Pro Bono Geek

News from the hacker community… the digital rights management (DRM) technology that protects HD-DVD and Blu-Ray high definition video discs has been broken. That’s really not news as it was an inevitability.

The Slashdot commentary on this was interesting and pointed out something I hadn’t thought of before. I will refrain from quoting the whole comment and instead paraphrase: it is impossible to secure a message when the recipient and the attacker are the same person. And now you are asking, what does that mean?

Okay, quick cryptography lesson from someone who only understands the basic. Assume two people (Bob and Alice) who want to send communication between eachother privately. In order for this communication to occur they must use one of several encryption methodologies. In general, this is done by both Bob and Alice knowing a “secret” and using that secret to encrypt and decrypt the message. Now, a third person (Charles) wants to listen in, but can’t because he doesn’t know the secret. Works pretty well, for the most part.

Now with DRM, the paradigm is different. Alice (played by the record label or movie studio) wants to send a message to Bob (played by you and I) that he can only listen/watch in certain circumstances. But Bob also wants to watch his DVD in a non-authorized fashion (say, with a Linux box)… which means Bob has a dual identity. He is both Bob and Charles. Any secret Bob knows, Charles knows… and now the gig is up. It may be that Bob doesn’t know what the secret is, exactly, that he knows, but it is only a matter of time before smart people figure it out. That’s what happened with DVDs several years ago, and that’s what happened with the next generation systems.

But this is not what I want to talk about. The title of this post is “They Knew it Was Going to Be Easy” because the makers of DRM knew everything I just said above. They are not, contrary to the opining of the Slashdot crowd, stupid. In fact, they knew this so well that they got a law passed to criminalize the activity… a little something known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. §1201(A) reads:

No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title

Which makes the breaking of DRM a against the law… even if the DRM is really stupid.

So yes, it is easy… but so is bopping someone on the nose. Doesn’t take anything more than one of my fists and decent aim. Which is why we pass laws in the first place, to create artificial incentives which conform behavior in a particular manner as established by the legislative process (I love this link!). The media companies said they wanted to keep pirates from breaking into their stuff, they recognized it couldn’t be done with technology alone, so they appealed to the legislature and got the needed protection.

Which is to say… they knew it was going to be easy.

probonogeek Law

I thought I would share a small observation regarding the debate over troop funding with regards to the Iraq war. A lot has been said over whether the Congress should exercise its authority over the “purse” to bring the troops home, with every presidential candidate or wannabe making some sort of statement. Pretty much every politician is against it, and maybe for good reason… such a vote could easily be portrayed as abandoning the troops.

But that’s not what this post is about, this post is about the mechanics of such a vote. First stop is the Constitution, Article I, Section 8 which lists off the Enumerated Powers of Congress. Among them is the following.

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

Which is very significant.

For the most part the Federal Government is funded on an annual basis through a set of 13 appropriations bills. The government ceases to function without those bills, such as the infamous government shutdown when the House Republicans and President Clinton could not agree on a budget. Now, if a hypothetical Congress truly wanted to write a hypothetical President a blank check for a war, they could just appropriate a hundred billion, gazillion dollars to be spent over the next 100 years and be done with it… but thanks to the clause quoted above, they are Constitutionally barred from doing so. They must affirmatively vote to fund the war a least once every two years.

Which brings us back to Iraq. There will be a new Defense Appropriation bill this year (and thanks to the Iraq Study Group Report, that bill will include the cost of the war, instead of a separate emergency appropriations bill of the past few years). Without this bill the war ends… period, end of story.

I remember an interview committee I once was part of where we reviewed perspective candidates for a lobbying position. The outgoing lobbyist asked one of the candidates, “what’s the easiest thing to do in the legislature?” to which the candidate correctly responded: kill a bill.

See, there is only one way to pass a bill through Congress, but there are about a thousand ways to not pass it. And here’s a kicker… even if the Senate, its ranks bursting with presidential contenders, votes to fund the war, the House can refuse to do so, and that’s the ball game. Even a single Senator can filibuster (absent a Budget Resolution) the entire war if he wanted to; requiring a full 60 Senators to vote to fund the war.

Here’s the last critical bit on mechanics. A failure to act is not subject to the presidential veto. He can yell and scream all he wants, but the President lacks the Constitutional authority to compell legislative action. He can’t even dismiss the legislature and call new elections, which is a power generally held by most other executive figures in the world.

In the end of the day, the United States Congress really does hold all the cards.

probonogeek Politics

Buried in a story about the shift of 7 GOP Senators to now back the war resolution debate in the Washington Post, having earlier voted to block the debate, is this gem of a quote. I reproduce it without alteration from the Post’s article.

A top Pentagon leader weighed in yesterday on the war debate and appeared to undercut the argument advanced by the White House and many GOP lawmakers that a congressional debate challenging the Bush plan would hurt troop morale.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that the dialogue here in Washington strengthens our democracy. Period,” Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before the House Armed Services Committee. He added that potential enemies may take some comfort from the rancor but said they “don’t have a clue how democracy works.”

