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Blogger Threatened For Publishing JS Hack
Posted by
kdawson
on Sun May 20, 2007 05:14 PM
from the most-boneheaded-legal-threat-contest dept.
from the most-boneheaded-legal-threat-contest dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Internet radio station Atlanta Blue Skye LLC has warned a Romania-based technology enthusiast that his blog has been 'copied' and turned over to its lawyers. The issue stems from his posting of a widely known workaround for bypassing JavaScript functions that try to disable a mouse's right-click context menu functionality, and the radio stream information gathered from the Properties function of Windows Media Player."
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Lets just hope that (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to think that's true (Score:4, Insightful)
http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/MPAA_DVD_cases/ [eff.org]
Parent
Attention Americans: (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Attention Americans: (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Attention Americans: (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Attention Americans: (Score:4, Insightful)
As an aside, I am against the DCMA and think lawsuits like this are complete BS. Unfortunately, I am not in charge and so I have to deal with the laws as is until an appropriate opportunity to really affect change presents itself (those who would yell "Vote!" at me (either with my pocket book or in an election) simplify the issue and don't realize that it goes deeper than that.)
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Re:Attention Americans: (Score:5, Informative)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Your laws do not apply outside your borders.
The current US admin certainly seems to think US laws apply everywhere, er make that their idea of what the law should be.
FalconYou'll change your mind (Score:5, Funny)
Your laws do not apply outside your borders.
You'll change your mind when our fully operational Death Star is orbiting over your crapass country. Lord Cheney will deal with you personally with his Light Shotgun.
It's as if thousands of people cried out all at once...but since they don't speak English we didn't understand a word they said. They're fereners anyway. It's the price of Democracy.
Parent
Re:Lets just hope that (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Lets just hope that (Score:5, Interesting)
I think a better argument would be that there was no "hacking" of a poorly-made access-control mechanism, because the mechanism was flat-out not an access control device in the first place.
Interpretation and execution of the JavaScript language that the right-click blocking used is an optional browser feature, so the blocking itself is inherently optional. Furthermore, the feature of JS that they were trying to exploit (the modality of the alert() box) is not specified as an access control feature, nor is it specified (and it's certainly not guaranteed) to function in a manner that would control access.
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Shift key DMCA strikes again? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Oh noes (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh noes (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Oh noes (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Oh noes (Score:4, Informative)
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They broke the law (Score:5, Funny)
BY-NC-SA (Score:5, Interesting)
However, it does not allow for commercial exploitation of his work so we enter a grey-area. Is the use of his work to prosecute a lawsuit for monetary damages a commercial exploitation of his work?
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Re:BY-NC-SA (Score:4, Informative)
1. to reproduce the Work, to incorporate the Work into one or more Collective Works, and to reproduce the Work as incorporated in the Collective Works;
2. to create and reproduce Derivative Works;
3. to distribute copies or phonorecords of, display publicly, perform publicly, and perform publicly by means of a digital audio transmission the Work including as incorporated in Collective Works;
4. to distribute copies or phonorecords of, display publicly, perform publicly, and perform publicly by means of a digital audio transmission Derivative Works;
You may not exercise any of the rights granted to You in Section 3 above in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation.
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"Enthusiast" (Score:5, Funny)
Is that what we're calling them now?
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Re:They broke the law (Score:5, Insightful)
but if he did the same thing vice versa, he'd be facing another lawsuit...
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It wasn't Javascript the issue... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't want to license my stuff from anyone. (Score:5, Insightful)
Fuck them. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The web is about the user (Score:5, Interesting)
In other news, the recent js dependent google.com facelift is less useful to me because I have javascript disabled. It seems that most sites expect users have javascript enabled these days, sad that google deliberately broke their site. If I don't know if I can even be bothered hacking a functional interface when there are other search engines that work perfectly.
The user is in control of their machine, not the web site!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/19/0
Oh yea? (Score:4, Insightful)
When the commercials start: go to the bathroom, get a snack/drink, perform small errands, talk to other people in the room.
Be careful, not scrupulously watching every single advertisement makes you a criminal pirate thief.
Re:Oh yea? (Score:5, Funny)
Female people.
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Stealing!!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
You're violating your contract [2600.com], don'cha know?
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"Hacker Calisthenics" (Score:3, Funny)
Hey, let's all do the time warp...again! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hey, let's all do the time warp...again! (Score:5, Funny)
ISP -> FBI: Well, ahem, everybody who views the site has access to the html or js source
FBI -> ISP: Everyone?
ISP -> FBI: Well yeah, you see when the user visits a site the browser requests the page, and the server hosting the page will send the html source, then the browser will render the source to look nice for the viewer... you can hide some of the logic with php, jsp or asp and other server side...
