Slashdot Mirror
Cybercrime Treaty to Be Signed
texchanchan writes: "Yahoo reports that "Interior ministers and law enforcement officials from Europe, South Africa, Canada, the United States and Japan will sign the milestone cyber-crime convention.... [because] computer criminals... have moved on from ``innocent'' hacking to fraud, embezzlement and life-threatening felonies."" Feel the spin in that article, from the anonymous "official". We've posted about this treaty before; read the final draft and note it well, particularly the extradition provisions, mutual assistance (some other country gets your country to tap your phones, and send them the data) and the requirements to disclose passwords.
Here's another one.
Honestly, are we more afraid of terrorists, or
our own governments?
George II says that Terrorists hate freedom, and want to take my freedom away. That isn't true.
Terrorists can only take my life. Only my government can take my freedom.
Sickman's spinfusor catches Anonymous Coward by surprise.
Improve security. Seperate important systems like landing lights from the internet. Don't just sue people.
I thought fraud, embezzlement, and life-threatening felonies were already against the law on these countries!
Of course, we feel it's all great to battle "child pornography" while we defend race-hatred, while non-Americans (who often have very different ages of consent) consider that an infringement of their free speech. So are we implicitly trading the right to different types of censorship?
This is the time to prove Lessig wrong. I don't know how to get a congresscritter's attention any more. They only used to pay attention to postal mail, which they are afraid to open now. But between telephone, fax, e-mail, and watching out for him when he comes into town, I intend to let my congresscritters know not just how much I despise this crock, but why.
It's time for a call to arms. Slashdotters can take down almost any web site, because there's lots of us and we're not too lazy to click on a few buttons. But if we want to avoid the tremendous pitfall this treaty will engender, it's time to slashdot Congress. I doubt there will be 10,000 phone calls, pieces of mail, etc., the entire Congress will get because of newspaper, radio, or TV coverage. If we're not too lazy, we can generate a normal ./ volume in faxes, phone calls, and so forth, we can make ourselves heard.
The alternative is to whimper, roll over, and cringe.
Every country that signs onto this treaty currently has citizens who can use encryption. The legalities are changing, it seems since the various governments realized that the cat is already out of the bag, wrt encryption. The bad guys got it, and the good guys need to get it now. Witness in fact, direct from the treaty:
So, it's simple. Make yourself a key, and begin to encrypt things you send. If you dont know what it means to make a key, then go read any PGP site, including the one (still) at MIT.
If you really want to oppose this at the level where it matters, then encrypt. Dont write your senator, dont address the fine folks in Brussels. Encrypt.
Remember, encryption makes the internet a cozy bedside chat. Use it with your lovers, and use it with your friends.
Fear only the One who can factor large primes in his head, and never let them put a key on your head or your hand. Simple. Easy. Fun. Have fun. Love God. Love your neighbor. And have a Great Thanksgiving, America.
Actually, banning hate speech causes more problems than you seem to think, mostly because different people will consider different things hate speech.
Suppose that I say that all blacks should die. This may qualify as hate speech to you (as it would to me also), but would sound somehow reasonable for a white supremacist.
How about if I say that Americans are terrorists, kill people and that their government should be destroyed. That would probably be considered hate speech as well, but not so by say, the Taliban.
How about if I say that the Taliban are terrorists, kill people and that their government should be destroyed. Surely this is hate speech as well, if we are to hold everyone to the same standard?
So therein lies the problem: different people, different points of view, which ends with the stronger one censoring the marginal one through the "hate speech" label.
For another example, the Church of Scientology saying already says its critics engage in religious hate-speech in an attempt to quench criticism. Surely having a ban on hate speech at hand would please them and other criticized organisations greatly...
"I remember Y1K, every abacus had to get another bead"
Section 9.2.c: ... realistic images representing a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct."
"child pornography shall include pornographic material that visually depicts
Rendered images will be deemed illegal. (Also note that section 9.2.b says you can't take pronographic pictures of someone that "appears" to be a minor)
And no, I am not a fan of child pornography, but section 9.2.c seems to be making new clarifications to current pornography law, and 9.2.b is just very poorly worded.
I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
Don't take a law that's designed to stop malicious people and extrapolate it into something that's going to take ones and zeros and make them illegal.
I'm sure this statement would've been much comfort to Dmitry Skylarov as he spent weeks in jail. Obviously he's one of those malicious people that laws are supposed to go after. Just because a law isn't intended to do one thing doesn't it mean it won't be used anyway.
Simply talking about hacking or trying to figure out how things work isn't going to land you in prison.
Sure thing. I'm sure that Steve Jackson will back this one all the way.
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
So now we can't talk about religion, sex, etc. for fear that someone will take offense and call it "hate speech"? How insanely stupid. This is the problem with curtailing ANY speech. This is the path that leads to. This is why SMART people in the US through court cases have said that prior constraint of speech is to be avoided at all costs and only allowed where DIRECT and DAMAGING results will occur.
Besides, YOU think the speech of the white supremecists is false garbage. Who made YOU arbiter of the universe? YOU might think that the DMCA is beautiful and those who oppose it are spouting false garbage as well. Maybe it's "hate speech" to denounce the DMCA as the evil piece of $hit it is. Down this path leads madness.
The German government thinks the Scientologists are spouting false garbage, but the Scientologists say they are just practicing their religion. Who's right?
Let people hear it for themselves and make their own opinion. That is "openness". That is "Freedom". Freedom is protecting ALL speech. That doesn't mean that SOME speech can't have consequences, but it should only be speech where it can be proven to be DIRECT and DAMAGING.
Besides, the eventual end of this "don't discriminate" stuff being applied everywhere is where we have Arab terrorists killing 5000 people and the police unable to question Arabs because they are Arab and came from Afganistan/Saudi Arabia, etc., even though there is a high probability they know something about the attacks.
No one should be discriminated against unfairly, but we shouldn't let political correctness lead us to stupidity either.
"There are laws that enslave men, and laws that set them free. " - Sean Connery as King Arthur
When asked, one must suply his/her password, right? So how does this work with doctors, lawyers (e.a.) and non-disclosure agreements with third parties? How will this law relate to other trust-relations which are also integrated within law?
Before a file is decrypted, it is impossible to tell whether it is part of such relation, or if it in fact contains illegal data, so how will this work out?
--Black holes are where God divided by zero--