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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.
7215 Fernview
San Antonio, TX 78250
September 8, 2001
The Honorable Representative Charlie A. Gonzalez
327 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear Honorable Representative Charlie A. Gonzalez,
It has come to my attention that Rep. Fritz Hollings (D-S.C.) will introduce a bill titled the The Security Systems Standards and Certification Act which will make it impossible for me to use the Linux computer operating system on equipment covered by the Act. I regard my right to use Linux to be as inviolate as my right to write you this letter. Indeed, I am using Linux for that purpose right now. I'm a Democrat, but if you do not vote against this bill I will vote for your opponent when your term is up.
Sincerely,
Thomas M. Bruns
Error:
It might be worthwhile for people from other contries to try and get diplomatic pressure put onto the US to get rid of this while it is gestating. I don't think an abortion of this travesty would be out of line! Also, I wonder what that will do for free trade: computers could be made in Canada or Mexico and shipped into the US. Personally, I'm glad I don't live in the US. You have a facist government!
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
So that would make it illegal to sell my current PC, after the law came into place? Oh, that's a *great* idea. Just outlaw millions of computers currently in use. Clever.
Think abut it for a second. Why wouldn't you want digital rights management built into your computer equipment? What? Oh - you want to play your DVD's one Linux. Get a decent operating system, one where you have to PAY for your right to use the stuff you buy.
What? You think, you should be allowed to do what you want, with the stuff that you own? Get real - this is the 21st century - you can't just do stuff, because you want to. What's next? You don't want to pay for using your computer? What are you? Some kind of communist?
(Yes - that was sarcasm)
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
what's happening? The US government is obviously being terribly corrupted by various organizations with lots of money. The fact that this bill is even being contemplated says a lot about what corporations will do. Libertarians seem to think that by reducing gov't influence in daily life that things will somehow work out for the better. Hmm. Stupid! Sorry, but the fact is that corporations would have even more control and we would live in a capitalist dictatorship! Right now, the balance is sliding ever so slowly towards more power for corporations. It is only slow because they are somewhat restricted in their methods by regulations of the gov't. And the gov't is the only organization which has the power to respond appropriately to pressure from the citizens. Boycotts only work with massive support, and I don't think American consumers have the balls to do that anymore. On the other hand, only relatively large numbers of citizens are required to raise enough stink to get legislation trashed. Good luck USA - you are gonna need it. I'm scared living in Canada just because of proximity.
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
If there are any South Carolina Slashdotters, organizing a movement to get Hollings removed in the next election (Or a recall vote if the state allows it) would be a good thing. Not that I've ever met anyone on the Internet who has claimed to be from South Carolina. The state seems to be one of those Internet black holes like Mississippi...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
This just seems like another opportunity for Slashdotter to bitch and moan, without actually doing anything to help. If this happens again the law would actually pass, and we'd all be screwed.
Is Hollings going to be reelected in November? For those living in South Carolina, write him, saying that you will not reelect him if the law passes. A delegation should also go to Congress and show them how digital rights management, especially SDMI, is a pain in the ass (even if you're using Windows and approved software).
I'm just sick and tired of everyone here being complacent and not doing anything useful to put a stop to stuff like this.
US businesses that currently accept chip and PIN/signature
I'm taking bets on how prohibitive the "Digital Rights Management" software will be to include in open source software, forget for a minute that we don't want it. I'm willing to bet that the source code will be under NDA, and/or require a per-instance fee to use... Any other ideas about potential evilness? Possible "Death of Open Source" showstoppers?
Restating the obvious since nineteen aught five.
If I were American, I'd be thinking about emigration at this point.
Traditionally we Canadians love needling Americans like a younger sibling needles their big sibling, but in all honesty, anyone who wants to settle down north of the 49th will be welcomed with open arms.
After all, it's not the first time.
The Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA), scheduled to be introduced by Hollings, backs up this requirement with teeth: It would be a civil offense to create or sell any kind of computer equipment that "does not include and utilize certified security technologies" approved by the federal government.
It also creates new federal felonies, punishable by five years in prison and fines of up to $500,000. Anyone who distributes copyrighted material with "security measures" disabled or has a network-attached computer that disables copy protection is covered.
Hollings' draft bill, which Wired News obtained on Friday, represents the next round of the ongoing legal tussle between content holders and their opponents, including librarians, programmers and open-source advocates.
I guess that the time has come where the computer world will divide into above ground and an underground groupings.
If you can't sell a computer that's not security equipped, we who want to control our own technology will be like the people in a cyberpunk novel or in the Matrix, who have to cobble together their own technology apart from the mainstream.
Open Source and Free Spftware communities may come together on this too; I can't see a small group of developers providing the same glossy presentations to Congress describing their security that Windows and its associated companies would.
It's not a law yet, but it shows the way the law is going.
And if the law is going this way we have to consider the question reform or revolution; are we going to allow the vrey concept of computing to be taken over by a small corporate elite if it will allow computing and the Internet to extend to places where it hasn't reached before?
Or, do we have to act as free people do under repression - keeping our very names and acts truly secret, building computers and writing in basements instead of at bright stores?
Goat sex free since 2001
Right.
Prohibition was proposed and passed. It turned the US into the Mafia riddled soup of corruption it is today!
Took 12 years before that particular law was fixed.
The secret of success is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake those, you've got it made. (Marx)
...when Linux is outlawed, only outlaws will run Linux.
"As far as I know there have been very few complaints from intellectual property holders," [Rep. Howard] Coble, the chief sponsor of the DMCA, said in an interview Tuesday.
That's like saying there were very few complaints from whites in the south about Jim Crow laws...
"Save the whales, feed the hungry, free the mallocs" -- author unknown
Isn't this the exact problem with the DMCA, this idea that laws should be more like an umbrella that can cover a great many things than a law that in concise and easily distinguishable from one another?
I am all for laws that protect people and /or companies from any sort of theft but I do not support the DMCA because of how general it is.
Of courseI haven't read the rest of the draft as of yet, flame if need be in re: to things stated later, but those two little words raised my ire something fierce.
"From of old, there are not lacking things that have attained Oneness." - Lao Tzu
Remember what the Sony executive once said about taking the "battle for IP rights" to each users home and computer.
While that's obvious to us that doesn't mean that the bill won't be ram-rodded through now that the most recent batch of MPAA/RIAA checks have cleared the Senators' banks. The only way to stop this is to raise such a howl that they dare not go forward. If we act now (when the bill is just a draft) we can make it clear to them that we can't even allow them to get past that stage.
I am going to be writing letters to Senators and will be sending letters and emails to press outlets (using the list of a few hundred addresses scraped from "Mr. Smith Writes ..."). This is regardless of what other /.-ers do.
The reason I'm posting this is that I'd like to get a little feedback (some ideas, which is what an open forum like this is great at) concerning the people to whom I should send letters to make the biggest impact. Of course the Senators directly involved, and my own Senators/Reps. Who else?
"Cause there's 40 different shades of black, so many fortresses and ways to attack, so why you complainin'?"
While the RIAA, MPAA, Disney etc are big and powerful, relitive to the computer industry they are mere bugs on the windshield.
While the DMCA was an annoyance to them, this would be a major pain for it. Surely they could and would buy enough votes to kill this bill?
Canadians are reminded that September 15 is the deadline for comments on the DCMA-equivalent law proposed for Canada. That is, if they are even aware of it: the request for comments went up September 7, allowing a generous :( one-week window for comments from
the public.
I recently read the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx.. Basicallt, he predicted that the workers would eventually become sick of the dictatoring rich and powerful, and would overthrow them by force.
Now, obviosuly this didnt happen. With the introduction of a descent democratic society in the world, their really wasnt any need for such a thing.
But, WHAT NOW? I dont know about you my friends, but THIS is NOT a democracy. If I was a United States Citizen, and this thing does get through, I would GET THE FUCK out of there.
Or, alternativly.. REVOLT.. If this thing does get through, dont stop with measly protest people.. GET OUT THERE AND FIGHT.. seriously, can you really live in a sociaty based on facism, one which the rich companies CONTROL the government? I KNOW I COULDNT!
THE GEEKS HAVE NOTHING TO LOOSE BUT THEIR CHAINS. THEY HAVE A WORLD TO WIN
GEEKS OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!
stuff
Goddamn it, we need a Political Action Committee in support of digital rights. We have no voice on the hill right now, and until we get one we are SCREWED with these laws!
I know this is just bitching and moaning on my part, but someone needs to start forming one. We're soo good at forming development teams, but where are the people who can form a PAC?
We need to put our money where our mouths are. Anyone have any suggestions on how to start a PAC?
Libertarians seem to think that by reducing gov't influence in daily life that things will somehow work out for the better. Hmm. Stupid! Sorry, but the fact is that corporations would have even more control and we would live in a capitalist dictatorship!
Corporations are creatures of the State. If government didn't explicitly permit limited liability, it couldn't exist (who's going to agree that they don't have the right to sue the owners, just because the 'corporation' went bankrupt? ...but that's how it is now, because the State backs it up). Without government, businesses would actually have to serve customers to stay in business, instead of using government force (paid for by taxes stolen in part from those same customers) to extort money, as many do now.
Property law should use #'EQ, not #'EQUAL.
I think you miss some of the points of libertarianism. Let me just rebutt your argument for now.
One of the basic precepts of the libertarian philosphy is adherance to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It is all there, in plain English, for anyone to read. The tenth amendment is the trump card here, it basically tells the federal government to go screw itself; it isn't allowed to do much of anything.
So if the federal government can't do anything, this is left as in issue for the states. Pushing one bill through Congress is one thing, pushing the same bill through 50 states is something else entirely. For instance - if South Carolina decides that all computers must have some sort of digital rights system built in, OSS people, computer manufacturers, etc. will not work in South Carolina. They will lose the revenue of those industries. Due to free trade within the states, they can relocate to another state, and still sell their product. South Carolia loses those industries, another state picks them up. Competition is the key here.
Let the states fight it out, and we all win. It is easier for individuals and small interests to act at a state level, and the effects of crazy laws such as this one would be minimized. Many state constitutions are very restrictive, also, and that is yet another benefit. When it becomes more difficult for the government to enact arbitrary laws such as this, there will be less arbitrary laws.
Hey, that's a good soundbite, we should remember that. "If this thing passes, it's like requiring everyone to build handcuffs into the keyboard!"
So what can someone outside of the US do about this? Playing Microsoft (sending fake letters ;) ) is probably not the right thing to do. ;)
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
... in convincing everyone of this concept of "intellectual property" and it's supposed sovereign position over free speech. They seem to have even convinced our representatives in congress, which is most terrifying.
Why is everyone suddenly so blind to the FACT that without free speech in the first place, there would be no "intellectual property", that "intellectual property" does in fact take a BACK SEAT to free speech and the free flow of information? Why do people suddenly treat the business model based on selling "intellectual property" as if it were as important as national defense by protecting it with laws that erode personal freedom?
Copyright law, from which this concept of IP sprang was a set of laws GRANTED TO ARTISTS by the people of the United States to allow them to earn a living off their creation and encourage them to continue working. Now capitalists have formed business models based on buying and selling those copyrights and suddenly the copyright is more important than the first amendment?? Why is it suddenly more important that we protect the business model of distributors of copyrighted material than it is to protect the freedom that allows the creators of our country to build upon prior knowledge?
Go Lakers!
Tell the conference organizers to meet in Russia from now on as they harbor a more "free" and innovative environment. irony of ironies...
-------------rhad, a poor US college student destined to either leave the fucked up US or go to jail for wanting to be anonymous, speaking out and protesting corporations hellbent on a "fuck the individual" policy, and dreaming of a government that actually cares about the people who made it possible, rather then a plethora of corporate whores who can add money to their demands, as opposed to just a signature.
PS: It distresses me personally as to who is to be found accountable. Apathy is so rampant. No one cares. We have the power, but just dont give a damn... Its terribly depressing.
