[9079] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
RE: Effective and ineffective technological measures
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Trei, Peter)
Mon Jul 30 14:38:37 2001
Message-ID: <F504A8CEE925D411AF4A00508B8BE90A01E90887@exna07.securitydynamics.com>
From: "Trei, Peter" <ptrei@rsasecurity.com>
To: cryptography@wasabisystems.com,
"'Alan Barrett'" <apb@cequrux.com>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2001 11:22:30 -0400
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
> ----------
> From: Alan Barrett[SMTP:apb@cequrux.com]
>
>
> The DMCA said:
> > 1201(a)(1)(A):
> > No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively
> > controls access to a work protected under this title.
>
> What does "effectively" mean here?
>
> If it has its plain english meaning, then one could argue that ROT13,
> CSS (and anything else that can easily be broken) are *ineffective*
> technological measures, so circumventing them is not prohibited by this
> clause. Distinguishing effective measures from ineffective measures
> might reduce to measuring the resources required to break them.
>
> Or does the clause really mean "No person shall circumvent a
> technological measure that *purports to control* access to a work
> protected under this title"?
>
> --apb (Alan Barrett)
>
Take a look at Sklyarov's presentation:
http://www.treachery.net/~jdyson/ebooks/
and especially
http://www.treachery.net/~jdyson/ebooks/slide11.html
The listed company allegedly puts ROT13 in a dongle,
and then encrypts documents for $3000 a pop.
[In fairness, I can't confirm this from their own website,
and I suspect that they are just 'protecting' their own
investor reports].
....but read the whole Sklyarov presentation - this is
not the most fraudulent form of 'protection' being
foisted on naive e-publishers.
Peter Trei
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