[FYI] Activist defends DVD hack

["Axel H Horns" <horns@t-online.de>]

http://cnn.com/TECH/computing/9911/08/dvd.hack2.idg/index.html

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Activist defends DVD hack 

November 8, 1999  

Web posted at: 8:43 a.m. EST (1343 GMT)  

by Ann Harrison  

(IDG) -- The co-founder of the San Francisco-based Electronic 
Frontier Foundation said Thursday that what was learned in the 
reverse engineering and cracking of a DVD copy-protection scheme will 
be used to make future intellectual-property protection methods 
stronger.  

"The software that resulted is fully appropriate," said John Gilmore 
of the online civil rights organization. "It is in fact the Linux 
open-source software for playing movies on your computer screen." 
Gilmore is well-known within the security community for building the 
DES cracker machine that broke the 56-bit Data Encryption Standard 
algorithm once in common use by the government and others.  

Gilmore noted that until now, movies on DVD couldn't be played on 
Linux because the DVD Forum wouldn't release specifications for how 
to do it. He said that now, or in the near future, Linux users will 
be able to play DVDs, which he believes is entirely appropriate.  

[...]

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