[IP] more on Can you be compelled to give a password?

Travis H. solinym at gmail.com
Wed Aug 9 01:53:21 EDT 2006


On 8/8/06, Travis H. <solinym at gmail.com> wrote:
> Or, nobody has the data:
>
> http://monolith.sourceforge.net/
> http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/03/monolith.html

Grr... remind me not to read the comments on old blogs, it's
irritating to see so much misrepresentation...

The monolith model is being misrepresented.  The problem is this:
User A publishes fileA.mono, a file of apparently randomly-generated
bytes.  That's all the information you have.  Has he, or has he not,
infringed copyright?  You must be answer this question before "going
after" him.  So you do some research, and find (among other things),
user B's fileB.mono and user C's fileC.mono, both apparently
randomly-generated.  fileB.mono XOR fileA.mono yields a copyrighted
work.  fileC.mono XOR fileA.mono to produce something in the public
domain.  Now, who has committed what crime?

Things get even more complicated with more files, and they need not
bear ".mono" extensions.  What is fileA.mono XOR fileB.mono XOR
fileC.mono?  Now add in ten thousand more files... I bet with the
proper combinations you can create just about anything, and anyone at
any time may create a file that when combined with another, is
infringing.  That is, Mallory may have published fileM.mono, and
fileM.mono XOR fileC.mono is infringing; who is guilty of
infringement, or framing the other user?  Remember timestamps are
trivially forged and lost during some copy operations, so you don't
know who published first.  You also don't know how they came up with
their files, as bits don't have color.
-- 
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."
Unix "guru" for rent or hire -><- http://www.lightconsulting.com/~travis/
GPG fingerprint: 9D3F 395A DAC5 5CCC 9066  151D 0A6B 4098 0C55 1484

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