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SSSCA Editorials
idiotnot writes: "This editorial from the New York Times, by Jonathan L. Zittrain, a professor at Harvard Law School, urges legislators to exercise caution in regulating the PC. Eisner, et. al. want to limit the PC's capability, which will limit what PC users are allowed to do. See this earlier story about Eisner's testimony to Congress. '[W]e should beware the haste with which some would sacrifice flexibility for control.'" Other readers submitted a story in Hardware Central and an AP article. Seems like the ruckus over the SSSCA is finally reaching the mainstream press.
Why the hell does this Haaarvaad Genius* think that we should have some kind of thought police running our computer?
I think microsoft has an antitrust trial for doing just that. Who wants this control? The easier it is to use a good, the more people buy it.
* = oxymoron, see interesting article by JonKatz.
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
Um, yeah, who gave this a +1?
Microsoft may "have been doing this for years.", but at least if you didn't like that, you could always use a different OS without having to worry about commiting a federal offence.
Have you? It takes just a couple of minutes, and might mean a lot. This law scares the bejesus out of me, and I hope it does the same to you. Let your Senators and Representatives know.
Ya, word up niggah!
/. what it is today. Making wide pages makes the baby Jesus cry.
I wouldn't read this fucking paper if it wasn't for all the trolls. They make
Of course they didn't quite phrase it that way. Michael Eisner, chief executive of the Walt Disney Company, complained that the technology industry made it too easy for "people wanting to get anything for free on their television or computer or hand-held device." Peter Chernin, president of the News Corporation, worried that the Internet's "ability to empower the general public" would lead to the online theft of some of the contents of media companies' digital treasuries.
Both men want the next generation of personal computers to be unable to deliver unauthorized movies, music and other content, and they asked that Congress stand ready to intervene if industry failed to deliver the necessary technology to safeguard its products. A lone executive, from Intel, objected. The market, he said, not Congress, should dictate how technology works.
The debate on Capitol Hill between content providers like Disney and those who make the products to deliver that content, like Intel, was really a proxy for a much larger debate: What do we want our technology to do? How do we want it to work? And do we have any say in the matter?
For most forms of current technology, these questions have long been settled. No executives are worried about illegal uses of televisions or coffee makers, for instance, and no consumers need to worry that these appliances will crash or become infected with viruses and we would never accept it if they did. Our TV's and VCR's don't take ill when we watch infected programs, and our refrigerators never require rebooting.
Yet we have come to tolerate such problems from our personal computers. The PC's fundamental and unique unreliability flows from its construction as a so-called flexible platform a mere staging area for many kinds of software. The point (and bane) of a PC is, essentially, to run whatever software it encounters.
There are plenty of reliable computers: the controls of the modern Airbus 340 are fully given over to a computer, and video-game consoles consistently work as advertised, as do Aegis missile cruisers, cellular telephones and digital watches. All contain transistors. Can technologists figure out how to replicate the reliability of airplanes, telephones, watches and televisions in future versions of Windows and Linux, so that a mischievous 12-year-old half a world away can't erase a thousand far-flung hard drives?
Absolutely. In January Bill Gates sent a memo to all Microsoft employees declaring a new, overarching, even revolutionary mandate: Software must be reliable and "trustworthy." This new focus is both welcome and worrisome, because the very steps needed to secure our computers and networks can be the steps that will deaden them to continued innovation and creative uses while opening them to more intrusive monitoring by mainstream technology manufacturers and content providers.
Mr. Gates and the co-captains of his industry are producing blueprints for so-called "trusted" PC's. They will employ digital gatekeepers that act like the bouncers outside a nightclub, ensuring that only software that looks or behaves a certain way is allowed in. The result will be more reliable computing and more control over the machine by the manufacturer or operating system maker, which essentially gives the bouncer her guest list.
And as soon as there are limits on the software a PC can run, there will be limits on what PC users can do. That's exactly what executives like Mr. Eisner and Mr. Chernin want. They'd like software and hardware companies to build PC's to allow a publisher an exquisite level of control over a book or a song or a movie in the hands of a consumer. Trusted PC users might spend $1.95 for a single viewing of the latest Disney animated feature, or they might pay a similar amount for three listens of U2's most recent single. Security, stability, reliability and control.
