Re: [dvd-discuss] Adobe ElcomSoft FAQ

[Eric Seppanen <eds(at)reric.net>]

On Tue, Sep 04, 2001 at 03:14:12PM -0500, Tim Neu wrote:
> 
> http://www.visi.com/~tneu/adobefaq.html
> 
> A draft of a rebuttal of Adobe's ElcomSoft FAQ.    

There's a bit in there that says:

  "...Adobe would like to continue making money selling a defective
  product without notifying (or allowing anyone else to notify) their 
  customers.

  "Perhaps Adobe would like to wait until all publishers who have placed
  their trust in Adobe's "e-book" format are betrayed by it's security
  (or lack thereof), before fixing the problem.

  "This is like a bank leaving their doors unlocked and a post-it with
  the combination on the vault, then trying to stop anyone
  from mentioning the situation!

  "I think it's a much better policy to fix the problem, then to try to
  keep the vulnerability secret."

This section sacrifices some credibility in my opinion because you're
glossing over a complicated argument in order to back up your argument.
Smart people will see the parts you're glossing over, anyway, and may
think you're trying to mislead people by leaving out some of the facts.

You imply that Adobe could have created a working "secure" product, and
that everything would have been OK. The simple fact is that there is no
way today to write a software "trusted" reader program that runs on user
PCs, without exposing all the necessary information to crack the
encryption system.  Encryption just doesn't work when the keys are
inside untrusted computers.

Do you really wish such a product existed, anyway?  I sure don't... fair
use would be gone forever.  It seems sleazy to tease Adobe for not
creating more "secure" clients, when you know full well we'd all fight
to keep them from widespread acceptance anyway.

Perhaps you should finish by saying:

  There may be no way today to prevent copyright infringement of 
  e-books.  If that spells the death of Adobe Reader, is that the fault
  of the people who point out the problems, or is it Adobe's fault
  for pretending otherwise?