Use a firewall -- go to jail
Let's here it for Texas and Mass. I think computer geeks should be elected to office, maybe then people would smarten up.
Quote:
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
Quote:
"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.
Full Story
State DMCA's Make NAT Illegal?
Quote:
mttlg writes "According to Freedom to Tinker, MA, TX, SC, FL, GA, AK, TN, and CO have introduced similar bills that would make it illegal to possess, use, etc. "any communication device to receive ... any communication service without the express consent or express authorization of the communication service provider" or "to conceal ... from any communication service provider ... the existence or place of origin or destination of any communication." (Additional legalese removed for the sake of brevity.) This would seem to outlaw NAT, VPNs, and many other security measures. In other words, don't secure your communications, just sue if you don't like who receives them." The bills define 'communication service' as just about any sort of telecom service that is provided for a charge or fee. In effect, they would extend the already-extant laws relating to theft of cable TV services to any telecom service. For example, if your ISP charges per computer connected, using a router/NAT device would be illegal if these became law.
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Thankfully I don't live in one of those states. I think the DMCA has been written too broadly from the get go and has been abused and mis-interpreted since it went into affect.
I'd be interested to know what the true goal was here. Doesn't this conflict with other bills like the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that REQUIRE customer data to be encrypted or otherwise protected?
Use a firewall. Go to jail !!
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).
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(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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