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The NSA listened to a few phone calls between people in other countries and terrorist suspects. How does that violate my human rights?

Hi folks

LinuxAU have a petition to sign to restrict the circumvention to nefarious acts directly tied to copyright infringement.
Contact your local lug to sign one, download one from the LinuxAU site below.
http://www.linux.org.au/law

I've been pulling together an info stash about the impact on AU of DMCA for layfolk.
http://www.lucychili.blogspot.com/

Kim Weatherall is a good place to start if you want to see the proposed DMCA law from the perspective of a lawyer.
http://weatherall.blogspot.com/2005_08_01_weathera ll_archive.html

EFF is a perennial source for DMCA debacle court cases
http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/

Similar things have been known to happen even in regular companies (ie not goverment agencies): http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/Intel_v_Schwartz/sc hwartz_case.intro

The telcos own the wires - do you propose the government take the wires away and lease them to the lowest bidder?

This paper was presented at the Privacy Enhancing Technologies Workshop, alongside with papers about Tor and Mixminion. I'm pretty confident that the authors aren't trying to help the Chinese government. What they are doing is embarrassing the Chinese government, presenting it with a difficult choice between dismantling its firewall and suffering DoS attacks, and publicising a method of circumventing the firewall. By using the normal channels for vulnerability disclosure, the authors protect themselves from politically-motivated accusations of "cyberterrorism".

you could also use a proxy to make it a little harder on them . i use Tor ( http://tor.eff.org/ ) . However , if they want to track you down , they will . I just don't think do will do it because of what you say about Bush ( they would have a lot of work then )

Now might be a good time to pick up Tor http://tor.eff.org/ Then, when everybody is on fiber, it'll go a lot faster.

as long as those jackboots continue to march, the market for anonymous mass communication will continue to grow. there are at least some people in america who care about expressing their ideas. if necessary, through things like tor.

(incidentally, my word for this post is idealism)

I'm assuming you're referring to TOR, not TOR (though he's pretty cool too).

I also think Freenet and Darknet type networks will play increasingly important roles in the inexorable globalization of free speech. What's needed is a way to create secure, historied pseudonyms that are peer validated, verifiable by signature, but incapable of being route-traced. If done right, such a system could potentially put freedom of speech and trade beyond the reach of government suppression.

Errr, didn't you get the memo? The 10th amendment is moot in light of the commerce clause.

Seriously though, while I think much of the reaction to this is a tad melodramatic, the potential for legislation like this to be enacted is exactly why it's important to help privacy-enhancing technologies reach critical mass -- e.g. Freenet, darknets, and Onion Routers.

Eventually, one's right to anonymity will only be secured by technological means, since governments will increasingly come together to counter it, regardless of their political philosophy. We should be teaching "ordinary folks" how to use these tools in much the same manner as we'd teach them to avoid phishing scams; their privacy is threatened in both cases.

It's a sad day when conspiracy theorists have to cite what-ifs as evidence.

They've been trying for years...

I think under the current climate it won't be long now.

There's been a fair bit of research on this kind of problem (read: it's been done before). Look around for a few papers on the operation of networks such as Tor, and both onion routing and anonymous remailers. Quite intriguing stuff.

http://tor.eff.org/ - distributed encrypted anonymous socks5 proxy client (and server, for those who do care), a successor to freenet
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2464/ - firefox extension that enables tor proxying only for urls that match user-defined patterns

If you use Tor, you're actually going through a sequence of several proxies, using different encryption keys for each hop along the route. The first proxy in the chain knows who you are, but can't see where you're going; it can only see the next proxy in the chain. The last proxy in the chain can see where you're going, but it doesn't know who you are, because all it can see is the previous proxy in the chain. Those in the middle can't see either the origin or the destination.

Unless an attacker manages to compromise all the nodes along your route (which changes every few minutes), the Tor network can't figure out who was going where.

