Taking On Microsoft And The DMCA Over Xbox Hacking
from the chilling-effects... dept
It appears that this is “chilling effects” week, as we’re already onto our third story this week about how bad laws have caused researchers to hide away some perfectly reasonable research they’ve done about computer security. The latest is an
interview with Andrew “Bunnie” Huang, who made a lot of news last year for cracking the security system used by Microsoft’s Xbox. He was then approached to write a book called “hacking the Xbox”, which lawyers have now shelved out of fear of a DMCA lawsuit. He then tried to publish the book himself – but the e-commerce company providing the shopping cart was afraid that they would get sued. In the interview Huang explains why the book is important, and how there’s nothing illegal about it at all. He also points out that he’s willing to be a test case to show how the DMCA clearly does have chilling effects on security research – thereby actively decreasing the security of computer systems.
