- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re: China's wealthy bypass the banks
by Enzo Michelangeli 19 Nov '04

19 Nov '04

Re: China's wealthy bypass the banks Tyler Durden Wed, 10 Nov 2004 14:56:08 -0800 > Oh No!!!! > > > Way overly simplistic. Also, you are comparing apples to bushels of > wheat. > > [James Donald:] > However Confucianism vs Daoism/Taoism is rather different from what > you would get in the west. Confucianism is somewhat similar to what > you would get if western cultural conservatives allied themselves with > nazi/commies, in the way that the commies are prone to imagine > conservatives have supposedly allied themselves with nazis. Taoism > somewhat similar to what you would get if anarcho capitalists allied > themselves with pagans and wiccans... > > WOW! I'll skip the obvious comments and ask, In which centuries are > you suggesting this applies? Now? If so, you are clearly NOT talking > about mainland China. Please re-define the centuries/epochs during > which you believe this to have been true, and then maybe I'll bother > responding. Actually, that doesn't apply to any century. The ancient philosophical school that inspired Mao Zedong was actually Legalism, which provided the theoretic foundations to the absolutist rule of Qin Shi Huangdi (to whom Mao liked to compare himself). Mao, as many other Chinese reformers and writers of the early XX Century, hated Confucianism as symbol of China's "ancien regime" and decay. Which is why the campaign against Zhou En-lai of 1974-75 had an anti-Confucian theme (see e.g. the posters at http://www.iisg.nl/~landsberger/plpk.html ) Legalists and Qin Shi Huangdi himself were pretty nasty types, and their domination saw widespread confiscation of books, ridiculously harsh rule (arriving late to work could bring the death penalty!) and large-scale assassination or rivals: several Confucian philosophers were buried alive. The ruthless methods of the Qin dinasty ultimately resulted in its downfall: it only lasted one and half decade (221 - 206 BC), half of what Maoism did. By comparison, Confucianism was remarkably enlightened, which is also why Voltaire expressed a good opinion of it. Some Confucian philosophers like Mencius (372-289 AC) were early theorists of people's sovereignty: "The people are the most important element in a nation; the spirits of the land and grain are the next; the sovereign is the lightest [...] When a prince endangers the altars of the spirits of the land and grain, he is changed, and another appointed in his place." [Mencius, Book 7: http://nothingistic.org/library/mencius/mencius27.html ] ...and of the right to tyrannicide, justified by the loss of legitimacy brought by misrule: "The king said, 'May a minister then put his sovereign to death?' Mencius said, 'He who outrages the benevolence proper to his nature, is called a robber; he who outrages righteousness, is called a ruffian. The robber and ruffian we call a mere fellow." [Mencius, Book 1: http://nothingistic.org/library/mencius/mencius04.html ] Enzo

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[ISN] Under Phishing Attack, British Bank Shuts Down Some Services
by InfoSec News 19 Nov '04

