Thanks Arvind, very interesting! I see the judgement answers the question you put before, which is why it was still confidential if on the internet. The sequence of events seems to be that (probably) the original algorithm (Megamos Crytpo) was obtained in breach of confidence by a company which produced a thing called "Tango Programmer", which contained it, and it was then that the defendants cracked the "Tango Programmer" encryption. So the information was not actually freely available on the internet, just the TP software which used the information but did not reveal it (until it was "cracked" by the academics.) This then makes sense of the injunction- the Megamos code had not previously been publicly available.
Regards
Neil
Dear all,
To follow up on the discussion a couple of weeks ago, the full text of the judgment ([2013] EWHC 1832 (Ch)) is now available via BAILII for those curious about the court’s reasoning in relation to breach of confidence:
Arvind
Westlaw has a summary, which can be found by searching for the case name "Volkswagen AG v Garcia". The cause of action was breach of confidence. The relevant point seems to have been that the researchers did not reverse engineer the software, but obtained it from the internet
in circumstances which suggested that it had not come from a legitimate source. This seems to have been taken to mean that it was imparted in circumstances that imported an obligation of confidence, which the publication of the paper would breach. The risk of theft was a factor justifying the grant of an interim injunction.
The researchers also argued that the publication of the program on the internet meant that it had lost its confidentiality. Unfortunately, the summary does not tell us why the court rejected this argument, which would on its face seem to be rather strong.
From: Andrew Tettenborn <A.M.Tettenborn@swansea.ac.uk>
Date: 28 July 2013 09:25:55 GMT+01:00
To: "obligations@uwo.ca" <obligations@uwo.ca>
Subject: Bentley theft
From the Guardian yesterday:
A British-based computer scientist has been banned from publishing an
academic paper revealing the secret codes used to start luxury cars
including Porsches, Audis, Bentleys and Lamborghinis as it could lead to
the theft of millions of vehicles, a judge has ruled.
<snip>
Has anyone any thoughts as to what the cause of action might have been here?