March 20, 2019 - 8:00pm PDT
Los Angeles
The 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) made it illegal to bypass digital locks or publish methods of doing so. Since then, digital rights management (DRM) technologies have begun to appear everywhere, from automobiles to home goods to medical devices. Today, modifying the software on your slow cooker might be illegal.
The law gives manufacturers ammunition to fight people using their products in ways they don’t approve of. That’s wrought havoc on software hackers as well as unauthorized resellers and repair shops.
At this event, we’ll talk about how DRM has impacted the hacker and tinkerer community, and how the community can fight back.