Slashdot needs to interview Natalie Portman.
Nip this in the bud. Here's what to do:
Get in touch with other people from Slashdot in South Carolina. Come up with a good day when most of you will be availible.
Go to a local university's website, and look up student groups- look for libertarian, socialist, and computer clubs, email them ome info and say you'd be interested in helping organize a public protest. Ask them to contact people they know would be interested. Tell them the day you want to have the protest.
The protest should be at a government building- courthouse, city hall, it doesnt matter.
Set it to be at noon, so people will be out on the streets, for their lunch hour.
Make signs, prepare a statement for the press, etc.
Call local TV stations and newspapers, telling them you're going to have a protest, and they should come. Trust me, they'll jump at the chance.
Show up and make a big scene, but make sure the message isnt lost.
-J5K
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
Perhaps I was not clear enough. I do not believe that libertarians support laws such as this, quite the contrary, I know they do not. But the reason this kind of law is conceived is because the govt does not have enough power to respond to the citizens rather than be manipulated by corporations. If you take away power from government, it doesn't automatically go back to the citizens like libertarians would like to believe. Rather, it would now fall strait into the laps of the corporations.
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
Should this bill be introduced, passed, and signed, it might have serious effects on the ability to run Linux in the U.S. The bill explicitly refers to software--including, I presume Linux, but even if it applied only to hardware, drivers to use the new "secure" videocards, "soundcards", and other mandated hardware components would most likely not be open source, due to licensing/certification requirements.
Should it apply also to software, the failure of coders to implement "secure media pathways" in the kernel could mean that Linux could not be manufactured in and/or imported into the U.S. .
Theoretically, even if the kernel did contain such protection, any hacker could adjust certain lines of sourcecode to ensure that plaintext versions of copyrighted material could be accessed without much effort-- a loophole that could be plugged by a zealous Commerce Secretary banning "source code" versions.
Although certain grandfathering provisions exist in the bill, we all know that the kernel is not set in stone-- and new versions are released regularly to deal with new hardware, fix bugs, and improve performance. Ten years from now, kernel-2.4.x will likely not run on the latest and greatest hardware...
So, don't think of this as just another DMCA. Think of the bill as a "closed source subsidy act". Think of Jack Valenti and his ilk rooting your box...
I thought that in one of the MS trials, the judge had rejected the Govt's case on the basis of the Govt shouldn't be in the business of designing software.
Now it sounds like the Govt wants to create security standards, and all software must be certified to meet this standard.
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
I live @ 20 miles from the 49th parallel. I'm thinking the preliminary post SSSCA price for an unwelded hard drive should be...um...two thousand bucks? Any takers?
Seriously, if I lived in the states, I'd be stocking up right now. Or considering a move...
You're using her as bait, Master!
The first time I used Java, I was thinking "Middleware. Someone is trying to lock down the core OS." (the core OS being where the rights management layer exists).
Now MS is going to VM's running C#.
All I can say is, it's all so transparent, it's ludicrous. Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
I only hope that other governments don't get infected by ALD (American Lawmaking Desease) and decide to follow lead and that the U.S. procceed on their path quickly enough to create a certain degree of isolation
:(
That is the sad part. If they don't follow the U.S. willing down the path of lawyers to "Heck", the U.S. forces them. I am saying this as a citizen of the U.S.
So while the U.S. is taking steps to ensure that the last few remnants of personal freedom in that country is being taken away, I can happily sit back satisfied with knowing that the beer is also better in europe anyway ;)
Would anyone know the status of getting the DMCA to europe ? There was some talk about it, but I haven't heard anything lately. That can mean two things... Which is it ?
Hopefully, this is too draconian for even the 'New Improved' U.S. government to pass. Of course, I hoped the same about DMCA.
IF it should pass, consider standing down. Go to work as usual, turn off every machine you're responsable for, and GO HOME. Stay home for a week (you probably need a vacation anyway). Then go back to work and resume operations. If SSSCA still exists in 30 days, shut it all off again and go to Mexico. I'm sure the government there would appreciate a large influx of capital and knowledge. Learning Spanish is a small price to pay for freedom.
Just to clarify:
The criminal penalties only apply if the person who modified the devices did so for personal financial gain. Unless you are selling your OSS, developing FREE software isn't subject to criminal penalites.
get your network sorted quick,
business wanted Internet2 well it's probably about time WE made it.
Get your 802.11b kit quick while you still can and let's get it going.
Spread that 11mb around and with some aggregating we should be able to make a newtwork where ANYONE can connect, not just 'approved' equipment.
Once we wean ourselves away from their network we'll be back in BBS 37337 utopia again and it will be like 'the September that Never Happened'.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
UCITA in the states
Well, well, well. I'm having flashbacks to draft protesters heading up north in the sixties. (And I wrote this sentence before checking the link in your .sig file - how ironic)
:)
The balance is shifting and you, our fine neighbors to the north, seem to be more protective of personal liberties than the much touted US of A. You even have a rational universal medical plan.
I'm afraid that it's becoming (to put it in standardized test form) freedom is to America as innovation is to Microsoft. It's a sad and frightening prospect.
My country (US) is no longer representative of the *peoples* interests. Is this what generations of Americans have fought and died for, so that corporate profit-making interests could be placed above the interests of the people? (Actually, considering the Viet Nam and Gulf wars, I guess that is true... *sigh*.)
If this continues, I will have to consider moving somewhere else and officially giving up my citizenship. I may one day have to say: "As a result of the non-representative nature of my former government (US), I'm proud to be a Canadian."
On a practical note, could someone fill me (us) in on the immigration requirements for Canada? I just want to be prepared. It's time to start looking around for a new home.
Maybe we should do an ask Slashdot for people to make an argument for the desirablity of their country in terms of freedom, living conditions, etc.
Hey Bob, could I stay at your place for a month or two while I get established and learn to say 'aboot'? I don't take up much room, I'm quiet, and I clean up after myself. I could even chip in for bandwidth.
America, love it or leave it? Bu-bye.
(Although this should say: 'Corporate States of America, love them or leave them.)
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. - George Orwell or George Bush?
The funniest thing (as in, I almost hope it passes so I can be the person to personally kick your sorry ass back into the dark ages) is the stiff fine for any "computer" that can be connected to the internet that doesn't provide for DRM.
Let's see, that's your office telephone/PBX, your office hub, your cable/DSL modem, your ISP's routers, the POP, etc. It includes almost every mainframe and large server for years - the law may require all new computer hardware to include DRM, but how often are million-dollar-plus systems replaced? For that matter, what about all of the legacy mainframes which aren't manufactured today?
Even if the Senator harrumps and says that I should stop being dense because I should know that "computer" refers to "PC-class computer" (even though countless other recent laws have repeatedly driven home the axiom that you should ignore the stated intent of the law and focus on the wording in the law itself), it will criminalize those projects to build beowulf clusters out of discarded PCs, amateur scientist projects which hook up instruments to the net with old PCs, etc.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I thought we'd seen the high-water mark for these kind of encroachments before the Skylarov case. This fresh enormity, and Abobe's little "push for prosecution, then wash their hands of it" have convinced me that fair-minded, above-board activity to oppose these idiots doesn't go far enough. Given the incredible degree to which the MPAA/RIAA and all the other corporate whores are willing to go to corrupt our basic rights, I say we're thoroughly justified in pirating their music/software.
This is a big step for me. I'm against piracy on principle, and prefer the convenience of just going out and buying the product rather than futzing around with Napster or it's sucessors. However, with every music CD I buy, or DVD I rent, some portion of the money I'm spending is being used to erode my liberties. To hell with that. I probably should boycott, but I don't feel particularly inclined to make my life uncomfortable and principles are clearly getting thrown out the window on the other side, so what the hell.
Maybe a less profitable music/movie industry would have less money to hire lawyers and congressmen.
So, in summary, Canada is NOT A HAVEN from this stupidity. All politicians are for sale, American or Canadian.
Fine. You can just give up, like the coward you are. I, on the other hand, will put some effort into fighting the CPDCI. You know, effort? Such as writing to my MP, the Ministries involved, the PM, the opposition leaders? I haven't heard the fat lady yet.
In conclusion, fuck you, and have a nice day.
Lloyd Doggett [house.gov]
You might want to write your senators, too. Kay Bailey Hutchison [senate.gov] and Phil Gramm. [senate.gov] Both Republicans, but Gramm and Hollings have a history of getting cozy, and Gramm has already annouced his retirement.
Don Negro
Perl 6 will give you the big knob. -- Larry Wall
> Pushing one bill through Congress is one thing,
> It is easier for individuals and small interests> pushing the same bill through 50 states is
> something else entirely.
> to act at a state level, and the effects of
> crazy laws such as this one would be minimized.
With all the Libertarians that seem to have infiltrated Slashdot recently (along with the Microsoft supporters -- what, are they bussing them in these days?), I suspect I will get modded down, but ...
You're right about the conceptual differences between pushing a law at the Federal level vs. at the State level, but that's an argument for a strong Federal government (and some good campaign finance laws). It's usually the crazy (or one-issue fanatical) individuals who try to get something passed. It is easier to get a state law passed over some crazy thing than it is to get a Federal law passed. For example, laws requiring biblical creation, Jim Crowe laws, laws trying to legislate pi, etc. -- I think there's a web site on this. Of course, it doesn't preclude crazy laws happening on the Federal level; it's just not as frequent.
There's probably a complicated reason why this is, but it's probably because average person isn't really concerned about the government at all. They generally care more about the sports scores than they do about who's running the country. When they do care, it's in a "sports-type" mentality: who won the game, who won the Oscar for best actor, who's now president? That's probably why most people can name 10 sports figures, but would be hard pressed to name their state senators or representatives.
So I disagree that a weaker Federal government in favor of state governments is the answer. A stronger Federal government (along with some new campaign finance laws) is a safer bet that leaving things up to the dubious judgement of the states.
P.S., Atlas Shrugged sucked! :-)
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
Copying is a fundamental operation of computers. Most of what a computer does is to make a copy from one place and move it to another place (e.g., between floppies, disks, tapes, memory, cache, registers, CD, and so on). How the hell are you going to enforce a copy control scheme on every piece of hardware and software (down to every instruction)?
I was lazy and didn't snag refrences, so perhaps others can add to this:
I'm sure the SSSCA sounds like it only defends against rampant pirating of movies and other copyrighted material--but the slope is a very, very slippery one. The recording and movie industries are very paranoid about how their products are being used (without regard to their increasing--*not* decreasing--profits). Do you have the right to listen to your music however you'd like? Fair use tenets say yes (and you can even make a backup copy), but already technology is on the shelves that doesn't allow you to play the CD on your computer or high-end stereo systems and modern car CD players.
The question you should be asking yourself is whether you are on the Hill for your constituents--the consumers, whose rights are being infringed, or the corporations on this issue. Fair Use doctrines are being ignored by laws such as the DMCA and this draft of the SSSCA, and thought this will first impact the digerati who copy all their music to their computer for easy access, it will rapidly effect the average American who can no longer watch a movie with calling in to get permission from the studio (This happened with DivX, which failed miserably on the open market), or play their CDs at all in their car stereos.
If this is riding in after the recent "Code Red" attack as a solution against future problems, perhaps the answer lies in better regulation of security testing by developers (such as Microsoft, whose servers were the only ones effected by Code Red), rather than the consumer's home system, which didn't even participate in this attack.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
Since Disney and Hollywood so obviously and fervently want us all to drop dead, why is Slashdot still hyping 'Tron' and publishing Jon Katz's reviews of Holly wood movies?
