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aiolos

Tue 15 Aug, 2006


Owner-Free File System

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This strange system might be of interest to the lawyers.<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> I doubt it will hold up in court though.<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>
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Sitting squarely in the murky grey depths of the latter side of the argument is the Digital Douwd,<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> and their latest project,<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> the <b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>"OFF System.<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>"<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> The OFF portion stands for either Owner-Free Filing or Owner-Free File <b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>(the group claims to have not settled on a name yet.<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>)<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> The OFF System is a peer-to-peer file sharing service that attempts to jump through a tiny wormhole in copyright law and escape into a parallel universe where everything is available to everyone.<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>
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The ideas behind the OFF System were originally expressed in a more formal paper <b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>(PDF)<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> that outlined how copyright does not extend to random numbers.<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> Thus,<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> to get around copyright restrictions,<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> the OFF System cuts up files into tiny chunks <b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>(128 kilobytes each)<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> and then encrypts these chunks by using an XOR <b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>(exclusive OR)<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> boolean operation with two sets of random numbers.<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> The encoding system is similar to a One-Time Pad cipher,<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> and makes decrypting the contents by someone who does not have the appropriate key extremely difficult.<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> The use of two sets of random numbers instead of just one is a kind of cryptographic sleight-of-hand which is used to argue that the bits are no longer copyrighted.<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>
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The argument goes something like this:<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> a copyrighted file is converted into small chunks,<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> which are labeled <b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>"A.<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>"<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> These chunks are still copyrighted by the original owner.<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> It is then encrypted by performing an XOR operation with a block of random numbers,<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> called <b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>"B.<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>"<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> The resulting block <b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>"C,<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>"<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> is still copyrighted by the original owner,<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> but things get really interesting when C is encrypted again,<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> this time using not a series of random numbers,<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> but a block <b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>"E"<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> that is pulled out of the user's cache.<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> Block E is itself the result of an encryption of someone else's copyrighted file <b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>(D)<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>,<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> which would make the final result <b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>(F)<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> copyrighted by two content owners at the same time.<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> As it is not possible for both parties to hold a copyright on the same content,<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> the result is that neither party does,<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> and thus the block can be transmitted without fear of lawsuits from the RIAA or MPAA.<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>
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h__p:<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>/<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>/arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060814-7500.html