Fantastic! I really couldn’t have said it better myself, and I hope the Bush Administration was listening. It is our debate, and even our dissent, which makes us strong. If our enemies take this as a sign of weakness, they do so at their peril.

probonogeek Politics

I’ve got three different copyright stories, all within a 24 hour period. Clearly the world is beginning to take notice.

First up, the “creator” of the Electric Slide has issued a DMCA take down notice to YouTube for videos where the Electric Slide is being performed incorrectly. First, to silence all of those “the DMCA goes to far” folks (of which I am, arguably, one of… but not in this case), the DMCA is only involved here because YouTube has a chance to avoid contributory liability by taking down the material. The original poster of the material can then serve notice to YouTube that the material is not infringing, at which point YouTube must repost it. Then, YouTube having done its part, it’s up to the two parties to resolve the issue. The real issue here is one of basic copyright law.

Which presents an interesting question: can dance moves be copyrighted? The expert from the CNet article (Jason Schultz of the EFF) seems to pass this question off as if it’s a no-brainer. Just like a song, performing it without permission is a violation of the §106 of the Copyright Act. But I’m not convinced. To perform a dance I must follow a series of steps, also known as instructions. A series of instructions is generally referred to as a process… and processes, as a rule, are not copyrightable. They are not copyrightable because in this country we protect processes through the patent system. It’s very easy to state the rule: “patent ideas, copyright expression.” I could make the case that dance steps could be either, but by law it cannot be both.

That’s not even the most interesting question… see, the videos he wants taken down show the dance performed incorrectly. Which means that if it were patented, he would have no action (except, maybe, for this thing called the Doctrine of Equivalents, and I don’t want to talk about that). On the copyright front, there is no literal copying, so you get into a whole fair use thing. Not to mention, if the rights holder is saying “I grant a license to people to dance this correctly,” is there an implied license to dance it incorrectly?!

Next story, from the Washington Post, the GW Hatchet ran a story a few days ago which was picked up by the local TV station. Who in turn did not bother to credit the paper. They argue the idea of the story cannot be protected, thus they have no responsibility to attribute, much less seek permission. But, the Post reports the story used direct quotes from the college paper… that is copyright infringement. But putting that aside, I think the legal obsession with copyright has gone too far. It’s not a question of whether the paper is bound by law to attribute, but whether it was the right thing to do.

Lastly, Mikhail Gorbachev is appealing to Bill Gates to drop a criminal suit against a Russian school headmaster who is accused of using unlicensed copies of Windows in the school. Apparently former heads of state don’t have a lot to do these days. But it raises two interesting points. First, why are we talking criminal charges? Who was harmed in a way that requires punishment beyond restitution? Make the school pay, remove the software, whatever… but jail? Second, Microsoft is in a great position now to push out a marketing and political win. It agrees to give the school the pirated software, free of charge, and lets the guy off the hook. Now you’ve got another school district locked into the Microsoft hegemony and they get to make nice with the Nobel Peace Prize winner. What I don’t understand is why this issue is on Gorbachev’s radar. Is this the beginning of a larger campaign for my humane copyright laws?

probonogeek Law

Washington Post has a Q&A up that asks “When I log into my Internet provider’s Web-mail page, I don’t see the usual lock icon. Isn’t it dangerous to send a password over the Internet without encryption?” And proceeds to tell people to fear sites which don’t employ the little lock.

It’s true, sending passwords over the public lines in clear text is asking for trouble. But that doesn’t mean that the little lock is the only way to do it. In fact, that little lock costs a lot of money for websites to purchase (and repurchase, on an annual basis). But there are alternatives that are just as good. LegSim uses such a system, relying on basic cryptography and some intelligence. Just because a site doesn’t chose to buy into the SSL certificate racket doesn’t mean it can’t be trusted.

probonogeek LegSim, Technology

Learning and student government were great, but what I really enjoyed about college was the collection of brilliant people who, when they put their mind to it, were capable of nearly anything. Here’s a great example played out at Dartmouth.

probonogeek Personal

Big news coming out of the ASUW Student Senate these past weeks, resulting in numerous phone calls from people I haven’t heard from in some time. It was nice to talk to people, it wasn’t so nice to hear about the destructive path the ASUW seems to be on this year. I’ll withhold my commentary on some of these topics until after this Tuesday’s vote, but I did want to share some initial thoughts on a Daily article run this Friday.

Seems the UW Libertarian’s have decided to pull out of Senate after a vote to extend the conduct code off campus. I happen to agree with the Libertarian’s stance on this issue, although not to the extent of leaving the Senate. But in leaving the organization they chose to not just attack the vote, but the Senate itself. The Daily has the store with quotes. The following is a comment I posted to the story.

