2006 Game Documents

[Mike]

Originally Posted by Billfred

I wasn't on CD during the 2004 season (scary, isn't it?), but wasn't there talk about cracking the manual then?

Someone will always bring it up, either out of being naive or being dumb. But with three days before Kickoff, three things come to mind:
a) Why bother? Three days, and you can get it without all the effort and guilt.
b) In order to crack the manual before Kickoff, you would need some black-magic, CIA-type computers (assuming one were to use a brute-force method). I'm sure your parents/school/sponsors would love the power bill that comes from running that much crunching power.
c) The DMCA prohibits circumventing "measures that prevent unauthorized access to a copyrighted work" (source, page three at the bottom). Do you really feel like tangling with federal law just to get a short time advantage on a game for an extracurricular activity?

That said, I think FIRST will release the manual tonight or tomorrow. (Too much travel on Friday, I figure.)

b) Heh, talk about power bills. Experts have said that it is physically impossible to brute force a 128 bit key. With the most efficient, super-conductive, etc. etc. computer, it would take 10 gigawatts (~4 nuclear reactors) of energy, and STILL take over a century.
c) The DMCA is a failed law. I quote

`Sec. 1201. Circumvention of copyright protection systems `(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--

Therefore, it is illegal for me to attempt to find flaws in computer code. If the good guys don't find the flaws and patch them before the bad guys find them and exploit them, bad things happen.

Meh, just thought I would add my two cents. With all this being said, hacking is bad (mmkay?)