Proteus7
I'd start (In fact, I WILL start) by sending the South Carolina branch of the Republican party a bit 'o money. The Republicans tend to be just as bad (The DMCA is Orrin Hatch's baby after all) but they're the only ones with a chance of winning against the Democrats. Your best bet is to change politicians the way you change diapers. If no one stays in power too long, no one can ever get to the point of doing a whole lot of damage. Just always vote against whoever's in office at any given point. And while it may make you sick to vote for a republican (or a democrat) they're your best bet for getting the current guys kicked out. Better that then wasting your vote on some guy from the nipplebiter party who will only get 3 votes in the election.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
considered reserved for the people. At least in the states u have all kinds of rights you did not even know of...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
A damn fine idea. I already know a little spanish. This is how the labor movement started decades ago. We control the means of production... and now even infrastructure. We are much more powerful than we realize.
Of course, if this doesn't work, I'll have to look at whether I want to move to Mexico or Canada. Or is there some place better?
With Vincente Fox buddying up to Dubya, he may be willing to make all kinds of concessions to open the border and get amnesty for the illegals now in the US, including passing some of his own draconian laws at the request of American corporations (the request via thier toadies, the government).
It might be better to move to a country that is somewhat at odds philosophically with the US. Or at least has a streak of independence. Canada seems to have exhibited this.
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. - George Orwell or George Bush?
Suddenly "revenge of the nerds" is not a teen comedy anymore, but a social realistic drama.
They are forcing geeks and nerds, what used to be the most peaceful and passive citizens, to become outlaws. We are talking about people who are so loyal to authority that they'd report their own kin to the FBI for removing mattress tags.
It is nothing less than a declaration of war. The result is that a large population will change sides. From being fair use advocates, we will turn into rabid pirates, just for the principle.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
Of course, the flaws don't have to do with the trampling of "fair use", or perhaps even the saddling of public domain data with usage restrictions.
Under the DMCA, the models of access control could be based on a simple bitflip (Real Networks), ROT13 (some of the more incompetent Adobe Acrobat extension writers), or a 40 bit cipher that, because of design idiocy, was the equivalent of 25 bits of decently designed software (DVD/CSS).
Since these methods will go through the Commerce Department, it may be that the stupider algorithms will be filtered out, and any standardized system will rely on stronger methods.
Although this will mean that stupidity will longer be subsidized, tryranny still will be.
Okay the summarized text is a little more than 1 page to reflect a bill that is quoted as being 19 pages long in the draft copy. By comparision DMCA was 94 pages, and attempted to account for the few legitimate concerns that were raised at the time. What degree of success it actually had in that respect is a matter of judgement.
The essential idea I'm getting from this is that this congressman wants to make it very difficult to do certain things with computers and other electronic devices in order to ensure that copyrights are protected. Somehow I don't think this one will quietly get through congress, and all things considered I bet the final draft at least attempts to address many concerns that clearly haven't been. Were it to pass today, the excessive brevity might well be its undoing. Wide sweeping impostions on individual rights without clear justification have never faired very well before the Supreme Court.
As an interesting side note, it occurs to me that this neatly sidesteps one of the issues of DMCA. If all computer equipment are required to implement standard protections then one can no longer argue that having protections present limits a technology to a particular platform. I doubt however that this is the point that Disney is so gung ho in support of.
Rather than get upset with the summary of the draft copy, I'm going to way to a real bill is submitted for consideration. Once it is available to read both by us and other Congressmen, then we can figure out what's wrong with it and how to salvage it to address legitimate copyright holder concerns, if any. After all how much do you think your representatives are going to listen to people ranting about a bil that doesn't yet exist, or blatantly against the copyright protections they obviously favor.
It's good to be aware and want to act, but wait till you know a little more about your enemy before you rush into battle.
Simple.
If you want to stop all the things covered by 'fair-use', please make them illegal, rather than doing it the roundabout way.
That's what these companies want; they want absolute control. Rather than dicatate who can own what.. why not simply force them to bring up the real issue?
How? Without the DMCA passed and enforced by the government, Adobe could not abduct and imprison Sklyarov. Nor could the MPAA prevent you from watching your own DVDs on your own computer, nor could the media cartels dictate how computer systems are designed. All these violations happened (or may happen) because government abused its power, and you want to give it more? I really don't understand this.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
for representatives
http://www.senate.gov/contacting/index_by_state.cf m
for your senators's addresses.
Fritz Hollings
125 RUSSELL SENATE OFFICE BUILDING
WASHINGTON DC 20510
and Ted Stevens
522 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING
WASHINGTON DC 20510
Like throwing potatoes at attacking aircraft (that actually happened at Pearl Harbor) but (1) at least you have done something and (2) enough potatoes truly screws up a jet engine...
--dsm
It would make existing Windows and Unix PCs illegal.
Existing software won't work.
Apple would have problems with this.
Apple is in the whole back room inventor type motif. This sort of thing runs against that philosophy.
Microsoft would have problems with this.
Everyone would have to junk the systems they have and start over.
The hold Microsoft has over users is to switch to Unix or Mac users would have to dump everything. If they have to anyway most users will switch to something else.
Sun would like this. Solarus can be easly refitted to handle this. It means everyone buys Solarus all over again and every application the need.
Also Sun sells workstations and servers not PCs so Sun Sparc systems are exempt.
Sun also sells some Linux based servers but they are still servers and remain exempt.
Rebel Computing.. I don't know how they'd react.
The Netwinder is actually a workstation computer running Linux not a PC and thus exempt.
I don't actually exist.
We have GOT to protest this one, NOW, in every city. We have to start sending LETTERS (not e-mails) to our Congressmen.
) would truly become reality under this law.
This proposed law is so horrible, so BLATATLY in defiance of the Constitution, that our government is even discussing it is telling of how little regard for the rule of law and due process they have.
If this one passes, it would be no less than declaration of corporate IP sovereignty over citizens.
This law would criminalize the production, or even INVENTION of any device that has ROOT access (to the true system/hardware level) for the OWNER of the hardware. It would instantly make any OSS operating system illegal.
Richard Stallman's "Right to Read" (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
And, given that the courts are INFESTED with dishonorable scum like "judge" Lewis Kaplan, we cannot look to the courts for relief. The corps are well aware that the courts have been their greatest enemy, which is why they spend LOTS and LOTS of money wining and dining and greasing the prominent lawyers who become judges.
The judiciary will soon become (if it hasn't alredy), as much a corporate fief as is the Congress and Presidency.
I dont' want to sound like a kook, but if this one DOES make it into law (and given how the DMCA passed, in unanimous fashion, I'd rate it at over 90%, and I might be overly optimistic in thinking even 10% might oppose it), then it may become necessary for widespread civil disobedience, and preparations for being able to deal with the expected governmental violence in response to such disobedience.
I'm speaking of what the Founders was speaking of in the document that begins "In the course of Human Events".
Let's hope it doesn't come to that. The only hope we have is to organize NOW, get the word out NOW. WE have to try. The "system" is broken, it will not reject this law on it's own. We HAVE to act.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
Reading your post was interesting to me, as it is true, we seemingly tend to be more for the public. Unfortunately, Canada is going downhill too. Positively, there is still a chance to turn it around, unlike the United States. (or so I see)
Political parties can attain power now, they just have to be smart and quick. Our population is already feeling unrest at our current government, who would consider the DCMA style legislation (and indeed is considering it). It is now that changes need to be made.
Immigration, the reverse brain-drain from the United States, would be welcomed with open arms. My girlfriend left the United States just this year because she felt that it was time to leave the bullshit.
Just don't think that we're immune to the BS currently affecting the United States. Look on us as potential... because we have it in spades. We just need to be pushed to action.
"We have to make it clear that that under this regulation, a computer would be a worthless hunk of junk. It would be useless to industry, researchers, and to home users."
That's the whole point. They WANT computers to cease to exist, at least, as common things "common" inividuals can afford to have. In the world of this law, computers would be replaced with an appliance "information access" device, that would be much like a DVD player in how little "fair use" you have.
No doubt there will be exceptions allowing the corps, and academia to have computers (which will once again become big huge mainframe things) for their own uses.
In other words, with a stroke of a pen, the IP cartel plans to turn back the clock to 1960.
My GOD this is scary stuff! This is nothing less than the proposal of the creation of the world of Bradbury's "Fareinheight 451" and "Demolition Man" in one BROAD stroke... How long before we stand to sing the "Corporate Hymn" as happened before government-held gladitorial games to placate the ignorant, easily distracted masses (who allow the government to pass laws such as the DMCA and this) as in "Rollerball"?
If they are making a mistake, it is in going for so much so quickly. But, the ease in wich they got the DMCA must have emboldened them.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
http://www.senate.gov/~hollings/webform.html
I live in California, and I voted for the Boxer/Feinstein combo. I will not again. They both voted for DMCA and I will vote for ANYONE before them.
California's power companies are forbidden to pass along to customers any increase in the cost of electricity. That's what precipitated their blackouts last year: price controls (price ceilings) always, always, ALWAYS result in shortages of the goods subjected to the controls.
Far from a case of deregulation run amuck, California's idiot experience is a textbook case of what can go wrong when the government starts meddling in the economy.
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
This isn't a draft law, yet; it only puts up for discussion some ideas that could eventually be made into laws. I have to agree with the EFF that they are disturbing, and will be sending a letter stating my opposition. I'd say now is the best time to object, before they gather any inertia.
People out there need to get organized and mobilze. It's still early, so we need to attack this thing early and often.
Some talking points:
1) This is a fascist bill. It is "over my dead body" outrageous.
2) Government regulation of technology is bad for the economy.
3) Consumers hate "Digital Rights Managment" and this will stop buying PC's
4) The "Copyright Industry" is harming America, because they are clinging to business models that require a police state to work.
5) Copyright is teetering dangerously close to illigitimacy because the government isn't listening to the people.
6) Rebuff the Copyright Fascists.
"participating corporations will be exempt from antitrust prosecution"
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
There's no giant software company willing and able to offer them fat bribes...er, I mean "campaign contibutions"!
You're using her as bait, Master!
Hmm... considering how difficult it would be to implement digital rights management on a general-purpose computing device such as a PC, one must wonder how they intend to implement it.
What if it's done in software? Or, what if that DRM hardware has to be driven by hooks in the operating system -- and if you use an operating system that doesn't have those hooks, the DRM hardware sits idle?
This would essentially turn the SSSCA into a law prohibiting the sale of computers with free operating systems, or with no operating systems at all --- a dream come true for Microsoft.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
I've written my representatives. I get back nice form letters supporting my "important rights to intellectual property." I've written dozens of letters to editors and even seen a couple published. Both major parties support intellectual land grabbing strongly however, so politics is largely a waste of time here it seems.
I don't buy movies or CDs anymore, like they're going to notice, I'm sure. It would take an organized boycott and it won't happen until after the law is passed and the consequences settle in. Too late.
Just what do you suggest for those without money to contribute to lobbying or parties, other than civil disobedience? I'm struggling to think of anything both effective and legal here.
Can we still organize opposition like we did to the Decency act, or will the porn lobby and ACLU be on the content industry's side now?
Legislation as earth-shattering as this will never pass, whether it's agreed with or not. There simply won't be enough support for such a huge shift in technology regulations. What will happen is that pieces of the whole will be tagged onto bills with names like "Hacker-prevention act of 2001" or "Save the children act of 2001" and "Computerize underfunded schools act of 2001". That's how it works.
The second is that as usual, the general public cannot be made to care about this unless we strip the question down to its (nontechnical) essentials.
Let's do ourselves a favor. Forget all our beloved jargon (TCP/IP, p2p, FTP, usenet, freenet, etc.), concentrate on something like simply email -- which people know about, care for and roughly understand --, and publically ask Senators Hollings and Stevens elementary questions like this:
Timeo idiotikOS et dona ferentes
Its mainly a problem that stems from the inadquate computational models created by Alonzo Church and Alan Turing. To this day, I wonder why the great minds of the past neglected to take "Intellectual Property" rights into consideration when building their computational models of computation. I guess they just aren't as smart as the RIAA, Disney, and a butt load of stupid congressman - all who are too detatched from the subjects of their laws.
