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Jon Johansen DeCSS Trial Next Week 89

Posted by michael from the judge-judy-presiding dept.
daniel_howell writes "Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten has a story on the imminent start (after delays in finding judges qualified to hear the case) of the trial of local teenage Jon Johansen for helping to write and distribute the DeCSS program to play DVDs on a home computer. The article notes that under Norwegian law it is perfectly legal to make a copy for your own personal use. The Norwegian press is generally supportive of Johansen, and Aftenposten is usually good at posting updates to big stories like this on its English pages, so watch this space to follow the story as it unfolds."
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Jon Johansen DeCSS Trial Next Week More

Jon Johansen DeCSS Trial Next Week

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  • From Soviet Russia With Love: +1 (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 06, 2002 @02:03PM (#4828169)

    #!/usr/bin/perl
    # 472-byte qrpff, Keith Winstein and Marc Horowitz
    # MPEG 2 PS VOB file -> descrambled output on stdout.
    # usage: perl -I :::: qrpff
    # where k1..k5 are the title key bytes in least to most-significant order

    s''$/=\2048;while(){G=29;R=142;if((@a=unqT="C*", _) [20]&48){D=89;_=unqb24,qT,@
    b=map{ord qB8,unqb8,qT,_^$a[--D]}@INC;s/...$/1$&/;Q=unqV,qb2 5,_;H=73;O=$b[4]>8^(P=(E=255)&(Q>>12^Q>>4^Q/8^Q))> 8^(E&(F=(S=O>>14&7^O)
    ^S*8^S>=8
    )+=P+(~F&E))for@ a[128..$#a]}print+qT,@a}';s/[D-HO- U_]/\$$&/g;s

  • He didn't even crack DVD's CSS (Score:5, Informative)

    by kaosrain ( 543532 ) <<moc.niarsoak> <ta> <toor>> on Friday December 06, 2002 @02:20PM (#4828197) Homepage
    From a text file that came with DeCSS (I'm at the cap, don't worry):

    - The Truth about DVD CSS cracking by MoRE and [dEZZY/DoD] -

    Date: 4th of November 1999.
    By: [dEZZY/DoD], [MultiAGP & German dood of MoRE]

    This document is written cooperatively by the two groups
    that independently and simultaneously cracked the DVD Content
    Scrambling System, in order to straighten out mass media
    confusion.

    DoD -> Drink or Die: "warez bearz from Russia and Beyond"
    MoRE -> Masters of Reverse Engineering

    [dEZZY/DoD] alone is the author of DoD DVD Speed Ripper.
    MoRE is a new group and they are the authors of DeCSS.

    Lately, Jon Johansen of MoRE has been pretty much all over
    the news in Norway, though he had NOTHING to do with the actual
    cracking of the DVD CSS protection. Yes, it was MoRE who did
    DeCSS, but the actual crack was not a team effort, MoRE didn't
    even exist back when the anonymous German (who is now a MoRE
    member) cracked it...

    Most of the papers chose a headline very similar to this:
    "15-year old Norwegian cracked the DVD-code".
    They probably did this because they wanted to make a big
    Norwegian "Wooohoooo" out of it. This was also pretty much
    the contents of the TV show "Vestfold-sendingen" where they
    brought up matters from Vestfold, Norway where Jon Johansen
    lives.

    In most newspapers they vagely included the name MoRE, and
    that DeCSS was a team effort, but neither MoRE nor DoD liked
    the headlines. Jon's comment on this matter is:
    "I never told the media that I had cracked the dvd encryption.
    What I told them, was that we (MoRE) had made an app called
    DeCSS which would decrypt dvd movies and let them be played
    off your hd, or off dvdrs if you have a dvd burner. I always
    used _we_ and _MoRE_ when talking to them. I never said anything
    about me or my position in the group.
    Now that the storm is over, I see that all they were after,
    was to get a big story. They even included some of "my" quotes,
    which I never said. When media starts making up stuff, it's really
    sad. I know that this has been done before in Norwegian media,
    regarding the cooperation between a computer group at my school
    and the school people in charge of the network. All I can say is
    that I'm very sorry that the media twisted my words, and even lied,
    to make it appear as I had done the cracking myself. I'm pretty
    sure that I will do everything to avoid the media in the future,
    but if I'm forced to talk with them, I'll have to get them to
    sign an agreement. Again, I apologize on the behalf of Norwegian
    press, and I hope that this document will make everything clear.
    The truth shall set you free."

