Digg Revolt Currently In Progress
There is currently a Digg uprising in progress by the whole Digg community. It all started because on April 30th, 2007, the hex master code to unlock the encryption on all HD DVDs was found at the Doom9 forum and leaked on the web. The thread in question has been linked to by various blogs all over the net. Since the AACS groups cannot or will have a hard time suing Doom9 since its based in Sweden, they are electing to send DMCA takedown notices to various sites that link to the Doom9 thread, or post the key. Google has received a takedown to remove ALL links within its search engine(DMCA safe harbor provision should render this void) and Corey Doctrow, of BoingBoing and EFF fame, has received one for his class's website.
Digg.com was one of the sites that received a takedown notice which resulted from a story being posted to digg containing the key. The story in question received 16,000 diggs in less than 20 hours, the fastest growing digg story ever, and would have probably been the most dugg ever if the Digg admins hadn't taken the story down. This set off a firestorm of posts that is currently getting hotter and larger across the net with people spreading this hex number across their blogs, Jaiku posts, Twitter posts, Facebook groups....well you get the point. Social networking is essentially the anti-christ of censorship. On another note, HOW THE FUCK can the AACS group claim copyright or intellectual property rights on 10 number hex code? I mean, wtf???!?!?!?!!!!1111one
UPDATE: New stories are appearing on digg every minute and are, within 20min to an 1 hour, receiving thousands of diggs by the angry community. People are posting NOTHING but stories containing this hex code in an act of civil disobedience.
Google and other blogs receive takedown notice by AACS group
Following the wide spread publicity of the AACS hack, especially with working out the HD DVD processing key, the AACS LA has started sending out Cease and Desist letters to various blog sites as well as the search giant Google for publishing the key to simply linking to the Doom9 threads about the crack. These sites have been threatened with legal action if they do not comply. Unlike going after websites publishing DeCSS software or software that uses DeCSS, the processing key is only useful for sophisticated programmers capable of writing software to rip and decrypt the discs, much like how a blue-print drawing of a door key is not sufficient to unlock a door without an engineer first making a physical key based on it.
Unfortunately for the AACS, it looks like it is going to be quite tricky for Google to take on this measure, considering the 1,000's of websites this processing key has been published on and more showing up all the time. Going by the letter, Google had a week from the letter's date of April 17th to comply and despite that period now being long overdue, Google still indexes 1,000's of website site links containing the key as well as the links indicated for removal in the letter.
One thing that makes the HD DVD decryption key more attractive than the DeCSS key for DVD is the ability to create software to play HD DVDs with high definition on systems lacking HDCP support, something even commerical DVD playback software will not allow. At present, while most consumers have a monitor well capable of showing at least 720p at its native resolution, the lack of HDCP support forces the user to either use an analogue connection or be forced to watch the picture in a greatly reduced resolution.
Thanks to Aktiv8 for letting us know about this news, who added the following:
Apparently there is a key which will enable bypassing of the HD-DVD DRM to allow users to play their titles on their Linux boxes.
The key in question is (edited out) and is an HD-DVD decryption key that was leaked on April 30, 2007. The source of the leak is unclear.
No doubt it is of interest to cryptographic researchers, as it can be used to play a protected HD-DVD movie in Linux, bypassing the normal DRM.
The key will also allow for programs analagous to DeCSS for DVDs.
Just google the Key to get a lot of hits!
AACS is going nuts over leaked HD DVD master hex key
AACS licensing authority censors Cory Doctorow’s class blog by ZDNet's Adrian Kingsley-Hughes -- Knowing that AACS is a failure, all that the AACS licensing authority can do is control who links to the information on the crack.
Warning: Fark.com now grabbing copyrights
Via Backingwinds
FARK.com just underwent a major site redesign, and lost among the clutter is their new legal policy. One would intuitively think that simply posting a photograph to the forums over at FARK.com would not mean that one is surrendering their copyright to FARK.com for all time, but it would appear that that is no longer the case:
Fark.com is the legal owner of all copyright interests of Fark.com content. Each and every submission to Fark.com carries with it an implied assignment of the entire copyright interest in the submission. In exchange for the content and publication of that submission on Fark.com, Fark.com grants back to the submitter a non-exclusive, non-transferable and royalty-free license to republish that submission in any and all forms.
Essentially, this means that posting any of your content to FARK, be it photograph, text, or whatever, immediately and forever transfers your copyright ownership to the owners of FARK.com. If, for example, you post a photo, they are free to sell rights to your photograph to others or to use it without permission in any way they deem fit, including advertising. The owners of FARK are "generous" enough to grant you back a license to use your own photo as you wish, but you are forever barred from selling licenses on the photo, as you (A) no longer own the copyright, (B) have only been granted a non-transferable license, and (C) FARK has generated a Royalty Free license, meaning that the image can never be Rights Managed again. The owners of FARK now own your image, not you.
Fascist America, in 10 easy steps
Mark Frauenfelder:
Naomi Wolf wrote an essay about the ten steps a corrupt government takes to create a fascist state, and provides examples of what the Bush administration is doing to fulfill the requirements of each step. Some of Wolf's examples are quite a stretch, but others are spot on.
1 Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
2 Create a gulag
3 Develop a thug caste
4 Set up an internal surveillance system
5 Harass citizens' groups
6 Engage in arbitrary detention and release
7 Target key individuals
8 Control the press
9 Dissent equals treason
10 Suspend the rule of law
Link (Thanks, Rachel!)It is a mistake to think that early in a fascist shift you see the profile of barbed wire against the sky. In the early days, things look normal on the surface; peasants were celebrating harvest festivals in Calabria in 1922; people were shopping and going to the movies in Berlin in 1931. Early on, as WH Auden put it, the horror is always elsewhere - while someone is being tortured, children are skating, ships are sailing: "dogs go on with their doggy life ... How everything turns away/ Quite leisurely from the disaster."
As Americans turn away quite leisurely, keeping tuned to internet shopping and American Idol, the foundations of democracy are being fatally corroded. Something has changed profoundly that weakens us unprecedentedly: our democratic traditions, independent judiciary and free press do their work today in a context in which we are "at war" in a "long war" - a war without end, on a battlefield described as the globe, in a context that gives the president - without US citizens realising it yet - the power over US citizens of freedom or long solitary incarceration, on his say-so alone.
(Via Boing Boing.)