19 Nov '04

http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=CIGVP13WT… By Gregg Keizer TechWeb News Nov. 18, 2004 One of the four biggest banks in the United Kingdom has taken the unusual step of suspending some features of its online service following a phishing attack. On Wednesday, NatWest, which is part of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group and one of Britain's big four banks, shut off features to its million-plus online customers. When users logged on to the NatWest site, they saw a message that read, "We have temporarily suspended the ability to create or amend Third Party Payment mandates and create Standing Order mandates." Third-party-payment mandates, said Caroline Harris, a NatWest spokesperson, are ad-hoc electronic-payment requests outside the normal bill payments already established. They're typically used to pay individuals electronically. Standing-order mandates are the U.K. equivalent of a scheduled bill payment. "We've not shut down the entire site, as some press reports would have you believe," said Harris, "but we've only restricted one small part." The phishing e-mail received by NatWest customers claimed to be part of a software update to the online banking service. "This is only temporary," said Harris, "and is a preventative measure to protect our customers. Because we've [blocked third-party-payment and standing orders] the phishers haven't been able to take money out of customer accounts." She reiterated that no NatWest customer had lost money to the scam. NatWest urged customers who may have given up personal information to contact the bank, and said that alternate ways to make payments, such as by telephone, remained an option. Although Harris said such action was "nothing new" and that the bank had done similar things before when faced with determined phishers, a U.S.-based banking analyst said it was news to her. "I've never heard of that tactic before," said Avivah Litan, a research director and vice president with Gartner who specializes in bank fraud and phishing issues. "Not that it's a bad action, but it sounds to me that NatWest didn't have a way to contain the damage. "It's an extreme measure. It probably means that they don't have other risk-control mechanisms in place, or the attack was getting out of hand," she added. And while NatWest reacted quickly, there's a real chance a temporary measure like this won't stop phishers from exploiting stolen information. Increasingly, she said, it seems phishers are a lot more patient than anyone thought. "When you look at the big picture, there's more and more evidence that phishers are sitting on the information [they steal], and that the real damage may not show up for a year or two." Phishers, Litan went on, "are very clever, and have a lot of time and patience." Rather than use their ill-gotten information immediately -- which is what NatWest assumes by temporarily limiting on-the-fly payments -- there's growing concern that cyber-criminals wait a long time before pouncing. One tactic phishers are using, said Litan, is to apply for new credit cards using stolen identity information, use and pay those cards, and over a period of months, even as long as two years, build up the cards' credit limits. "Then they'll do 'bust-outs,'" said Litan. "That's when they run through the credit limit, say $50,000, before the first bill comes due, with no intention of paying." The worst news, about NatWest's move, concluded Litan, is that it may only be the beginning of a new wave of banking business disruptions. "Once I thought that maybe phishing was a fad, and after a while it would be replaced by some other scam, like keyloggers. But it's not a fad. It's going to get worse, and it's not going to slow down." _________________________________________ Open Source Vulnerability Database (OSVDB) Everything is Vulnerable - http://www.osvdb.org/ - --- end forwarded text - -- - ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 1308 iQA/AwUBQZ4H88PxH8jf3ohaEQJ4GwCfQ0s+fQlkneSb6Tqq3l1sfMVCIrIAn04X ophDQhDGRIN6km3/v3liETOO =q56s -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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[ISN] Under Phishing Attack, British Bank Shuts Down Some Services
by InfoSec News 19 Nov '04

19 Nov '04

http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=CIGVP13WT… By Gregg Keizer TechWeb News Nov. 18, 2004 One of the four biggest banks in the United Kingdom has taken the unusual step of suspending some features of its online service following a phishing attack. On Wednesday, NatWest, which is part of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group and one of Britain's big four banks, shut off features to its million-plus online customers. When users logged on to the NatWest site, they saw a message that read, "We have temporarily suspended the ability to create or amend Third Party Payment mandates and create Standing Order mandates." Third-party-payment mandates, said Caroline Harris, a NatWest spokesperson, are ad-hoc electronic-payment requests outside the normal bill payments already established. They're typically used to pay individuals electronically. Standing-order mandates are the U.K. equivalent of a scheduled bill payment. "We've not shut down the entire site, as some press reports would have you believe," said Harris, "but we've only restricted one small part." The phishing e-mail received by NatWest customers claimed to be part of a software update to the online banking service. "This is only temporary," said Harris, "and is a preventative measure to protect our customers. Because we've [blocked third-party-payment and standing orders] the phishers haven't been able to take money out of customer accounts." She reiterated that no NatWest customer had lost money to the scam. NatWest urged customers who may have given up personal information to contact the bank, and said that alternate ways to make payments, such as by telephone, remained an option. Although Harris said such action was "nothing new" and that the bank had done similar things before when faced with determined phishers, a U.S.-based banking analyst said it was news to her. "I've never heard of that tactic before," said Avivah Litan, a research director and vice president with Gartner who specializes in bank fraud and phishing issues. "Not that it's a bad action, but it sounds to me that NatWest didn't have a way to contain the damage. "It's an extreme measure. It probably means that they don't have other risk-control mechanisms in place, or the attack was getting out of hand," she added. And while NatWest reacted quickly, there's a real chance a temporary measure like this won't stop phishers from exploiting stolen information. Increasingly, she said, it seems phishers are a lot more patient than anyone thought. "When you look at the big picture, there's more and more evidence that phishers are sitting on the information [they steal], and that the real damage may not show up for a year or two." Phishers, Litan went on, "are very clever, and have a lot of time and patience." Rather than use their ill-gotten information immediately -- which is what NatWest assumes by temporarily limiting on-the-fly payments -- there's growing concern that cyber-criminals wait a long time before pouncing. One tactic phishers are using, said Litan, is to apply for new credit cards using stolen identity information, use and pay those cards, and over a period of months, even as long as two years, build up the cards' credit limits. "Then they'll do 'bust-outs,'" said Litan. "That's when they run through the credit limit, say $50,000, before the first bill comes due, with no intention of paying." The worst news, about NatWest's move, concluded Litan, is that it may only be the beginning of a new wave of banking business disruptions. "Once I thought that maybe phishing was a fad, and after a while it would be replaced by some other scam, like keyloggers. But it's not a fad. It's going to get worse, and it's not going to slow down." _________________________________________ Open Source Vulnerability Database (OSVDB) Everything is Vulnerable - http://www.osvdb.org/ - --- end forwarded text - -- - ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 1308 iQA/AwUBQZ4H88PxH8jf3ohaEQJ4GwCfQ0s+fQlkneSb6Tqq3l1sfMVCIrIAn04X ophDQhDGRIN6km3/v3liETOO =q56s -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Terror Net
by Pete Capelli 19 Nov '04

