Press

[dlv@bwalk.dm.com (Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM)]

Disgusted with the censorous antics of Declan the Lying Forger, some of us may
be forgetting there are still some good journalists out there.

Today's newsday has an excellent article by Gail Dutton, reporting from the
AAAS's Conference ion Anoynmous Communications on the Internet.  She managed
to identify all the important issues in a ways that a layperson can understand,
without oversimplifying; presented different points of view, including her
own without editorializing and/or pushing her opinions as facts. I'm not
saying that Declan should learn from her, because Declan is clearly too
stupid to learn; but other aspiring journalists should get hold of this piece
and use it as a paradigm for their own writing.

I urge JYA the Copyright Violator to get hold of Newsday and to add Gail
Dutton's article to his collection of Copyright Violations.


Also: a guy named Joe Celko writes an SQL column for the freebie DBMS magazine,
which I sometimes read. Here's a short except from his january column:

   Crypto and Databases

   More and more raw databases are being sent out on CD-ROMs because the price
   per unit to publish them and the cost of equipment to read them is so low
   per byte.

   For example, you can get some fo the Miller Freeman magazines on CD-ROM,
   and one Miller Freeman magazine, Dr. Dobb's Journal (www.ddj.mfi.com), has
   been very successful with software and textbook collections on CD-ROM. if
   you missed an issue when you went to the dentist's office, national
   Geographic and Misdscape are releasing 1078 years of national geogra[hic on
   30 CD-TROMs for $300 for educational institutions - every page of every
   issue. As of this writing, I do not have a price for individual buyers. For
   mroe informaiton contact Mindscae at www.mindscapeschool.com or
   800-231-3088.

   On the same subject, a U.K. company, PAN Technology Ltd
   (www.pantechnology.com), has launched CopyLok, a method of copy protecting
   CDs. CopyLok prevents copying on CD recordable devices and on expensive
   Laser Beam Recorders that produce replicators, glass masters, and stampers
   for injection molding. In allows any information to be loaded on the hard
   disk of a computer, but will only allow that software to run if the
   original CD is in the drive. It stops friend-to-friend copying, illegal
   shop replication, and mass replication and also prevents Internet
   distribution.

   The product looks good and will be popular with PC software and computer
   game companies, which have to dal with software piracy rates in China and
   Vietnam of 96 percent and 99 percent, respectively. CopyLok is the reslt of
   three years of research, and is the first and only anticopying technology
   to have received Philips approval and a Philips' patent Application. it
   doesn't contravene any of the Philips worldwide standards for CD-ROM
   recording, such as the Yellow or Blue Book.

   The downside of all this is that part of the protection scheme uses strong
   cryptography to recognize the CD. The Clinton administration is still
   opposed to strong crypto, so U.S. companies could be put in a situation
   whee they have to publish their CD databases overseas to get protection.
   Once more, we disarm the victims and punish the innocent.

Hmm. Other than the observation that copy protection sucks (I broke it back
when it was used with 360K floppies and I'll break it on CDs if it's worth my
while), we observe that if the COpyLok software uses crypto to authenticate
the CD, not to encrypt the data, then it could be exported with no paperwork.

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<a href="mailto:dlv@bwalk.dm.com">Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM</a>
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps