DeCSS haiku

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DeCSS haiku is a 465-stanza haiku poem written in 2001 by American hacker Seth Schoen as part of the protest action regarding the prosecution of Norwegian programmer Jon Lech Johansen for co-creating the DeCSS software. The poem, written in the spirit of civil disobedience against the DVD Copy Control Association, argues that "code is speech."

Contents

History

DeCSS haiku was created in the context of a series of protests, coming from the international hacker community, against the arrest of Norwegian programmer Jon Lech Johansen, and a series of related lawsuits against him and other hackers (such as Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Reimerdes and DVD Copy Control Association, Inc. v. Bunner ). Johansen, a Norwegian teenage programmer, was one of the creators of the freely distributed DeCSS software which can be used to bypass DVD encryption, preventing even legally-acquired DVDs from running on unauthorized computers (which at that time included all Linux machines). Johansen and others who reposted the code, including 2600: The Hacker Quarterly , were sued by the entertainment industry for revealing a trade secret and facilitating illegal copying and distribution of content on said DVDs. [1]

Seth Schoen's goal was to provide tangible proof for the argument that "source code is speech" and hence should be given the same legal protections as free speech. [2] A number of other activists, in the spirit of civil disobedience, created works of arts containing the infringing code, on the principle that such works are subject to First Amendment principle within the United States. [1] [3] Schoen decided to create a poem, which he did in 2001. [2] At first, Schoen released the poem anonymously, [4] though he has publicly acknowledged its ownership since. [5] [6]

The 465-stanza haiku transcodes the DeCSS software, in effect allowing most computer programmers to recreate the DeCSS software from scratch, using the haiku as their only reference. [2] This can be illustrated by the following short excerpt:

All we have to do
is this: copy our DKEY
into im1,

use the rule above
that decrypts a disk key (with
im1 and its

friend im2 as
inputs) -- thus we decrypt the
disk key im1.

At another point, the poem discloses a sixteen-digit master key to the CSS code that the entertainment industry lawyers considered a proprietary trade secret:

So this number is,
once again, the player key:
(trade secret haiku?)

Eighty-one; and then
one hundred three -- two times; then
two hundred (less three)

two hundred twenty
four; and last (of course not least)
the humble zero.

Gabriella Coleman noted: "in formally comparing code to poetry in the medium of a poem, Schoen displays a playful form of clever and recursive rhetoric valued among hackers; he also articulates the meaning of the First Amendment and software." [2] David S. Touretzky in turn described this work as "ingenious poem... both a commentary on the DeCSS situation and a correct and complete description of the descrambling algorithm. Truly inspired." [6]

His work has been described as one of the most notable examples of DeCSS-inspired hacker art. [1] [6] It was covered by The Wall Street Journal , San Francisco Chronicle , Wired , and The New York Times Magazine . [1]

Seth Schoen

Seth Schoen at the 2012 Mystery Hunt Seth Schoen Mystery Hunt.jpg
Seth Schoen at the 2012 Mystery Hunt

Seth David Schoen (born September 27, 1979) is senior staff technologist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a technology civil rights organisation, and has been actively involved in discussing digital copyright law and encryption since the 1990s. He is an expert in trusted computing, and is best known as the author of DeCSS haiku. [2]

Seth attended Northfield Mount Hermon School in Northfield, Massachusetts from 1993–1997. While attending UC Berkeley, Schoen founded Californians for Academic Freedom to protest the loyalty oath the state made university employees swear. Schoen later worked for Linuxcare, where he developed the Linuxcare Bootable Business Card. After he left Linuxcare, he forked the project to create the LNX-BBC rescue system, of which he is a lead developer. Schoen was formerly a board member and the Secretary of the Peer-Directed Projects Center, a Texas-based non-profit corporation, until he stepped down in November 2006.

Other work

In February 2008, Schoen collaborated with a Princeton research group led by Edward Felten that discovered a vulnerability of DRAM that undermined the basic assumptions of computer encryption security. [7] [8] In October 2005, Schoen led a small research team at EFF to decode the tiny tracking dots hidden in the printouts of some laser printers. [9]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DeCSS</span> Free open-source program to decode DVDs with encryption

DeCSS is one of the first free computer programs capable of decrypting content on a commercially produced DVD video disc. Before the release of DeCSS free and open source operating systems could not play encrypted video DVDs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jon Lech Johansen</span> Norwegian programmer (born 1983)

Jon Lech Johansen, also known as DVD Jon, is a Norwegian programmer who has worked on reverse engineering data formats. He wrote the DeCSS software, which decodes the Content Scramble System used for DVD licensing enforcement. Johansen is a self-trained software engineer, who quit high school during his first year to spend more time with the DeCSS case. He moved to the United States and worked as a software engineer from October 2005 until November 2006. He then moved to Norway but moved back to the United States in June 2007.

The DVD Copy Control Association is an organization primarily responsible for the copy protection of DVDs. The Content Scramble System (CSS) was devised for this purpose to make copyright infringement difficult, but also presents obstacles to some legitimate uses of the media. The association is also responsible for the controversial Regional Playback Control (RPC), the region encoding scheme which gives movie studios geographic control over DVD distribution.