Boycott popular, corporate-owned culture. If the price of having the ocean of swill we call a culture is to have our hardware and software crippled, then it's time to turn our backs on it. Support free and open software, music, books and entertainment. Turn the TV and the radio off. Dare to start a culture where free individuals share their art with one another instead of having some mass media entity bastardize it into mush so it can be shoved down people's throats. If you have to buy something produced by these clowns, buy it used. Are bread and circuses worth our freedom? I suppose they can stop us from "pirating" their goods - but they can't make us watch or listen to them and they can't stop us from creating things on our own and sharing them with each other. If you can't support this boycott totally, do as much as you can and most importantly, support the lone, independant artists who are on the web, giving their work to anyone who is willing to try it out. Every time we do this, we are encouraging the development of art outside the mass media.
We do not have to consume.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
I'd suggest writing the appropriate Congresscritters and suggesting that you'll support passage of that law only if it requires hardware to completely comply with copyright law, including USC Title 17 Sections 106 through 122 and Section 1201(c), and all relevant case law. The corps would drop this like a hot potato if the hardware was legally required to enforce those portions of copyright law, because most of their copy-protection schemes would be illegal.
If this happened, it'd basically kill any innovation in the US tech industry. It'd be left with a Microsoft-AOL-Time Warner-RIAA-MPAA cartel controlling all technology, the Internet, and all other media.
I'd expect many of the most skilled engineer/coders to want to leave the US at an early age, and move to a free country!... Or maybe people will completely lose interest in technology...
Maybe less developed countries will start to overtake the USA and Europe in the tech sector?...
Maybe we'll see 'geek terrorism' - unemployed and very angry programmers in suicide bomb attacks against the megacorps?
Or maybe we'll actually start to see the general public getting pissed off with copy/access controls - when CDs are unrippable, DVD audio brings region-coded music to the masses, and Windows XPP (Xtra Piracy Prevention) won't even let you make backups of you're own Word documents, which are only ever stored remotely on an MS central server...
807 South University Avenue
Mount Pleasant, MI 48858
September 8, 2001
The Honorable Senator Carl Levin
SR-269, Russell Senate Office Building
U.S. Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Honorable Senator Carl Levin,
It has come to my attention that your colleague Senator Fritz Hollings (D-North Carolina), in conjunction with Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), intends to introduce a bill entitled the "Security Systems Standards and Certification Act." This bill would, in theory, make it a crime to utilize the Linux operating system. Linux, originally written by a Finnish college student in 1991, is based upon the venerable UNIX operating system, and has become the operating system of choice for the professional technical community.
Perhaps even more importantly, this bill would further restrict my already hamstrung digital rights. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, passed in 1998, dealt a serious blow to digital rights by prohibiting, in some cases, "fair use," something clearly protected by law. If I can record a television program with my VCR, shouldn't I also be able to load it on to my computer. Also, since making a backup copy is protected by law (i.e. making a tape recording of a compact disc), shouldn't I be allowed to make a digital backup instead? Logically, I should be able to, but the DMCA has criminalized this by allowing record companies to disable on the CD my ability to make such a copy and by then making in a crime for me to bypass this.
I am concerned that the federal government has ceased to represent me and has instead begun to represent the corporations. We met, Sir, at a Democrat fundraiser last year in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. There, I expressed my admiration for your years of tireless service to the people of my state. I read with pleasure this very morning your decision to curtail spending for the overly expensive and strategically unbalancing National Missile Defense system. I voted for your colleague Debbie Stabenow last year, and I voted for Albert Gore. I have been a lifelong supporter of the Democratic Party. I am fearful, however, that the Democratic Party has ceased to represent me. Programmers are afraid to enter the United States. Indeed, we risk losing our place as the world leader in computer development because our ever-restrictive copyright and technological laws will frighten away all the best talent. I ask you, Sir, to please consider this when debating the SSSCA and other technology laws. Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Charles G. Fulton
No statement is true, not even this one.
In the paid-off minds of dolts like Fritz Hollings, this bill is no different. He has been told that this will make it impossible to do "bad" things with a computer while still making it possible to do "good" things with a computer. Since he doesn't understand computers, and doesn't much care, it sounds reasonable. Besides, the checks he's getting from Disney must be freaking enormous.
Unfortunately, Congress-critters have long been proposing and passing laws which control things they don't understand. What they will understand is that laws like this are going to kill the American computer (hardware and software) industry. The foreign workers who make up a large portion of the tech workforce (because most Americans are too stupid and lazy to bother with the necessary math) aren't going to come to this country. The relatively few natives who can handle the math and science are going to leave.
If there's a third-world country out there that would like to become a tech powerhouse within 5 years, all they need to do is build a stable power grid, pass strong privacy and sane copyright and patent laws, and allow automatic citizenship to the immediate families of programmers and engineers. Prosperity will follow quickly.
As of right now, I think I'd be on the first boat.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
I never could have imagined that one day, there would be such a thing as an illegal pocket calculator. I mean, according to these laws, if Texas Instruments continued to make its TI-8x series of calculators without modifying them to take into consideration the USA's bizaar intellectual property laws, they would be breaking the law by selling a non-compliant pocket calculator.
I can just see it now. Its early Friday afternoon after a long day at high-school. A group of students just wrap up their math club and exit the school, when they are confronted by the FBI - hearing screams of "Freeze Poindexter! Drop that contraband! Drop your calculators! Now, dammit or we will shoot!"
Another remark, this law (and the DMCA too in lesser extent) reminds me of what happened when alcohol was banned in America : the maffia jumped on it and sold suddenly 'illegal' goods to the masses.
As an European, i'll probably violate half of the American IP laws within the next 5 years. I don't think i'll ever go back for a holiday. You guys frighten me. The way companies influence your government through election money is like alowing the worst part of kapitalism to determine the law : the interest of the shareholder supercedes the freedom of the individual.
Like in europe (well at least in Belgium, but in most other countries too), companies funding in elections is limited by law, thus restricting such dangerous evolution.
I don't think you can ever win by fighting the DMCA, the SSSCA and so on ad infinitum.
You have to fight company involvement in government by restricting the funding. That's the only way out, or you'll only loose more and more freedom.
Don't try to stop each bullet, that's impossible, stop the shooter, you'll feel much safer.
PS : Here, elections are paid by the taxpayer. The amount of money involved is many orders of magnitude lower than in America.
SSSCA: 50% worse than the SS, especially if you're in CA.
I wonder how much lobbying efforts it took standard builders (like IBM when they wanted to introduce the digital encryption technology in their hard drives) and org. like RIAA MPAA to get them to write such a bill.
;) ). Now the only thing they try to do is not innovating or comming up with something better, they are acting a-la-rambus and playing plain dirty. "If we can't stop it, we'll control/contain it" just like a virus.
:)
Not only it's completely crazy and stepping on freedom, but that hysteria is making the US gov. look more and more like communist country where the state tells what you can and cannot do... The only difference is that it's happening on a technological and cultural level. Has US "won" against communism to be worse than them?
My personnal feeling always been, if these people (RIAA/MPAA/etc) would have been COMPETENT and not sitting on their cashcow strategy, and would have been LISTENING and OPENED to new technologies to advance their mean of distribution, they would have seen MP3 comming, heck it took MP3 over 2 years to slowly take off... they would have had enough (WAY enough) time to strike a deal to kill it while it was still little, or better yet, do something better than mp3 and strike deals with hardware manufacturer and instore their digital right things in a non-intrusive way, aka, make it so it's exactly the same trouble than copying cds, not worse. (It took quite a while for 3rd party to come out with mp3 cdplayers, and all the gadgets)... They could have catched up and beat mp3 before it's popularity.
DIVX? well MPAA is even worse, they looked at what happened to mp3, for years, didn't see it comming neither, (how blind can you be??) and now blam! same thing with video, god, this is so pathetic, I cannot beleive that there's not even ONE compentent person in their administration that didn't see all this comming and prepare for it, their reaction right now is like if they were pinned onto a wall and reacted with a bazoka with all the lobbying.
Yeah it's all good on a screen but in real life? Well, for a start, internet is going faster and faster, broadband is cheaper, etc etc... that is nothing new, so how about changing mentality and mean of distribution over the net... donations paypal subscribtion.. what? paying a buck for an album is stealing the artist?? what if the artist didn't even have a CD for sale in my country or region? that's a dollar he wouldn't have got. Plus, how much does he receives for each cd sold anyways?
Right, well big corporations are always too slow to react so they are like incompetent CEOs, react AFTER the dommage is done, well you can make someone smoke crack for 2 years non-stop and tell him to stop the next day after he got used to it (I see jokes comming
That won't work, if it passes in the US and consumers are stupid enough to buy hardware like that, well, we'll all move to russia because freedom and choice there will still mean something. Plus, we won't get arrested for having files that looks like 10010101010 instead of j2m2lm3947udh
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
And the civil penalties include statuatory damages. I.E. you are required to pay money even if it can't be proved any profits or damages occurred, or even if you can prove there were no profits or damages.
Statuatory damages can be assessed no matter what.
$200-$2500 in damages per offense can get very expensive for individuals.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
...across all wings. Copyright infringement ist illeagal (thats clear) and germans believe in law and order - but german politicians are (knock on wood) still intelligent enough to recognize that existing laws are sufficient to enforce rights of intellectual ownership. And Linux (OSS) is cool and hip if your educated about computers and every german politician would rather give his right arm than admit that he don't no sh*t 'bout them.
:-).
:-).
But don't ask me how many dead kids it takes 'till they establish a universal speed limit....'guess all countrys have their quirks.
Aside from that:
There are attemps to establish some kind of DMCA rippoff here in the EU, but those are swimming upstream. As soon as someone gets something like that into Brussels it will (like everything else) be buried in tons of paperwork and exceptions. I goes something like so:
First: Netherlands see humans rights endangered and file a complaint/obligation imediately == 2 weeks of press, no effect.
Second: Germans tinker the issue two and a half months, see human rights endangered, but wait, no, also corperate interests, but wait, no, also danger for equalified chances of education, but wait no, some media giant could go broke and we've got 10 zillion more unemployed, but wait, no...and so on.... == 2 years EU wide pause on the decision, 10 EU wide education/economy ministers meetings in 10 differen't nice little european towns, bill is blown up to 17 fileracks of paperwork and comes back to EU parlament when all seats were changed twice and the whole issue has to be discussed over again...
I love this continent
Ditch America - embrace EU. I renunciated my american citizenship more than 10 years ago to get german citizenship and am getting happier every minute about it, reading all this DMCA stuff. And face it folks: People around the world don't give shit anymore if we've flown to the moon - they just eat more american junkfood. And you're not a McDonalds shareholder, are you? And the beer definitly IS better here
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
As I actually read the document, I found the following line interesting:
"Only someone who violates the law "willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain" can be convicted. "
So even with the law in place, you have to abuse it for financial gain to be convicted. Oh, don't get me wrong, the idea of this scares the fuck out of me, but the actual wording is interesting to read.
Before tax I paid 9 cents / Kwh for August. How much is it in California?
It is actually exactly the opposite.
Organized crime is created by government regulation. It rose to power by prohibition, and has been sustained by bans on prostitution, gambling etc, and lately the war on drugs.
Remove these government regulations, and you remove almost all incentive for organized crime.
leads straight to hell... except that I seriously doubt if there are any truly good intentions behind this bill. it serves nearly to sole purpose of reinforcing Microsofts monopoly. since you must use an authorized/approved security scheme, how many of those do you think will be available to open-source systems? any number greater than zero would be surprising, to say the least.
Libertarians seem to think that by reducing gov't influence in daily life that things will somehow work out for the better. Hmm. Stupid! Sorry, but the fact is that corporations would have even more control and we would live in a capitalist dictatorship!
Perhaps if such companies hired an army of private gunmen to enforce their decrees we would find the country ruled by corps. This law in fact allows Disney to subcontract an army of gunmen to put people in cages for years, and destroy their livelihood under threat of more severe penalties including physical brutality and murder, and they don't have to even pay a dime for it -- you the taxpayer do.
