Andrew "bunnie" Huang, an expert on hacking the Xbox 360 and author of the book "Hacking the Xbox", explains the technical details in the United States v. Crippen, which last week was abandoned by federal prosecutors after its first witness unraveled the case for them..
In a blog post called "USA v. Crippen — A Retrospective”, Huang dives into the technical details of the Xbox 360 , explaining in great detail how the U.S. government tried to use a statute in the DMCA to take Crippen down, why the case was pretty important to Xbox 360 hackers and homebrew enthusiasts, and why it ultimately failed.
It's a deep compelling read with lots of technical details worth checking out if you want to understand the case a bit better. Perhaps it will prepare you for the next case the government brings to court..
Thanks Boing Boing.
Comments
Re: Bunnie Explains U.S. v. Crippen
That's what you get for attacking someone with a statue...
Sorry, had to do it :P
Re: Bunnie Explains U.S. v. Crippen
Like in the real DVD case even if you buy the CSS license to legally make a copy that has an extra layer of DRM on it. The industry did not like it and thus no mattter how legal it was it was sued into oblivion, kinda like Bleam was.Hell you can't even restore data on your 360 if your tag goes bubye..... fck it... just fck the system!
I have a dream, break the chains of copy right oppression! http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/2010/05/21/cigital-disobedience/
I have a dream, break the chains of copy right oppression! http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/what-is-cigital-disobedience/
Re: Bunnie Explains U.S. v. Crippen
The CSS license was for playing DVD's, not copying them; RealNetworks's defense made a poor decision in basing its argument around the license and not around fair use.
Based on the tongue-lashing the judge gave the prosecution in this case, he understood the fair-use argument (a modded Xbox can be used for homebrew or backups). That's the point where the witness "remembered" the defendant had used the modded Xbox to run a pirated game, and blew the trial.
Re: Bunnie Explains U.S. v. Crippen
Sadly, the case was also an example of, even if a prosecutor doesn't have a legal leg to stand on, they can still make someone and example by making their life very difficult and probably dumping them into debt while the prosecutor's whole case is taxpayer funded....