[dvd-discuss] Re: [DMCA_discuss] Linux kernel security fixes censored by the DMCA

["Roy Murphy" <murphy(at)panix.com>]

'Twas brillig when John Zulaf scrobe:
>So there we have it:
>
>(a) a TPM that controls access to a work with the authorization of the
>copyright holder (the DMCA
>(b) information about a crack which circumvents this TPM (typically
>gaining root access)
>(c) dissemination of that "device... or component thereof" -- i.e. any
>demo code or documentation sufficient to reproduce that crack
>
>QED -- the next time Alan visits the US, the FBI could visit him if he
>does (c).

This was nothing more than a publicity stunt by Alan Cox.

He censored a kernel changelog.  The changelog is a description of the purpose
of the patches that he accepted an incorporated.  A *description* of the existing
security hole which was patched *is*not* a device.  No reasonable person could
confuse it with a device.  I won't even go into 1201(a)(2) A/B/C analysis.

For your reference:
(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise
traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof,
that - 
(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological
measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;

(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent
a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected
under this title; or 
(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person
with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure
that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. 
(3) As used in this subsection - 
(A) to ''circumvent a technological measure'' means to descramble a scrambled
work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate,
or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner;
and 
(B) a technological measure ''effectively controls access to a work'' if the
measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of
information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright
owner, to gain access to the work.