Post Tagged with: "security"

30 Days of DRM – Day 10: Security Research (Circumvention Rights)

Given the priority currently accorded to security concerns, it is difficult to understand how any government would be willing to undermine security in the name of copyright.  That is precisely what has occurred in the United States, however, where computer security researchers have faced a significant chilling effect on their research due to legal threats from the DMCA.  The U.S. cases are fairly well known: they include Princeton professor Edward Felten facing a potential suit from the RIAA when he planned to disclose his research findings in identifying the weaknesses of an encryption program and Dmitri Sklyarov, a Russian software programmer, spending a summer in jail after presenting a paper at a conference in Las Vegas that described his company's program that defeated the encryption on the Adobe eReader.

Even more compelling are recent comments from Professor Felten at a conference at the University of Michigan. 

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August 28, 2006 2 comments News

30 Days of DRM – Day 09: Reverse Engineering (Circumvention Rights)

The inclusion of a reverse engineering circumvention right is another obvious necessary provision.  Reverse engineering is described by the Chilling Effects site as follows:

Reverse engineering is the scientific method of taking something apart in order to figure out how it works. Reverse engineering has been used by innovators to determine a product's structure in order to develop competing or interoperable products. Reverse engineering is also an invaluable teaching tool used by researchers, academics and students in many disciplines, who reverse engineer technology to discover, and learn from, its structure and design.

The need for a reverse engineering provision therefore follows from some of the discussion last week – it is pro-competitive as it facilitates the creation of compatible devices as well as greater competition in the marketplace. 
While there may be general agreement on the need for a reverse engineering provision, it is essential that Canada avoid the U.S. DMCA approach which has been widely criticized for being too limited in scope and thus woefully ineffective.

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August 27, 2006 6 comments News

Statscan Survey Shows Internet’s Potential and Pitfalls

My weekly Law Bytes column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) examines recent Statistics Canada data on Internet use.  The survey found that nearly 17 million Canadians – 68 percent of the adult population – used the Internet for personal non-business reasons last year.  Moreover, almost two-thirds of Canadian adults who […]

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August 21, 2006 1 comment Columns

Privacy Commissioner Issues PIPEDA Review Discussion Paper

The much-anticipated PIPEDA review is scheduled for later this year and the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has kicked things off with a discussion/consultation paper.  The Commissioner’s comments on the effectiveness of the law will be very important and this paper is presumably an attempt to gauge public opinion on several […]

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July 18, 2006 Comments are Disabled News

Bell Controversy Puts Spotlight on Net Surveillance

My weekly Law Bytes column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) focuses on last week’s controversy involving Bell Sympatico and a change to its user agreement.  The Bell clause, which took effect on June 15th, advised subscribers that the company retains the right to "monitor or investigate content or your use of your service provider’s networks and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy any laws, regulations or other governmental request."

A widely circulated Canadian Press story (which featured several of my comments), noted that the Conservative government is expected to reintroduce lawful access legislation this fall and speculated that the change might have been in anticipation of that statutory reform.  Many online pundits also chimed in, pointing to the battle over network neutrality in the United States, expressing fears that the Bell change might be designed to pave the way for a two-tier Internet in Canada under which ISPs levy fees on websites to deliver their content.

For its part, Bell swiftly issued a statement emphatically denying that the amendments were linked to lawful access, maintaining that the company had a "a long and established history of protecting the privacy of its customers."

The gist of the column is that regardless of the motivations for the change – whether harmless drafting amendments, lawful access, or network neutrality – the public and media reaction demonstrates how increased Internet surveillance is a political and business minefield that invariably stirs up vociferous opposition.

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July 3, 2006 4 comments Columns