Ted Smith wrote:
On Sat, 2009-01-24 at 13:25 +0100, Sam Geeraerts wrote:
Ted Smith wrote:
Well, don't worry -- to my knowledge, DeCSS is illegal in the US as
well. :) However, unlike Singapore (I can't speak for Singapore), it
almost certainly isn't enforced, and is safe to install and use.
If you think it's rather unjust for a "free" country to ban a piece of
software, you should stop buying encrypted DVD's, and write your
congresspeople to tell them not to support the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act, the law that makes tools like DeCSS criminal. They will
probably ignore you, because the money they get from the MPAA (Motion
Picture Association of America) is far more than that they could get
from you, but hopefully if enough people voice their concern over this
truly orwellian law, it will be overturned.
Although DeCSS isn't illegal in Belgium, I decided to stop buying
encrypted DVDs. At the time I was collecting all of Star Trek (except
Enterprise), secondhand because I already felt uncomfortable about
companies making a profit off of DRM'ed media. So now I'm about a
quarter short of the complete series. I guess those missing seasons will
have to wait until DRM will be abolished.
I also stopped buying CD's partly because it's hard to know for sure if
there is any copy protection crap on them. And because of Sony's root
kit of course.
Do you happen to know of a list of DVDs that are not encrypted (and
region code free)? Even though there's still the issue of patented
formats, I like to buy those DVDs to show my support for the
creator/distributor's dismissal of DRM. So far I have Revolution OS,
Elephants Dream and Big Buck Bunny.
Sorry, I actually don't know of any. I try not to give money to the
MPAA, so when I do watch movies it's typically on TV. I very rarely buy
CD's as well, mostly because there are no stores around me that have any
of the types of music I want.
However, I think buying CD's would be safe, as they're pretty easy to
rip, and no rootkit could run on GNU/Linux. Are CD's encrypted in the
same sense that DVD's are?
Copy protection on CD's is not a form of encryption because that
wouldn't work with regular CD players. It's usually accomplished by
introducing errors in the CD. Most stand-alone CD players aren't very
picky and ignore the errors. Computer CD drives also have to read data
discs, for which error correction is a lot more important. So they are a
lot more sensitive to errors. Depending on the kind of copy protection
and the drive the consequences range from nothing to bricking the drive.
More and more regular CD players are actually CD drives (e.g. in cars)
so this problem is not limited to pc's.
Anyway, it's about the principle of the matter. A rootkit would probably
be targeted to Windows, but it would still be an attempt to attack my
computer. I know that some copy protection mechanisms have a warning for
them somewhere on the case or lack the CD-DA logo. Often those are only
visible after you open the case, which you are not allowed to do in many
stores and obviously can't do while shopping online. I'm pretty sure
that it's not always made clear that a CD is copy protected, even with
full access to the case. So I will only buy CD's anymore with an
explicit notice on them saying that they are not copy protected.
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