19 Nov '04

This'll be sweet. Think of the DoS, false positive fun you could have with these ... On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 09:41:32 -0500, R.A. Hettinga <rah(a)shipwright.com> wrote: <http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/04/12/innovation31204.asp?p=0> > > Technology Review > > Terror Net > > By Lakshmi Sandhana > Innovation News > December 2004 > > Ever since the September 11 terrorist attacks, federal agencies have been > wishing for a system capable of issuing a nationwide alert at the first > sign of a chemical, biological, or radiological attack. Now such a system > is undergoing trials in Tennessee. > -- Pete Capelli pcapelli(a)ieee.org http://www.capelli.org PGP Key ID:0x829263B6 "Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin, 1759

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[ISN] Under Phishing Attack, British Bank Shuts Down Some Services
by R.A. Hettinga 19 Nov '04

19 Nov '04

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 - --- begin forwarded text

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Terror Net
by R.A. Hettinga 19 Nov '04

19 Nov '04

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 <http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/04/12/innovation31204.asp?p=0> Technology Review Terror Net By Lakshmi Sandhana Innovation News December 2004 Ever since the September 11 terrorist attacks, federal agencies have been wishing for a system capable of issuing a nationwide alert at the first sign of a chemical, biological, or radiological attack. Now such a system is undergoing trials in Tennessee. Developed by the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, the new system consists of sensor packages attached to structures such as cell-phone towers. The packages will include detectors for airborne chemicals and radioisotopes, and for weather changes. The intent of the system-which is being tested in Knoxville, Nashville, and other locations-is to detect plumes of contaminants, predict their spread, and quickly alert command centers. In a 2002 test, prototype sensors successfully detected discharges of simulated sarin gas in three cities 140 to 270 kilometers apart and dispatched pertinent data in less than two minutes. The current trial will test the system on an even larger scale. The Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, and other organizations are sharing the cost of developing the system; at least $12 million has been assigned to it for the coming year. "At this point, we are not deployed nationwide, but we've demonstrated the scalability of the technology," says Jim Kulesz, special-projects manager at Oak Ridge. Observers say the technology, while promising, is not a panacea. If fully deployed, says Paul Sereiko, president of Needham, MA-based wireless-sensor maker Sensicast Systems, it "will provide an excellent early-warning system for wide-area contaminant monitoring." But, he adds, additional local monitoring will still be needed. - -- - ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 1308 iQA/AwUBQZ4H8MPxH8jf3ohaEQL1AACgw+u/d4omwYlLZm5sPVUqhAyG8tgAoOma TC/hiEwOHODVP/IxN7TfzKn1 =2c0B -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Tax inspector's quest in 'The Cryptographer'
by R.A. Hettinga 19 Nov '04