Users may buy a trusted PC even if it won't show a digital video lent by a friend, because it will act less like a temperamental computer and more like a crash-free super-VCR like the just-released Microsoft X-box. But in the process of "improving" our PC's, the manufacturers and their partners will be able to determine what software will and won't be allowed to run, what we can and can't do with the information to which we're exposed, and what data about our online activities will be collected and sent to the manufacturer or content provider to assist in future marketing.
Giving your senator a blow job doesn't hurt.
How else do you think they passed NAFTA?
Use foobar/foobar to read the article.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
Netcraft has officially confirmed: SSSCA is dying
Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered SSSCA community when recently IDC confirmed that SSSCA donations to politicions accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all donations from Microsoft. Coming on the heels of the latest Netcraft survey which plainly states that SSSCA has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. SSSCA is collapsing in complete disarray, as further exemplified by failing dead last [samag.com] in the recent lawyers comprehensive test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin [amdest.com] to predict SSSCA's future. The hand writing is on the wall: SSSCA faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for SSSCA because SSSCA is dying. Things are looking very bad for SSSCA. As many of us are already aware, SSSCA continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood. SSSCA is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its purchased politicions.
Due to the troubles of the RIAA, abysmal sales and so on, SSSCA went out of business and was taken over by MPAA who sell another troubled "lets fuck the consumer" coporation. Now MPAA is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that SSSCA has steadily declined in market share. SSSCA is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If SSSCA is to survive at all it will be among OS hobbyist dabblers. SSSCA continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, SSSCA is dead.
Fact: SSSCA is dead
unfortunately, the tactic used in the poast has been to ust gradually reduce the feature set of the products gradually so that he never notices.
hopefully the best hope on this is the quandary seen in companies like sony. Sony music, I believe, grosses 4 billion dollars a year, while Sony Electronics, makers of mp3 players, etc grosses 40 billion dollars. In this case, I wonder which part of the company will win out, given the conflict of interest inside the company.
there are plenty such issues messing up the priorities.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Dog is my co-pilot.
While most of you think it is ridiculous, and I'm sure you've thousands reasons explaining why it doesn't work; stay calm, and think about it. As you can see a lot of people doesn't even have a slight clue of it, we really need to voice out.
Even a professor at Harvard Law School would say something like that! Those guys are supposed to reach a certain degree of clue level. I always think they must be smarter than us in all aspect. Now you can see how serious the matter is - we are surround by professional Cluelessnesses!!
To add insult to injury, they want to redefine the reality to suit their clue level. The worse is that the reality would be changed so that sane people are considered insane and vice versa. It just happens.
Don't just sit there! Write to your senators to voice out your opinions!(write with plain letter, of course)
The Haaarvard Genius is the one arguing against control of computer hardware.
Nice job reading the article dipshit*.
* = Kiwipeso, see post above for interesting example of stupidity.
I'm very glad to see all the mainstream press that this proposed legislation is getting.
Hopefully, as more and more editorials criticize this law, the general public will begin to see what is at stake and demand that Congress abandon this Disney law.
It is not the role of the government to protect the revenue streams of industry; but somewhere and somehow this has become their sole occupation. In a democratic free-market, the government should ensure fairness (I'm not a libertarian, I have no belief in an entierly market-based system) - unfortunatly in our system the government seems only concerned with appeasing the largest corporations, with no regard for the people they are presumed to serve.
If we all stand up, and let our politicians know that "enough is enough" hopefully they will change their ways. And it seems like more and more "everyday" people are beginning to make their voice heard (witness protests in Seattle, etc.), but the corporate media does its very best to quiet this dissent.
Unfortunatly the American idea of freedom has been transformed, and what remains is solely a concern with the freedom to make money.
I thought the article missed the point. Many people are going to come away from reading it thinking, "I don't want one of these crippled computers, so I won't buy one, no matter how much I see ads for them." They aren't going to appreciate the fact that the media companies don't want this to be a choice we have--they want to ram these things down our throats. They know damn well that, given the choice, no one will want them, so they want to pass a law like the SSSCA to force the issue. That is what people need to understand.
But this article is a great opportunity for anyone interested to write a letter to the editor of the Times. Getting published won't be easy, but it's possible, now more so than ever, since the paper has given this issue publicity. So if you want to write, here's your chance. They have an e-mail address for submissions:
letters at nytimes dot com (munged to prevet spam)
I wasn't able to locate a postal address on the Web site for letters to the editor, but maybe someone else will have that available and post it here.
That light you see at the end of the tunnel might be from an oncoming train.