Now you tell me how Disney could do that if they didn't have the force of law behind them. Libertarian may mean corporations operate with less restrictions, but they also don't get favors either. (Personally I think it's naive to think it'll ever happen, because corruption will still run rampant)
Man, I'm starting to think the second amendment is the most important one after all. These people need worse penalties for their corruption than just getting voted out.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Here is an e-mail I just wrote to one of my Senators (who almost won the Republican primaries this last presidential election... note that I'm not a Republican...) :)
Dear Mr. McCain,
I am a resident of Arizona, and a computer user. I recently read about an act scheduled to be introduced to the Senate entitled the "Security Systems Standards and Certification Act", sponsored by Senator Fritz Hollings (D-South Carolina) and Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska). Under this act, it would be a civil offense to create or sell any kind of computer equipment that "does not include and utilize certified security technologies" approved by the federal government. I politely request, as a citizen of Arizona, that you vote against this Act for the reasons in this letter.
I see this as a violation of a basic freedom to create, use, or sell anything I want to (including, of course, computer equipment) without government interference.
It is of course necessary to deny the right to create and sell certain things, such as drugs; these things can be harmful and should not be sold.
That however, does not apply to computer equipment; there is no way I can harm anyone with my own computer equipment. But this Act denies me the right to create and sell computer equipment without federally approved security technologies.
The primary purpose for this regulation is the protection of content provided by large media corporations that have lobbied for this Act. Lobbyists from the music and record industry have, and will continue to lobby congress in the hopes of further regulation for consumers and corporations to protect their content.
In a computer system certified by the federal government, their content would be protected from misuse by consumers. It is an ideal situation for the music and record industry, then, that all computers in legal use would be certified.
This helps that particular industry, but hurts another. In the computer industry, if this Act is passed, it would be illegal to create and sell anything not certified by the federal government to specifically protect the content of these corporations.
I would like to create and sell computer equipment that does not "utilize certified security technologies", and I should have the legal right to. I do have that right under the current laws.
The products of the recording industry should not be protected by laws that regulate other industries, and deny my right to sell my own computer equipment without federal approval.
I implore you, Senator McCain, to vote against the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act when it comes before the Senate.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
(my name here)
(a) In General -- It is unlawful to manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide or otherwise traffic in any interactive digital device that does not include and utilize certified security technologies that adhere to the security system standards adopted under section 104.
Here's why it will not pass: by *requiring* "certified security technologies", it violates the First Amendment to the Constitution, which specifically *forbids* Congress from limiting free speech rights. The Courts have *repeatedly* held that the government -- Federal or State -- *cannot* exercise control over the *content* of speech *before* it is published. This bill appears to do exactly that. Let's state what it really is: a bill to require all communication instruments to contain a back-door for the use of the No Svch Ag3ncy. Needless to say, this is an unconstitutional stretch of the Federal government's powers; any of our representatives or senators who actually vote for it should be dis-elected at the next election (assuming that there is one) as insufficiently protective of our Constitutional rights.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
I fully intend to write my representatives and senators, but also want to ask the help of NON-USA'ians in this...
Regardless of what a few crackpots in the US Government may think, the USA can NOT prosper as an isolated "island". Other countries around the world are vital to the health of our economy and the well-being of our citizens (access to the results of other countries' scientific and medical research , for example.)
I urge, no, in fact I BEG all of you in other countries express any concerns you have regarding the disturbing precedent that USA laws like this set. Let your own governments know that you strongly oppose giant-corporation-feeding, individual-liberty-stifling laws of this nature, and that you worry about the effects that horrible US laws may have on your country, both directly and indirectly. If you're so inclined, I'd even say go ahead and write to whatever US government agencies seem relevant to you - perhaps write to the US Congress via the "Speaker of the house", perhaps to the commerce department, maybe even the Immigration and Nationalization service. You get the idea.
If the US Government thinks it's just selling the rights of a handful of fringe nerds to big corporations, it won't care, and as the US Media conglomerates are the ones paying to pitch these bad laws to Congress, they know nobody will ever hear about the abuses of these laws on the news. If, however, they become aware of just how widespread knowlege and disapproval of these laws are, MAYBE they'll pause to think about what they're doing...
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Am I the only one here to think that this is evidently not going to fly? While I have no doubt that big government would be happy to put these limitless restrictions in the way of freedom ("outlawing Linux would be a good thing", "eaveryone gets strip searched daily to stop pedophiles and drug smugglers", etc), in practice these things will simply not fly: they are too far out.
Silly ideas like this are often fielded but seldom fly. In this case for many reasons. IBM likes Linux too. There is a large insatlled base. Software that is open is easily written. And the US is not alone: there's a thriving IT industry in Asia and Europe. The US would lose its leading position, and even the politicos will not let that happen.
The one real danger is that while this will not fly, we will all with a sigh of relief accept lesser evils (like outlawing MP3 and MPEG-2, etc).
Michael
---
BDOS ERR ON A:>
From the wired article:
One legislator who has questioned the DMCA is Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Virginia).
In a speech in March, Boucher said, "there are some today who believe that the legislation went too far." He said: "It is a crime to circumvent the password or other gateway, even for the purpose of exercising fair use rights. There is no requirement that the circumvention be for the purpose of infringing the copyrights."
Please write and let him know you appreciate him making a stand.
All the Department of Commerce needs to do is refuse to certify any security technology that can run on Linux.
Then Linux would be illegal.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Corporate IT shops won't care about this digital rights stuff. They don't stand to lose anything from it. But home users (hopefully) will not go for it.
If it prevents them from restoring/setting up computers from disk images (VERY likely!) it will make things a lot harder (labor intensive, i.e. expensive and time consuming) for companies with a lot of computers. This might help save us - these companies will not be happy having their time and money wasted for Disney, et al.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
The evil forces have too much money and can bribe anyone and buy votes. The only thing I can think of is to start an underground resistance organization (like many occupied countries had in WW2), trying to sabotage and kill the enemy and its collaborators.
The term "interactive digital device" means "any machine, device, product, software, or technology, whether or not included with or as part of some other machine, device, product, software, or technology, that is designed, marketed or used for the primary purpose of, and that is capable of, storing, retrieving, processing, performing, transmitting, receiving, or copying information in digital form."
This goes way beyond "whole computers". If I read that right, this would include:
- Serial port cards/chipsets.
- USB Ports/chipsets
- Network cards.
- Network hubs and switches
- Modems
- IDE and SCSI subsystems and cards
- Video cards
- Sound cards
- Digital cell phones
- (etc.)
The implication is that ALL add-on cards and pieces of individual digital communications equipment will have to INDIVIDUALLY add government-approved "content control"...It's going to get REALLY expensive to sell "US Government compliant" equipment...Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
The most intriguing part is that the hero of the story was a lawyer who successfully got the security laws overturned in the Supreme Court based on the Third Amendment to the US Constitution. Not nearly as well known as some of the others, the Third Amendment reads as follows:
The lawyer argued that, since the mandated security software was operating to enforce the will of the government and protect its sovereignty, it constituted a "soldier" by any reasonable definition of the term, and thus could not be quartered in private homes (including inside the computers being used there) in peacetime.
Kind of makes you think, doesn't it? Is this just weird enough to work, perhaps?
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
From the ashes of freedom rises a new order. An order that repudiates the anarchy of the few, for the benifit of the many. An order that will ensure property freedoms are respected once again in this great land. An order that will stop the mockery of freedom that passes for liberty in this country today.
We will outlaw those that seek to abuse our great system of governement for thier exlcusive and private benifit. We will crush the degenerates that use technology to disguise their perversions. The time has come to make the law apply equally to all citizens. For who but criminals and gangsters wishies to hide their faces? Finally, we can isolate those that want to destroy America, whether with drugs, or technology, or racism, or hate or the stigmatizing of disadvantaged groups. And eradicate them.
I pledge to you today, that no crime will be too small to go unpunished. That no effort will be spared. That we will make any sacrifice to acheieve final victory over the enemies of justice and freedom.
This war will take years. But we will be able finally to combine our struggles to eradicate drugs, outlaw technology and free speech run amok. For the first time since the end of the cold war, our enemy is clearly revealed. They will be crushed unmercifully!
It wouldn't matter how you built the computer. The technology would be included in the core components. You wouldn't even be able to get clean components legally in the U.S.
That light you see at the end of the tunnel might be from an oncoming train.
South Carolina is often rated as one of the states with most special interest groups.
It's also a member of dixiecrat block of states, which typically legislate in the interests of bussiness over the interests of people. Overall, it's very conservative. Since the fall of New England Republicans (ie. liberal-moderate Republicans), it has overwhelming become Republican (with some Democrats (mainly older) at the State level). Not surpisingly Senator Shelby (R-AL) purposed tough new legislation against goverment leaks. Typical dixiecrat voting patterns.
In conclusion, as party isn't as important in the south -- Democrats and Republicans are both very socially conservative. So special interests win. And that's not always a good thing.
I want to be able to compute unabashadly on my computer. If you want interractive television content and the like, then build a new device for it, don't cripple mine. Just because people don't want to buy your shoddy products doesn't mean that you should ruin already good ones so you can sell your content that nobody wants anyway.
Not yet, because subsection B states "does not apply to the offer for sale or provision of, or other trafficking in, any previously-owned interactive digital device". How long will that last?
How long until you have to buy a new VCR, tape recorder, and such because the old one is illegal? It's not farfetched: in some states (CA) it is illegal to operate a car w/o proper emmissions controls. If it was manufactured before they exisitied, it has to be retrofitted.
Also, once this is passed, there is a good chance that all the new software will not work on devices without said "scheme" installed.
Of course, this will be a major boon to our economy. Everyone buying new consumer devices, more law enforcment, etc etc etc.
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety" - Benjamin Franklin
Maybe we DID take the blue pill. You wouldn't remember anyway.
Violence against gov't makes sense in a dictatorship, where the will of the people can NOT be effected through peaceful means.
We have NOT reached that point yet.
If our citizens, even 20% would vote libertarian, the politicians would take notice. 50+% would mean that we could change the government completely.
Without any violence.
Let's fight now, *peacefully*, so it doesn't get to the point where one is NOT allowed to vote out their representatives.
The gov't may be wrong, but then so are the people who are re-electing them. We are their bosses - but too many of our fellow citizens don't do their fair share in protecting our freedom - by being an INFORMED VOTER.
ANYONE out there who is in the USA and has the legal right to vote, but hasn't register to do so is PART OF THE PROBLEM. If this describes you, REGISTER TO VOTE. You can even do it an the DMV nowadays.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
That's the whole point, it affects you anyway. You can avoid the DMCA's copy protect provisions (but not their takedown provisions (*)) by avoiding their content.
This law will affect anyone with a computer, or any other "interactive digital device".
Heck, even the thermostat in my home qualifies as such! It is a programmable digital device, most certainly with an embedded microprocessor, it has inputs and outputs and processes digital data (comparing 2 temperatures does count as processing data).
* This is where anyone can get your web page removed - even if it is all your own stuff - by making an allegation. The DMCA says ISPs must act on allegations - or else risk being liable under direct, contributatory and vicarious liability statutes - including monetary damages.
ISPs would rather pull your webpage than face being ORDERED by a court to pay thousands and even millions of dollars in damages which certainly outweight your $25/month (or even $25K/month for very big sites) hosting fees.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Yes! Agreed 100%!
I'm going to be writing my congressmen and senators, and I'm also going to attempt to give the good Sen. Hollings a clue. It may be a futile effort to try to educate him, but it's worth a shot.
If you write your reps, remember to do a few things.
Doing a few other things will also help.
And for anyone who is going to respond saying that nothing will help... If you take your own advice and do nothing, you'll prove yourself absolutely right. Take the time you were going to spend bemoaning this monstrosity here and use it to do something that will matter.
That light you see at the end of the tunnel might be from an oncoming train.
We have one. Slashdot mentions it over and over again. It is the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It may not be a true PAC, but it beats the hell out of having nothing. And perhaps if the EFF were to recieve more funding, it would be able to start a PAC branch - something we truly need.
