatever. (relevant section of norwegian
> law is somewhere on my decss webpages - www.lemuria.org/DeCSS/)
I meant the US, as the case is in the US. However, it is interesting to know what
happens in other countries -- and it reinforces the idea that things like
"uniform dispute resolutions" do not work. The question here, however, would be
if the norwegian law also allows dissemination to the public of the results obtained by
reverse engineering when reverse engineering is denied in a contract?
> > Now, can we say that it is illegal for
> > a parent to shut off the TV when certain shows are aired? Or, to allow the
> > V-chip to block certain shows? Or, finally, to allow software to do it? Is using
> > the V-chip a defamation? No -- it is done inside one's own house. Why is
> > this different from the same parent using Cyberpatrol for the same objective
> > but in a computer -- and, look, the parent wants it.
>
> as someone said, the defamation might occur between cyberpatrol and the
> parent, because when the site gets blocked, the parent thinks it's a
> p0rn site. now imagine you were neighbors to the family mentioned whose
> site gets blocked. what would you think of them? "hey, our neighbors
> have a porn homepage. I wonder what they have there, pictures of their
> children being abused, maybe?" - now is that defamation or not?
I guess we may be going too far into legal "theories" here, because a defamation
case would have to be called by those neighbors -- who would sue that family,
rather than CyberPatrol. After all it was that family that commented
"hey, our neighbors have a porn homepage. I wonder what they have there,
pictures of their children being abused, maybe?"
> > The guys that reverse engineered CyberPatrol seemed to believe that
> > "security" can justify trespassing. I think we need to ponder about
> > the fallacy of it, as if the end could justify the means.
>
> I don't think they had any of these deep thoughts. they were just pissed
> that the software wouldn't tell them what it did.
I guess you are right -- I also had the same impression. But that is why I
think it is important to call attention to the fact that having a "knee jerk"
reaction is not the most effective to deal with it.
Suppose now those guys would have found out that CyberPatrol is
blocking sites that have no questionable content (according to
their published policy) -- as I guess was the case. Then, they could
have proven it by example. They could have published a list of harmless
sites blocked by CyberPatrol and they could have proved it by going to
the site and seeing that it was blocked. This could even have provided
some cause for defamation, if the blocked sites so interpreted. This
would have been more efficient -- and, IMO legal.
> I occasionally rip
> software apart for very similiar reasons, like finding out what it does,
> or how it does it. if curiosity is a crime, we should all go back and
> live in caves.
Eating is not a crime, but in many countries if you steal food because
you are hungry then it is a crime. The fallacy is to confuse the end
with the means. Curiosity as an end is not a crime, but stealing
to satisfy one's curiosity is.
Of course, software developers must weigh the odds of unwanted
copy and/or decompilation and devise some degree of protection --
otherwise the cost of development might not even be recuperated.
Copyright protection of software is one way, dongles is another,
reverse engineering restrictions another, and so on. Now, if
Microsoft reverses engineer code of a competitor (as it did, with
Stac -- 1994) and stealthly uses it in Microsoft's own product (as it
did, in its DoubleSpace product) ... then, is that also OK? Is that also
"curiosity"? Should that be allowed?
I guess not, also not in Norway.
Cheers,
Ed Gerck