What I can't understand is why the writers of bills like the SSSCA can't just bite the bullet and take the bill to it's logical conclusion. It exists for one reason and one reason only, right? Money. No one has argued anything else. The almighty Right to Compensation. Why stop at simple DRM and hope it doesn't get cracked in the first 20 minutes? Why not just let all the music in the world go free and create a direct music/artist tax for everyone. Cut out the middle man and have the people pay directly into the bank accounts of the copyright holders.
Seriously! Wouldn't this be incredibly efficient? Isn't this the logical conclusion of laws that are designed to guarantee profits for a particular group?
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
This could be such a boon to the Canadian IT sector!!
New Slashdot pole:
y Neal's Camera-whoring portal
If the US gov had to sacrfice an industry, which one should it be?
1)Movie/Record
2)Electronics/software
3)Cowbo
I wonder what the results would be if someone sponsored a real poll like this (minus #3) nationwide?
Maskirovka
TODAY'S NEWS:
Linux geek becomes incensed simply by reading an article...calls for action from fellow linux-newbie slashdotters [who buy clothes from thinkgeek yet still don't really 'know' UNIX]..."This law is horrible!" "Take action! Write your reps!"
Suck my c0Xor
If you haven't already done so, please contact your Senators.
(This will likely cost me a karma point or two, but so what? There's a cap, after all, and it's easy to regain it.)
People get banned from moderating on Slashdot for the simple reason that they have moderated _unfairly_ based upon the _consensus_ of several of Slashdot's meta-moderators.
Moderations that will get you banned from further moderating, if you make a habit of them:
* Moderating down people who you dislike.
* Moderating down posts you disagree with.
* Moderating posts as Troll which aren't trolls.
* Moderating posts as Offtopic that are topical.
* Other moderating stupidities... see above for clues.
Sheesh, some people! You act, then you must accept the consequences of your actions. Screw up, you pay. Welcome to the real world.
Yes, this is off-topic to the article, but it responds to this jerk's whine about having been banned from moderating here. Give me a break.
Ah, but I never moderated. Not even once. But I'd like to have the option.
This is all good, it is a positive to discuss the way we feel about our limited supply of animals. How many of you know how chickens are "kept". The farmers cut off there beaks so they can't defend themselves agains the cruelty inflicted on them. The poo on one another becuase there cages are stacked one ontop of another so they can't move around. "Free range" chickens dont fare much better. They are placed in tiny cages in a field and allowed to run around in a circle. They frequently become frustrated (who wouldn't) and peck other chickens eyeballs out of their haeds. It truly is revolting what happens to the chickens you carnivores place on you dinner plates. I make it a point to tell all people when they eat checiken what kind of treatment they undergo. Many times people can't eat after I'm fimished. I'm doing my part to save the humanity of chickens. Next time you go to get a tub of KFC, consider the poor poo-poo chickens. Then you won't be able to eat it and another chicken will have been saved.
I dunno. Words. They're just fun. It's mindless crapflooding. I figure some people might have damaged their copy of /usr/share/dict/words
If so, they need a new one. I would be more than happy to provide it.
For example, I have no conceptual problem with restricting some traditional fair-use rights when it comes to renting movies. I don't think a renter needs the ability to copy the movie for either time-shifting or back-up purposes. Congress started with that basic thought, and ended up with section K of the DMCA that required copy protection on all new VCR's (CopyGuard/MacroVision). The problem is that the movie industry promptly screwed the consumer!
* They put copy protection on all tapes (and DVDs), not just ones for rental.
* The copy protection removes fair-use (that I think) should still be available in a rental situation: such as "quoting" a section of a movie for review or analysis.
* The copy protection does not expire once the movie becomes public domain, an issue that will cause our future historians fits!
Most the DRM systems I've seen proposed eliminate most of the rights/benefits consumers (and society) normally have under traditional copyright law. If the DRM clauses were put into a "shrinkwrap" contract, they would be ruled unenforceable (for example the courts quashed the publishers attempt to enforce a "do not resell" notice in a book). A DRM system combined with the DMCA anti-circumvention measures puts the consumer at the mercy of the system designer. Your only option is to not buy it, which may mean going without since the publishers/recording-industry are going to be loathe to make any non-DRM content available.
Ignoring all the practical issues with the SSSCA for a moment (and there are a bunch!), the only way the bill should proceed is if it guarantees that no DRM will hamper or eliminate rights in the copyright balance. I'm not talking about Disney's definition of fair-use either (which as best I can tell, is something to the effect that Disney can use public-domain material, but does not have to release any of it's own work into the public domain). To take my rental example, the DRM would have to find some way to accommodate all three bullets (not an easy thing to do).
