DMCA + ROT13 + Smashmouth Lawyer > Strong Crypto

[Scott Guthery]

In general, we no longer need "strong crypto".  DMCA
plus ROT13 and a smashmouth lawyer suffices. 

-----Original Message-----
From: pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz
To: Pete.Chown at skygate.co.uk; cryptography at wasabisystems.com
Sent: 7/6/02 1:47 AM
Subject: Re:  New Chips Can Keep a Tight Rein on Consumers

Pete Chown <Pete.Chown at skygate.co.uk> writes:
>Peter Gutmann wrote:
>>Actually I'm amazed no printer vendor has ever gone after companies
who
>>produce third-party Smartchips for remanufactured printer cartridges.
This
>>sounds like the perfect thing to hit with the DMCA universal hammer.
>
>There is no copyright issue, though.  The DMCA only bans circumvention
devices
>that relate to copyrighted content.

If the vendor required it, how long do you think it would take their
lawyers to
figure out a way in which some sort of copyright was involved somewhere,
and it
could therefore be hit with the DMCA hammer?  Thus the "universal
hammer"
comment, you can define almost anything you want to be a copyright
violation if
it suits your purposes.  My guess on this one (and IANAL) is that
reading the
instruction codes sent from the host would be the user-definable
copyright
violation for third-party Smartchips.

Peter.

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