To all:
You want DeCSS software? Look at http://www.lemuria.org/DeCSS/
Regards
Gustav
Alan Mead wrote:
>
> At 04:05 PM 1/5/00 -0700, Philippe Moutarlier wrote:
> >
> >May I ask : who has the write to read a DVD ? This is getting VERY
> confusing !
>
> There's been a lot of press. I don't know the answer to your question,
> someone owns the rights to licence the DVD decryption technology and you
> would have to speak to them. I believe it's the old story that they want a
> lot of money and a NDA (i.e., you couldn't open your source).
>
> So here's my take on what happened: The (mostly US) entertainment industry
> is all bent out of shape about copyright violations (bootlegs) sold
> (mostly) outside the US and MP3's distributed on-line. They figure that if
> they were getting their usual cut of these products, they'd have millions
> more (i.e., that demand for these things would be inelastic even if the
> prices were much higher and thus that they are suffering tremendous
> opportunity costs--thefts in their view). So they reluctantly agreed on
> the DVD format because it was sold to them as having unbreakable encryption.
>
> This alleged unbreakable encryption was subject to at least two problems:
> First, it was possible (as is usually the case) for human error to leave a
> gaping back door. Second, to satisfy US munitions regulations regarding
> the export of decryption technology, fairly insecure 40-bit keys were
> involved.
>
> Ok, now the point is that you have to decrypt the DVD before you can view
> it. So any open source Linux viewer would violate the NDA required by the
> DVD folks to licence their decryption technology. Thus no one had made
> licensed Linux software for viewing DVD's because the licensing prevented
> you form opening your source.
>
> So maybe reason #1 above is unfair (what system is really secure against
> human failure?) but that's what happened. One of the legitimate licensees
> of the decryption technology failed to encrypt something. A group of Linux
> hackers discovered this and were able to infer not only that licensee's key
> but also a large number of the others (like 280 of 500). They published
> their open source software as DeCSS.
>
> (This point I'm unclear on: stories quote people in the know as saying that
> DVD rippers have been around for months... So I'm not sure what made DeCSS
> special? Maybe the rippers just ripped but did not decrypt?)
>
> Anyway, the people who thought that DVD was unbreakable apparently "reeled"
> when they found out that the unbreakable decryption had been compromised
> and that they could suffer lots more "theft". So they did a lot of things
> that the Linux community thought were dumb. Like sending threatening
> letters to websites that linked to websites that actually contained the
> DeCSS software. And suing a lot of people. I believe the DeCSS authors
> were all non-US citizens so it's not clear to me whether or how they are
> involved in the suits; but I thought they were.
>
> Meanwhile, I believe the US passed a law that makes it illegal to create
> mechanisms to bypass protections against copyright abuse. There are some
> exceptions and I think the law is not in force yet while some committee
> works out the details of those exceptions. But this law may be used now or
> later against any sort of Linux-based DVD viewer. We'll see what the
> future brings but I wouldn't bet on Linux DVD anytime soon (at least not in
> the US).
>
> You can read the original stories on sites like www.linuxtoday.com.
> ---
> Alan D. Mead / Research Scientist / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Institute for Personality and Ability Testing
> 1801 Woodfield Dr / Savoy IL 61874 USA
> 217-352-4739 (v) / 217-352-9674 (f)
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