Ed Gerck <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Maybe it's time to put sanity back into the DMCA crying. > > In the infamous case of Microsoft vs. Stacker many years ago, when MS > was found guilty of using Stacker's code in a MS product, Stacker was > nonetheless found guilty of proving it by reverse engineering -- in a > notion similar to trespassing.
Nitpick: according to the meager references I could find, the counterclaim Microsoft won was that Stac had reverse engineered DOS to find the undocumented system calls used in the original Stacker product. Significant point: both the Stac suit and the Microsoft counterlcaim were civil actions. The DMCA makes "circumvention of technological measures" for financial gain or competive advantage a *criminal* offense. This is a big difference. Furthermore, the DMCA prohibition of "circumvention of technological measures" is quite broad, applying to far more than classic reverse engineering (for example, Felten et al., where all Felten's group had access to were the results of an "oracle" indicating whether the "watermark" was still detectable). -- Dan Riley [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wilson Lab, Cornell University <URL:http://www.lns.cornell.edu/~dsr/> "A new life awaits you in the off-world colonies" --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
