DeepLinks Archives, November 2006
Noteworthy news from around the internet.
Major Ohio County Reconsiders E-Voting
Posted by Derek SlaterAfter another election with flawed touch-screen electronic voting machines, Cuyahoga County, Ohio may say enough is enough. The AP reports:
"The commissioners of the state's most populous county are considering getting rid of touch-screen voting machines and putting in a new system for the presidential election in 2008.
"Cuyahoga County spent $14 million on the Nov. 7 election and cannot afford to spend that much every time voters go to the polls, especially the high volume that a presidential race generates, commissioners Tim Hagan and Jimmy Dimora said."
More and more, election officials and voters are starting to see the pitfalls of e-voting and pursue real reform. Recently, EFF and a coalition of voting integrity groups, representing Sarasota County voters, filed suit in state court in Tallahassee asking for a re-vote in Florida's 13th congressional district. Learn more about the suit here.
In Memoriam: Peter Junger, Digital Freedom Fighter
Posted by John GilmoreLast week, digital freedom fighter Peter Junger passed away. Peter was a truly pioneering legal thinker on digital issues, and his impact was felt far outside the walls of academia. In particular, we all owe him a debt of gratitude for challenging the government's draconian restrictions on encryption and helping to establish that code is speech protected by the First Amendment.
Today, strong encryption is taken for granted, whether it's keeping snoops out of your Internet communications, protecting your credit card number when you shop online, or otherwise securing your privacy. But when Peter filed his lawsuit a decade ago, export controls treated encryption as a dangerous weapon; in turn, Peter and other researchers who wanted to publish encryption code were akin to arms dealers. In 2000, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals held that these restrictions demanded scrutiny under the First Amendment. At the time, EFF was challenging the export controls in Bernstein v. US, and we also supported Peter in his efforts.
In Junger v. Daley and beyond, Peter was fearless. His contributions to the fight for digital freedom will be sorely missed and forever celebrated.
For anyone who would like to make a donation in Peter's name, please send your donation to the Cleveland Buddhist Temple, 1573 East 214th St., Euclid, Ohio 44117.
News.com writer Declan McCullagh posted some of his own memories here.
Stealing Fair Use, Selling It Back to You
Posted by Fred von Lohmann"Apparently, Hollywood believes that you should have to re-purchase all your DVD movies a second time if you want to watch them on your iPod." That's what I said last week, commenting on the Paramount v. Load-N-Go lawsuit, in which Hollywood studios claimed that it is illegal to rip a DVD to put on a personal video player (PVP), even if you own the DVD.
Well, this week the other shoe dropped. According to an article in the New York Times:
Customers who buy the physical DVD of Warner Brothers' "Superman Returns" in a Wal-Mart store will have the option of downloading a digital copy of the film to their portable devices for $1.97, personal computer for $2.97, or both for $3.97.
So you buy the DVD, and if you want a copy on your PVP or computer, you have to pay a second time. Despite the fact that you bought the DVD, and you have a DVD drive in your computer that is perfectly capable of making a personal-use copy. Imagine if the record labels offered you this "deal" for every CD you bought -- pay us a few dollars extra, and you can have a copy for your iPod. And a few more dollars, if you want a copy on your computer, too! As LA Times reporter Jon Healey puts it in his blog: "So from the perspective of the studios and federal officials, consumers have to pay for the privilege of doing the sorts of things with DVDs that they're accustomed to doing with CDs (and LPs and cassettes)."
This latest bitter fruit from Hollywood is brought to you by the DMCA, which treats "protected" content (like the encrypted video on DVDs), differently from "unprotected" content (like every audio and video media format introduced before 1996). Thanks to the DMCA, Hollywood believes fair use personal-use copies simply do not exist when it comes to DVDs.
Given that the Copyright Office has refused [PDF, see p. 71-72] to recognize any DMCA exemption for space-shifting, claiming that putting a DVD you own on your iPod "is either infringing, or, even if it were noninfringing, would be merely a convenience," (excuse me, Copyright Office, that's a decision for a court to make) the ball is now in Congress' court. Let's hope Congressman Rick Boucher is listening and will reintroduce his DMCA reform bill first thing next year.
