Re: [d@DCC] More research on Bill C-2: DVD players interfer with military

From: mskala _-at-_ ansuz.sooke.bc.ca
To: General Discussion <discuss (at) digital-copyright.ca>
Date: Sun, 2 May 2004 21:59:53 -0400 (EDT)

On Sun, 2 May 2004, Joe McGuire wrote:
> Granted it is been some years since I have done any serious work with 
> 'lectronics, and even longer since I have received my 'lectronics 
> technologist degree, but I am fairly certain that none of these AVR 
> cards operate with sufficient power or frequency to cause harm.

It'd be nice if we could find someone really authoritative on this.  I've
got a correspondence diploma in electronic design and an Advanced Amateur
Radio certificate, but my *serious* credentials are all on the software
side... and, unfortunately, the most accurate technical answer is going to
be something like "It is theoretically possible that in some kind of weird
circumstance a critical communications system might be subject to
interferance from an illegal descrambler, but that would never happen in
any ordinary situation".  I fear that some people would hear it as "Yes,
illegal descramblers really can cause harmful interferance!"

Maybe it would be productive to *compare* the interferance potential of,
say, descramblers and cordless telephones, instead of trying to evaluate
the risk associated with descramblers in isolation.  If we give one "risk"
number and it's greater than zero, then the other side will say it has to
be exactly zero, because human beings have a hard time dealing with small
numbers.  Giving two risk numbers and pointing out that one is much
smaller than the other, might be a better plan.  I'm certain that cordless
phones are riskier than descramblers, because they are actually designed
to radiate significant amounts of power, whereas nobody actually *wants* a
descrambler to radiate, and at worst the designers might not be careful to
prevent it as well as we might like.
-- 
Matthew Skala
mskala@ansuz.sooke.bc.ca                    Embrace and defend.
http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/

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