DeCSS, crypto, law, and economics

[Antonomasia]

From: "John S. Denker" <jsd at monmouth.com>

> For "normal" products, market segmentation is neither
> forbidden by law nor protected by law.  Mushrooms that
> cost $4.00 per ounce at the supermarket can be purchased
> for $4.00 per pound at the Asian grocery down the street.
> The stores are free to charge whatever they like, and I
> am free to shop wherever I like.  The law is silent on
> the issue.

Not completely.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_1261000/1261060.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2380163.stm
http://www.fashionwindows.com/visual/2001/levis_victor.asp
   [copying from Google's cache on that last one]
   The UK supermarket lost the latest round in its fight with the US
   company after a ruling by the EU Court of Justice on Tueday.

   "The court ruled that goods from outside the European economic area
   cannot be imported without the unequivocable consent of the trademark
   owner, and we think that is the right decision," said Levi's Europe
   chief.

   The decision is the latest in the long running and very costly legal
   saga between the two companies. Tesco believes it should have the
   right to sell Levi jeans at knock down prices whereas the jeans
   manufacturer argues it has turned down the supermarket as an approved
   stockist.

   Levi sells its products through 17,000 selected outlets across Europe,
   chosen for good customer service argues the company, price rigging
   argue its pro-consumer opponents.

A further twist in the story is that Levi's plan a discount brand for
Walmart (and perhaps ASDA in UK ?) supermarkets.

> The studios arguably hold intellectual property rights
> in the CSS decoding keys, and they can collect per-player
> royalties from hw mfgrs who incorporate such keys in
> their products.  AFAIK Mr. Johansen never copied any
> such key (or even had one he could have copied), so
> this case was never about illegal copying even on a
> per-player basis.

It's been reported on this list before that among the security
failings of the play protection was one key being left unencrypted.
I don't know whether Mr. Johansen copied it - but that's not critical
to the end result of producing DeCSS.

From: Sandy Harris <sandy at storm.ca>
Date: 04Sep2000
Subject: Re: DeCSS and imminent harm ...
: Second, they used 40-bit encryption, presumably to comply with US
: export laws. This is obscenely weak. Assume you can try a million
: keys a second. 10^6 ~= 2^20 so you need 2^20 seconds. 3600 seconds
: in an hour, somewhat < 2^12 so total time is somewhat > 256 hours.
: A week or a month on a single machine, depending how fast it is.
: 
: Then they muffed the design so there are faster attacks; they don't
: even have 40 bits of actual strength. In one brief to the court,
: Dave Wagner from Berkeley said breaking this system was about the
: right level of difficulty for him to assign it as undergraduate
: homework next term.
: 
: Lastly, one of their customers muffed something else and the disks
: have one unencrypted key, which makes it easier to attack the others.


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# Antonomasia   ant notatla.demon.co.uk                      #
# See http://www.notatla.demon.co.uk/                        #
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