Take Action: San Francisco Holding Critical Public Mtgs on Video Surveillance Next Week
Posted by Derek SlaterSan Francisco's public video surveillance program has expanded from two cameras to over 100 in just over a year. This program may spy on even more places that ordinary people live, work, and walk every day -- unless city residents make their voices heard now and oppose this ineffective, expensive, and privacy-invasive program.
Next week, the city will hold two public meetings regarding new cameras at 16th and Mission Sts:
- December 4: Mission Neighborhood Community Meeting hosted by Supervisor Chris Daly at 6 PM at the Marshall Elementary School cafeteria at 1575 15th Street (15th and Capp).
- December 6: San Francisco Police Commission meeting at 5:30 p.m. at San Francisco City Hall, Room 400, San Francisco, California.
If you're a city resident, it's critical that you attend these meetings and take a stand against pervasive video surveillance. If you can't attend, send an email (sfpd.commission@sfgov.org) or call (415-553-1667) the Police
Commission and let them know you oppose implementation of the cameras.
For more information about the problems posed by these cameras, visit the ACLU of Northern California's excellent resource page.
miniLinks for 2006-11-29
Posted by Danny O'Brien
- Justice Department Watchdog to Probe its Role in Warrantless Surveillance
"After conducting initial inquiries into the program, we
have decided to open a program review that will examine the
department's controls and use of information related to the
program."
- Browser Caches Aren't Possession, Says Ninth Circuit
If you don't know an image is there, you can't possess it.
- Second Life, Copybot, and the Takedown Gun
Ed Felten proposes a unique solution to copying problems in
the virtual world: a gun that shoots law, not bullets.
- Europe's Privacy Czars Rule Against SWIFT
The Belgian financial clearinghouse should not have
responded to US requests to hand over financial data.
- Will Executive Hubris Lead to Problems for DoJ in Court?
VP Cheney makes remarkably broad arguments to Federalist
Society about wartime powers.
- Copyright Levies Changing Across World
Europe is rethinking the idea of blanket levies on media.
- Newsweek on the Anti-DRM Movement
"In six years of tracking piracy, we've never seen a
statistical difference in piracy of a popular song that was
released without DRM and a popular song that was released
with DRM," says Eric Garland, CEO of the market research
firm BigChampagne.
The Gifts that Keep on Giving (and Sharing, and Reusing - and Campaigning)
Posted by Danny O'BrienMake magazine's Open
Source Gift Guide is an eye-opening collection of the products and services
that aid your freedom to tinker, share, improve and learn seriously. Some of
the goods offered are more aspirational than practical holiday gifts: you'll be hard
put to track down the OpenMako unrestricted
GSM phone, or Chumby, Bunnie
Huang and co's prototype hackable alarm clock, in time for Christmas. But popular open
products from Neuros, Magnatune's DRM-free FLAC audio, the open
source MediaPortal Windows media
center, and Rockbox, the free
firmware replacement for most MP3 players, show just how vibrant a market can
be when it casts off DRM shackles and sets about re-asserting user control.
And then there's Make's highly sensible suggestion of a $100 donation to the EFF - the perfect gift for
those few friends of yours who aren't already members.
New DMCA Exemptions Granted
Posted by Fred von LohmannThe Copyright Office/Library of Congress today issued its determination in the latest triennial DMCA exemption rule-making. Six exemptions were granted, the largest number so far.
Persons making noninfringing uses of the following six classes of works will not be subject to the prohibition against circumventing access controls (17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1)) during the next three years.
1. Audiovisual works included in the educational library of a college or university's film or media studies department, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of making compilations of portions of those works for educational use in the classroom by media studies or film professors.
2. Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and that require the original media or hardware as a condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.
3. Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete. A dongle shall be considered obsolete if it is no longer manufactured or if a replacement or repair is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.
4. Literary works distributed in ebook format when all existing ebook editions of the work (including digital text editions made available by authorized entities) contain access controls that prevent the enabling either of the book's read-aloud function or of screen readers that render the text into a specialized format.
5. Computer programs in the form of firmware that enable wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telephone communication network, when circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of lawfully connecting to a wireless telephone communication network.
