From owner-freebsd-chat Thu May 16 12:32:11 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from albatross.prod.itd.earthlink.net (albatross.mail.pas.earthlink.net [207.217.120.120]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4A31937B400 for ; Thu, 16 May 2002 12:32:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pool0236.cvx22-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net ([209.179.198.236] helo=mindspring.com) by albatross.prod.itd.earthlink.net with esmtp (Exim 3.33 #2) id 178QyW-00009I-00; Thu, 16 May 2002 12:31:45 -0700 Message-ID: <3CE408FB.886CAD1C@mindspring.com> Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 12:31:07 -0700 From: Terry Lambert X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en]C-CCK-MCD {Sony} (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Rahul Siddharthan Cc: Mike Meyer , Nils Holland , freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: The road ahead? References: <20020516004909.A9808@daemon.tisys.org> <15586.61471.456290.764885@guru.mired.org> <20020515211922.J1282@darkstar.gte.net> <3CE34A8B.7D999E2C@mindspring.com> <20020516091031.A2259@daemon.tisys.org> <15587.56669.382241.766052@guru.mired.org> <20020516192546.B8944@daemon.tisys.org> <20020516193049.G79514@lpt.ens.fr> <15587.65524.899611.798267@guru.mired.org> <20020516210154.L79514@lpt.ens.fr> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Rahul Siddharthan wrote: > > > That's exactly what the DMCA is about. > > > > Half right. The DMCA proper doesn't have the hardware requirement on > > the computer industry, nor does it make it illegal to break the > > encryption even if you don't violate the copyright. > > I'm not sure about private use, but it *does* forbid you to tell > people how you break encryption, and it *does* outlaw devices which > let you break the encryption, regardless of intent. That's exactly > what both the DeCSS and the Sklyarov cases were about -- both DeCSS > and Elcomsoft's program have legitimate uses but that doesn't matter > under the DMCA. It's an exact analogy to the knife example above. I like that interpretation; it makes general purpose computers illegal, since they are devices which allow you to break encryption. Perhaps we can get algebra outlawed, as well, being as knowledge of it is a component of such a device... -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message