Re: EFF's take on DVD situation

["John B. Brown" <jbb@vcn.com>]

Dear Mr. McGonigle,

    Why do you characterize a normal computer science investigation as an attack? Do
you have some other agenda than ordinary science? By the way, I did make mention of
the fact I can use anything I legally own in any way I wish. That also stands true
for any other investigator. Making an attempt to force a condition I did not agree
to at the time of sale is spurious, at best, and probably fraudulent as well.

    Shalom,

    John B. Brown.
    [jbb@vcn.com]

"William P. McGonigle" wrote:

>
> The original CSS attack was [allegedly] using a Xing key, copied verbatim from
> their binary code.  Since the whole block of keys is included on every DVD, and
> those are copyrighted, that was my concern.
>
> What I have learned subsequent to my post has two important parts:
>
> 1) such a small block (one key of 5 bytes) is not eligible for a copyright
> 2) the keys are so astonishingly small that it seems possible to find a key
> without prior knowledge, so my concern is not valid.  The Xing key was only used
> to reverse engineer the system, after that it was obvious how to attack it.
>
> This is good.
>
> -Bill