[Cdn-DMCA] On the Sklyarov case

[Kristofer Coward]

On Sat, Apr 06, 2002 at 06:44:09PM -0500, mskala at ansuz.sooke.bc.ca wrote:
> On Sat, 6 Apr 2002, Kristofer Coward wrote:
> > > http://www.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il/~boaz/Papers/obfuscate.html
> > 
> > Excelent, now the assertion that software DRM ismathematically
> > impossible can be properly cited and included in the list I started.
> 
> I hope you don't cite that paper as proof that software DRM is impossible,
> because that's not what it proves.  Unfortunately, the fact that software
> DRM is impossible is so trivial that I'll be surprised if you can find any
> scholarly paper which bothers to prove it.  The best place to look, if you
> really want a paper proving the impossibility of anti-copying measures,
> would be papers on quantum computing which define the concept of "quantum"
> (as opposed to "classical") information.
> 
> The bits inside today's computers are "classical" information, and
> copyable.  Quantum information is sometimes not copyable - it's like a
> special kind of water that isn't wet, to use Schneier's analogy.  And no,
> the existence of quantum information does *not* mean that quantum
> computers would make software DRM possible, because they'd still need
> classical-information output devices to interface with human
> classical-information senses.
> 
> The paper cited above is about *reverse engineering*, not about *copying*.  
> It says that reverse engineering is sometimes possible; what you want is
> that copying is always possible.  Both statements are true, but they're
> not the same, and no good purpose is served by confusing them.  (Speaking
> as someone who was sued for alleged illegal copying, when I participated
> in a reverse engineering project...)

Thanks for the warning - I hadn't bothered to read it yet and was
hopeful that someone had taken the time to publish a paper on a
triviality simply so that it could be properly cited. Anyone here with
any decent credentials care to write such a paper and convince a few
other people with valid credentials to review it. It may be obvious to
technically and mathematically minded people, but that doesn't make it
so to lawyers and politicians (and sadly, these are the people we have
to convince not to pass these ridiculous laws.)

-- 
Kristofer Coward				http://unripe.melon.org/
GPG Fingerprint: 2BF3 957D 310A FEEC 4733  830E 21A4 05C7 1FEB 12B3
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