To help you surf the web without being spyed on I recommend installing Tor then installing FoxyProxy.
Tor takes care of the proxy encryption, and FoxyProxy lets you use all those proxies while you surf.
Invaluable for the privacy conscious, or rather anyone living in the 21st century.

Sure here you go. One of a series of articles on the changes that Microsoft is making.

But even in the west I feel more comfortable using Tor, a (well, close enough) anonymizing proxy.

I used to use JAP (a similar project but the client was Java based and less transparent) but Tor is considerably faster. Throughput up to 60K/sec on a 512k/sec DSL line (as fast as it ever goes with no proxy) means that it's practical to use for all traffic and makes the needle much harder to find in the haystack.

Everybody recall BNETD?

If you want anybody to be able to reverse-engineer things for compatibility purposes then you better speak up right now. Otherwise this will be smacked down as hard as BNETD was.

And BNETD wasn't even substituting for a pay-to-play service so you can imaging what Lucas The Hutt's lawyers will do on this one.

You thought Vivendi was bad...

Then our business should go to their competitors. We'll do without their hardware, if what you say is true. However Sony sells cameras that make JPEG images; from what I understand, the attempts at demonstrating JPEG patent encumberances have fallen flat. Sony also sells PCs on which one can run free software OSes. But I think the major adverse publicity they have yet to live down is the recent Sony-BMG CD scandal.

The organization you're looking for already exists; it's the EFF

It's actually the other way around: http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2006_06.php#00472 0 It says you cannot sue someone for entering your website unless you protect it with a password or some other authentication method.

OK. quit griping. quit flamin'. DO something constructive. How about going over to the EFF site https://secure.eff.org/site/Advocacy?JServSessionI dr003=0qdwvz7h91.app6a&cmd=display&page=UserAction &id=223 Fill in the info, and send it off. If all of us would do this EACH AND EVERY TIME Hollywood tried this, it just might make someone sit up and take notice. Although I did add a few sentences that I'm sure will make my Senators & Representatives sit up and take notice. If they don't stop monkeying around and playing buddy-buddy to these repressive ideas, then perhaps it is time to recall all of the senators and representatives from Washington. Put limitations on terms -- no more than 8 years of service. Not just continous or fragmented, but total years of service. No more big cars. No more living in mansions. No more junkets. No more "special" retirement fund -- they get social security, just like the rest of us. No more special privileges. Perhaps a pay cut back to realistic levels. You get the idea. If they want us to swallow their bull, then they will have to face the consequences. YOU. The voting public have the power AND the inclination to affect change. If you don't take action? Then Hollywood wins. So quit your whining and do something about it.

This must be why Republican Senator John Sununu is our avatar on the committee for removing the broadcast/audio flags from this legislation.

Interesting... Sounds like this senator frequently opposes the Republican party. It makes me wonder why he would want to maintain membership in that party.

It's obvious that the Republican government insists on the maximum corporate legislation possible, and the minimum personal freedom.

This must be why Republican Senator John Sununu is our avatar on the committee for removing the broadcast/audio flags from this legislation.

You have to understand that copyright is not a partisan issue. This is why no openly partisan organization should get involved in the debate over these matters (such as MoveOn.org did with network neutrality, killing any chance of Republicans supporting that issue).

From EFF

From EFF

From EFF

I dunno...but, if you want to make their tracking data useless for you...start trying to encrypt ALL your internet traffic.

Grant it....it will slow you up a bit, but, will make you far less traceable. Set up anon. browsing, set up nym accounts for email...that will help your mail at least be encrypted, even from those who don't know how to use pgp.

• Tor - For anonymous browsing
• Freenet
• Anonymous Email (look for Nym section)
• Free Proxy servers (some https and anon listed)
• Set up and use Mixmaster anon remailers

Apple's roadmap: an OSX kernel built around the TPM built into all new Intel Macs... allowing Apple to enforce hardware DRM, and force you to run or not run certain pieces of code and execute their own code in secret, outside the view of debuggers or scrutiny. I hope *you* trusted *them*. Basically, Treacherous Computing is the dominant thing on Apple's roadmap... just as it is on Microsoft's.