6. Sound recordings, and audiovisual works associated with those sound recordings, distributed in compact disc format and protected by technological protection measures that control access to lawfully purchased works and create or exploit security flaws or vulnerabilities that compromise the security of personal computers, when circumvention is accomplished solely for the purpose of good faith testing, investigating, or correcting such security flaws or vulnerabilities.
Unfortunately, just as we predicted, all the proposed exemptions that would benefit consumers were denied (space-shifting, region coding, backing up DVDs). So, while we're pleased that film professors, archivists, cellphone recyclers, and security researchers were able to successfully navigate the exemption process, it appears that digital consumers still have no choice but to get Congress to amend the DMCA. We look forward to Rep. Rick Boucher reintroducing his DMCA reform bill, H.R. 1201, in the new Congress next year.
British RFID Passports Easily Hacked
Posted by Hugh D'AndradeNew passports issued in the UK contain Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips, supposedly for purposes of increased security. But a report in the British newspaper The Guardian found the passports surprisingly easy to read and copy. Using a device purchased for £250, a Guardian reporter was able to view and copy information from several of the new passports.
Although the new passports use a strong crypto algorithm to protect their biometric data, the encryption key is easy to steal. As the ICAO's website reveals, the key consists of the passport number, the holder's date of birth, and the expiration date.
Obtain those details — or even brute force them (the University of Cambridge's Ross Anderson says the RFID's do not lock themselves after even high numbers of repeated attempts) — and you can read out enough data to create a cloned passport.
Phil Booth, from the organization NO2ID, took part in the newspaper's investigation. "This is simply not supposed to happen," says Booth. "This could provide a bonanza for counterfeiters because drawing the information from the chip, complete with the digital signature it contains, could result in a passport being passed off as the real article. You could make a perfect clone of the passport."
Since a reader can potentially scan a passport from as much as 30cm away, a passport could be read and cloned without the passport ever leaving the victim's pocket.
Click here for more information on EFF's work to prevent RFID tags in ID cards and elsewhere.
Petition Urging Smithsonian Sunshine
Posted by Fred von LohmannBack in April 2006, it came to light that the Smithsonian Institution had signed an exclusive 30-year deal with Showtime to create a new cable channel. The catch? It effectively would give Showtime exclusive access to the Smithsonian collections for certain uses. Read our previous posts (1, 2, 3) for more about why this represents a serious threat to the public domain materials contained in the priceless Smithsonian collections.
Now the Smithsonian is urging the Congressional committees that oversee it to simply forget about the controversy. Apparently, Smithsonian representatives are telling Congress that the Showtime contract "has to date created no problems" and "there is no further opposition." This is particularly outrageous in light of the fact that the General Accounting Office is currently finalizing a report about the Showtime deal. Until the report comes out, it is premature to let the Smithsonian off the hook.
Fortunately, Carl Malamud has assembled an open letter to the relevant members of Congress. Please consider adding your name and let Congress know that you haven't forgotten this issue, and that sunshine is still needed.
You have until November 25 (this Saturday) to sign the letter before it is delivered to Congress.
Victory in Barrett v. Rosenthal Case
Posted by Kurt OpsahlToday the California Supreme Court reversed the dangerous Court of Appeals ruling in the Barrett v. Rosenthal case, upholding the strong protections of Section 230 of the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996. Section 230 protects Internet publishers from being held liable for allegedly harmful comments written by others. Prior attempts to eliminate the protections created by Section 230 had almost universally been rejected, until a California Court of Appeals radically reinterpreted the statute to allow lawsuits against non-authors. The Supreme Court reversed:
We conclude that section 230 prohibits 'distributor' liability for Internet publications. We further hold that section 230(c)(1) immunizes individual 'users' of interactive computer services, and that no practical or principled distinction can be drawn between active and passive use. Accordingly, we reverse the Court of Appeal's judgment.
We acknowledge that recognizing broad immunity for defamatory republications on the Internet has some troubling consequences. Until Congress chooses to revise the settled law in this area, however, plaintiffs who contend they were defamed in an Internet posting may only seek recovery from the original source of the statement.
EFF and ACLU submitted an amicus brief in the case.