For those of you looking for a way to oppose laws like this one and the DMCA, do something intelligent with your tax refund - mail it to the EFF. You can do so at http://www.eff.org.
Yes, in Canada, you never have to worry about DMCA-like laws.
Free Hans!
Sec. 103: Prohibited Acts
(a) Removal or Alteration of Security -- No person may --
(1) remove or alter any certified security technology in an interactive digital device; or
I wasn't aware those flavors of Windoze had security...
www.dedserius.com
VB != VisualBasic
I've been trying to tell people that the Democrat party does not, and never has had, the interests of the people at heart. Now I'm not saying the Republicans are any better. But it has come to be clear to me a couple decades ago that the Democrat party has many similarities to the National Socialist party that emerged in Germany during the early 1900's when the people were not paying attention and striving to get help from the government to recover from terrible economic conditions. This time we need to stay awake (or wake up as the case may be) and try as best we can to prevent what happened to Germany from happening to the United States of America.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
If you want a secure system, you have to jettison Windows.
You could get viri that would decode all your "secure" media and transmit it via email.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Reminds me of Germany in the late 1920's and early 1930's. I've been trying to tell people that the Democrats are not nearly as much like the Communists as they are like the Nazis.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
No, Mexico is dangerous too (NAFTA). What about South America, Western Europe or even... Russia?
Which other country has a law DEMANDING the ability to make backups?
How would they stop such private armies from existing?
The same way the "aggressively libertarian" early U.S. Federal Government did. Send in U.S. Marshalls and Army Reserve troops to shoot them.
A Libertarian government would not be a weak one, just a limited one. Part of the benefit of a Libertarian government would be LESS power in the hands of corporations. Libertarians belive in LESS concentrated power, not more power. This includes opposition to more power in "the private sector" or "the market." A Libertarian government would defend the lives, rights and property of the people, because Libertarians believe that the only legitimate role of government is to defend the rights, lives and property of the citizens who chartered it.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
If the OS included tools to unload modules that failed to check if you were unloading the SSSCA module, that would be illegal under this proposed bill. A legal rmmod would refuse to unload the SSSCA module. Or perhaps SSSCA would be compiled into the kernel. And if you try to remove the source and recompile, a compliant compiler would add it back in. In fact, the only compliant compiler would always insert SSSCA compliant logic into everything it compiled, and insert its own inserter into compilations of compilers, including itself.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
The actual costs of stamping out the copies is not a big part of the consumer price. There is the royalty paid to the creators (which is rather small for music, but can get to be rather large for major motion pictures). There are also costs for promotion. Pirates don't do promotion, but instead ride the back of existing promotion. While there are indeed inflated costs in the price of entertainment content that could be removed (the stock holders would suffer, so don't expect it to happen), there are costs that do get covered that pirates would not be paying for.
It's a complex problem. But more laws are not the answer. And cutting prices to the levels that pirates can sell for isn't possible to do while providing for a return on investment (contrary to the experience of some dot-com managers, businesses are supposed to produce a profit and a return to investors).
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
"I live in California, and I voted for the Boxer/Feinstein combo. I will not again. They both voted for DMCA and I will vote for ANYONE before them."
I live in North Carolina and will vote against anyone who voted for the DMCA as well, which means ANYONE who was in Congress in 1998, they ALL voted for it.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
Perhaps we can use Bush. The Bush Administration and Hollywood are not best friends. Perhaps we can get Bush to screw Hollywood in the public interest. It would definitely be in the public interest.
On a different note, what will they use for their Render Farms after they make Linux and FreeBSD illegal? Back to slowlaris or winblows, I suppose.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
I think his prophecy is now all but proven. We're headed there. I would ask you to mark my words, but in 50 years it will turn out that I never existed and this was never written. But then, you will have never existed either. So we'll be even. And if you listen reeeeeeeeeelly close, you can hear the corporations whispering,
"...but some are more equal than others."
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
If you read the entire submission the document states that it is only illegal to transmit,circumvent, etc... digital information that is first protected by this standard..
Therefore if linux users do not adopt the standard and do not transmit,etc.. materials already protected then there is no infraction. This is directly aimed for digital commerce of music and the like, for intellectual property holders who want to use it..
Please clarify what this has to do with Linux/*nix who's intellectual property belongs to the public under the GNU Licensing etc...We don't have to use this if we dont want to...we just cant mess with the stuff of people who do adopt it.I was crazy back when being crazy really meant something. (Charles Manson)
"As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master." Couldn't have said it better myself...=)
This one would be horrifically hard to enforce. This is just a wild guess, but say that there are 5 million computer users out there that will refuse to install this BS on their systems (actually, there will probably be a lot more). Are the Feds really going to go out and raid 5 million people, just for the sake of enforcing Yet Another Purchased Law? Granted, the way we're going, it could happen one of these days, but the Feds need to wake up and realize how absurd the laws are that they're being bribed^H^H^H^H^H^Hlobbied to pass.
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
Some good comments and potentially useful courses of action have been posted here; that's good, it demonstrates the utility and power of open communication to clarify and help to solve difficult issues. Alas, that's a nice sentiment completely lost on the US Congress. I don't think anyone yet realizes the scope of this draft legislation. Let me point out some of the ramifications which have occurred to me.
1. It effectively outlaws open source operating systems and some applications. Look at it this way: the DMCA says that the *potential* for copyright evasion is against the law. This new idea does the same only in broader scope. It won't matter whether anyone actually writes code that allows Linux users to evade digital security: the mere potential that something along those lines could be written will be sufficient. Ditto for any application that interacts with media streams covered by this new, Draconian copyright 'protection'.
2. The DMCA to some extent and this new proposal to a larger extent means business: boys and girls, let's get one thing straight. Breaking these laws will NOT mean 30 days in the county jail and a fine of a month's wages. These crimes are defined as felonies, which means serious time in the big house and a fine big enough to ensure that the perpetrator never owns a new car or their own home ever again, short of winning a lottery. Also, as a convicted felon there are other, additional penalties which apply after the time has been served. Examples will be made, big time. Trembling in your boots yet?
3. This new law will be of concern to... (calculating) precisely 0.15% of the population, tops. My neighbors are not going to write their congressman; hell, most of them don't even write their mothers. They aren't going to picket, donate, or anything else. They don't care: they will still be able to rent the latest Hollywood blockbuster any time they want to. There just isn't going to be any 'popular groundswell' of support in opposition to this law. Heck, half the time I can't get my boss to agree to make a decision, let alone do it now. How are your powers of persuasion? If you ever wondered how Hitler could have come into power in a democratic pre-WWII Germany, just watch the news. It happened like this. Want an example? One proposal here on Slashdot suggested that we all boycot Disney products. A fine idea, if I weren't already boycotting them for past misdeeds. Nevertheless, let Mr. Eisner put out ONE 'cool' film, say about a plucky chap named Linus who single-handedly and completely innocently takes on a mighty corporation, gets the girl and saves the day for Freedom, Justice, and the American Way, and I will be quite happy to bet next week's paycheck that AT LEAST 90% of the people reading this will sneak at least one plush penguin doll into their collection within a week.
4. Write your congressmen all you like: your letter represents an investment of $0.33 and they just don't give a rat's ass comparing that to $20,000 campaign contributions. To get the attention of Congress you need millions. Do you have millions? I don't. Those that do are the same ones who dictated this BS to the congressmen in the first place. How many of you have written your congressmen related to the DMCA, or about Dmitry. I wrote to all three of mine and got two replies: one said 'thanks for the letter', one said 'sorry -- I don't get involved in specific criminal cases,' and the other one never bothered to even send an automated reply. Like most congressmen, they don't seriously consider themselves threatened to lose office at the next election, so they don't care whether I vote for them or not.
5. Picket, donate to the opposition, boycott Disney -- all good ideas, I suggest that we all do that. Despite the fact that techies are notoriously apolitical and that on a good day you can get maybe a dozen activists onto a picket or demonstration. Ladies and gentlemen, it isn't going to happen in this lifetime, most of us aren't that kind of people. (On the whole, we're 'way too nice.) On the other hand, it doesn't really have to: history records precious few revolutions which were actively or even passively supported by a majority of the population. Did I say 'revolution'? Sorry - I didn't mean it in the 'let's blow things up' sort of way. I meant it as a dramatic change in course, in the manner of people taking back their government. Peace is good. So is love. So is justice. The fact that I have precious few ideas how to do that without blowing things up is (or should be) irrelevant.
6. It would be nice to say, 'who's going to write the code to implement all this -- we should just refuse!' but that's a non-starter, let's not even go there.
7. I'd like to thing that my natural paranoia combined with having drank a liter and a half of Diet Pepsi is just making me all bummed out right now, but it will not surprise me in the least if this thing becomes law this year or next. The immediate effect will be to turn me into a criminal: I will NOT use a closed-source operating system such as Windows, especially if I am told that I must do so. I'm just too cranky for that and I've never been good at following orders (just ask my wife!) I expect that an encrypted underground will spring up and those who want the code will get it, most of everyone else will continue to contribute to Bill's retirement fund. Se la vie.
The real question in my mind is, what's next? I suspect that communications is going to be a hot target before too long: GPS transmitter/receivers in every cell phone, every vehical, etc. so that you can't possibly get lost (even if you should want to.) Money has to be on the list: cash really is untraceable and once computers and communications are regulated and 'secure' there's no real reason to keep it around. A few tech-savvie crooks will get very very rich by ripping transactions one way or another but in terms of a national economy it'll be cheaper than the existing cash economy, so they'll go for it. You and I will pay, repeatedly if possible, for every bit on information we consume and patent and copyrights going the way they are, it won't be long before everything is patented or copyrighted by someone: we'll end up having the fee for "Good morning, dear," taken out of our bank accounts automatically. Well, I guess it beats writing a check.
This new gem is the latest in a slow degredation of this country for the sake of the corporations.
Anyone that's paying attention probably doesn't want to be here or is doing his level best to resist/change things for the better.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
New Zealand, perhaps? I hear they've already outlawed DVD region coding...
One hopes it doesn't come to that, though...
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
All extemists should be shot.
Seems like we're being forced into being extremists by other extremists- I don't think the position posited by your sig is a tenable one at this point, especially in light of your comments.
Perhaps it's time to make a new sig, hm?
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
TiVo la revolución!
:)
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
I note in the text of the bill that it proposes to appropriate (read: spend tax dollars) around HALF A BILLION DOLLARS. Which after the manner of gov't budgets, will expand to somewhere upward of $10 billion by the end of the proposed timeframe.
ISTM the most effective fight would be to send a news teaser to the major media (ABC, CBS, NBC, etc.) and to those with any history of front-paging tech issues (CNN, San Jose Mercury News, etc.) which points out that "your gov't plans to spend [OMIGHOD LOOKAT ALL THE WASTED TAX DOLLARS] to prevent you from using your computer in any way not approved by [INSERT MAJOR BRANDS HERE].
It doesn't need to be letter-perfect accurate, it just needs to sound horrible enough to create a major public uproar.
Such a public uproar, largely courtesy of front page coverage by the SJMN, was likely what [temporarily] stopped the hard disk copyright-access-control scheme (the proper name of which presently escapes me).
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
"That is because boats don't fly."
that's not the only thing mentioned in this thread that doesn't fly...
i'm not a libertarian, i'm a centrist, but let me take a whack at his one anyway,
the original poster of this thread stated his perception of the problem as follows:
"The US government is obviously being terribly corrupted by various organizations with lots of money."
therefore, implying that this corrupt goverment is using its powers to negatively influence people's live with legislation such as the SSSCA..
Then went on a semi-coherent rant against libertarians, implying that they are the cause of the SSSCA problem because of their philosophical opposition to giving the government excessive power to control ***PEOPLE'S*** lives through corrupt legislation such as the DMCA and SSSCA...
and then stated:
"...the gov't is the only organization which has the power to respond appropriately to pressure from the citizens"
so, as my symbolic logic instructors would have said, let's reduce this argument to essentials:
The SSSCA is the result of a government corrupted by corporate influence via lobbying and political contributions.