You should publish a link to Captain Copyright! Of course, you definitely don't want to link to the blog of the guy who exposed the various copyright infringements that Captain Copyright was partaking in, or the EFF's DRM counter force: The Corruptables!

However, we in the FSF do hold the copyright to a huge collection of Free software, and will enforce that copyright with legal action where appropriate. (So far, it hasn't been appropriate; infringers tend to drop their pants and bend over once the FSF lawyers have had a little chat with their lawyers.)

(Yes, I'm a member of both the EFF and FSF, aren't you?)

"conspiracy to commit copyright infringement"

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004586.php

https://secure.eff.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&p age=UserAction&id=163

Since Boyle first wrote about this last September, I was wondering what others had to say about it. Here's a blog entry from Lawrence Lessig. Not too much written there, but it led me to an EFF page and CPTech action page.

Well I don't know if it's a load of crap. A quick search turns up a couple cases: Blizzard v. BNETD and Mattel sued the makers of cphack (over some kind of censorship software).

This how-to implies that reverse engineering "for purposes of interoperability" is legal in many places, but that's just one reason people reverse engineer stuff. With legal limits on what and when you can reverse engineer products, it's definitely possible to be sued for it. And successfully sued if you're violating the law (whether or not you agree with the law).

Have you been living under a rock?

http://fuckbluray.com/
http://www.eff.org/IP/DRM/Sony-BMG/
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,114850,0 0.asp

I stopped buying Sony's crap after discovering that a normal memory stick (which was a STUPID, unnecessary format to begin with) wasn't good enough for my sony mp3 player, I needed a more expensive, DRM encumbered 'magic gate' stick. I also had no choice but to use Sony's buggy software to put music on the darn thing.

This isn't FUD, Sony just keeps shafting and screwing customers when it comes to the content market. They've been doing it for years, and will continue to do so.

"it's a fact that none of the legislators take them seriously any more"
I beg to differ

Enough is Enough! http://tor.eff.org/

Good Theatre indeed: http://www.eff.org/legal/victories/

You would think the BBC would get the names right. It's actually the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Easy solution, throw all trafic through TOR http://tor.eff.org/, and make sure the exit points are in europe.

Well.. TOR is going to be very efficient.. (its nice in concept for sure)

Besides, ISPs in Europe want the same thing, being able to charge popular content providers.

The consequence of this idea:

You have popular content? now you need to figure out all the thousands of ISPs around the world, figure out which ones happen to be used by your viewers, and judge if their number is high enough to pay off that particular ISP.

I'm still amazed that people don't see at first glance already why this is an entirely stupid idea.

Easy solution, throw all trafic through TOR http://tor.eff.org/, and make sure the exit points are in europe.

The free software and free culture movements are full of great people including Lawrence Lessig. I got a chance to interview him. During the interview he expressed his over commitment to the movement. Lets acknowledge the larger organizations in order to reduce strain on any one figure. All of the people at Creative Commons, Electronic Freedom Foundation, Free Software Foundation, etc. deserve credit for their dedication to the cause (if you will).

That said, one critical aspect to promoting a digital culture is supporting revolutionary projects and artists. Some examples are Project Orange, Cactuses and Chance. Each has a different unique aspect but each hopes for a future which is better for artists. They aim for equal opportunity for artists to sustain themselves. Free software tools along with flexible creative licenses will allow this.

The most important aspect of Creative Commons licenses is that it allows for a new art form, remix art.

Alteration can create something unique.

You can create a unique Alteration.

For more interviews with revolutionary people/projects see my own project, Open Road Trip.

As far as I understand it one of the real worries about this BIll stems from Page 2 lines 2 & 19 :
2) "The liscense under this subsection covers"...
19) "incidental reproductions...including cached, network, and RAM buffer reproductions."

which changes the legal status of caches (etc) to liscensable ( but so far covered by the compulsory liscense ).

