CITP Blog - Formerly Freedom to Tinker

Category: Uncategorized

  • CGMS-A + VEIL = SDMI ?

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    I wrote last week about the Analog Hole Bill, which would require almost all devices that handle analog video signals to implement a particular anti-copying scheme called CGMS-A + VEIL. Today I want to talk about how that scheme works, and what we can learn from its design. CGMS-A + VEIL is, not surprisingly, a…

  • The Professional Device Hole

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    Any American parent with kids of a certain age knows Louis Sachar’s novel Holes, and the movie made from it. It’s set somewhere in the Texas desert, at a boot camp for troublemaking kids. The kids are forced to work all day in the scorching sun, digging holes in the rock-hard ground then re-filling them.…

  • Predictions for 2006

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    Each January, I have offered predictions for the upcoming year. This year, Alex and I put our heads together to come up with a single list of predictions. Having doubled the number of bloggers making predictions, we seem to have doubled the number of predictions, too. Each prediction is supported by at least one of…

  • 2005 Predictions Scorecard

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    Last January, I offered predictions for 2005. It’s time now to review those predictions, to see how I did. (1) DRM technology, especially on PCs, will be seen increasingly as a security and privacy risk to end users. The SonyBMG fiasco fulfilled this prediction. Verdict: Right. (2) Vonage and other leading VoIP vendors will start…

  • Open Thread: SonyBMG Lawsuit Settlement

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    SonyBMG has reportedly reached a settlement agreement in the class action lawsuits. Alex Eckelberry has posted the motion proposing the settlement, and a brief summary of its terms. The settlement must be approved by a court before taking effect. We’re on holiday hiatus, so I won’t analyze the settlement now. Feel free to discuss it…

  • Happy Holidays

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    Barring major unexpected news, we’ll be on hiatus until after the holidays. We appreciate you, our readers, but this is the time of year to spend less time with you and more with our families. Enjoy the holidays, and we’ll see you in January!

  • Sony CDs and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

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    We’ve written plenty here about the adventures of SonyBMG, First4Internet, and SunnComm/MediaMax in CD copy protection. Today, I want to consider whether the companies violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), which is the primary Federal law banning computer intrusions and malware. A CFAA violator is subject to criminal enforcement and to civil suits…

  • Is DRM Good for You?

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    Randy Picker, a principled DRM (copy protection) advocate, had an interesting comment on one of my prior posts about the Sony incident. Here’s the core of it: Assume for now that you are right that DRM leads to spyware; all that means is that we need to figure out whether we should or shouldn’t favor…

  • G-Men Called on W-Hats for WMVD

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    [Despite our recent focus on the SonyBMG CD flap, our mandate here at Freedom to Tinker covers infotech and policy generally. So I hope any Sonymaniacs in the audience will forgive me for posting about something else today. (If you need a Sony fix, Bruce Hayden can help.) Regularly scheduled Sony-related programming will resume next…

  • Make Your Own Copy-Protected CD with Passive Protection

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    Here’s a great gift idea just in time for the holidays: Make your friends and relatives their very own copy-protected CDs using the same industrial-grade passive protection technology built into XCP and Macrovision discs. Passive protection exploits subtle differences between the way computers read CDs and the way ordinary CD players do. By changing the…