This corrupt government's influence and power is being reduced by libertarian ideals.
The solution to the corrupt goverment's having too much unchecked power, resulting in its ability to pass corporate special interest legislation which is deleterious to the average citizen is (drum roll, please)....
..to give the corrupt government much broader powers to control the everday lives of citizens...
"I'm scared living in Canada just because of proximity."
...I agree, i'm scared of you living in canada, just because of proximity, too.
Ten quid, she's so easy to blind. And not a word is spoken...
Which is why it will continue until politicians who violate the Constitution are treated like anybody else who violates a major law -- i.e. the go to prison.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Or at least to make sure that the "Hello, World" program isn't doing some sneaky copying of "The Unforgiven.mp3" which would piss off Lars.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
> And while it may make you sick to vote for a republican (or a
> democrat) they're your best bet for getting the current guys
> kicked out. Better that then wasting your vote on some guy from
> the nipplebiter party who will only get 3 votes in the election.
> -- Greyfox
"It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No", said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. "Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd", said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did", said Ford. "It is."
"So", said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them", said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes", said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But", said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"
- Douglas Adams, So long, and thanks for all the fish
"It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it." - Eugene Debs
CowboyNeal for president!
"Hit any user to continue."
I've already written the IPPD and my local representatives to oppose it. You should too.
The IPPD proposal (with e-mail address to send comments to) is here. The deadline for comments is the 15th, so hurry up.
If you would take this sitting down, you might as well move south.
"Where shall the word be found, where will the word resound? Not here, there is not enough silence." -T.S. Eliot
Naturally, voting your congressman out will probably hard... but ideally, that is the only way these things are going to go away... by getting rid of all the corrupt politicians in the government and replacing them with members of THIRD PARTIES that actually still have their ideals.
... Maybe Europe isn't such a bad place to move to, after all.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
On the one hand the porn industry needs free speech more than any other industry (CDA 1 & 2 struck down), and on the other hand, P2P file sharing networks have taken a significant bite out business, and it will only get worse. The "monkey spankers" could care less, but the content "pimps" still need to pay the "ho's" or we'll be stuck burping our worms to amateur porn, and re-runs from the 70s - late 90s.
So, without being hypocritical, they're between a rock and a hard place.
Funny you should mention beer, as there's a good chance the beer tax will be cut in half. The cut amounts to peanuts ($1.7B/yr), but the reaction from beer guzzlers will be disproportionately greater. "SSSCA-what? buurrrrrp." :-)
So, if you're a smart frog being slowly boiled, what do you do?
Spread Jim Bell's assassination politics far and wide? (I kid you dear echelon)
Power to the Peaceful
Communism is the antipathy to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, unless you are a worthless sloth who wants someone else to provide for everything rather than putting your God-damned back into it and making YOUR future happen for YOU.
Fine example of the results of anti-communist propaganda -- a person that has no idea, what communists' ideas are, already hates them, foaming at the mouth. Communists eat babies for breakfast, communists advocate killing everyone rich, communists aren't people, etc.
In fact the only difference between political doctrines of communists and your precious government is that communists consider unfairness of employer-employee relationships in capitalist economy (aka exploitation) to be more significant flaw than your republicans/democrats/libertarians/... see it, so their priorities don't exactly match with yours ones.
Bullshit about bloody revolutions being somehow more discrediting for communists than, say, genocide of native americans and slavery to capitalism is neither relevant to this, nor anywhere close to reality -- a lot of governments claimed that they had nice political and economical systems, yet it always happened that those systems were nice Potemkin villages, with some oppressed and powerless people moving their mechanisms. Just ask any ancient Greek, if his society is democratic and enlightened, then look at all the slaves around.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
"I believe Ron Paul of Texas and a few others didn't vote for it."
The only ones who didn't vote for it would have been Congressmen who either weren't in office in 1998, or else were absent from the vote. It was done by "acclimation" (or voice vote), ie: All those in favor say Yea, etc. No record of individual votes were made (which is why they did it that way), so oficially it's unanimous.
The DMCA was passed by a conspiracy of BOTH political parties, and President Clinton, all of whom supported it and passed it.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
In a nutshell, there's not a whole lot you can do with your precious hardware if the Act ever gets passed.
It seems somebody forgot about what computers are for: processing information. Since most of that is more about recombining existing data than about creating new, the result is that a sizable chunk of what computers are used for, now, suddenly becomes impossible. Then you'll have to think twice about whether buying a computer is really worth it. That, then, is the end of ubiquitous computing and the information age.
decoy
Ouch! That is expensive. Is that just your area or all of California (it is a big state)?
It IS written to to allow the copying of copyrighted material, and you have a RIGHT to do this under the fair use laws.
But the truth of the matter is that people don't write those routines to promote fair use. They write them to promote stealing. Trying to hide behind "fair use" is bullshit. The unspoken truth of the matter is that people write those routines so that illegal copies can be made and distributed.
Maybe employing Runes for the first two "S" and propagating that 'spelling' will make people stop and think about the beast. Although its on par with "Micro$oft", legislation with that conotation might be a little harder to push through.
But then it's probably tacked at the end of a long list of laws to be decided over all at once, as the last item in some friday afternoon session.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
Later this month a Canadian version of the dmca will pass the house. Also Hollywood has lobbied for international corporate espianoge treaties like the one used to convince that 16 year old teenager from the netherlands. The dmca will be worldwide by 2002 and this law if it passes will soon have international status as well. Even Antartica is bound under these treaties.
In other words you will need permission from Disney to use your own computer and yes it will have to be windows. Worse yet I am sure the new governmental copy prevention scheme will be licensed from hollywood and not sold so GUESS WHAT? YOU WILL NEED TO RENT YOUR OWN HARDWARE and your Microsoft based operating system!
The only option I see you have is to move to sealand or email and inform IBM who has just invested 1 billion dollars into linux and does not like to see their investment go to hell. I believe they may counter-lobby the government and perhaps save us and sue Disney in return for damamges caused from its linux servers bussiness.
http://saveie6.com/
As interesting and necessary as technical self-defense is, I believe the main battle must be fought in the realm of politics, ideas and cultural values. Some of us have never been part of large scale political action and protests. Some of us are old enough to have grown up in the Vietnam era and we learned a bit about these things. We who are of the aging baby boomer generation need to learn to protest and to demonstrate all over again. We need to learn how to do it smarter than we did back then. But we need just as much dedication and passion and just as much of a counter culture identity as in the sixties and seventies. And all of us, regardless of our ages, need to make our voices heard, heard now and heard LOUD. We need to become revolutionaries and to teach the world what the revolution is about, what they stand to gain or lose, and how to fight for it. We need first to recognize it and dedicate to it ourselves. Or are we going to simply whine?
It is easier to stop the State from going totalitarian in disasterous ways than it is to survive and manage to sneak by it once it has done so. You may think you are smart enough to escape or to to work around it. But how much pain, lost years and lost lives might you avoid if you used that wonderful brain to organize, oppose and protest now or at least support those who do?
So what will it take? Memetic engineering yes. But also more active stuff that gives notice right now that we will not stand for the nonsense comming in SSSCA. We must go viral and flood the congress critters with mail and phone calls and infect everyone we can with the importance of doing likewise. We need marches and demonstrations in Washington and throughout the country as soon as we can organize them. We needed them already for DMCA and its early victims but it is better late than never. We need lawyers and legal entanglements for bringing the IP police state policies down. We need legal protests and test cases, editorials, letter to editors. We need teach-ins. Can we reach a broad enough coalition to force the politicians to take notice? I don't know. But we must try in all ways that make sense to try.
We must start asap. Preferably the protests should begin even before this gross legislative miscarriage is even officially a bill before Congress.
An essay on IP, etc.
/ 21/990621opmetcalfe.xml
I feel the need with all the horrible rights violations going recently to highlight Thomas Jefferson's views on copyright. In the writing to ensue, there will be much opinion and conjecture surrounded by a more valued and respected sets of opinions by none other than Thomas Jefferson. Without a doubt, Thomas Jefferson has already covered most of what gets rehashed, particularly when it comes to fair use and the DMCA.
I feel it is important to this case, especially from the American prospective, to point out that one of the most ingenious, prolific and outspoken forefathers of the USA, where the DMCA and other vile laws live, believe firmly that the bill of rights should have included and explicit reference to freedom from burdensome and unfair copyrights and legislation thereof.
Thomas Jefferson was concerned about you and me. The people that read periodicals. He was concerned with everyone as a singular entity. You yourself may not know what's best for you if you belong to something bigger. Our [United States] laws are supposed to protect the little people.
While I'm not suggesting an armed standoff against federal agents necessary in this case, something must be done. We are railroading an expatriate to whom our laws do not bind. Furthermore, our own forefathers, particularly Jefferson, BELIEVE me he is YOUR friend (not the big monopolies like Energy/Petroleum Companies, Microsoft, etc.)
I'm going to excerpt his beliefs below. Realize that even 200 years ago, the pitfalls of burdensome copyright and the legislation that ensues would erode our freedoms.
...
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), in his correspondence with James Madison (1751-1836) was initially hostile to the provision for copyright and patent law in the United States Constitution. On Dec. 20, 1787, Jefferson wrote to Madison from France concerning the recently-drafted Constitution:
"I do not like... the omission of a bill of rights providing clearly and without the aid of sophisms for freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing armies, restriction against monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury in all matters of fact triable by the laws of the land..."
Note, here IMHO, Thomas Jefferson wants to, along with our other inalienable rights, establish a freedom from Monopoly. These rights, not excluding freedom from monopoly, were to him as core as the rest of our bill of rights. He repeated this view in his letter to Madison dated July 31, 1788:
"I sincerely rejoice at the acceptance of our new constitution by nine states. It is a good canvas, on which some strokes only want re-touching. What these are, I think are sufficiently manifested by the general voice from North to South, which calls for a bill of rights. It seems pretty generally understood that this should go to juries, habeas corpus, standing armies, printing, religion and monopolies. I conceive there may be difficulty in finding general modification of these suited to the habits of all the states. But if such cannot be found then it is better to establish trials by jury, the right of Habeas corpus, freedom of the press and freedom of religion in all cases, and to abolish standing armies in time of peace, and monopolies, in all cases, than not to do it in any... The saying there shall be no monopolies lessens the incitements to ingenuity, which is spurred on by the hope of a monopoly for a limited time, as of 14 years; but the benefit even of limited monopolies is too doubtful to be opposed to that of their general suppression."
Madison, in a letter dated October 17, 1788, responded,
"With regard to monopolies they are justly classed among the greatest nuisances in government. But is it clear that as encouragements to literary works and ingenious discoveries, they are not too valuable to be wholly renounced? Would it not suffice to reserve in all cases a right to the public to abolish the privilege at a price to be specified in the grant of it? Is there not also infinitely less danger of this abuse in our governments than in most others? Monopolies are sacrifices of the many to the few. Where the power is in the few it is natural for them to sacrifice the many to their own partialities and corruptions. Where the power, as with us, is in the many not in the few, the danger can not be very great that the few will be thus favored. It is much more to be dreaded that the few will be unnecessarily sacrificed to the many.
I hold the recent copyright extension as an example of what Madison thought there was little danger of. There it was said, even by Madison, the proponent of the said directives, that there would likely be no "a sacrifice of the many to the "partialities and corruptions" of a powerful few."
I firmly believe the DMCA is both a corruption and a partiality. Anyone with Macrovision stock will try and convince you otherwise.
