Merged: Use a firewall. Go to jail !! and State DMCA's Make NAT Illegal?

[tonybradley]

The rumor that Al Gore "invented the internet" is false

It was said with 100% tongue-in-cheek sarcasm. I am aware that not only did Al Gore not "invent" the Internet, but that he never truly claimed to and that his statement was taken out of context.

I was just throwing out some political humor.

[VicE$DoS$]

Hi Everyone,

This isnt an early April fools, check the below article out.

I personally think that perhaps the register have been a bit premature and over the top with this ..... but ... you never know. I'd like to hear everyones thoughts and comments on this.
(Especially any of you in Massachusetts or Texas).

==================================================================

(Taken from the register <url>http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/30003.html</url>
By John Lettice
Posted: 28/03/2003 at 16:48 GMT


The (DMCA) Digital Millennium Copyright Act clearly isn't enough for some people. Massachusetts and Texas are - in curious formation - considering bills that will extend it to make firewalls (among other things) illegal.

The strange synchronicity is illustrated by a quick look at the draft of the Texas bill then comparing it with the Massachusetts one, which you'll find in RTF format at Ed Felten's Freedom to Tinker, here. The strikeouts indicate that both, for whatever reason, have decided not to repress video this time around.

The repression that remains is however impressive. Felten points to this wording:

(b) Offense defined.--Any person commits an offense if he knowingly:

(1) possesses, uses, manufactures, develops, assembles, distributes, transfers, imports into this state, licenses, leases, sells or offers, promotes or advertises for sale, use or distribution any communication device:

(i) for the commission of a theft of a communication service or to receive, intercept, disrupt, transmit, re-transmits, decrypt, acquire or facilitate the receipt, interception, disruption, transmission, re-transmission, decryption or acquisition of any communication service without the express consent or express authorization of the communication service provider; or

(ii) to conceal or to assist another to conceal from any communication service provider, or from any lawful authority, the existence or place of origin or destination of any communication

Over to Ed here, because he puts it so well:

"Your ISP is a communication service provider, so anything that concealed the origin or destination of any communication from your ISP would be illegal -- with no exceptions.

"If you send or receive your email via an encrypted connection, you're in violation, because the 'To' and 'From' lines of the emails are concealed from your ISP by encryption. (The encryption conceals the destinations of outgoing messages, and the sources of incoming messages.)

"Worse yet, Network Address Translation (NAT), a technology widely used for enterprise security, operates by translating the 'from' and 'to' fields of Internet packets, thereby concealing the source or destination of each packet, and hence violating these bills. Most security 'firewalls' use NAT, so if you use a firewall, you're in violation.

"If you have a home DSL router, or if you use the 'Internet Connection Sharing' feature of your favorite operating system product, you're in violation because these connection sharing technologies use NAT. Most operating system products (including every version of Windows introduced in the last five years, and virtually all versions of Linux) would also apparently be banned, because they support connection sharing via NAT."

Ed points out that this boils down to 'use a firewall, go to jail,' but we really think he's not being nearly ambitious enough here. It strikes us that, as the proud owner of Internet Connection Sharing, Bill Gates develops, distributes and licenses a communications device which is used to conceal "the existence or place of origin or destination of any communication." So we say, 'use a a firewall, go to jail, but also send Bill Gates to jail.' Ah, decisions, decisions... ®
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[instronics]

Ermmm, i', really speachless here.... i mean wtf.......?

The (DMCA) Digital Millennium Copyright Act clearly isn't enough for some people. Massachusetts and Texas are - in curious formation - considering bills that will extend it to make firewalls (among other things) illegal.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

"If you send or receive your email via an encrypted connection, you're in violation, because the 'To' and 'From' lines of the emails are concealed from your ISP by encryption. (The encryption conceals the destinations of outgoing messages, and the sources of incoming messages.)

Total control of your privacy and lives......

"Worse yet, Network Address Translation (NAT), a technology widely used for enterprise security, operates by translating the 'from' and 'to' fields of Internet packets, thereby concealing the source or destination of each packet, and hence violating these bills. Most security 'firewalls' use NAT, so if you use a firewall, you're in violation.

May god have pitty on their poor souls.

This smells strongly like the gov is behind this. Their "hackers" must have a hard time getting our personal info of our computers....., they cant bypass our security to invade our privacy.....they really SUCK!

