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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday November 02 2016, @01:28PM   Printer-friendly
from the phone-phreaks-rejoice dept.

You may have thought that if you owned your digital devices, you were allowed to do whatever you like with them. In truth, even for possessions as personal as your car, PC, or insulin pump, you risked a lawsuit every time you reverse-engineered their software guts to dig up their security vulnerabilities—until now.

Last Friday, a new exemption to the decades-old law known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act quietly kicked in, carving out protections for Americans to hack their own devices without fear that the DMCA's ban on circumventing protections on copyrighted systems would allow manufacturers to sue them. One exemption, crucially, will allow new forms of security research on those consumer devices. Another allows for the digital repair of vehicles. Together, the security community and DIYers are hoping those protections, which were enacted by the Library of Congress's Copyright Office in October of 2015 but delayed a full year, will spark a new era of benevolent hacking for both research and repair.

Unfortunately, the exemptions are only temporary and will need to be re-approved the next time the Copyright Office reviews its exemptions, in 2018.


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by NotSanguine on Thursday November 03 2016, @11:39PM

    by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Thursday November 03 2016, @11:39PM (#422296) Homepage Journal

    The text of the exemption for vehicles reads as follows:

    Computer programs that are contained in and control the functioning of a motorized land vehicle such as
    a personal automobile, commercial motor vehicle or mechanized agricultural vehicle, except for computer programs primarily designed for the control of telematics or entertainment systems for such vehicle, when circumvention is a necessary step undertaken by the authorized owner of the vehicle to allow the diagnosis, repair or lawful modification of a vehicle function; and where such circumvention does not constitute a violation of applicable law, including without limitation regulations promulgated by the Department of
    Transportation or the Environmental Protection Agency; and provided, however, that such circumvention is initiated no earlier than 12 months after the effective date of this regulation.

    The other exemption delay is related to "good faith" security research to discover security flaws:

    (i) Computer programs, where the circumvention is undertaken on a
    lawfully acquired device or machine on which the computer program operates solely for the purpose of good faith security research and does not violate any applicable law, ncluding
    without limitation the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986, as amended and codified in title 18, United States Code; and provided, however, that, except as to voting machines, such circumvention is initiated no earlier than 12 months after the effective date of this regulation, and the device or machine is one of the following:

    (A) A device or machine primarily designed for use by individual consumers (including voting machines);
    (B) A motorized land vehicle; or
    (C) A medical device designed for whole or partial implantation in patients or a corresponding personal monitoring system, that is not and will not be used by patients or for patient care.

    (ii) For purposes of this exemption, “good-faith security research” means accessing a computer program solely for purposes of good-faith testing, investigation and/or correction of a security flaw or vulnerability, where such activity is carried out in a controlled environment designed to avoid any harm to individuals or the public, and where the information derived from the activity is used primarily to promote the security or safety of the class of devices or machines on which the computer program operates, or those who use such devices or machines, and is not used or maintained in a manner that facilitates copyright infringement.

    The above is from http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2015/80fr65944.pdf. [copyright.gov]

    All the rest of the exemptions have been in effect since 1/28/2015.

    Better yet, read the above document yourself and draw your own conclusions.

    --
    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
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