    DoD DVD Speed Ripper was developed by [dEZZY/DoD] at the
    same time as DeCSS. The first release of DoD's app (which
    came out a couple of weeks before the first release of DeCSS)
    did not work with all (WB) titles, like The Matrix. This was
    known by [dEZZY/DoD] at the time of his release. MoRE decided
    to wait until they could fix this. In short time, [dEZZY/DoD]
    solved the problem and MoRE's top coder/disassembler from
    Germany used that information to get DeCSS working with every
    movie before they released it, along with a GUI. DeCSS was then
    the first application which decrypted ALL dvd titles, since DoD
    had not released a new version to the public. How MoRE got
    their hands on the information by [dEZZY/DoD], seems to have
    something to do with the Linux community...

    Why Drink or Die didn't want to release a new version so soon,
    was because warez sites nuke programs that are too close in
    release (minimum 2-3 weeks). Meanwhile when DeCSS came out, it
    caused DoD to delay any Windows release until a GUI version of
    their Speed Ripper was done. However, they released a Linux
    version of their ripper late October 1999. As for the new Windows
    version of the Speed Ripper, [dEZZY/DoD] has been very busy with
    his education and hence the ripper is extremely delayed.

    [dEZZY/DoD] already got the idea of reverse engineering a DVD
    player for the CSS code back in late summer 1998. He was not able
    to do it at the time since he did not have access to a DVDROM. In
    the beginning of 1999, MoRE's German member also got the idea.
    [dEZZY/DoD] and MoRE's German member got CSS decryption code
    working at the same time (middle of September 1999), without
    having shared info (although they knew about each other). After
    [dEZZY/DoD] solved "the problem", MoRE's German member, as stated
    above, implemented these changes and added them to DeCSS for
    release.

    Before DeCSS was developed and released, MoRE had already sent
    the source for the decryption to their contact in the Linux DVD
    community, Derek Fawcus . This is the reason
    why one of Wired's news reporters was put on the case.

    [dEZZY/DoD] also had relations in the Linux DVD community (who
    does not want to be mentioned), but decided not to release the
    source code publicly (at least not for the moment).

    Enjoy the software!

    - Jon Johansen [MoRE]
    - anonymous German cracker [MoRE]
    - [dEZZY/DoD]

    • Re:He didn't even crack DVD's CSS (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The first public crack of CSS was Frank Stevenson's analysis [cmu.edu].


      Abstract: CSS is a scrambling system used in the distribution for movies on DVD ( Digital Versatile Disc ) a high capacity CD like storage system. Its main purpose is to prevent the unauthorized duplication of disc contents. This is achieved through encrypting the files, and storing keys in hardware. Here we will describe the system, and show that even if the keys can be securely stored in hardware, the data will not be protected from unauthorized copying. Severe weaknesses in the ciphers effectively voids the need for the hardware keys when decrypting the content.
      • Plus, I have met DVD-Jon (last year at a pathetic "demonstration" [sadly, Norwegians are like Americans-- not enough people keep themselves informed of technological developments. I'm sure that most people learn that CSS and DeCSS exist for the first time when I mention the case to them.] in downtown Oslo)

        1) Jon is not a criminal. Any code he invented for the GUI was probably genius. The MPAA should hire him as a security expert and put out this P.R. fire there and then. Jon seems very bashful (typical Norwegian) about all of the press that his case has been getting. I don't think he has very much to worry about. The Kingdom of Norway tolerates our spoiled-child attitude, but they're not going to send a Norsk hacker to jail just because we say so. No matter what.

