Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 20:28:40 -0800 (PST)
From: Phil Agre <pagre@alpha.oac.ucla.edu>
To: "Red Rock Eater News Service" <rre@lists.gseis.ucla.edu>
Subject: [RRE]Cyber Patrol subpoena
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[Cyber Patrol is a Web filtering program owned by Mattel, and the code
one requires to hack its list of blocked sites is running loose on the
Internet. After Declan McCullagh circulated a list of URL's where the
code can be found, he got a threatening letter from a Mattel attorney.
Declan believes that it's a "reasonable interpretation" that they are
demanding a list of his subscribers. The letter just strikes me as
confused, inasmuch as it asks for information that there's no reason
to believe that Declan has. For background on Cyber Patrol, see the
Peacefire site: <http://www.peacefire.org/censorware/Cyber_Patrol/>.
In any case, I have forwarded these messages with Declan's permission,
and have reformatted them to 70 columns. Only the committed will need
to read them all.]
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Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2000 03:18:50 -0500
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
To: politech@vorlon.mit.edu
Subject: FC: Mattel sends me a subpoena, wants politech reader list
Mattel's attorneys have sent me a subpoena. Mattel, which sells
CyberPatrol, has a problem: It wants to know exactly who's been
downloading a program that reveals CyberPatrol's list of off-limits
web sites.
Now, I never mirrored this "cphack" utility. But I did post the
addresses of mirror sites to the politech list and the politechbot.com
web site -- and that information source seems to be what attorney
Irwin Schwartz is worried about. Schwartz copied system administrators
at MIT, which is where the list lives.
Naturally I have no intention of revealing the identities of politech
readers to Mattel or anyone else. Nor is a subpoena sent via email
usually viewed as proper service, at least where I come from.
I've set up a web site to keep track of all these documents and
developments:
http://www.politechbot.com/cyberpatrol/
- -Declan
***********
>Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2000 17:34:03 -0500
>From: "Irwin B. Schwartz" <ischwartz@schwartz-nystrom.com>
>To: "'webmaster@bip.net'" <webmaster@bip.net>,
> "'redaktionen@bip.net'"
> <redaktionen@bip.net>,
> "'declan@well.com'" <declan@well.com>,
> "'web-request@mit.edu'" <web-request@mit.edu>,
> "'mis-team@mit.edu'" <mis-team@mit.edu>
>Cc: "'mailbox@schwartz-nystrom.com'" <mailbox@schwartz-nystrom.com>
>Subject: Service of Temporary Restraining Order
>
>To Whom It May Concern
>
>Re: Microsystems Software Inc. et al. v. Scandinavia Online AB et
>al., Case No. 00-cv10488-EFH (D. Mass.)
>
>Greetings:
>
> This firm represents Microsystems Software, Inc. and Mattel,
> Inc. in the above-referenced action filed in the United States
> District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
>
> On March 17, 2000, United States District Judge Edward
> Harrington entered a temporary restraining order in the above-
> referenced matter prohibiting any further publication of
> "CP4break.zip" or "cphack.exe" or any derivative thereof, which
> likely violate United States copyright laws (the "Order"). A copy
> of that Order is attached here as Order.uni and in its proposed form
> as order.doc. You may open the *.uni document with a *.tif file
> reader.
>
> It has come to our attention that your Web hosting service
> or Web site is publishing one or both of these prohibited files.
> This letter and the enclosed Word documents and *uni files will
> place you on notice of Judge Harrington's Order.
>
> The Order also permits Microsystems to take discovery on an
> expedited basis. Accordingly, I have included a subpoena to you
> that requires you to disclose the log of persons who downloaded
> either "CP4break.zip" and/or "cphack.exe". A copy of the subpoena
> is attached here as *.uni and in Word format as subpoena.doc.
>
> In addition, attached to this E-mail transmittal are the
> following documents in Microsoft Word and *.uni format:
>
>Verified Complaint
>
>Plaintiffs' Ex Parte Motion for Temporary Restraining Order and
>Expedited Discovery;
>
>Memorandum in Support of Ex Parte Motion for Temporary Restraining
>Order and Expedited Discovery.