Jefferson probably saw that there is some purpose in having intellectual property be protected in some fashion or more likely, IMHO, probably decided that he would rather be a part of creating the ground rules for this countries operations and decided to cut bait at this point. He subsequently said to Madison in a letter on August 28, 1789:
"I like the declaration of rights as far as it goes, but I should have been for going further. For instance, the following alterations and additions would have pleased me... Article 9. Monopolies may be allowed to persons for their own productions in literature, and their own inventions in the arts, for a term not exceeding ___ years, but for no longer term, and for no other purpose."
The blank was to be filled in at some future date, obviously. The law is written with the sense that this right would be the right of the people to protect themselves against intellectual fraudulence by companies, e.g., the theft of the 'little man's' ideas. In addition to which, there is always the stance that the people of the fledgling USA would be safeguarded in the Bill of Rights against unduly long copyrights.
Jefferson's preference for the term of copyright was submitted to Madison a few days afterward, in a letter of September 6, 1789. The proposed term was that of 19 years, based on actuarial calculations:
"The question Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another seems never to have been started on this [i.e., the European side -- Jefferson was writing from France] or our [American] side of the water... that no such obligation can be so transmitted I think very capable of proof. -- I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self evident, that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living; that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it... A generation coming in and going out entire... would have a right on the first year of their self-dominion to contract a debt for 33 years, in the 10th for 24, in the 20th for 14, in the 30th for 4, whereas generations, changing daily by daily deaths and births, have one constant term, beginning at the date of their contract, and ending when a majority of those of full age at that date shall be dead. The length of that term may be estimated from the tables of mortality. Take, for instance, the tables of M. de Buffon... [according to which] half of those of 21 years [of age] and upwards living at any one instant of time will be dead in 18 years 8 months, or say 19 years as the nearest integral number. Then 19 years is the term beyond which neither the representatives of a nation, nor even the whole nation itself assembled, can validly extend a debt... This principle that the earth belongs to the living, and not to the dead, is of very extensive application... Turn this subject in your mind, my dear Sir... Your station in the councils of our country gives you an opportunity for producing it to public consideration... Establish the principle... in the new law to be passed for protecting copyrights and new inventions, by securing the exclusive right for 19 instead of 14 years."
A Jeffersonian computation using life tables from 1992 gives a Jeffersonian copyright term of 30-35 years. (Vital Statistics of the United States 1992, Volume II--Mortality, Part A, Public Health Service, Hyattsville, 1996, Section 6, Table 6-1.) Note, however, that at least one edition of Jefferson's works has a much abridged version of this letter, in which the 19-year computation and the proposal for the term of copyright do not occur.
One of Jefferson's most famous statements on patent law was in his often-quoted letter of August 13, 1813 to Isaac McPherson, in which he wrote that, since there is no natural right to property in land, how much less is there a natural right to a property in ideas. I think Jefferson's words apply equally well to copyrights as to patents; to "expression" as well as to "ideas": "he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me."
A random set of impressions of these laws with which I agree:
"The scary thing about the DMCA is that it affects everyone, but only a subset of the country realizes it exists, of which a subset understands what it means, of which a subset understands why its so wrong. " quote, kstumpf (ken@stumpf.com).
"Is there a "voice" amongst this subset that has any power to inflict any change here? Kind of spooky. It makes you wonder where things are headed." quote, kstumpf (ken@stumpf.com).
As someone pointed out in a discussion, be sure to realize that copyright is referred to at this point as monopoly in Jefferson's letters.
Its fairly clear that Jefferson uses Monopoly in reference to copyright, which is what it is, you can monopolize on your intellectual property for a set period of time. He was willing to give IP of the day 19 years, but he was very much verbal about fair use, and that public fair use was of the utmost importance.
Even cursory inspection of Jefferson's views shows his distrust of allowing monopolies run rampant.
Even Madison has said:
"With regard to monopolies they are justly classed among the greatest nuisances in government."
They both realized that in order for Monopolies of any sort to be protected by the government, that undue amounts of arbitration would be necessary.
Jefferson also affords a Monopoly to the Individual, not a corporate entity:
"Monopolies may be allowed to persons for their own productions in literature, and their own inventions in the arts, for a term not exceeding ___ years, but for no longer term, and for no other purpose."
Surely he isn't suggesting that one person could create a monopoly on, lets say, corn. He was referring to copyright. He certainly isn't suggesting that corn could only be sold by one person for 19 years.
Another thing, imagine if the copyrights were in fact awarded to the people who invented them, not the companies who subsidized them. It would be interesting to see a world where companies like DuPont and Merck (and every other chemical and drug exploitation companies, because that's what they are, the money is in the treatments, not the cure) are made to treat their patent holding scientists with the utmost respect and regard, even more so than the greedy shareholders, because if they left for another company, so leaves their patents!
The most important of all the Jefferson arguments is this: If IP is so unique, so wonderful and so great, why does it need protection? I don't believe I had quoted this particular argument above, I will work to find it, but the statement is true. If something is obvious, then it really isn't IP. Would you like Bob Metcalfe, the Linux is a piece of crap Windows 2000 rules moron who founded 3COM to hold the patent on 'ethernet'?
Link: http://iwsun4.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/99/06
Don't you think its nice that other companies compete with 3COM for the ethernet space, such as Intel, CISCO, et al? Doesn't the standard referred to as "ethernet" get better and better because these companies compete for your business in the same segment?
"He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation."
Thomas Jefferson, in Writings of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 6, H.A. Washington, Ed.,1854, pp. 180-181. Link: http://www.lib.virginia.edu/copyright/
The message in this passage is clear: an idea is not matter but energy; it cannot be owned, and it isn't diminished by being shared. In any discussion of copyright, it is useful to begin by reminding ourselves that ideas can't be copyrighted and can't be owned--only expression can. Furthermore, even when expression is copyrighted, academics ought to bear in mind their right to Fair Use, a crucial exception to copyright that exists in order to enable teaching, research, and news reporting.
A few more quotes to muse upon:
"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their choice, if the laws are so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they... undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is today can guess what it will be tomorrow "
-- James Madison
And finally:
"The people are the only censors of their governors: and even their errors will tend to keep these to the true principles of their institution. To punish these errors too severely would be to suppress the only safeguard of the public liberty. The way to prevent these irregular interpositions of the people is to give them full information of their affairs thro' the channel of the public papers, & to contrive that those papers should penetrate the whole mass of the people. The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers & be capable of reading them. I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians) which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under the European governments. Among the former, public opinion is in the place of law, & restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did anywhere. Among the latter, under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves & sheep. I do not exaggerate. This is a true picture of Europe. Cherish therefore the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you & I, & Congress & Assemblies, judges & governors shall all become wolves. "
Thomas Jefferson To Edward Carrington
Paris, Jan. 16, 1787
I do not represent the wolf. Life liberty and property, property in that case being tangible assets, e.g., guns, real estate, houses, possessions. He never said life, liberty and monopoly. In fact, life liberty and property was rephrased as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
In my ethos I strive to achieve a more star-trek like existence, where you can serve yourself (with notoriety, money, etc) and mankind at the same time. There is no need to "milk" technologies - look what happened to TUCKER in Detroit. Fucked out of businesses by the monopolists. I want to protect against that. Milking is what petrol and car companies do, prevent fuel cells, ceramic engines, higher fuel efficiencies in motors, etc. We won't see next generation technology in cars for some time because the current has to be milked.
I am upset with you. I never said ban. Copyright. I said freedom from burdensome copyright, not freedom from all copyright.. You don't know how to read and understand this is moderate position.
Elcomsoft had stopped charging for the Ebook software before he entered the company. He had done so at Adobe's request. He is an employee of Elcomsoft and cannot be charged for what that business entity had done. We have similar laws here where companies are formed to financially and legally shield people from faults.
Of government. Your attention to picayune details is annoying. You misinterpret his words, in my opinion. Are you referring to all the monopolistic and tax payer wasting exclusive government contracts?
As far as monopoly and sacrifice. Yes, monopolies are a sacrifice. I don't shun copyright or patent, I just want them used more carefully and for fair use to be protected. You can still make a product, if it so damn good then you don't even need to patent it. People need to focus on being a better company and product and not thinking about sitting on and licensing your IP for all eternity, e.g., RAMBUS. Again, you misread, malign and come up with shoddy arguments.
I'm going to stop responding to you because you have been a troll, this is clearly someone who sits and reads and has his heart set on disagreeing with me for no apparent reason other than the sake of argument. There is always one of you in a discussion thread, so I guess you can say "YHBTYHLHAND." If you weren't trolling me, then you are very un-American in your thinking - I can't think of anyone, conservative or not, that thinks any of Jefferson's reasoning wasn't intelligent and well thought out.
This is a waste of taxpayer money, its designed to veil the actions of foul men like George Bush who steal social security money from us. How about, "Mr. Bush, you're a criminal." is a perfect expression for the Quid Pro Quo thievery that he performs in office, allowing all his business cronies to steal from the American public.
THINK about what you do and who you work for. The headline that lead me here makes believe Mr. George Bush, whose family has Nazi ties and Nazi money infusions in WWII through Prescott Bush, is a real hypocrite for asking for "gossip" to end. Why, he has everything to gain by people not talking about the trash the makes him into what he is, a blindsiding, un-American, Nazi-sympathizing, pro-business anti American bastard.
He is a Skull an Bones elitist, and he thinks the "weak" need to die to make room for the Darwinistic strong.
I suppose Stephen Hawkins in his wheelchair is weak.
I suppose Nancy Reagan begged Bush not to cut stem cell research because Ronnie has Alzheimer's - why, Bush is an elitist prick.
Pro-choice, pro-American, and pro foul-language, Anti-Microsoft, Anti-Monopoly, Anti-Pork Barrel, Libertarian-ish smaller government with good monetary policy.
The Senate is a cabal of scum liars, the congress is worse. My family lineage is rooted here since the 1600's and the modern manifestation of government is an embarrassing attempt to cover up of lies, deceit and misappropriation. These liars don't want gossip - like Chandra Levy, affairs, lies, bribes, etc.
The USA is now "Amerika", Communism forming through corporate elitism.
Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. If computers are considered 'arms' by the government(At least for the purposes of export). Couldn't the second ammendment be used to defeat this sort of legislation? ok it's a stretch...a big stretch...a REALLY big stretch, but stranger things have happend.
I CAN NOT watch my DVD's without DeCSS because I only use OSS.
OK you could wrestle with an illegal and clumsy software like DeCSS or you could do what any normal, non fanatic, sane person would do: By a DVD player. Or use an OS that supports legal DVD players. But you won't do that because you use only OSS. Well OSS comes with a price. Can't watch DVD's because somebody else owns the format. Tough luck for you. Move on. Running some rouge hack like DeCSS is not the answer. That's just going to make things worse for open source down the road. SSSCA is a perfect example.
It's really not that complicated.
If the government has less power, there is less for the corporations to corrupt.
The power the government has over people, small businesses, farmers, etc., is what attracts people who seek to get legislation favorable to them passed.
Repeal the power, and the incentive fades.
Not harder than in the US.
This sig under construction. Please check back later.
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sulli
RTFJ.
It's hard to tell if you meant that sarcastically, but if you did, allow me to explain.
Think about our form of government for a second. You can have the most well researched, informed, unbiased view on a subject, and yet your vote is worth the exact same as someone who heard of the issue 10 minutes ago, misunderstood the explanation, and accidentally wandered into a voting booth. That's kind of the dirty secret of democracy, isn't it?
A democracy allows everyone the right to vote, but it requires that the population be reasonably informed and willing to learn about an issue. But I think a lot of people forget their end of the bargain.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
(a) In General -- It is unlawful to be the victim of an electronic mail worm that encrypts your communications.
(b) Exception -- Subsection (a) does not apply to people with enough money for a legal staff or with blood relatives who are attorneys. Otherwise, ignorance of worm infestation is no excuse.
Room 101: Penalty
(a) In General -- Any male who violates Section 101 shall be subjected to no less than a 20 percent chance of being raped by an HIV and/or Hepatitis C infected gang, with males under the age of 25 being subject to no less than a 40 percent chance of such punishment.
Seastead this.