Digg.com Attempts To Suppress HD-DVD Revolt 1142
fieryprophet writes "An astonishing number of stories related to HD-DVD encryption keys have gone missing in action from digg.com, in many cases along with the account of the diggers who submitted them. Diggers are in open revolt against the moderators and are retaliating in clever and inventive ways. At one point, the entire front page comprised only stories that in one way or another were related to the hex number. Digg users quickly pointed to the HD DVD sponsorship of Diggnation, the Digg podcast show. Search digg for HD-DVD song lyrics, coffee mugs, shirts, and more for a small taste of the rebellion." Search Google for a broader picture; at this writing, about 283,000 pages contain the number with hyphens, and just under 10,000 without hyphens. There's a song. Several domain names including variations of the number have been reserved. Update: 05/02 05:44 GMT by J : New blog post from Kevin Rose of Digg to its users: "We hear you."
Was this duped on purpose? (Score:2, Informative)
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
Just so you know (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Was this duped on purpose? (Score:5, Informative)
It's not.
Re:Before this gets out of hand again... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Ah, how timely (Score:5, Informative)
it's called the "Streisand effect" (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Before this gets out of hand again... (Score:5, Informative)
You might want to try that one again chief, the act of censorship isn't only carried out by governments. By your logic media private outlets couldn't censor information.
See the following to get a fucking clue:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship [wikipedia.org]
n. censor 1. A person authorized to examine books, films, or other material and to remove or suppress what is considered morally, politically, or otherwise objectionable.
tr.v. censored, censoring, censors
To examine and expurgate.
Re:Honestly curious... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Credibility (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Honestly curious... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Honestly curious... (Score:5, Informative)
Standard Disclaimer: IANAL -- By United States Copyright law, and I believe the laws of all signees of the Berne Convention (163 nations), a work is "copyrighted" the instant it is recorded in some tangible form. There is no need for it to be registered with any legal body. The United States Copyright Office does offer a registration service, but it's more a matter of convenience than of necessity.
Now, a sixteen digit hexidecimal number almost certainly fails to meet the minimum requirements for novelty and authorship (whatever the hell such qualities are referred to legally) and thus is not under the protection of copyright. However, the distribution of encryption codes undoubtedly falls afoul of the draconion terms of the DMCA, which has basically nothing to do with copyright.
The US Copyright Office runs a fairly informative website that's well worth the 10 or so minutes it takes to skim --> http://www.copyright.gov/ [copyright.gov]
Genie/Bottle, Horse/Barndoors, Pee/Pool ... (Score:4, Informative)
Someone tried to create a Wikipedia page documenting the revolt [wikipedia.org], but that too was taken down.
Since AACS was broken 6 weeks ago, the MPAA and AACS LA have been sending out a flurry of DMCA takedown notices. However, as this example [chillingeffects.org] shows, the takedown notices seem to be delivered via USPS Express Mail. As mentioned, the current explosion has more than 300,000 pages mentioning the key (I don't know how many link to the Doom9 page). IIRC, Express Mail costs about USD $8 [usps.com seems to be off-line at the moment]. Sending out 300,000 notices at $8 a pop would inject $2.4M into the coffers of the United States Postal Service. Perhaps they would even roll back the rate increase that went into effect today [yeah, right].
Of course, delivering that many notices by physical mail would be prohibitively expensive, not to mention an ecological nightmare. The $2.4M would probably be better of spent combating the real pirates [dvdforum.org], rather than bloggers and video consumers.
SVG (Score:2, Informative)
<svg xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.0">
<title>Freedom flag</title>
<desc>As ridiculous as it sounds, even numbers have become "intellectual property" that corporations can claim ownership
of.</desc>
<rect width="100" height="300" x="0" y="0" fill="#09F911"
<rect width="100" height="300" x="100" y="0" fill="#029D74"
<rect width="100" height="300" x="200" y="0" fill="#E35BD8"
<rect width="100" height="300" x="300" y="0" fill="#4156C5"
<rect width="100" height="300" x="400" y="0" fill="#635688"
<text x="410" y="275" font-family="Verdana" font-size="36" fill="white">+C0</text>
</svg>
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:On-topic comment (Score:5, Informative)
The keys are actually different for each DVD, but they are derived from a common secret, and hashed and mixed about etc. The system is actually quite clever, and not a single symmetric key by any means. But no matter how you slice it, there will always need to be a common shared secret which is used to derive the means to unlock the media. That shared secret isn't the key itself, but the "processing key" which is in part used to derive the real key for each disc (to put it in very simple terms).
