I should have gone to the clinic last night and been talked out of
this. Of course, this would have required having this bright idea before
the wee hours this morning. 
        CSS is the Content Scrambling System for DVD's to provide
copyright control under the auspices of the Motion Picture Arts
Association (MPAA). DeCSS is the (GPL'd?) descrambling formula, the
release of which prompted Norwegian jackbooted thugs to haul off a 15 year
old (and his father) and the confiscation of their computer equipment. The
local prosecuter declined the joy of prosecuting this case.
        The code and an mp3 of the song are mirrored at:
                http:///diddle.firehead.org/censor/decss/ among other
places, along with some of the legal opinions.
        DeCSS was created because the MPAA overlooked Linux when providing
operating systems with DVD playback capabilities. When the encryption
turned out (predictably, given the technical expertise of the MPAA) to be
laughably weak enough to make its crack trivial, the MPAA sued to shut
down all sites and links to sites carrying DeCSS, including the 2600, the
Hacker Quarterly. The case has gone to appeal with support of the
Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF).
        DeCSS T-shirts may be acquired from thinkgeek.com and another site
I forget. A contribution to the EFF comes out of the profits.
        Presuming my memory is correct, and the Eugene Celebration is in a
weekend with dates in September in the teens, I'd expect the parade on
Saturday 16 September 2000, probably forming up at South Eugene High
School at about 9 AM. 
        Corrections and expansions to the above are welcome.

-- 
Ed Craig         [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Taxi            Linux           FreeBSD
Think this through with me, let me know your mind...    Hunter/Garcia

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