        2) MPAA: Shut up, you're scaring away customers.
        Before I actually met Jon, and talked to people who know him (or at least people who are fluent in Norsk, and therefore don't frighten him as much-- Norwegians really are a very timid and reserved people, for the most part-- especially compared to us Americans.) ... before I had met him in person, I didn't really care. I know it's un-geeky of me, but nobody deserves the nightmare of a summons which says "the American Corporations are after YOU, Jon!"....
        anyhow, leave him alone. You can defensibly make a public show of this, but for the sake of the studios' future, you damn well better let this one go. Otherwise, by the time all of you Baby Boomers are dead and gone, NOBODY will be paying money for ANYTHING this frivolous. You play "let's pretend" for a living, or more likely you order people who are actually good at creating mainstream entertainment to water their creative visions down-- what's left of their creativity, anyway, after the putridity of Hollywood kills their spirit. Don't expect "Generation X" or Y, or whatever stupid thing your marketing drones are going to come up with next, to put up with as much bullshit from international monopolies. Seriously. Ever hear of a city called Seattle? WTO ring a bell? The People are really, really sick and tired of your shit. Leave the Norwegians alone. Our laws don't apply to Jon. Period.

        3) Aftenposten is kind of a cheesy paper. Their story presents a fair (Norwegian, anyhow) portrait of Jon's story. Slashdotters: read what they are saying on http://indymedia.no/ , etc... find out what your fellow young geeks think. You'll be surprised. This is kind of Much Ado About Nothing...

        Thanks for indulging my ranting.

        Brodie Kelly
        Consumer, Anarchist, Buddhist
    • Being a mere lacky I've also been misquoted by the press multiple times. How folks who are interviewed often stand it I don't know but it annoys the hell out of me.

  • What I find ridiculous... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by intermodal ( 534361 ) on Friday December 06, 2002 @02:25PM (#4828203) Homepage Journal
    is that the RIAA is suing a Norwegian for breaking a law that isn't in Norway. This is no different from Dmitry's case, unless you consider the fact that Jon didn't actually sell his program. And both should be found not guilty, and it doesn't change the fact that the DMCA is bad legislature.

    • Re:What I find ridiculous... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Newtonian_p ( 412461 ) on Friday December 06, 2002 @02:59PM (#4828271) Homepage
      He is not getting sued under the DCMA. It is an American law and has no standing in a Norwegian court.

      They're suing him under a Norwegian breaking-in law. This law has never been used before for persecuting the breaking into your own property as the article indicates.

    • He's being charged under norwegian law... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Friday December 06, 2002 @03:00PM (#4828274) Homepage
      ...which is why most legal experts believe the case will belly-flop. It's not a DMCA-ish law, but rather a law against hacking/cracking. The key issue here is that it must be unauthorized - if you hack MPAA and take it from their server, it's unauthorized. However, the DVDs are his property and as far as most legal experts think, you can do whatever the hell you want with it.

      At least that was the situation at the time of DeCSS, now the new EU copyright directive is making that illegal in EU (and by EEC-agreement, in Norway too).

    • Re:What I find ridiculous... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jgerman ( 106518 ) on Friday December 06, 2002 @03:11PM (#4828316)
      Yes, it's exactly the same. Except that Dmitri was arrested on U.S. soil, in the act of breaking U.S. law. I do believe that it's a bad law, but it is a law just the same.
      • Yes, it's exactly the same. Except that Dmitri was arrested on U.S. soil, in the act of breaking U.S. law. I do believe that it's a bad law, but it is a law just the same.