19 Nov '04

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 <http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2004/11/19/features/9295722…> The Star Online: Lifestyle Friday November 19, 2004 Tax inspector's quest in 'The Cryptographer' Review by JOANN KOH The Cryptographer Author: Tobias Hill Publisher: Faber and Faber If cryptography is the science of concealing something, such as "the blueprint of a gun in a conversation about snow", then Tobias Hill himself must be an expert cryptographer. If he had meant to be so, that is. This book is full of brilliant insights - but I had to dig for each nugget, because he is not always clear. Or direct. But perhaps it is because Hill is good at getting under his characters' skin (he won the 1998 PEN/MacMillan Award for Fiction for his debut novel, Skin). Then again, perhaps he is too good. In the book, the protagonist Anna Moore, tax inspector A2 grade of Her Majesty's Inland Revenue Service, is paid to doubt what her "client" says (client being a euphemism for those we must investigate), and Anna Moore doubts plenty. In trying to show us how the mind trips up when doubting, Hill may have caused us to stumble, too. It is quite an exercise of tenacity, by page 20, to reread what Anna says or doesn't say - to make sure what Anna says, or doesn't say, is what Anna means exactly. But then again, this is stream-of-consciousness writing, and novels with ambiguity of this level do not sit well with me. That said, however, if you enjoy ideas and feel up to a challenge, this novel could be for you. It is the year 2021, when Soft Gold, an unbreakable form of electric money has replaced paper money. Anna is assigned to investigate John Law, cybergenius, cryptographer and inventor of Soft Gold, for an undeclared sum of four million dollars in an account in his son's name - a surprising sum to be secret about for a quadrillionaire. For Anna - who believes that after a certain point, we begin chasing money not for money's own sake, but for the love of someone we have, someone we want or hope to be - this is the beginning of an obsession. Anna wants to know whom John Law thinks of, when he thinks of money. In this invented world, the future belongs to John Law. But the world of the future fears him as much as they respect him. For a man who knows how to embed "encrypted information in the genetic code of plants and flowers", (the patent of which, at age 17, he sold to the US government for seven and a half million dollars) may also embed a deadly virus in our bodies should he wish to quietly exterminate us. A man with so much wealth can vacuum his gut ever so frequently and outlive us - a demigod amongst mortals. And so on and so forth. Law creates the downloadable Soft Gold freeware, which he guarantees is totally secure because no computer has yet been invented that can break the code. But he also knows it is human nature to want to break an unbreakable code, for by breaking it, not only does one discover its defects, one also exceeds its inventor. So, it is just a matter of time when Soft Gold gets broken into and John Law becomes a hunted man. This time, Anna is assigned to hunt him down. Concealed within are two love stories, involving old loves Anna and Lawrence and new loves Anna and John. Lawrence waits patiently to re-ignite a stalled relationship, but Anna feels she no longer loves him; she has betrayed his trust, once; she feels she trusts him though. But she doesn't know if she can trust John Law, although she wants to; the second pursuit, on a personal level, is for her to find out if she can. Because without trust, she knows, love will not be possible. Read The Cryptographer for the thinker in you, and not the "feeler". And welcome to the invented world of Tobias Hill. - -- - ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 1308 iQA/AwUBQZ3sRsPxH8jf3ohaEQKAbQCdGIemIF+TWyd0UMIBMIcXHqbjNbsAn0lr MhB9HFVzSPb1hODcURwLubGk =ypcr -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Pioneer of Sham Tax Havens Sits Down for Pre-Jail Chat
by R.A. Hettinga 19 Nov '04