>
> We recommend that you retain counsel in Massachusetts and
> we ask that you or your counsel contact us as soon as possible to
> arrange more formal service of these documents on you.
>
> Sincerely,
>
>
>
> Irwin B. Schwartz
>
>Enclosure
------- Message 2
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 09:54:24 -0600
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
To: politech@vorlon.mit.edu
Subject: FC: USA Today on Mattel's subpoenas, by Janet Kornblum
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/jk032000.htm
March 20, 2000
E-Briefing
Judge helps Mattel zap effort to undermine filter
By Janet Kornblum, USA TODAY
A federal judge in Boston issued a temporary restraining order
Friday that calls for the removal from the Net of a program
that allows users of the Web filtering software Cyber Patrol to
see which sites the software blocks. The program also lets kids
and others circumvent the filtering, says Mattel, parent company
of Cyber Patrol. The order sides with Cyber Patrol against two
programmers and, says Mattel's attorney, extends to anyone who
posted the program. It's tough to make something disappear once
it hits the Net; several sites picked up the program and reposted
it. Then again, a court order can be persuasive. For more
information:
On Saturday, Declan McCullagh, a journalist for Wired who runs
a popular e-mail list and accompanying Web site on which this
issue was discussed and links to sites were published, received
a subpoena via e-mail from Mattel's attorney. It ordered him
to reveal "each and every person who produced, received, viewed,
downloaded or accessed" the program from his site. "If they do try
to force me to turn over my readership list, I'll fight it as hard
as I can," he says. "Can you imagine Mattel trying to subpoena
Time magazine's subscriber list? A judge would laugh. Internet
publishers shouldn't have fewer rights."
...
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Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2000 09:46:46 -0500
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
To: politech@vorlon.mit.edu
Subject: FC: CyberPatrol decryption utility mirrored in response to lawsuit
Cc: junger@SAMSARA.LAW.CWRU.EDU
It should be obvious to anyone who has half a clue about the Internet
what happens when a company or government tries to stomp out something
it doesn't like.
The offending bytes appear in every corner of the globe.
It happened in the case of DeCSS
(http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=mirror), and
it's happening now with the CyberPatrol decryption utility. So far the
verboten-ware is at:
http://bur-jud-118-039.rh.uchicago.edu/
ftp://blackstar.myip.org/pub/mirrored/
http://www.shub-internet.org/cp4/cp4break.html
http://www.wwcn.org/~grit/free/
http://www.reed.edu/~turnerd/cyberpatrol.tar.gz
http://www.mit.edu/~ocschwar/
http://members.optusnet.com.au/~kris_j/rio.html
ftp://128.148.190.238
http://cr939566-a.bloor1.on.wave.home.com:2600/FusionReactor.html#mattel
http://www.openpgp.net/censorship/index.html
Slashdot.org thread:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/03/16/0022227&mode=thread
Background:
http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=cyberpatrol
- -Declan
>Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2000 00:51:45 -0500 (EST)
>From: Dave Gowan <dgowan@tfn.net>
>To: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
>Subject: RE: CyberPatrol sues coders who revealed flaws in its software
>
>On Wed, 15 Mar 2000, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>
> > >They also offered a small ``cphack'' utility for ``people
> > >oppressed by Cyber Patrol'' that, when run on a parent's
> > >computer, reveals the password that blocks questionable Web
> > >sites -- and also discloses the product's entire list of more
> > >than 100,000 Internet sites deemed unsuitable for children.
>
>DeClan:
> Let me see if I understand this... the company made an
>inferior blocking product, not hacker-proof, and they sell it for
>$30, and now that someone has exposed it as a deficient product, they
>want the courts to guarantee they still get to make the same large
>profit despite the defects in the product?
>
> I like the phrase above, "...discloses the product's entire
>list of more than 100,000 internet sites deemed unsuitable for
>children." Maybe now we should get the cphack utility, extract the
>100,000 sites, and publish the list at several sites, so everyone
>can see if they've been blocked when they shouldn't have, and if they
>have lost any income as a consequence. The newspapers would probably
>like to the see the list, too, to see if it is fair. Send the list
>to the Wall Street Journal and to Jessie Berst (Berst's AnchorDesk)
>at ZDNet.