        At one time it was legal for people of a certain skin color to take away all the rights of people of a different skin color. It was a bad law, but it was the law all the same.
        • Your point being? I'll answer your question for you, you have no point. I never said the law was correct, I never said I wanted it to stayt on the books, in fact the argument wasn't even about the morality of the law, it was about whether or not the two cases were the same. And they are not. The law was broken in Dmitri's case. Whether or not the DMCA holds up we'll find out.


          Furthermore, I never claimed that Dmitri should be punished simply because the law is on the books, that's up for the court to decide. It's up to us, those of us that feel the DMCA is wrong, to help fight it. But that has NOTHING to do with whether the two situations are the same.

          • yes...but by saying that prosecuting him was correct implies that there is no room for the spirit of the law, only the letter.
            • I think you are greatly misunderstanding the spirit of the DMCA. Both the letter AND the spirit are so bad that it needs to be fought. Should he be prosecuted, yes. The law exists, there's no getting around it, it doesn't do any good to just ignore the law, it needs to be repealed. Nameley because situations arise such as this, when some people want the law to be in effect and others don't.
          • I never said the law was correct

            True, you didn't say it was correct. But what you did say was that because it is a law it should be prosecuted no matter how bad a law it is. Jon is being prosecuted under a law in his own country while Dmitry was being prosecuted by a law from a foreign country. Neither is guilty of stealing from anyone but that is basically what they were both charged with.

    • Re:What I find ridiculous... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Zemran ( 3101 ) on Friday December 06, 2002 @05:57PM (#4829169) Homepage Journal
      At least he is lucky enough to be tried in a country with a more reasonable legal system, i.e. run for the people rather than by industry.

  • Uhrm? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 06, 2002 @02:31PM (#4828212)
    "Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten"

    As opposed to Slashdotian newspaper Firstenposten?

  • Many more to come (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Enquest ( 579041 ) on Friday December 06, 2002 @02:32PM (#4828214)
    This is only the beginning. If software patents take their hold in Europe they will lock up free software programmers all over.
    Thats why software patents are against free speech. In history the establisment locked philosopher up. Now they will lock hackers, programmers up of violating code.

  • So what did Jon do? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 ) on Friday December 06, 2002 @02:53PM (#4828253)
    If he didn't crack it, then what did he do? Release it under his own name?

    Shouldn't it have occurred to him that might not have been such a hot idea?

    • Everyone can't run and hide from the big bad wolf. Don't complain when somebody stick their head out to take the case to court.

    • Re:So what did Jon do? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      well outta of the group that did it he was one of the few that was underage (16 at the time if i remebr right)
      so he chose to bve the front man for the group just incase it did go to court he would be more likely to get off.and wouldnt have to put his wife kids thru the pains of public life/trial.
    • Perhaps he thought that he may have the legal right to access his own property in any way he choose rather than be dictated to by some studio the other side of the world. How naive these kids can be.

  • So many other programs (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mirell ( 459881 ) <tryn@mirell.org> on Friday December 06, 2002 @03:03PM (#4828290) Homepage Journal
    What I don't see is why the MPAA focused on just the first program that was made available, deCSS, when now it is basically completely worthless with any new DVDs released today. It was a first generation decoder. That key has already been shelfed, and now you have such things as DVD Ripper, et cetera, which decode, rip the DVD, make a new IFO, all in one step. It's not like the RIAA vs. Peer 2 Peer shairing, where it can take down major nodes, and shatter the network. You may still own a copy of Napster, but it's completely worthless (Unless you try to use it to connect to OpenNap networks, but why not use WinMX then), while people with copies of DVD Ripper, if they rid the Internet of that program, will be just as useful as they were before.

    Just my two bits...and a byte...haha...

    • By the way, what IS the legal status of Linux DVD? (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Just out of curiosity: I am located in the United States, and use mplayer [mplayerhq.hu] to watch encrypted DVD's on my Linux PC. Am I breaking the law (DMCA)? I'm sure that nobody has been prosecuted for it, but has the [il]legality of this actually been "officially" established? Can anyone cite a source?