19 Nov '04

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 <http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/18/business/18tax.html?th=&oref=login&pagewa…> The New York Times November 18, 2004 Pioneer of Sham Tax Havens Sits Down for Pre-Jail Chat By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON EATTLE, Nov. 17 - Jerome Schneider, the nation's best-known seller of fraudulent offshore banks, said in an interview today that he had helped hundreds of rich Americans evade taxes, including actors, celebrities and business owners. Mr. Schneider, who pleaded guilty in February to conspiring to help his clients evade the tax laws, said that he expected "every single one" of his clients to be prosecuted or sued for the taxes they evaded. He said clients sought to evade taxes on incomes ranging from $100,000 to $40 million, though most were from a third to half a million dollars. Mr. Schneider, 53, spoke in a cramped hotel room here under the watchful eye of three Internal Revenue Service criminal investigators, who said nothing but smiled broadly at times as he answered questions and named clients and associates. The I.R.S. set up the interview with Mr. Schneider but did not interfere with it. The agency, by law, cannot comment on individual taxpayers. Under the terms of his agreement with the government to plead guilty, Mr. Schneider may not make any public comments about his former clients "without prior consent of the government." He is to be sentenced on Monday in Federal District Court in Los Angeles. In return for his cooperation, he is expected to serve no more than 24 months in prison. He has already paid $100,000 in restitution. Mr. Schneider said he always reported his full income to the I.R.S. and never personally used an offshore bank to hide income. Since 1976, Mr. Schneider has set up sham banks for clients in the Cayman Islands, Grenada, Montserratt, Vanuatu, the Cook Islands and, recently, in Nauru, a Pacific island. Clients paid as much as $60,000 to "acquire" an offshore bank, which consisted of nothing more than pieces of paper to create the appearance of legitimate business activity, he said, confirming the accusations in the government indictment. He said that while most clients wanted to hide money from the I.R.S., some also wanted to conceal money from estranged spouses or creditors. "Every one of my clients knew full well what they were getting into, including the potential to be prosecuted," he said, detailing how they signed contracts, were advised by lawyers and were told that if tax authorities ever caught onto them they could go to prison. "They understood that," he contended. He said that all his clients had two things in common - they were rich and they wanted to escape taxes. Most of the nation's major accounting firms worked with one or another of his clients, he said, and he named two law firms that he said were central to his business. He said one prominent actress sent money to the United International Bank in Nauru, which he said he created. He said the actress paid $50,000 for a legal opinion asserting that the arrangement was legal. Mr. Schneider also said that in 1988 he arranged for a prominent motivation coach to place $250,000 in an offshore bank without reporting the money to the I.R.S. In addition, Mr. Schneider said that a billionaire media businessman, one of several clients who he said were on the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans, sent $40 million to a sham bank in Nauru to pay for a nut-processing company in 1994. The owner of the company has died, but his estate is challenging in Tax Court an I.R.S. demand that taxes be paid on profits from the sale. For 28 years, Mr. Schneider promoted offshore tax schemes. He sold, he said, more than a million copies of his book, "The Complete Guide to Offshore Money Havens," which he advertised in The Wall Street Journal and SkyMall, a magazine found in the seat-back pocket on many airlines. The 2000 edition book carried an endorsement by Representative Billy Tauzin, the Louisiana Republican, who also spoke at one of Mr. Schneider's tax evasion conferences. Mr. Tauzin's spokesman, Ken Johnson, said the endorsement was "a stupid mistake." Mr. Schneider, 53, who lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, was the picture of a successful businessman, dressed in a knit shirt, gray wool slacks and black loafers, his graying hair clipped short, his face framed by horn-rimmed glasses. He began the interview by describing his conduct in terms of helping people, but when pressed he said, "Yes, I am a criminal." Mr. Schneider said his undoing began the day more than a decade ago when he asked Jack Blum, a former United States Senate investigator, to speak at one of his offshore seminars. Mr. Blum, who specializes in exposing international financial crimes, wrote a letter to the Justice Department that prompted the investigation that led to Mr. Schneider's guilty plea. Mr. Blum said, "That Schneider could operate openly for years, buying ads in the Wall Street Journal and the American Airlines flight magazine, shows the utter failure of tax law enforcement." He said law enforcement had known about Mr. Schneider for years, but failed to act. The Senate Permanent Investigations subcommittee called Mr. Schneider as a witness in 1983 hearings on offshore tax evasion, and two years later the Comptroller of the Currency warned American banks about dealing with some of the offshore banks Mr. Schneider created. The I.R.S., in court papers, said it began investigating Mr. Schneider in 1997, 14 years after his Senate testimony, because of the letter from Mr. Blum. It took five more years to obtain an indictment. Today, Mr. Schneider said, he is broke. "I lost everything,'' he said. "My wife divorced me and with the legal fees, everything is gone." Asked about the millions of dollars he earned setting up offshore banks, he replied, "It is gone, all gone." Since he has held himself up as the world's leading expert on hiding money offshore, how could one know for sure if Mr. Schneider really is broke? The I.R.S. agents listening to the question put their hands to their mouths to repress grins. "If you can find it," Mr. Schneider said, "I would say take it." - -- - ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 1308 iQA/AwUBQZ3lLcPxH8jf3ohaEQI47QCg7oEB+XrObKioXntUJDtLy2IgJfsAoJoq mOcArd6Jsqcn21vAKSQhyUbW =mj7W -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Why Americans Hate Dissenters
by Nomen Nescio 19 Nov '04