However when combined with page 4 lines 10 to 20

"This liscense excludes .... streaming or any other service that...authorize, enable, cause, or induce the making of reproductions of music works by or for end-users"

So if the end user could possibly somehow make a home recording (currently still fairuse) then the liscense doesn't cover it but it still needs a liscense.....

Kerching - liscense required for any cacheing if it can be used for home taping or any other act Holywood doesn't authorize.

Sounding like the INDUCE ACT yet ?

Now it doesn't initially state that an EXTRA liscense is required BUT it brings these "incedental reproductions" under the purview of liscenses. It changes their legal status.
It means that legally these things incedental things have to have a liscense.
Then it whips out the copy and paste from INDUCE and bingo INDUCE ACT by the backdoor.
The compulsory liscense falls away for everything that could induce a copy (er everything).

So every "streaming (or any other service )" would require a special non-compulsory liscense from Hollywood. i.e. they have a total VETO on all new internet technology.

It is the opinion of many, including the EFF that Holywood will use this new liscenable legal status of 'incedental works' to go after new devices ( as everything digital makes incidental copies - its kind of fundamental ).

According to Fred von Lohmann: "They are stacking the deck for future fights against other digital technologies that depend on making incidental copies."

As these hastily added little extras brings no benefits to anyone, so why include it ?

I wonder...
Bill Text :
http://www.eff.org/IP/060512SIRAof2006DiscussionDr aft.pdf

On the EFF Action Page You can subscribe to an RSS feed of all the latest bill/issues before congress that affect our digital rights. Things like the broadcast flag, NSA wiretaps, e-voting, etc. Each individual action page has a form letter you can send your representative or senator to show your opposition or support.

In short, yes, the bill was intended to fix a problem that needs a solution. But that legal argument exists exactly because the courts are still trying to work out in many many areas whether temporary copies are fair use, or should have some sort of license from the rightsholder.

The compromise solution in this bill between the rightsholders and the large (litigatable) online companies like Apple and Yahoo! was this: yes, temporary copies are licensable, but they get a free (or fixed rate) license.

That's a terrible fix: it saves Apple and Yahoo's bacon, at the cost of allowing rightsholders to point to this law and state *in all other cases* a license is required.

In difficult cases, judges struggle to understand the intent of legislators through examining the whole corpus of law, not only the law they're currently deciding. If this passes, the RIAA and MPAA will cite it in every case they attempt to shut down a new technology or service. They'll say "well, sure, the law says time-shifting is fair use, but *this* law says that temporary copies are licensable, so you should ban the SuperWiFiPod because they haven't got a license from us." The rightsholders fought for this language, and accepted the compromise exactly because they got the chance to lose a battle, and win the wider war.

The other part of the bill that isn't getting quite as much coverage, but is actually a more obvious example of this sleight of hand, is that it casually states for the first time that Net transmissions of data are "distributions" under the Copyright Act. That's an incredibly contentious assertion, because if it were true, groups like the RIAA would be able to use a whole new wing of copyright law against downloaders and companies who offer download services.

So far the RIAA's main tactic to get this broadening of their power is by sneaking the assertion that net transmission is "distribution" into their 19,000 individual suits. If it's accepted by a judge in one of those cases, it becomes precedent, to be used by the rightsholders in fighting new technology -- which is why EFF is attempting to stop them by filing amicus briefs when the RIAA brings it up.

If it becomes Transmission + Reproduction == Distribution becomes accepted judicial practice, the rightsholders can use it to sue XM or Comcast as breaching their distribution right. Sneaking it as an uncontested assertion in a law is just as effective.