      • #include <ianal.txt>

        I am located in the United States, and use mplayer to watch encrypted DVD's on my Linux PC. Am I breaking the law (DMCA)?

        Technically it is not illegal to use mplayer to watch your DVD - at least, assuming nobody has a patent on the various bits of MPEG2 contained therein. (Because mplayer doesn't have the appropriate patent licenses. Although, if you own a copy of Quicktime or WMP, you probably have such a patent license, in which case you're fine. And since both QT and WMP are free downloads, you can thus acquire a patent license quite easily just by downloading the executables.)

        But it is a DMCA violation to distribute mplayer. So those Hungarians are in big trouble, as are you if you put it up for your friends to download.

        Of course, that is relying on the pedantic, literal interpretation of the DMCA. And we all know how far that goes when Adobe picks up the phone and sics the FBI on you.

    • They just want someone to be punished for it so it will scare off other people from doing things like that. Seriously, even if you shut down the entire internet I'm sure we'd pass cds around with DVD rippers.

      Kjella

  • poor newspaper.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by pulse2600 ( 625694 ) on Friday December 06, 2002 @03:22PM (#4828360)
    They will soon understand what "slashdot virkning" is...

  • Judges (Score:4, Insightful)

    by starling ( 26204 ) <strayling20@gmail.com> on Friday December 06, 2002 @04:16PM (#4828541)
    [...]finding judges qualified to hear the case

    Wow, good idea! I only wish it happened more often in technical cases. Better still, maybe judges should be required to attend a remedial computer class and barred (heh) from hearing computer-related cases until they pass it.

    • Re:Judges (Score:4, Interesting)

      by catman ( 1412 ) <{bjornst} {at} {skogkatt.homelinux.org}> on Friday December 06, 2002 @04:35PM (#4828629) Homepage Journal
      [...]finding judges qualified to hear the case

      barred (heh) from hearing computer- related cases until they pass it.

      Yeah. I'm in the pool and I'm qualified, wish they had picked me. Never heard of the problem until a few days ago. Anyway - I have a couple of unused vacation days that I plan on spending in the courtroom. Wish I had a tape recorder!

      Oh - FYI, this is a lower court where there is one learned judge and two lay judges.
      Whatever the outcome I think it will be appealed to the next level, with a full jury.

      • Re:Judges (Score:2, Interesting)

        by starling ( 26204 )
        Anyway - I have a couple of unused vacation days that I plan on spending in the courtroom.

        How about submitting a writeup to /.? Would make an good follow up story to this one.

        • How about submitting a writeup to /.? Would make an good follow up story to this one.

          Will try. I'm sure Aftenposten will cover it on their site, the on-line news sites digi.no and itavisen.no don't have English versions, sorry
    • I wouldn't really care about that. I rather have a 100.000 posting posting DeCSS if didn't mather.
      unfortunately DeCSS is rather insignificant nowadays and rather outdated. Not necessary anoymore for decryption because a simple brute force crack already will fo the job (www.videolan.org for example). Besides trhat one doesn't even need to decrypt to copy a DVD. It's simply noy copy protection at all. And we better shut up about this issue before we waiste anyone else's time :-)
    • 1) First post! (a) Huh? (b) W00t! (c) Troll, -1 2) The MPAA is an example of: (a) An evil oppressing soul-stealing euphemism for organized crime (b) The very hand of satan (c) Troll, -1 3) Microsoft can best be described as: (a) Evil (b) Evil (c) Troll, -1 4) All your base are belong to: (a) The RIAA (b) us (c) Troll, -1 5) In Communist Russia: (a) CSS cracks you! (b) Bill Shatner interviews you! (c) Troll, -1 6) A computer running linux and another running windows are placed next to each other in an enclosed area, a) they will do nothing b) The linux computer will devour the windoze machine with its righteous wrath, and then urinate on its hard drive to symbolize the fate of all non-free software c) Troll, -1
  • If Norway is reasonable enough to find a "qualified" judge, why couldn't the same have been done for Microsoft's trial? I guess the bias in my post is obvious. Surely a qualified judge would have actually provided remedies in the MS case. So.. do any judges read /.? That's a qualification ;-)

  • CSS != copy protection, CSS == play protection... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jvl001 ( 229079 ) on Friday December 06, 2002 @04:49PM (#4828670) Homepage
    The article notes that under Norwegian law it is perfectly legal to make a copy for your own personal use.