>
> I wrote articles in three newspapers on this issue of
>mandatory software blocking, saying that blocking should be up to
>parents and not government and not any third parties; I'd like to see
>this one exposed if possible.
>
>Dave Gowan
>Tallahassee
***********
>Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 23:41:00 -0600
>From: gep2@terabites.com
>To: declan@well.com
>
>The CyberPatrol people (and their attorneys) are idiots.
>
>I know of NO better way to ENSURE that the site will be mirrored
>around the world, and that tens of thousands of offline copies of it
>will be created.
>
>If they're hoping to help their cause, this is the WRONG way for
>CyberPatrol to do that. The Net doesn't take kindly to this kind of
>legal bullying!
>
>Gordon Peterson
>http://web2.airmail.net/gep2/
>Support the Anti-SPAM Amendment! Join at http://www.cauce.org/
>12/19/98: the day the Conservatives demonstrated their scorn for their
> fraudulent sham of representative government. Voters, remember it!
***********
>Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2000 01:13:42 -0600 (CST)
>From: sam th <sam@bur-jud-118-039.rh.uchicago.edu>
>To: Declan McCullagh <declan@wired.com>
>Subject: Re: [dvd-discuss] CyberPatrol sues programmers who published info
> on encryption
>
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>Hash: SHA1
>
>I have a mirror on my website. However, since this hit slashdot,
>enough mirroring has gone on already that the genie is out of the
>bottle, so to speak.
>
>
> sam th
> sytobinh@uchicago.edu
> http://bur-jud-118-039.rh.uchicago.edu
>
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
>Version: GnuPG v1.0.1 (GNU/Linux)
>Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org
>
>iD8DBQE40Imot+kM0Mq9M/wRAvyMAJ9291qKE+xhFi/GuXijmDWwANvlRACgolCt
>oEvhWJpaXDvaZ5UU2l4agos=
>=0LHg
>-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
***********
>Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2000 02:03:22 -0600
>From: "William H. Geiger III" <whgiii@openpgp.net>
>To: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
>Subject: Re: FC: CyberPatrol sues coders who revealed flaws in its
>software, from AP
>
>In <4.3.0.20000315220653.02666f00@mail.well.com>, on 03/15/00
> at 09:07 PM, Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> said:
>
> >Background:
> > http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=cyberpatrol
>
> >If you want to download the software before the injunction hits:
> > http://hem.passagen.se/eddy1/reveng/cp4/cp4break.html
>
> >If anyone sets up a mirror site, please let me know.
>
>Hi Declan,
>
>You should have known I couldn't resist. :)
>
>http://www.openpgp.net/censorship/cp4break/index.html
>
>You might want to make reference to
>
>http://www.openpgp.net/censorship/index.html
>
>As I will have links to the above mirror and additional sites that I am
>mirroring.
***********
>Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2000 05:34:09 -0500
>From: "Peter D. Junger" <junger@SAMSARA.LAW.CWRU.EDU>
>Subject: Re: CyberPatrol (censorware) sues reverse-engineers
>
>I have downloaded all the files at
><http://hem.passagen.se/eddy1/reveng/cp4/cp4break.html>, but am
>not sure that I got all the hot stuff, since at least one file was
>missing.
>
>It turns out to be a wonderful tutorial on decryption, modular
>artithmetic, 8086 assembly language, etc.
>
>I don't know yet whether I dare mirror it. It's got crypto in it,
>but under the new regulations I guess I can do it.
>
>I suspect that the big risk is the DMCA. It does make a wonderful
>example of how to circumvent weak encryption. But I am not sure
>that the circumvention has anything to do with copyrighted materials.
>
>I'm off now, but will look at it more closely later.
>
>But, anyway, I wanted to point out that this is seriously useful
>educational stuff; it's not just a cute hack, although I am sure
>that it is that too. The programmers explain how they went about
>opening up the filter program, using intuition, a disassembler,
>and a lot of skill and knowledge.
>
>--
>Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, OH
> EMAIL: junger@samsara.law.cwru.edu URL: http://samsara.law.cwru.edu
> NOTE: junger@pdj2-ra.f-remote.cwru.edu no longer exists
***********
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