On Wed, 2012-03-07 at 10:35 +1100, Karl Goetz wrote: > On Mon, 5 Mar 2012 22:19:09 +0100 > Stefano Zacchiroli <z...@debian.org> wrote: > > > On Mon, Mar 05, 2012 at 08:09:47PM +0000, Philipp Kern wrote: > > > The reason being what? We have ZIP password crackers in the > > > archive, too. > > > > Cracking ZIP passwords doesn't fall under the auspices of DMCA or your > > equivalent $county_specific_law (and there are quite a few around the > > world, unfortunately). > > I'm surprised, I thought DMCA applied to circumventing protections > designed to 'protect' copyright.
The DVD-CCA requires that licenced DVD players hide decryption keys and the decrypted bitstream from the user, and that they restrict playback in various ways. Unlicenced players might not have such restrictions, but will also not be given player keys. So CSS 'effectively controls access to the work' on DVDs that use it, and circumvention is against the law in the USA (and many other countries). Whereas, with zip encryption, the intended recipient must be given the password, and the unzip program will then provide them with the decrypted files to use and copy as they wish. So this is not copy protection or access control, and password cracking therefore does not seem to be forbidden by those laws. (But there may be other laws not related to copyright that do forbid such tools.) Ben. -- Ben Hutchings Quantity is no substitute for quality, but it's the only one we've got.
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