    CSS does not prevent you from making a bit-by-bit copy of a DVD! You can mount a DVD and look at the contents, move the file to your hard drive, etc. You just can't decode the contents without using an approved method.

    CSS is designed to prevent me from playing media I legally purchased in a device I legally purchased unless I use approved software.

    • Quite true. As has been pointed out many times, copying and playing of copied DVDs was going on for some time before DeCSS was written. Any claims that you have to be able to decode something to copy it are bogus beyond all belief.
    • Everything you say is correct. But bear in mind that most small-scale, non-commercial copying of films is not done on DVDs, as DVD writers are expensive and there are several incompatible writing methods. Instead, people swap movies in the form of CDROM-sized AVIs compressed using divx. To create such a file from a DVD would require DeCSS or equivalent.

  • Music industry's business model... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sapgau ( 413511 ) on Friday December 06, 2002 @05:07PM (#4828764) Journal
    (surely this is off-topic) ... is by using a technology that can be cracked by a teenager and be replicated/copied around the world. And instead of fixing the technology they buy legislators to make laws to come down on this kid and make him an example to the world.

    Unless I like to invest (and trust) in mafia type industries, I would place my money somewhere else.

  • Surprise (Score:4, Insightful)

    by denisonbigred ( 611860 ) <nbn2@c o r n e ll.edu> on Friday December 06, 2002 @05:36PM (#4828976)
    Frankly im surprised that he wasn't extradited to the US like others have been recently. It disgusts me that we (the US) think that we have the right to enforce our laws anywhere, at any time. If people dont have the benefits (and sadly I say that with no small degree of sarcasm these days) of being a US citizen or residing in the US, then they should not be subject to OUR laws.


    An aside: I tried to post this at about 3:30 or so and the site was so slow that it timed out before my comment could go through, several times. Does anyone know why it was so slow?

  • "...can contribute...." (Score:5, Insightful)

    by extrarice ( 212683 ) on Friday December 06, 2002 @05:44PM (#4829048) Homepage Journal
    I love this line (emphasis mine):

    "Norwegian prosecutors claim the program *can contribute* to illegal copying of DVDs."

    Car makers better watch out - cars can contrubite to bank robberies and drive-by shootings.

    When did the ability to do something start to mean that you actually committed the crime itself?
    • When did the ability to do something start to mean that you actually committed the crime itself?

      In 1998, when the DMCA was passed

      • true, and in order to prevent these "contributions" from happening, new programs such as the Homeland Security Bill have been passed to assure that henious contributions are terminated while they are still in the idea stage.

        It's becoming a lot like Minority Report, only less funny to watch because it's real
    • Well.. not that I support the prosecutors in this case, I must say that your analogy is pretty far off. Unlike a car f.ex. wich isn't designed for bank robbers convenience. This program was specifically designed to let you copy originals wich makes the road to unlawfullness pretty short at least in the minds of the prosecutors in this case. Not only does it copy, but it specifically cracks a code that is there to prevent you from copying it ( this is what the case is about, not the fact that it let's people make copies ). If car manufacturers created and implemented a device that magically cracked the code of bank vaults, then I agree, they would have to watch out.
      • Ok... car built so they make possible a killing of other people by riding over them... So what now?
        You can easy run a car over 100 people on sidewalk...
        Cars are made to kill?

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