One final point: even if you think that the law doesn't say what others are claiming, it's very very useful to have this raised and made clear in Congress. The courts also look at the legislative record when making their determinations. The RIAA will find it much harder to broaden their claims to temporary caches and make transmission equivalent to physical "distribution" if the legislators explicitly say, on the record, that that was not their intent in this law. Although, as ever, it helps to get it down in writing :)

Enumeration of rights can be as dangerous as failing to enumerate them. Many of the US founders argued against the bill of rights foreseeing that "constructionists" might eventually take power and interpret the enumerated rights as the ONLY rights of citizens.

As this EFF article http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004721.php [eff.org]
  points out, this revision would establish a "single" enumerated case limited to digital music providers where license to intermediate electronic copies are automatic. The US president recently appointed 2 self-professed constructionists to the Supreme Court. They are likely to now interpret this law as the ONLY case where intermediate copies are automatically granted license. The potential consequences to news organizations, search engines, software retailers, and other industries whose services necessitate intermediate electronic copies could be immense.

Read the law. Listen to the politicians. Watch the courts. Read the news. Talk to your neighbors. Read a few blogs. Be a good citizen. Then decide whether you are for or against a law that may or may not be benign.

From: das at doit.wisc.edu
Subject: Incorrect information about SIRA?
Date: June 6, 2006 8:21:46 AM CDT
To: fred at eff.org
Security: Signed

In your post you say:

SIRA's main aim is clearing the way for online music services by revising the current mechanical compulsory license set out in Section 115 of the Copyright Act to accommodate "full downloads, limited downloads, and interactive streams." So far so good, but the devil is in the details. This license specifically includes and treats as license-able "incidental reproductions...including cached, network, and RAM buffer reproductions."

By smuggling this language into the Copyright Act, the copyright industries are stacking the deck for future fights against other digital technologies that depend on making incidental copies. Just think of all the incidental copies that litter your computer today -- do you have a license for every copy in your browser's cache?

But, the "Blanket Licensing" section of says:

First, by simply filing one license application--or in the case of multiple designated agents or a change in digital uses, a limited number of applications--a legitimate music service can obtain a license to utilize all musical works(4) in the digital environment, rather than having to locate the various copyright owners of those works and clear the rights with each of them. Requiring the license to be available to all comers and deeming it to be automatically granted upon the filing of a proper application makes this licensing processing as instantaneous as possible. A key component is that the new compulsory license governs all nondramatic musical works and does not permit copyright owners to opt-out, which would otherwise jeopardize the efficiency of the entire blanket licensing structure. Additionally, we note that the SIRA appropriately does not preclude a copyright owner from entering into a direct licensing agreement with a particular digital music service, thus preserving multiple licensing options for copyright owners and licensees.

Second, the proposed blanket license covers all intermediate copies (e.g., server, cache and buffer copies) necessary to facilitate the digital delivery of music and applies to streaming and limited downloads.(5) Presently, there exists much confusion and controversy as to whether these copies and uses must be separately licensed, which the Office understands can result in protracted negotiations and delays. By resolving these issues, the SIRA clears the way for the legitimate music services to focus on rapidly delivering music to the consuming public and developing new technologies to make delivery even faster, regardless of whether such technologies involve additional intermediate copies or not.

So it would seem that SIRA is trying to do the exact opposite from what is being alleged in various "calls to action" regardingm SIRA.

Regards,

Dave Schroeder
University of Wisconsin - Madison

----

There's a reason we've "never heard of" this bill: it's not trying to do any of the evil things the submitter or TFA say it is. Yes, it may suck in other ways and probably does, like pretty much any proposed law will in some respect or another. But it's not trying to enforce separate licenses for cached, buffered, and incidental copies of digital works; it's trying to eliminate all of the ridiculousness with regard to that and allow one license to cover all of the incidental copies that might pop up in digital distribution. It sure would be nice if people actually read it.

Here's the link to EFF's take on this: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004721.php

http://action.eff.org/sira

he law implies that licenses from copyright holders are needed for every digital copy made in the transmission of digital media -- including cached copies on servers or on your hard drive, and even temporary copies in RAM.

This Bill kinda seems to make everything digital pretty much illegal - I guess its time to start building analogue computers