Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Path: msuinfo!caen!sdd.hp.com!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!psinntp!visix!news
From: amanda@visix.com (Amanda Walker)
Subject: Re: Pawn shops etc, and a NEW question.
Message-ID: <1992Feb28.234554.3738@visix.com>
Sender: news@visix.com
Organization: Visix Software Inc., Reston, VA
References: <299ffefa.knapper@knapper.cactus.org> <1992Feb21.051907.13198@visix.com>
	<896@transfer.stratus.com>
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 92 23:45:54 GMT

cme@ellisun.sw.stratus.com (Carl Ellison) writes:
> It wouldn't take much effort for a hacker to buy all files, interrupt the
> decryption program in the middle, pull out the decryption key for each file
> and sell those keys along with decryption software which doesn't ask for
> a unique per-CD key.

True.  It would, however, take a lot of money :).  These schemes are
mainly aimed at preventing casual users from engaging in casual piracy.
Taking the Adobe example again, a hacker could buy the whole set of
fonts unencrypted (Adobe will sell the whole set on a hard disk for
$10K+), and just sell them.  What the scheme prevents is Joe Random User
from being able to scarf things off the CD-ROM on the fly.  The goal
isn't perfect security, but to make it uneconomical to bypass the
mechanism.


Amanda Walker						      amanda@visix.com
Visix Software Inc.				    ...!uupsi!visix.com!amanda
-- 
"The concept is simply staggering -- pointless -- but staggering."
		---Doctor Who