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:4, Informative)
idjit.
actually it's Feb 11th (Score:3, Informative)
Actually it's February 11th [doom9.org].
J
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:5, Informative)
I also gave Digg a try when it first came out, and what ruined it for me was the obvious lack of maturity. For example, right now the front page of Digg is completely full of "OMFGZ!!111! DIGG PWNED" articles.
The lack of maturity also lets a lot of articles that aren't really interesting get to the front page. What's "new" or interesting for a 13 year old isn't usually new or interesting for everyone else.
To make it worse, when I tried it again a few months ago they had modified the comment moderation system a bit, and people who went against the group-think were heavily modded down, regardless of if they were correct. On Digg you can say "The sky is blue", link to pictures, and have a dozen references, and still get modded down if the "group" says the sky is green.
It's like all the bad of Slashdot, but an order of magnitude worse. All for the slight possibility of seeing a rare interesting article before it reaches Slashdot. No thanks.
Reminds me of the DeCSS fiasco a few years ago (Score:1, Informative)
Learn more here
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/ [cmu.edu]
Re:Credibility (Score:5, Informative)
You infringe nothing, and the copyrightability of the key is irrelevant. Frankly, a discussion about circumvention has nearly nothing to do with copyright; ignore copyrights, and infringements, exceptions and defenses that go with copyrights. Circumvention is basically sui generis.
17 USC 1201(a)(2)-(3) says this:
The key, in this context, is a part of a device which likely falls under 1201(a)(2)(C) if not (A) and (B) as well. Disseminating the key is unlawful, apart from its use. It's not an infringement, but it's still illegal. The particular offense would be called trafficking.
Re:Wow...just wow (Score:3, Informative)
I don't think people are "passing it around with the intent to circumvent a patented product'", they're passing it round because they've been told not to, and they feel that's unreasonable. Call it a campaign of civil disobedience. I wouldn't be surprised if the number of times it's been posted far exceeds the number of HD-DVD movies that have actually been sold.
Also, I'm not an IP expert, but I'm fairly sure you can't patent a password, and I would question the assertion that distributing one is illegal.
Re:Digg management are full of hypocrites (Score:3, Informative)
Gee. Took them a while.
Re:Digg management are full of hypocrites (Score:5, Informative)
You're describing, not all that accurately, the takedown procedure at 17 USC 512. The thing is, that only applies in cases of copyright infringement. But the current fuss hasn't got a thing to do with copyright infringement. It has to do with trafficking in circumvention devices under 17 USC 1201, which has no connection to 512 whatsoever. There is no 512 safe harbor for trafficking.
I'd say that they have more of a clue than you do.
Digg Management Has Officially Forfeited (Score:5, Informative)
Digg This: 09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0
by Kevin Rose at 9pm, May 1st, 2007 in Digg Website
Today was an insane day. And as the founder of Digg, I just wanted to post my thoughts...
In building and shaping the site I've always tried to stay as hands on as possible. We've always given site moderation (digging/burying) power to the community. Occasionally we step in to remove stories that violate our terms of use (eg. linking to pornography, illegal downloads, racial hate sites, etc.). So today was a difficult day for us. We had to decide whether to remove stories containing a single code based on a cease and desist declaration. We had to make a call, and in our desire to avoid a scenario where Digg would be interrupted or shut down, we decided to comply and remove the stories with the code.
But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you've made it clear. You'd rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won't delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.
If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.
Digg on,
Kevin
Re:Screw digg! (Score:3, Informative)
And what's up with modern religions trying to copyright they're symbols? The VA can put it on a headstone [va.gov] but you can't see it in the list? You can't put it on a t-shirt [sltrib.com]? What the hell man? Sounds like someone is more concerned about getting their cut than salvation.
Digg decides to stand up to the MPAA! (Score:4, Informative)
http://blog.digg.com/?p=74 [digg.com] [digg.com]?
Digg This: 09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0
by Kevin Rose at 9pm, May 1st, 2007 in Digg Website
Today was an insane day. And as the founder of Digg, I just wanted to post my thoughts...
