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Why I’m Suing the US Government

bunniestudios.com

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Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#61

Post by coldtea »

gthtjtkt wrote: post #37
zekevermillion wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can imagine tinkering with a Tesla could cause some heartburn for Elon. There are safety issues, which are real. What happens when some maniac changes the software to make autopilot into full self driving, then plows into a minivan on its way to Little League practice? Also interesting, recently heard about a guy who can reprogram some diesel trucks to get better performance (probably at the expense of NOX emission…

> What happens when some maniac changes the software to make autopilot into full self driving, then plows into a minivan on its way to Little League practice? We can't let these hypothetical worst-case scenarios be an excuse to stifle innovation. What happens if we let people modify their microwaves and a terrorist uses his to give kids cancer!?!? What if we let people tinker with their toasters and somebody uses one…

>We can't let these hypothetical worst-case scenarios be an excuse to stifle innovation.

Well, given that the Earth could be wiped out at any moment with the nuclear weapons and stuff we stockpiled, long term this idea might prove to be laughably wrong.

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#62

Post by snissn »

alexbock wrote: post #50
gthtjtkt wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What happens when some maniac changes the software to make autopilot into full self driving, then plows into a minivan on its way to Little League practice? We can't let these hypothetical worst-case scenarios be an excuse to stifle innovation. What happens if we let people modify their microwaves and a terrorist uses his to give kids cancer!?!? What if we let people tinker with their toasters and somebody uses one…

> What happens if we let people modify their microwaves and a terrorist uses his to give kids cancer!?!? I know this was said in jest, but given the (generally unfounded) fears some people have about microwaves and cellphones I want to point out that exposure to unshielded microwave radiation isn't going to cause cancer (at least not any more than anything else that heats you up could somehow cause cancer) because mi…

have you looked into 5G signals? I was recently reading about how they plan to make them in the 50GHz range, which to me seems potentially dangerous

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#63

Post by joezydeco »

rayiner wrote: post #33

Circumvention by itself definitely shouldn't be illegal, and it's probably unconstitutional to make building and researching circumvention mechanisms illegal. But I don't buy Step 2. > EFF is representing plaintiff Andrew “bunnie” Huang, a prominent computer scientist and inventor, and his company Alphamax LLC, where he is developing devices for editing digital video streams. Those products would enable people to mak…

I don't think Bunnie is looking to develop products that redistribute video.

If you've seen his previous NeTV project[1] he's looking to inject video overlays into the HDCP stream and let you do things like he described in his letter. His method of getting into the HDCP stream[2] via a MITM attack is probably what's running afoul of the government.

[1] https://www.adafruit.com/products/609

[2] http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=2117

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#64

Post by runjake »

Svenskunganka wrote: post #44
DanBlake wrote: post #12

Unfortunately I believe that even if the suit was successful, we would just see more purchases become 'perpetual licenses', skirting the updated law. IIRC, Tesla was very heavily against letting anyone tinker and went to some extremes to stop it. It wouldn't surprise me in the least to see them make buyers sign a EULA in the future when you go to 'purchase' a vehicle.

But if this suit is successful, it would mean that Section 1201 violates your First Amendment rights which in turn means that EULA also violates your First Amendment rights.

The First Amendment guarantees rights to citizens in the eyes of the US federal government.

The EULA is an agreement between a citizen and a corporation, and thus the First Amendment does not apply.

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#65

Post by [deleted] »

rayiner wrote: post #33

Circumvention by itself definitely shouldn't be illegal, and it's probably unconstitutional to make building and researching circumvention mechanisms illegal. But I don't buy Step 2. > EFF is representing plaintiff Andrew “bunnie” Huang, a prominent computer scientist and inventor, and his company Alphamax LLC, where he is developing devices for editing digital video streams. Those products would enable people to mak…

[deleted]

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#66

Post by ncallaway »

rayiner wrote: post #33

Circumvention by itself definitely shouldn't be illegal, and it's probably unconstitutional to make building and researching circumvention mechanisms illegal. But I don't buy Step 2. > EFF is representing plaintiff Andrew “bunnie” Huang, a prominent computer scientist and inventor, and his company Alphamax LLC, where he is developing devices for editing digital video streams. Those products would enable people to mak…

Invalidating 1201 wouldn't get rid of all copyright law. Distributing a such a video would remain a copyright violation regardless of 1201.

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#67

Post by astazangasta »

rayiner wrote: post #33

Circumvention by itself definitely shouldn't be illegal, and it's probably unconstitutional to make building and researching circumvention mechanisms illegal. But I don't buy Step 2. > EFF is representing plaintiff Andrew “bunnie” Huang, a prominent computer scientist and inventor, and his company Alphamax LLC, where he is developing devices for editing digital video streams. Those products would enable people to mak…

The real problem, of course, is that the Internet today consists almost exclusively of private companies profiting from other people's content. Twitter doesn't pay its users, it makes money off their tweets AND by having them look at ads (yes, this is work). Similarly with Facebook, or with any review aggregator (Yelp, Amazon, Google+), monetizing the free labor of others.

The DMCA protects certain forms of property very jealously, but other forms (e.g. a review) aren't even recognized as property, and the idea of users being appropriately compensated (as we'd expect each nickel to be accounted for a song owned by EMI) is practically absurd. (Note that I do not want the world where we monetize everything)

At the end of the day, which forms of digital property we create and enforce are going to be what determines who can amass wealth - the existing regime was obviously set in place to benefit corporations, billionaires, not joe user.

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#68

Post by themartorana »

ZoF wrote: post #27
jliptzin wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone determined enough to rework autopilot to work everywhere is not going to be stopped by the terms of a EULA.

Had the same thought, that would be quite the feat.

But that logic is kept far away from legal decision making.

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#69

Post by jbapple »

ryanswapp wrote: post #28

I studied section 1201 thoroughly during law school and I think this post doesn't give a fair characterization of it. The reason this statute exists is because companies were unable to devise protection for copyrighted works that hackers were not able to immediately circumvent. As a result, the government stepped in and created 1201 to make it illegal for someone to circumvent some form of access control that a compa…

I do not think the author doesn't know that section 1201 was designed to help companies create access control. The author of the blog post is talking about not just the purpose of the law, but also the effect, which he or she believes infringes on the First Amendment.

I'm not a lawyer, but I think that laws with a constitutionally valid purpose are sometimes ruled unconstitutional by the courts when they have unconstitutional effects.

I can't comment on whether I think that will be the case here.

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#70

Post by zekevermillion »

belorn wrote: post #58
zekevermillion wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can imagine tinkering with a Tesla could cause some heartburn for Elon. There are safety issues, which are real. What happens when some maniac changes the software to make autopilot into full self driving, then plows into a minivan on its way to Little League practice? Also interesting, recently heard about a guy who can reprogram some diesel trucks to get better performance (probably at the expense of NOX emission…

What happens if I tinker with a regular car and put a nitrous oxide engine? The safety issues, which are real, could allow someone to plow into minivan on its way to Little League practice. It could explode. It could cause a massive fire. It could go way faster than the speed limit, bypass the limits of the breaks, and go against any number of laws. So... does this mean I could sue Ford if someone modified a Ford car…

I would argue self-driving car software is different. If license terms permit modification, and a modified version is running in a car that causes damage, then there will be an argument as to whether the modifications caused the wreck, or whether it was the underlying software and thus the manufacturer who is responsible. Tesla, quite rationally, would not want to give users a permissive license, given this obvious liability problem. Even if, nod nod wink wink, they might approve of owners playing around with it.
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