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Security Panel Cancelled on DMCA Threat |
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Posted by Ren Bucholz on Monday, April 14 @ 15:16:50 EDT
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Last week's Interz0ne security conference got chilly as Blackboard, a courseware vendor, succeeded in stopping a panel on vulnerabilities in their products. The letter reads in part:
"Please be advised of our view that it would be actionable for you or your conference to facilitate Mr. Hoffman's and Mr. Griffith's announced plans for, among other things, the disclosure of signals captured, the releasing of code, the description of development of functional readers, and the hardware specs to wire the readers and/or control circuits."
Hoffman's site is mirrored here.
You may remember that Professor Ed Felten was involved in a similar situation in 2001-2002, but the summary judgment case was dismissed for lack of ripeness. In that case, the RIAA admitted that their threat was "ill-conceived and would not be repeated." I wonder if Blackboard will have a similar "Aw shucks, our bad!" reaction now that the speech has been chilled.
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Counterattack? (Score: 0) by Anonymous on Monday, April 14 @ 17:41:05 EDT | Surely somewhere in the various DMCA and Patriot Acts that have been passed in the last two years there is a clause that would allow the two students to send Blackboard a cease-and-desist telling them to stop exposing the students' confidential financial information on an insecure network? What if terrorists cracked the network and used stolen funds from students' smartcards to build a weapon of mass destruction? |
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Re: Security Panel Cancelled on DMCA Threat (Score: 0) by Anonymous on Monday, April 14 @ 21:52:28 EDT | Sending the letter costs nothing and has the advantage of possibly supressing the presentation.
Unfortunately, these letters are becoming very common even though the company sending the letter has no intention of actually pressing the issue. This is probably an idle threat.
The power of the threat is that if you publish, and they prosicute you successfully, you could spend the next ten years in a federal prison.
This sort of thing will go on until someone (a better man than I) bites the bullet and publishes anyway. The risks are high but he would really be doing a public service.
Tom |
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Re: Security Panel Cancelled on DMCA Threat (Score: 1) by JamesGrimmelmann on Monday, April 14 @ 22:44:08 EDT (User Info | Send a Message) http://www.laboratorium.net | Lawyerly details: Blackboard went to a Georgia court and got a temporary restraining order against the panelists based on the following causes of action:
- The federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act (barring "access[ing] without authorization a facility through which an electronic information service is provided.")
- The Georgia Computer Systems Protection Act (barring "interfering with the use of a computer program or data" or "causing the malfunction of a computer", as well as disclosing passwords or access codes with the intent to cause damage).
- The Georgia Trade Secrets Act (barring "espionage through electronic means" but not reverse engineering).
- The Lanham Act (federal trademark act) (barring using trademarks deceptively to describe competing goods)
- The Consumer Fraud and Abuse Act (barrng various unauthorized actions against computers).
Full complaint here
Temporary restraining order here.
Other news coverage here (but ignore the first paragraph, which incorrectly refers to a "federal" court). |
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