19 Nov '04

John Young: > On CJ (Carl Johnson) and Jim Bell: Hi John Thanks for the info! Several times in the past I've seen concrete relevant questions asked on the list without anyone taking their time to answer them. The stories of these cypherpunks are indeed interesting and relevant for the list. I guess the story of Jim and CJ is the reason why one of the cypherpunks nodes used to have this text on the page: "It is known this list is under surveillence by US and foreign law enforcement and intelligence agencies, consider using anonymous remailers and cryptography" Regards

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[CYBERIA] A VERY significant DMCA case
by R.A. Hettinga 18 Nov '04

18 Nov '04

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 - --- begin forwarded text DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=yahoo.com; b=oTDVOd2nHalBsKpKJum+5IY+lu1RJaHM79+4MmwY72xPRCq9nhudLZRniLNmeZojjGL9Cl3sFptEpXD2Go79CazzJCeB/dg4OT0EcNTRhLoB3c/qMqE5b0YopkFen3gJ4Zw0SKmrbN1bSGKlXBqAkrsurOheKaqq7Dd2lM/Yq68= ; Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 07:53:23 -0800 Reply-To: Law & Policy of Computer Communications <CYBERIA-L(a)LISTSERV.AOL.COM> Sender: Law & Policy of Computer Communications <CYBERIA-L(a)LISTSERV.AOL.COM> Comments: DomainKeys? See http://antispam.yahoo.com/domainkeys From: Paul Gowder <paultopia(a)YAHOO.COM> Subject: [CYBERIA] A VERY significant DMCA case To: CYBERIA-L(a)LISTSERV.AOL.COM This just came to my attention. I don't know if it's been mentioned here before, since I only read this list intermittently. Still... Lexmark International Inc. v. Static Control Components Inc., 6th Cir., No. 03-5400 10/26/04 http://pacer.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/04a0364p-06.pdf This case appears to be a ringing blow against the DMCA, and against copyright fascism in general. The Sixth Circuit, vacating a grant of preliminary injunction, held that a program was likely uncopyrightable, because unoriginal, because its functional requirements merged with its expression. It further concluded that the DMCA can't be used to protect such an un-copyrightable work. Because this was before the court on review of a preliminary injunction, it's not terribly definitive on the facts -- but as a statement of law -- it seems very promising. Thoughts? __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! - Get yours free! http://my.yahoo.com ********************************************************************** For Listserv Instructions, see http://www.lawlists.net/cyberia Off-Topic threads: http://www.lawlists.net/mailman/listinfo/cyberia-ot Need more help? Send mail to: Cyberia-L-Request(a)listserv.aol.com ********************************************************************** - --- end forwarded text - -- - ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 1308 iQA/AwUBQZ0H9sPxH8jf3ohaEQKIEgCglPuzNup4Ni+fVo2ePX/gzTO0jkcAnAvu kKZN3l2htctoER3TCElpfZXL =Ijza -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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