[10194] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: password-cracking by journalists...
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Will Rodger)
Fri Jan 18 16:19:42 2002
Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.0.20020118160413.009f37d0@netmail.home.net>
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 16:12:30 -0500
To: "Arnold G. Reinhold" <reinhold@world.std.com>,
Steve Bellovin <smb@research.att.com>, cryptography@wasabisystems.com
From: Will Rodger <wrodger@pobox.com>
In-Reply-To: <v04210105b86deeb3d245@[192.168.0.2]>
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>This law has LOTS of unintended consequences. That is why many people
>find it so disturbing. For example, as I read it, and I am *not* a
>lawyer, someone who offered file decryption services for hire to people
>who have a right to the data, e.g. the owner lost the password, or a
>disgruntled employee left with the password, or a parent wants to see what
>was stored on their child's hard drive, could still be charged with
>committing a felony.
If it's your copyright, it's still yours. The law recognizes that.
>As for the legal situation before the DMCA, the Supreme Court issued a
>ruling last year in a case, Barniki v. Volper, of a journalist who
>broadcast a tape he received of an illegally intercepted cell phone
>conversation between two labor organizers. The court ruled that the
>broadcast was permissible.
The journalist received the information from a source gratis. That's
different from paying for stolen goods, hiring someone to eavesdrop, or
breaking the law yourself. The First Amendment covers a lot, in this case.
> So the stolen property argument you give might not hold. The change
> wrought by the DMCA is that it makes trafficking in the tools needed to
> get at encrypted data, regardless whether one has a right to (there is an
> exemption for law enforcement) unlawful.
There's language governing that in the statute. Trafficking in tools
specifically designed to break a given form of copy protection is one
thing. The continued availability of legal tools for cryptanalysis and
legitimate password cracking is another. As bad as the DMCA is, it's not
_that_ bad.
Will
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