In computing, polymorphic code is code that uses a polymorphic engine to mutate while keeping the original algorithm intact - that is, the code changes itself every time it runs, but the function of the code stays the same. For example, the simple math expressions 3+1 and 6-2 both achieve the same result, yet run with different machine code in a CPU. This technique is sometimes used by computer viruses, shellcodes and computer worms to hide their presence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bootable business card</span> CD-ROM shaped like a business card

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">DVD Shrink</span> Optical disc authoring software

DVD Shrink is a freeware DVD transcoder program for Microsoft Windows that uses a DVD ripper to back up DVD video. It can also be run under Linux using Wine. The final versions are 3.2.0.15 (English) and 3.2.0.16 (German); all other versions, such as DVD Shrink 2010, are illegitimate. DVD Shrink's purpose is, as its name implies, to reduce the amount of data stored on a DVD with minimal loss of quality, although some loss of quality is inevitable. It creates a copy of a DVD, during which the DVD region code is removed, and copy protection may also be circumvented. A stamped DVD may require more space than is available on a writeable DVD, unless shrunk. Many commercially released video DVDs are dual layer ; DVD Shrink can make a shrunk copy which will fit on a single-layer writeable DVD, processing the video with some loss of quality and allowing the user to discard unwanted content such as foreign-language soundtracks.

End-to-end encryption (E2EE) is a private communication system in which only communicating users can participate. As such, no one, including the communication system provider, telecom providers, Internet providers or malicious actors, can access the cryptographic keys needed to converse.

<i>Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Corley</i> American legal case

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">David S. Touretzky</span> American computer scientist

David S. Touretzky is a research professor in the Computer Science Department and the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition at Carnegie Mellon University. He received a BA in Computer Science at Rutgers University in 1978, and earned a master's degree and a Ph.D. (1984) in Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. Touretzky has worked as an Internet activist in favor of freedom of speech, especially what he perceives as abuse of the legal system by government and private authorities. He is a notable critic of Scientology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BackupHDDVD</span> AACS decryption software

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The Advanced Access Content System (AACS) is a standard for content distribution and digital rights management, intended to restrict access to and copying of the post-DVD generation of optical discs. The specification was publicly released in April 2005. The standard has been adopted as the access restriction scheme for HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc (BD). It is developed by AACS Licensing Administrator, LLC, a consortium that includes Disney, Intel, Microsoft, Panasonic, Warner Bros., IBM, Toshiba and Sony. AACS has been operating under an "interim agreement" since the final specification has not yet been finalized.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Security of Advanced Access Content System</span>

The security of Advanced Access Content System (AACS) has been a subject of discussion amongst security researchers, high definition video enthusiasts, and consumers at large since its inception. A successor to Content Scramble System (CSS), the digital rights management mechanism used by commercial DVDs, AACS was intended to improve upon the design of CSS by addressing flaws which had led to the total circumvention of CSS in 1999. The AACS system relies on a subset difference tree combined with a certificate revocation mechanism to ensure the security of high definition video content in the event of a compromise.

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<i>DVD Copy Control Assn, Inc. v. Bunner</i>

DVD Copy Control Association, Inc. v. Bunner was a lawsuit that was filed by the DVD Copy Control Association in California, accusing Andrew Bunner and several others of misappropriation of trade secrets under California's implementation of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act. The case went through several rounds of appeals and was last heard and decided in February 2004 by the California Court of Appeal for the Sixth District.

<i>RealNetworks, Inc. v. DVD Copy Control Assn, Inc.</i> 2009 court case

RealNetworks, Inc. v. DVD Copy Control Association, Inc., 641 F. Supp. 2d 913 (2009), is a United States District Court case involving RealNetworks, the movie studios and DVD Copy Control Association regarding the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) claims on the manufacturing and distribution of RealDVD, and a breach of license agreement. The district court concluded that RealNetworks violated the anti-circumvention and anti-trafficking provisions of the DMCA when the DVD copying software RealDVD bypasses the copy protection technologies of DVD.

<i>321 Studios v. Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios, Inc.</i>

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Lievrouw, Leah (6 May 2013). Alternative and Activist New Media. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 77–80. ISBN   978-0-7456-5833-9.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 E. Gabriella Coleman (2013). Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking . Princeton University Press. pp.  161, 176–178. ISBN   978-0-691-14461-0.
  3. ↑ Coleman, Gabriella (2009). "Code is Speech: Liberalism, Legality, and the Ethics of Free Software" (PDF). Cultural Anthropology. 24 (3): 420–454. doi:10.1111/j.1548-1360.2009.01036.x.
  4. ↑ "IP: DeCSS haiku and more Motion Picture Association threats". Interesting People (Mailing list). 24 Feb 2001.
  5. ↑ "I wrote the DeCSS Haiku". dvd-discuss (Mailing list). 27 Jan 2004.
  6. 1 2 3 Touretzky, David S. (2004-01-28). "Gallery of CSS Descramblers". Cs.cmu.edu. Retrieved 2014-04-21.
  7. ↑ "Center for Information Technology Policy » Lest We Remember: Cold Boot Attacks on Encryption Keys". Citp.princeton.edu. Retrieved 2010-02-24.
  8. ↑ Markoff, John (February 22, 2008). "Researchers Find Way to Steal Encrypted Data". The New York Times . Retrieved May 29, 2015.
  9. ↑ "Press Releases: October, 2005 | Electronic Frontier Foundation". Eff.org. 16 October 2005. Retrieved 2010-02-24.

Further reading

For Seth Schoen

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