[free-sklyarov] An Alternative Line of Argumentation

[Izel Sulam]

Seth David Schoen schoen at loyalty.org wrote:

>However, "improving" their products would harm consumer rights even
>more.  Consumers aren't the ones who want "security" that tries to
>prevent ordinary uses of digital media.

This is the fun part. There is nothing that Adobe can do to make a 
pdf-based ebook system secure. pdf was originally designed to be an open 
format. The whole security kit'n'kaboodle piggybacks on what is essentially 
an unencrypted pdf somewhere in memory. As long as you are reading this 
"ebook" on hardware that is not tamperproof, you just peek into the RAM and 
pull out the unencrypted pdf that is sitting there.

So, on the one hand, Adobe is selling an unsafe security solution, and on 
the other hand, as long as they insist on building their ebook strategy on 
the pdf standard, they can never make it safe. So I'm not worried about 
consumer rights being taken away anytime soon.	 

I do understand your main concern, that corporate attitudes need to be 
changed, and consumers need to be educated about encryption and fair use, 
and congresscritters need to be convinced of the value of the freedoms of 
the citizens of this country above the whims of stinking rich special 
interest groups. (Take a breath now, that was a long sentence.) That is a 
tall order. The strategy that I am proposing aims for less and is more 
likely to achieve it than other strategies. The strategy that I am 
proposing aims to Free Sklyarov and ruin Adobe's PR image. The rest of the 
domino pieces fall where they may.

Thanks.
- izel