

Technology to circumvent online copyright enforcement - adamsmith
http://blog.adamsmith.cc/2010/01/technology-to-circumvent-online-copyright-enforcement.html

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houseabsolute
Classic geek-misunderstanding-that-mathematical-ambiguity-is-not-legally-
interesting post.

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pcof
There are an infinite set of mathematical tricks available here, some of them
so obfuscated that enforcement would probably need a few years to catch up.
Not to forget that printing a hard copy of the bytes of an MP3 may even
warrant you free speech protection (remember the reaction to the DeCSS legal
issues, like printing it in T-shirts).

~~~
wmf
Encryption and obfuscation barely slows down enforcement at all.

1\. Install the P2P software du jour.

2\. Download some infringing content.

3\. Notice what IP addresses the software talks to. (e.g. using Wireshark)

4\. Send "pre-settlement" extortion letters to the people behind those IP
addresses.

5\. Profit. (Seriously.)

~~~
adamsmith
This doesn't work because some of the bits the software downloads couple be
"innocent" bits. E.g. the firefox installer or some random looking piece of
data. Any bits can be brought into involvement by the system, hence the denial
of service.

~~~
wmf
Note that due process doesn't apply to extortion. Mike Freedman gets a ton of
inaccurate nastygrams from copyright enforcers, but they don't care. They keep
sending them. This situation may be evil, but it exists today and it generates
significant revenue. (It doesn't seem to deter much infringement, though; I
guess people think it won't happen to them.) [http://www.freedom-to-
tinker.com/blog/mfreed/inaccurate-copy...](http://www.freedom-to-
tinker.com/blog/mfreed/inaccurate-copyright-enforcement-questionable-best-
practices-and-bittorrent-specificatio)

Also, any P2P system that downloads a significant amount of extra data won't
become popular anyway, since it will be slower than non-deniable P2P. Freenet
suffered from this, since all the pirates switched to the more efficient
BitTorrent.

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praptak
Not new, Jason Rohrer even wrote a proof-of-concept implementation:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolith_%28computer_program%29>

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swolchok
There is a really good rebuttal to said implementation entitled "What Colour
are your Bits?" at <http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/lawpoli/colour/2004061001.php>
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=506986>).

~~~
est
Quoted from the article:

> Under the lawyer's rules, Colour is not a mathematical function of the bits
> that you can determine by examining the bits. It matters where the bits came
> from.

Unless one end of the bits source is from blackbox countries, like China. If
you finally get some international cooperation done perhaps the work is
already unpopular and no one really cares. Enforcement takes time, and
technically in today's unpefect world copyright can be dragged to an unworthy
degree.

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ErrantX
A lot of mis-thinking here.

> it’d be strange for Firefox to be found guilty in any way

How could they be? They are completely uninvolved. Take another example: if
you film [maliciously] someone being, say, raped using a Sony camcorder are
Sony party to the offence? (the metaphor isn't quite right but I cant think of
a better one off hand, it serves)

The other mistake, I think, is in believing the data in it's particular form
is what means he is breaking the law. Because I'm sure every sane person
agree's it is impossible to impose laws on a specific string of bits - if you
happened to randomly "type" the bits that, when parsed as an MP3, sounded
exactly like the Lady GaGa song would you call that a violation?

However the intent to provide the copyrighted material to someone _whatever_
the form you hand it out in is what's important. right?

(I make no comment on whether such law is right/wrong etc.)

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lmkg
This reminds me of when Richard Stallman cracked down on CLISP (before it went
open-source) for being distributed with, and linking to, a GPL-protected
library of some sort. The legal argument of the distributor was that he was
providing the library, and it was the user that was linking it. Stallman
checked with a lawyer, and apparently the law treats that as a "subterfuge"
and that you're "really" distributing only one program, which has only been
"disguised" as two (quotes from [1]). IANAL, but I would assume that judges
would follow similar lines of reasoning in this implementation, that for
practical effects you are "really" distributing a copyrighted file, even if
the distribution process at one point happens to involve only a pair of
statistically random data[2]. In the limiting case, they can just say that the
two files comibined constitute a distribution method, and you'd be hard-
pressed to argue that.

[1]
[http://clisp.cvs.sourceforge.net/*checkout*/clisp/clisp/doc/...](http://clisp.cvs.sourceforge.net/*checkout*/clisp/clisp/doc/Why-
CLISP-is-under-GPL)

[2] Note that while either file on its own is technically random in a
statistical sense, they are not independently random. Even if you XOR in
Firefox, the data is only pairwise-independently random, not completely-
independently random. So the random argument actually falls on its face.

