Industry Divided Over SSSCA

CBravo writes: "The EE Times has a story that talks about the SSSCA and how it divides the industry. Short part:'If approved, the law would be enforceable under federal regulations and could dramatically alter the way system OEMs design and develop PCs, TVs, set-tops or other digital appliances with embedded microprocessors, according to industry sources familiar with the Hollings proposal. The motion-picture industry, with the Disney and Fox studios in the lead, backs the legislation.'" If you thought the DMCA was bad, look out -- the SSSCA would inject far more control into a wide range of electronic devices.

Comments

Keep It Simple

[hysterion]

First: pushing for even more drastic laws is certainly, in part, a tactic to draw pressure away from the DMCA. Let's not fall into this trap.

Secondly: the problem is that the general public won't care unless they see how this will hurt concretely; for this, the question needs to be strippend down to its essentials, which are nontechnical.

So let's do ourselves a favor. Forget all the beloved technical jargon we like to wrap these discussions in. Concentrate on something simple like email, which people know about, care for and roughly understand, and which already exhibits all aspects of the problem. Now publically ask Senators Hollings and Stevens and other backers of the proposal elementary questions like this:

1) Any viewable item on a computer exists as a file -- a sequence of 0's and 1's stored in memory.

2) e-mail is a popular device which allows jack@university.edu to send (as attachment) a copy of any file to jill@provider.net, completely independent of whether the copy is "legitimate" or not.

Now,

• Are you opposed to email?
• If not, then exactly how do you intend to prevent "illegitimate" uses of it, without invading everyone's privacy?