Re: [OT] DMCA loop hole

[Joshua Jore]

You know, I've heard this arguement a few times in various contexts and
it's bothered me everytime. If a virus was designed with specific
properties that hinder unauthorized copyright infringement then attempts
to circumvent the limitations would be an example of DMCA circumvention.

This misses the whole point that in order to deliver the second and more
important part of the virus requires the author to self-identify to the
US federal government and somehow get them to prosecute the offender. Now
at this point, how many of these authors aren't going to be immediately
charged with something heinous for the act of writting the offensive thing
in the first place? And do you seriously think you're going to convince
Ashcroft and company to prosecute Symantec for getting rid of a virus even
if it is DMCA 'protected'?

GAAAAA!

Josh

On Wed, 1 Aug 2001, Anton Altaparmakov wrote:

> On Wed, 1 Aug 2001, Helge Hafting wrote:
> > James Simmons wrote:
> > > Sorry this is off topic but this was way to good :-)
> > >
> > >           Virus writers can use the DMCA in a perverse way. Because
> > >    computer viruses are programs, they can be copyrighted just like a
> > >    book, song, or movie. If a virus writer were to use encryption to hide
> > >    the code of a virus, an anti-virus company could be forbidden by the
> > >    DMCA to see how the virus works without first getting the permission
> > >    of the virus writer. If they didn't, a virus writer could sue the
> > >    anti-virus company under the DMCA!
> >
> > They'd still be able to scan for it though - detecting the encrypted
> > string or the decryption algorithm.
>
> You just add a polymorphic decryption / encryption engine where you change
> the encryption key every time you encrypt it. Also, morph the decription
> code itself and you can't scan for it that easily without reverse
> engineering it... For an added twist, encrypt it twice and put only a
> minimal part of the first decryption algorithm in the unencrypted part of
> the virus. Add to that some disassembler breaking code and you are off...
> Good that most viruses these days are written in Visual Basic rather than
> assembler so they can't do any of that... (-:
>
> > What if I copyright & encrypt a DeCSS program?  Nobody can sue
> > because they don't have permission to decrypt, and therefore
> > cannot prove that it actually _is_ a decss algorithm? :-)
>
> True, but if the program is actually useful in that people can use it to
> do DeCSS like things then they would know it's a DeCSS like program
> without seing the code and such a program would fall under DMCA. An
> encrypted program which doesn't do anything unless you decrypt it by some
> other program would not be very useful (ZIP/RAR/whatever can encrypt,
> too...) but nobody could sue you for writing it either. (-;
>
> IANAL, etc,
>
> 	Anton (-:
>
> --
> Anton Altaparmakov <aia21 at cam.ac.uk> (replace at with @)
> Linux NTFS maintainer / WWW: http://linux-ntfs.sf.net/
> ICQ: 8561279 / WWW: http://www-stu.christs.cam.ac.uk/~aia21/
>
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