[free-sklyarov] (Late) reply to Gene Gable's article

[Xcott Craver]

Gene Gable:

> > Since when is it okay to steal something just because it wasn't
> > very hard to do?

	This is a non-sequitur.  People who crack encryption systems are
	not stealing anything.  They are performing the computer software
	equivalent of automobile crash testing.  If anything, you should
	be thanking them for alerting you to the fact that these companies
	were selling defective snake oil products.

	I feel sorry for the authors who believed the false blurbs about
	these security products being "100% hacker-proof," paying thousands
	of dollars for a program that doesn't really do anything, *and*,
	*and*, as if they aren't screwed enough already, distributing
	their works on the Internet under the false assurance that they
	are somehow protected against piracy by the fraudulent software.

	Who's stealing in this scenario?  Surely piracy is the fault of
	pirates, but there is a very clear liability on the part
	of the security company who sold you a fake security system.
	I find it odd that these companies haven't been hit with some
	serious lawsuits yet; I guess they were generally successful in
	focussing the issue on whether _Sklyarov_ is the criminal.

	Now, we have amazingly silly articles by people who swallowed the
	whole blame-the-messenger angle, associating computer security
	researchers with criminals, with analogies to stealing wallets and
	robbing houses.  Funny how all these evil code crackers are
	publishing articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals and
	giving presentations at conferences; you'd think that they
	wouldn't go to so much trouble to create that much evidence of
	their evil deeds.

> > If legitimate Adobe or other customers feel the copy-protection
> > schemes are too limiting, they'll reject the product and the
> > seller will go back to the drawing board.

	One would hope.  However, it is illegal to "reject" usage policy
	in certain ways.  If the recording industry decided to
	unilaterally switch to highly limiting copy protection, the only
	legal option by consumers will be to not buy music at all.

							Xcott