Re: Office of Hollywood Security, HollSec

2002-10-28 Thread David Howe
at Saturday, October 26, 2002 1:18 AM, Tim May [EMAIL PROTECTED] was seen
to say:
 Yes, but check very carefully whether one is in violation of the
 anti-hacking laws (viz. DMCA). By some readings of the laws, merely
 trying to break a cipher is ipso fact a violation.
IIRC, you can't be arrested for cracking a cypher unless that cypher is
in use to protect a copyrighted work




Office of Hollywood Security, HollSec

2002-10-25 Thread Tim May
On Friday, October 25, 2002, at 10:53  AM, David Howe wrote:


at Friday, October 25, 2002 6:22 PM, bear [EMAIL PROTECTED] was seen to
say:

The implication is that they have a hard problem in their
bioscience application, which they have recast as a cipher.

The temptation is to break it, *tell* them you have broken it (and 
offer
to break any messages they encrypt in it just to demonstrate) but dont'
tell them how you did it.
That would probably be even more fustrating for them than the problem
was :)


(This post applies mainly in the U.S. The U.K. may be different.)

Yes, but check very carefully whether one is in violation of the 
anti-hacking laws (viz. DMCA). By some readings of the laws, merely 
trying to break a cipher is ipso fact a violation.

(And by arguments that are admittedly more of a reach, not telling 
them how could be interpreted by some lawyers and courts as extortion.)

Such is our legal system now that the Bill of Rights has been 
eviscerated in the name of the Office of Hollywood Security, HollSec.


--Tim May
They played all kinds of games, kept the House in session all night, 
and it was a very complicated bill. Maybe a handful of staffers 
actually read it, but the bill definitely was not available to members 
before the vote. --Rep. Ron Paul, TX, on how few Congresscritters saw 
the USA-PATRIOT Bill before voting overwhelmingly to impose a police 
state