Windows Media Player for Linux

[Mike Coleman]

mike neuliep <mike at illiana.net> writes:
> Someone else will figure how to decrypt the encryption and the cat will
> be out of the bag.

True--the paper itself has leaked out and is available in several places,
including Freenet, apparently.

But that's not what this is about, I think.  After all, everyone pretty much
knew that SDMI was insecure from the start.

What this is about is establishing that the RIAA has the right to broadly
control speech on this topic.  They're moving to establish a situation in
which anyone caught with this kind of information will be presumed a criminal,
which will make it easy to take additional steps such as seizing your computer
and cutting off your net access.

(If this sounds implausible, take a look at this, for example

    http://www.infoanarchy.org/?op=displaystory&sid=2001/4/17/34456/1566

Note how @Home is falling all over themselves here to act as an agent of the
MPAA, rather than taking any interest in their customer, or what the real
story might be.)

> Vaclav Havel (president of the Czech Republic) once wrote in the guest
> register of a famous hotel in Prague, "Information wants to be free!"  This
> is probably more true than he ever thought he'd imagine...

This intrigued me, especially given the connection to the Prague Spring of
1968, etc.  I found this interesting article

    http://hotwired.lycos.com/collections/connectivity/3.01_velvet_revolution_pr.html

which makes me think that Havel may not have been the one to actually write
this.  Still it's interesting.  Can you imagine having a playwright as a
president rather than a playboy?  :-/

--Mike

-- 
Mike Coleman, mkc at mathdogs.com
  http://www.mathdogs.com -- problem solving, expert software development