Misc. Ramblings

The second of two legal cases I started talking about last week is The Chamberlain Group, Inc., v. Skylink Technologies, Inc.

Chamberlain manufactures and sells remote controlled garage door openers (GDOs), including a line that uses what they term "rolling codes." Rolling code technology is described as a computer program that constantly changes the signal sequence that is needed to remotely open the garage door.

This changing of the sequence is marketed as a security feature since third-parties who record the sequence and try to replay it, at a later time, to gain unauthorized access to the garage, would be thwarted by the system using a different code every time it is used.

Comes now Skylink Technologies and what they call a universal remote control that bypasses the rolling code feature and opens the door without using such a code.

Chamberlain filed suit against Skylink under, inter alia, the DCMA contending that such bypassing violated the prohibition

because it illegally circumvents a protective measure (the rolling code) that controls access to its copyrighted computer program in Chamberlain's Security+ GDOs. Specifically, Chamberlain claims that Skylink has violated 17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(2) of the DMCA, which states:

(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that--
(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;
(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or
(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

Later in the opinion, the court states:

During oral arguments on this motion, Plaintiff acknowledged that under its interpretation of DMCA, a garage owner violates the Act if he or she loses the transmitter that came with its Chamberlain rolling code GDO, but manages to operate the opener by somehow circumventing the rolling code. This court agrees with Defendant that the DMCA does not require such a conclusion.

Here, the court appears to be trying to make a reasonable conclusion from an unreasonable law. That is, the law could not be construed to keep an owner from accessing his or her own garage. Even though, that is exactly what the plain language of the DCMA would require if it were to be enforced. While this certainly gives comfort to the defendant, it leaves intact the law itself. See the ruling, in PDF format here.

Living Large. Warren Zevon is not what one would describe as a role model. Unless you were looking for a rock and roll singer/composer from the Me Generation of the 1970s and 80s.

In a time of excess, Zevon and fellow traveler/author Hunter S. Thompson crossed the boundary of the known and struck out on their own brand of horror - one based on doing all the things your parents told you not to do.

In the end, such living caught up with Zevon, as it will for all of us. Warren Zevon, dead at the age of 56.

I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's
His hair was perfect
Werewolves of London
Draw blood.

Fading Memories. Photographs document the times of our lives. But nothing lasts forever, as the images and our memories fade. And one day recently, SWMBO noticed that we had pictures of her late dad on the bookcase but none of mine.

Part of that is because my father passed away over 30 years ago and part of that is I didn't take any pictures with me when I moved out of my mother's house. So I went to see what I could find. What I found were a few images in faded color and few more in black and white.

Not wanting to display pictures in such bad shape, I decided to check out what was available as far as programs designed to restore and retouch images. For anyone on a budget, the choices narrowed down to Adobe Photoshop Elements and Jasc Photo Paint Shop 8. Both list for about $100 USD and both are designed for the non-artist who needs to do simple, and not so simple image manipulation.

Either will probably do what most people need to do but I chose Jasc because of political reasons more than anything else. Don't get me wrong, Adobe makes useful software, but I don't like some of their business tactics and so went with Jasc.

As it so happened, Doc Searl's mother passed away recently and Doc created a memorial in photographs (see it here). Some of the images, however, had faded or were scanned in such a way as to reduce the contrast and color saturation. So I decided to use Paint Shop Pro 8 on what looked like the most worn out images as a test. Before you click on the following link, be aware that you need a broadband connection because some of the images are large and will take a long time to download. The results can be seen here.

Most of the improvements you see are a credit to Paint Shop Pro and not any skill I may have. All I did on most of the images was tweak things a little here and there. However, two of the four did require a fair amount of manual work (see "1980" and "mom_flapper").

I think Paint Shop Pro does a great job of restoring the original contrast and color tones and is well worth the cost if you need to restore old photographs.

Aloha!