FBI -> ISP: But if they can see the source then could they make copies...?
ISP -> FBI: Well yes but...
FBI -> ISP: They would know all the secret techniques used to make the site?
ISP -> FBI: Well yes, but as I was going to say...
FBI -> ISP: Well that makes it easier thanks. Bye
1 week later:
'The BBC has learned that a large number of extradition requests from the US government relating to British subjects and other non US-nationals breaching Trade Secret, Copyright and Terrorism laws, this is after it was alleged that people are illegally viewing web pages.
This comes after the US issued Arrest Warrants for 3.7 billion individuals globally on Monday. A Spokesman for the DHS is quoted as saying:
"Well if everyone can see how stuff works, they could copy it, and if they copy it they could use it, and if they could use it they could mislead people. Misleading people is not nice and causes angst, angst is like fear, and fear is a bit like terror. Terror is caused by terrorists, therefore viewing web pages is terrorism. Also children may be harmed in some way."'
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Umm... (Score:3, Informative)
View -> Page Source? I mean, that's the main thing they usually wanna block by blocking the context menu anyways. Or how about CTRL+U? Let's see you block that!
Or how about Tools -> Options -> Content -> JavaScript -> Advanced -> Disable or replace context menus? That's even a more direct way to stop it!
Of course this is Firefox. I'm sure none of the other major browsers such as IE7 (Page -> View Source / View -> Source) or Opera 9 (View -> Source / CTRL+F3) have easy ways around this, thus the cause for concern over the "hack".
Let's also not forget that any JavaScript is essentially open source, since it can't be compiled (obfuscated, maybe, but even then you can usually figure it out) and new JavaScript functionality can be added and existing functionality changed (or "hacked" as it is so ineloquently put) and tweaked to suit a user's needs through tools such as Greasemonkey.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's also not forget that any JavaScript is essentially open source
Re:Umm... (Score:4, Informative)
"Open source" means you have the right to redistrubute the original work, or make derivitive works from the the original and redistribute those. "Free software" is open source software with the additional restriction that you must distribute the source code of any derivitive work made from similarly licensed work.
However, merely possessing, the source code, does not make it open source. It never has, and it never will.
I can make (and actually have made) proprietary Perl scripts. I simply tag them "Copyright 2007 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED." In order to run this code, you must have the source code. (Yeah I could obfuscate it, but let's say I didn't.) While you may have the source code, you are not allowed to redistrbute it, you are not allowed to make derivative works from it (i.e. hack it), and you can not copy portions of it into your own work (another kind of derivative work). Practically speaking, you could, but legally you are not allowed to. And if I found out that you did, I could bring a whole world of legal hurt down upon you.
Since the beginning of UNIX, source code was the prefered distribution method of all software, open and closed. The reason was that each environment was so different, it was simply impossible to distribute binaries for every permutation, so you just sent the source code and compiled it. Open source was just removing the artifical barriers to what many were already doing.
Anyway copyright is on the software itself, not the specific form it takes, source or binary. It's just a like a book. The story is what is copyrighted, not the fact that it's the story packaged in 6" x 7" pages filled with 10 point Times.
Parent
Might not even be a legitimate email (Score:5, Interesting)
The original email message is posted here [beranger.org]. The message headers are as follows:
The Text of the message:
This doesn't look like a legitimate email to me in the least - from the earthlink origination to the cheesy wording of the message. Sounds like Slashdot has either been blog-spammed, or this guy is another chicken little [slashdot.org].
What the... heck? (Score:3, Funny)
Are they completely out of their minds? If someone told me that the way my site is implemented prevented some people from listening, the FIRST thing I would do would be to fix my site, and the second would be to thank the person for getting me more listeners!
Idiots. Yet I'm still listening to their station, on my Mac, because they're actually playing pretty good music.
-Z
Right mouse button? (Score:5, Funny)
Sincerely,
Mac user
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It's an illegal anti-DRM device outlawed by the DMCA. If you ever see one, be sure to stay far far away.
Message is a fake (Score:4, Interesting)
Sure. Nice try. Next time don't be so gullible.
Re:Sympathetic Defendant? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sympathetic Defendant? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Sympathetic Defendant? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
YOU also need to take this case in context. For many other cases, what you say makes sense. For this one, not so much. To start with, what he is "revealing" is already well known. So it could well be argued that the company is specifically targeting him just because he happens to like their music.
But the really big issue here is that so many companies are just so utterly clueless about several things. They are clueless about technology. They are clueless about security. They are clueless about the i
Re:Romania? (Score:5, Funny)
Kinda like Idaho, but with lettuce instead of potatoes.
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[offtopic] Lisp (Score:3, Informative)
It's not so obsolete a language as you seem to imply.
In further idiocy... (Score:3, Interesting)