Thats the only reasonable thing i can think of right now. Uncle Sam cant violate our privacy, so he makes our privacy illegal..... It will not take long until those stupid laws take effect in the entire USA. I dunno about the rest of the world, but ......lol, i feel sorry for the people who have to put up with this CRAP!. Please forgive my language, i know many of you are not used to this sort of talk from me, but this really stinks. No law is ever going to stop me from using 2048 pgp, gpg encryption for my mails or files, and no law is going to stop me from firewalling my networks. This is SICK!

Sorry for this cheap quality post, but this just really does it. Damn, i really love Greece, and thank god i live here.

Cheers.

[cbo]

hahahaha nice bill...

Well what can I say... It's ok to buy guns but u can't have a firewall... LMAO

Hope on the next episode of COPS u see em bust a group of foul nerds all of em armed with Firewalls and disks containing various "evil" NAT config files..

Why don't the US politicians grow up and address some of the real problems?

[HTRegz]

Wow.... There are now three threads on the subject.. Two with the same title... Everyone with replies.. Easy to tell that this is a subject that concerns a lot of people..

I'm gonna say the same thing I always say for the benefit of those just reading this thead. This is why we need computer geeks as politicians... At least then we'd have intelligent politicians and there wouldn't be this kinda sh*t going around...

I'm so glad I'm not an American Citizen with sh*t like this going around.. Although if it does happen, i'm sure our government of sheep will just follow suit.... At least you American's have Lion's instead..

**Note**
For those of you that don't get the sheep and lion thing, refer to google... or if you're lazy like me... here's an example.

[VicE$DoS$]

who's the moderator for this forum?? is it worth merging these threads.

I'd be interested to read the other ones but I cant seem to find them.....HTRegZ where did you see them mate??

Cheers
Vice$Dos$

[10dedfish]

OK, Lets talk about the rule of 1 million and the NSA. If anyone has heard of this before then skip to the end.
The rule of 1 million and the NSA is explained as follows. The NSA told everyone that they could only develop an encryption type that the NSA could break for less than 1 million dollars. Now remember way back when, the encryption was pretty lame. 16 bit, then 32, 64, 128, 256, and now 512. Now, look at the advances in computer processing power. It has increased exponentially as well. So, if you think that the gov is worried about not being able to read your mail, then your not paranoid enuff.

10Ded

[MrLinus]

I swear I'm blind this morning.. I started a third thread! Anyways, Michigan was the first to put their law into effect. Personally I'd be concerned. Here's what I had posted:


I got an email from slashdot that had the header of "Michigan First With A Law That Could Outlaw VPNs". This peaked my interest. So I went to read it and followed it to Freedom to Tinker Website which had links to the "Super DCMA". And this is scary. The law has the following section (bolds are by me):

750.540c.amended Prohibited conduct with regard to telecommunications access device; violation as felony; penalty; amateur radio service; forfeiture; order; definitions.

Sec. 540c.

(1) A person shall not assemble, develop, manufacture, possess, deliver, offer to deliver, or advertise an unlawful telecommunications access device or assemble, develop, manufacture, possess, deliver, offer to deliver, or advertise a telecommunications device intending to use those devices or to allow the devices to be used to do any of the following or knowing or having reason to know that the devices are intended to be used to do any of the following:

(a) Obtain or attempt to obtain a telecommunications service with the intent to avoid or aid or abet or cause another person to avoid any lawful charge for the telecommunications service in violation of section 219a.

(b) Conceal the existence or place of origin or destination of any telecommunications service.

(c) To receive, disrupt, decrypt, transmit, retransmit, acquire, intercept, or facilitate the receipt, disruption, decryption, transmission, retransmission, acquisition, or interception of any telecommunications service without the express authority or actual consent of the telecommunications service provider.

I don't know if their intent was to stop VPN, NAT, Firewalls on purpose or they just didn't realize. I think it will also have an affect on anonymous proxies as well, who may become unwitted aiders and abetters. I suspect we'll see 2600 and others a little peeved over this one.

And the law is effect today, March 31.

[HTRegz]

VicE$DoS$:

In answer to your question

http://www.antionline.com/showthread...hreadid=241876
http://www.antionline.com/showthread...hreadid=241864

MsM:

Sure delete your thread, make me repost my comments heh

Anyways... It's scary as all hell that one of these states has gone threw with this....
*waits to see gore and others move to Canada*


[EDIT]
Well I pity the person who hasn't been following these threads and now tries to read them all hehe
[/EDIT]

[MrLinus]

There. All threads on this are merged into one SuperThread. Which will go along with the SuperDMCA.