Congress Plans DMCA Sequel: The SSSCA

Declan McCullagh writes: "If you thought the DMCA was a nightmare, wait 'til you find out what Congress is planning this fall. The sequel is called the "Security Systems Standards and Certification Act," and it requires PCs and consumer electronic devices to support "certified security technologies" to be approved by the Commerce Department. Backers of the SSSCA include Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-S.C.), who heads the powerful Senate Commerce committee, and, reportedly, Disney. Wired News has a report, and I've placed the SSSCA draft text (new! more criminal penalties!) online here. D'ya think that maybe Congress doesn't like OSS very much?" This is only a draft, not even introduced as a bill yet, but it sends chills down my spine - this is the big one. If passed, it would require all personal computers to have digital rights management built in, under penalty of law.

Comments

Land of the free??

[stefanjo]

Im glad I dont live in the US.

Obviously part of DOJ vs Microsoft remedies

[dpilot]

Now isn't THIS a conduct remedy that Microsoft would approve of?

Slightly more seriously, this is downright stupid, and wouldn't work. Security should be in layers, tighter the closer you get to the backbone. In particular, ISPs should let no traffic out that doesn't say it's from their network - stopping spoofed packets goes a long way.