[N] It also made me think of this, even if it's not directly related:
<http://xkcd.com/538/>

~~~
jrockway
Stallman was on shaky ground with CLISP. The reason CLISP became GPL is
because the author eventually decided he liked the FSF's philosophy.

------
est
Since the OP is talking about XOR, why not use Information Dispersal
Algorithms ?

I asked a similar question on #askreddit the other day, what if I put the odd
bits of a movie on a server in Ukraine and the even bits on a server in
Sweden, a special kind of media player live steam the content, reassemble
small chunks in memory on the fly and playback it on a monitor directly?
Technically I am not pirating the movie unless I was caught watching it right
now.

The #askreddit people suggested me consulting a lawyer :)

~~~
wmf
This is just a more obfuscated version of the incorrect "BitTorrent isn't
infringing" argument.

Distributing half of a copyrighted work is probably still infringement, so
whoever is operating those servers would be in trouble.

~~~
est
> Distributing half of a copyrighted work is probably still infringement, so
> whoever is operating those servers would be in trouble.

Which leads to a natural but important question: to what degree of information
means copying? Does 1's and 0's also means part of copyrighted work so nobody
can use binary?

Also, mathematically, can we build something like probability of copyright?

------
est
Music is hex-data which is complicated to discuss, let's talk about
copyrighted code.

here's the scenario: What if some _deductive_ programs (like prolog) _happens_
to compile another piece of code to your code?

First you can't sue a system like prolog (assume the system itself is
copyright free)

Secondly you can't sue some deductive code since it's totally different thing,
which went through some process and happens to be the exact same as your code.

A perfect example to make myself clear:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=911331>

This applies to music as well. Let's talk about .midi files first. I have a
sequence of notes which is still playable music, went through a magical
convert formula, and produce the exact same midi as copyrighted ones, which
step is liable?

In one word, copyright just a label, for a certain static combination of
information. And this static state can be generated by infinite alternative
legal means, which is why copyright system is ridiculous. The only thing
copyrighted in this universe is time. You can't reverse time (at least for
now).

So copyright is really a moral issue. People are doing you a favor for your
copyrighted works' publicity.

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cookingrobot
This also allows some good plausible deniability. If someone knows you're
using this sytem and forces you to decode your collection of random bit files,
you can arrange 9 out of 10 of them to get a harmless plausible result (a
bunch of harmless pictures / private tax files etc). Only by adding the last
bit file does it turn into what you're trying to hide.

If you only show part of the solution, it looks like you've unlocked it and
the result is harmless.

~~~
adamsmith
This is a brilliant point!

I added your idea to an edit I made on the Monolith wikipedia page, which now
describes three variations of the Monolith protocol: Pseudorandom Basis Files,
Lawsuit Denial of Service, and Plausible Deniability.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolith_(computer_program)>

Thanks!

~~~
cookingrobot
Thanks - the incredibly strange thing is that I was thinking about exactly
this idea this morning, just a few hours before reading your post. I just
couldn't believe the coincidence! Love Xobni btw.

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eli
Wow, you're _way_ overthinking this. If you are responsible for getting a copy
of some copyrighted material into the hands of people who don't deserve it,
then you are almost certainly liable. It doesn't matter how obfuscated the
process or where the bits live.

If you have a copy of Copyright File A and through some actions cause another
copy of it to be simultaneously possessed by someone else, then you
distributed it.

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jrockway
What about fair use?

It is theoretically legal for me to write an article about a song, and include
a ten second clip of that song. It is also legal for another person to do the
same thing, but with a different part of the song.

At some point, the entire song becomes downloadable, but without any party
distributing it outside of their fair use rights.

Now what?

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extension
Now all of you are liable for infringement since what you did was clearly a
convoluted yet deliberate scheme to distribute the song.

~~~
jrockway
No, this all happened without organization. For any moderately popular song,
this is likely to happen.

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cx01
There's a P2P system that uses a similar idea:
<http://offsystem.sourceforge.net/>

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markpercival
Sounds a lot like what Freenet has always been trying to do.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freenet>

If I recall correctly, files are split up, passed around and encrypted so you
don't know what your serving up

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phaedrus
This is brilliant.

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jrockway
I think it will be easier to just host a bunch of MP3s in a country that's
unfriendly to the US.

