by rupe

How can I distribute the DeCSS algorithm via DNS?

The following is taken from: http://www.tbtf.com/blog/2000-03-12.html#6

Distributing DeCSS via DNS. Unwrap the following and utter it on one line to a Unix shell on a machine that is live to the Net:
  dig @138.195.138.195 goret.org. axfr | 
    grep '^c..\..*A' |
    sort |
    cut -b5-36 |
    perl -e 'while(<>){print pack("H32",$_)}' |
    gzip -d
What you'll get, streaming to STDOUT, is the source code for the DVD CSS decryptor that the motion-picture industry is so keen to suppress. Thanks to the Domain Name System, that code is now available on hundreds of thousands of routers around the world.

Lenny Foner <foner at media dot mit dot edu> suggests a modest extension to protect the valuable intellectual property locked up in this code.

The right thing to do here is to have the person who owns the domain claim that the code above is a "decryption algorithm" (after all, it must be -- the info isn't human-readable at first glance, so it must be encrypted, right?), and that the algorithm is a trade secret. Only those who are authorized to know the trade secret may run the algorithm. Only entities which agree to hold harmless and never sue the domain owner for any reason are authorized to know the trade secret. Even better, make this entire agreement part of a shrinkwrap license available via perusal of the DNS records -- or perhaps, as UCITA is trying to do, available only after you've decrypted everything!

Therefore, if the RIAA, the DVDCCA, or the MPAA attempt to sue the owner, he countersues for exactly the same reason, saying that they weren't even authorized to know what he was posting. If their suit is valid, then so it his, and contrariwise.

[Note added 2000-03-23, 8:36 pm:] Seth Finkelstein <sethf at mit dot edu> got it down to four executables and a single perl loop:

  dig @138.195.138.195 goret.org. axfr |
         perl -e 'for(sort(<>)){print pack("H32",$1) if(/^c..\.(\w+)/)}' | 
         gzip -d

 


 
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