The Libertarians ought to look back into the ASUW history before it demands “a more democratic and less bureaucratic system.” Before the rise of the Senate, the only body capable of making decisions like these was the Board of Directors, a group of students chosen in a single election dominated by popularity contests, an annual battle between the students from greek row, the residence halls, and the ECC. Once elected the students sat in their offices, indifferent to student groups or interests not aligned with their own.

The changes to the Senate over the past five years have strengthened the institution, creating a more democratic forum. One not determined by a single high stakes election, rather, based on organizations of students who take the time to represent their individual and diverse constituencies.

As for bureaucracy… I suggest we consider the alternative. Bureaucracy is how we make things fair. Rules and regulations design to keep power in check. It is these rules that now have the Chair and Vice Chair under a microscope, and it is these rules which shows how the Libertarian Senator had abandoned his responsibilities through poor attendance. The alternative, a Senate without rules, would produce yet another unaccountable political body… and the ASUW already has one of those.

Leaving the Senate is a powerful message, and I certainly understand the Libertarians’ decision to do so based on the Student Conduct Code vote… but taking a sideswipe at the institution itself, just because you lost a political fight, is like burning down the restaurant because you didn’t like the food.

probonogeek Politics

I’ve been flirting with writing something about Iraq, especially after reading this op-ed by the National Security Adviser, Stephen Hadley. But I’m not going to do it. The whole situation is simply infuriating, and the only thing left to do is wait for this “new” strategy to go the ways of previous “new” strategies and then hope the Republicans bail on the President and the Democrats remember how to use the power of the purse. In the mean time, I would like to share a few thoughts on the upcoming Presidential primary season.

First, there has been much ado about the Democrats proposal to shift around the primary calendar. The big shift’s primary change is putting Nevada (home of the Senate Majority Leader, hmmm…) in between Iowa and New Hamshire. It’s not a bad idea on it’s own; western state, moderate, labor, lots of things the Democrats could use more of in picking its candidate (not to mention running the whole operation).

This, however, has upset a lot of other states who got passed over. Several states have threatened to push their primary forward as well, compressing the primary season even further. The Democratic Party has rules against this, of course. If a state holds its primary in violation of DNC rules, the party can disqualify the state’s delegates. This op-ed argues it should be against the law for the DNC to hold such power. While I agree with the idea that “party action” == “state action,” I also know that the party will have an easy time in court explaining why it has a compelling interest in organizing the primary schedule (easier for the candidates, historical tradition, etc), where it probably had less of a compelling interest in excluding blacks. So I don’t really think the law is going to help here.

What really gets me about the primary calendar is how Iowa (as the first) has been able to literally hijack the Presidency with regards to ethanol subsidies. The state has everything to gain from high subsidies, so I’m not surprised that their delegation pushes them with gusto. But the historical quirk that places Iowa at the front of the calendar should not allow them to blackmail presidential candidates.

So, when I hear that Florida and California, huge states with significant interests of their own, consider moving their primaries forward, I’m not the least surprised. If Iowa showed a willingness to select a candidate based on more then their own petty self-interest, then perhaps this wouldn’t be happening. Instead, the early states have shown a willingness to push their advantage to the absolute brink. And now, here we are… the brink. If California or Florida push their primaries up, Iowa will respond by scheduling even earlier. And then the race is on.

I wonder, in a race between a small agrarian state and a state whose economy is the 8th largest in the world, who is going to win?

probonogeek Politics

There is a new linux oriented website which I just learned of today called goodbye-microsoft.com. Aside from the likely Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution claim Microsoft has against the venture, I’ve got to say that I’m very impressed with what’s going on here.

The idea is simple. Using nothing more than a webbrowser and Windows, go to a website and download all the necessary bits to install Debian Linux onto a desktop. No optical discs necessary. Besides the obvious marketing value of such a website, it has tremendous functionality value for those of us with laptops.

See, more and more laptops these days are shipped without an optical disc drive. Or, if they have one, it connects via a strange PCMCIA card. Which means that it is very difficult to start the Linux install process (though not impossible). The process itself is nearly painless these days (in stark contrast to my first experience in 2000). But if you can’t get the damn thing started then you’ve got serious problems.

But now, thanks to this brilliant invention, it will be trivial to install Linux on my next laptop.

probonogeek Technology

With the 2006 elections less than three months behind us, the 2008 Presidential elections appear to be in full swing. I found this informative list in the New York Times that I felt was worth sharing to demonstrate just how strange the upcoming primary season is going to be. Here is the list, reproduced, for those who are too lazy to click.

Democratic Candidates
OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCED

ESTABLISHING EXPLORATORY COMMITTEES

WIDELY MENTIONED

Republican Candidates
OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCED

ESTABLISHING EXPLORATORY COMMITTEES

WIDELY MENTIONED

Assuming everyone runs (which is doubtful, but you never know) that means 11 Democrats and 12 Republicans. Talk about a crowded field!

probonogeek Politics