Verizon must comply with RIAA's DMCA subpoena

[William Allen Simpson]

Declan McCullagh recently posted an interesting article on a legal 
opinion:
  http://news.com.com/2100-1023-981449.html

He's placed the decision here:
  http://www.politechbot.com/docs/verizon.riaa.decision.012103.pdf

All this to learn the identity of a computer at a particular IP address.  
Presumbly, Verizon will now be smart enough to say: "All of our IP 
addresses are assigned using DHCP, and we have no record of the name 
of any subscriber associated with an IP address."  

When reading the article and then the opinion, I found a discrepancy.  
Declan says the Verizon subscriber "allegedly was sharing" (that is, 
outgoing traffic to other users), while the opinion explicitly says 
"downloaded" (presumably, incoming from other users).

This raises the question in my mind, how would the RIAA know?  Are 
they snooping on Verizon's network?  Wouldn't this eavesdropping be 
solved by using encryption?

Discussing this with Niels Provos, he mentioned they might have a 
honeypot, and track the IP addresses of downloads.  But then, wouldn't 
the downloads be "authorized" by the RIAA, and thus not infringing? 

Although the opinion itself is clear as far as it goes, unfortunately 
it doesn't cover the issues that are more important to us.  The judge 
declined to rule, as the Verizon lawyers left it to amici to argue, 

  Without a "properly developed record," the court found that the 
  defendant effectively waived the constitutional challenge: 

  17 Verizon devotes only two sentences and a footnote to the 
  constitutional issues, contending that the subsection (h) subpoena 
  authority, if broadly construed, raises substantial Article III 
  (judicial power) and First Amendment (freedom to engage in anonymous 
  speech) questions.
  [opinion page 30]

Disappointing.
-- 
William Allen Simpson
    Key fingerprint =  17 40 5E 67 15 6F 31 26  DD 0D B9 9B 6A 15 2C 32

---------------------------------------------------------------------
The Cryptography Mailing List
Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo at wasabisystems.com