Mrs Granick's statement is correct, on the other

hand it is true that security (general security)

issues in Operating Systems might in the future be

an issue of the DMCA as well:

Imagine the owner of a computer running an operating

system which only loads cryptographically signed drivers

by the vendor, and the computer hardware verifies upon

loading that the OS is signed by the vendor as well.

At this point, no illicit changes to the kernel are

possible.

Furthermore, the operating system itself has DRM measures

built into the kernel.

Microsofts XBox would be similar to this.

Now, every illicit user-mode to kernel-mode transition

(==exploit) would aid in cracking copy protections as

it would allow to circumvent the kernel-mode DRM measures.

At this point posting information about a fix which allows

someone to get to kernel mode and thus crack DRM is

to be considered illegal under the DMCA.

So the implications of the DMCA are far greater than many

non-techs immediately understand as the only way to ensure

DRM is by locking the users into usermode - at this point

security research becomes problematic under the DMCA.

Cheers,

Halvar

[ reply ]

Link to this comment: http://www.securityfocus.com/comments/articles/274/8361#8361