In building and shaping the site I've always tried to stay as hands on as possible. We've always given site moderation (digging/burying) power to the community. Occasionally we step in to remove stories that violate our terms of use (eg. linking to pornography, illegal downloads, racial hate sites, etc.). So today was a difficult day for us. We had to decide whether to remove stories containing a single code based on a cease and desist declaration. We had to make a call, and in our desire to avoid a scenario where Digg would be interrupted or shut down, we decided to comply and remove the stories with the code.
But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you've made it clear. You'd rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won't delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.
If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.
Digg on,
Kevin
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:On-topic comment (Score:4, Informative)
Regarding this statement:
Something needs to be common between every DVD, otherwise you couldn't make players that can play every DVD.
That common element is a "title key" that is unique to that particular disc, and it is encrypted by a "device key" that is embedded inside the player (not on the disc). There are several intermediate decryption steps, where keys and other data are combined in complex ways. But ultimately, there is not some common thing among all DVDs.
The "processing key" is at one of these intermediate steps, shortly after the device key is used. The AACSLA could and should have used a different processing key on every disc or small groups of discs. The term "very lazy" was used on the doom9 forum. The AACSLA almost certainly will start changing the processing key for new discs. How soon, nobody knows.
Nobody has yet discovered (and made public) any "device key". It is rumored that someone may have one and is waiting to release it. The first step in the process involves 512 copies of a key, each encrypted with a different device key, so that any particular player will use one of the 512. The AACSLA can cause new discs to not work with existing device keys, which is what seems to have happened with the recent upgrades to the software players. If anyone ever captures the device key from a major brand hardware player (that is installed in millions of homes and not upgradeable), the AACSLA will have very difficult decision to make!
Slashdot Lied (Score:2, Informative)
Separated by dashes, there are 222 non-duplicated results [google.com].
A search for the full key [google.com], without spaces, yields just 32 results.
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:2, Informative)
You want to do dope and cook your brain, go right ahead but do it in private.
& that's just the thing: we totally would. But even there you get in trouble. Like it or not, the internet is a fine way to start a political debate. Many of the usual routes are closed to concerned parties on this issue. http://www.changetheclimate.org/campaigns/02_18_0
Re:Honestly curious... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:5, Informative)
http://slashdot.org/yro/01/03/16/1256226.shtml [slashdot.org]
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:3, Informative)
After that, I paid attention to the main page until I kept seeing the "OMFGZ!!111! DIGG PWNED" articles show up every 20 minutes. This annoys me about as bad as a Wiki being "hacked" by some idiot kid.
But now, I don't pay attention to DIGG, even if one of my blog posts gets dug - don't care anymore.
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:3, Informative)
I'm Piquan. I meet both of those criteria. I've also never downloaded a movie from the Internet*. Pleased to meet you.
* Except some [gethappy.com] legal [roosterteeth.com] ones [archive.org].
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:4, Informative)
It's been that way since then. Whenever I return from working double shifts to hit a milestone for a week, some mod points were waiting for me.
(And no, that's no attempt to get you silenced, that's just how it "works" for me)
Re:P.S. Digg This (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:3, Informative)
They absorve all that crap on the media about how smoking pot is dangerous and pot-smoking people flood the hospitals and waste taxpayers money, and drive dangerously and are all junkies (picture: wasted crackhead types).
Now, i've lived in Holland, i know people that smoke pot and i can openly admit it.
When i ask any "pot-haters" if they know somebody that smokes pot, it turns out none of them does (surprise, surprise). At that point i point out that i know people that smoke pot and they're all absolutly normal people with jobs, families and you wouldn't be able to spot them on the street from everybody else. At that point they go silent.
As i see it, the reason why some Governments are winning the disinformation war about soft drugs is because most of those that actually smoke pot or have/had contact with people that smoke pot can't admit to it (they might be prosecuted because of it). In other words, they're being censored. This leaves us with an ignorant majority being fed the pre-packaged "pot is evil" message and a knowledgeable minority that cannot (or has to be very carefull when they) educate people to the fact that the official message is mostly lies (pot is highly addictive), wild exagerations (if we liberalize pot, thousands will flood the health services) and subtle omissions (like conveniently forgetting the small detail that tobacco is both more addictive and way much more dangerous to you health than pot).
Re:I'd like to say... (Score:5, Informative)