Criminalizing crypto criticism

[Greg Broiles]

At 10:25 AM 7/27/2001 -0700, Tim May wrote:

>I think the threatened suit under the terms of the DCMA goes to the point 
>the original poster made: that the way to stop cryptanalysis of a cipher 
>("Digital Snake Oil Bass-O-Mattic Encryptator 1.0"), or at least the 
>publication of any results, is to do what was done to Felten.

To further illustrate this effect, a brief summary of the background for 
the Felten suit might be of interest:

1.      RIAA/SDMI invite people to break their new copy protection
2.      Copy protection breaks are identified in peer-reviewed academic paper
3.      Attorney who is Sr VP at RIAA and Secretary of SDMI threatens suit 
against researchers after seeing pre-press copy of paper
4.      Paper is withdrawn from conference, not published
5.      Researchers sue for declaratory relief that they *can* publish
6.      RIAA/SDMI says they weren't going to sue, tries to dismiss 
researchers' suit due to lack of controversy for court to adjudicate


--
Greg Broiles
gbroiles at well.com
"We have found and closed the thing you watch us with." -- New Delhi street kids