To be fair, another slant on this is the definition of new "relationships". We can now think of two normal methods of obtaining a movie for example: "purchase" and "rental". The DRM proponents are trying to make new workable models. The original idea behind DIVX went something like this: Electricity used to be charged based on capacity. Edison would count the number of lights in your house, and set the monthly charge based on the potential capacity of how much electricity you might use. Once they designed a power meter (a very tricky area, even now), they could dramatically lower the prices and only charge you for the electricity that you used. DIVX would allow a very low charge per use (planned to be lower than a traditional rental charge), instead of a one-size-fits-all purchase price.
The DIVX problems make a good illustration for almost all the DRM schemes I've seen. I never heard of DIVX being cracked. Secure client software backed up with a centrally managed server can make things pretty bullet proof (up to the point it converts to something outside of the DRM scheme). But security aside, DIVX had a whole host of problems, which frankly I don't know of a way to get past. Aside: I've considered job offers at today's DRM companies, but many of them are just too sleazy. The typical attitude is that public domain and fair-use is unimportant - the copyright holders content needs to be protected at all costs!
* The most obvious issue, is that once the central DIVX system died, all the media became useless. This is the single largest issue with DRM.
* The discs were too machine specific (they did have some theoretical "sharing pool" for people who had multiple DIVX players, which I'm not sure how well it worked). Even if you paid for a life-time access (see above), you could not play the disc on your neighbor's machine.
* There was a large potential for "marketing abuse", since they had to identify each item played on the machine (they would know who played what media, how many times, etc.). Your only protection was voluntary agreement that the data collected would not be misused.
* You are at the mercy of the DIVX operations staff. They could change the price or terms-of-use any time they wanted to.
As to the practicalities of the SSSCA, I think the closest analog the computer industry has experienced is export regulations. I [unfortunately] have lots of experience of just how bad that can be! I worked for a company that used encryption in virtually all of it's products. We once estimated that approximately 20% of the company's resources were used to deal-with, design, and follow export regulations. Of a hundred employees, "only" 3-4 actually dealt with the regulations daily, but virtually the entire design team had to take them into account. What should have been a single product would be split into multiple products to fit the ever changing interpretations of the regulations (resulting in a dramatic increase in development, testing, manufacturing, and marketing). Believe me, very few people in or out of the industry have any idea of how bad the SSSCA would clog our technology industry up!
It is a world in which the craziest ideas of the rich get a lot of attention. If computers are controlled, there will be kits to build uncontrolled ones from ICs. People will bring in uncontrolled computers across the border. Old, uncontrolled computers, of which there are many tens of millions, will go up in value. People will network their old computers to their new computers, so that they can bypass control.
Personal computers have been one of the best things to come along in many years, and rich people want to destroy the growth.
This idea has the same sensibility as the U.S. government trying to outlaw privacy by trying to outlaw encryption.
The craziness is not limited to issues surrounding copyright. The U.S. government engages in violence to enhance the profits of the weapons manufacturers and oil companies. See What should be the response to violence?
Bush's education improvements were
but the above comment is absolutely wrong
----
i do not use drugs, i AM drugs -- Dali
This SSSCA is laying the infrastructure for mass control, not only of software, but also expression.
I can forsee that the SSSCA will be applied so that ISPs are forbidden from accepting connections from non-'trusted' client computers.
'Trusted' computers would contain hardware-based digital certificates, so it would be easy for the ISP to determine if an open-source computer is trying to connect.
That's Linux gone in one fell swoop.
Next, the SSSCA will wipe out all independent software developers - 'trusted' OSs simply won't run software that doesn't have a digital license.
Digital licenses will only be available to approved companies, after passing a thorough security examination, and paying a fortune.
On trusted computers, programming tools will only be available to security-certified corporations. Any software written will have to pass an expensive security audit at source-level before being granted a release certificate (which would allow it to run on other people's PCs).
Media creation tools, such as desktop publishers, audio/video editors etc will produce secure media files that will only be able to play on the computer on which they were created - or, for an extra license fee, up to 5 other designated computers. Licenses to create media for mass distribution will cost a mint, and require security clearance.
Websites are next. Web browsers will only be able to access certified websites. Webmaster security certification will cost a fortune.
Email too - email clients will vet outgoing email messages through an 'Intellectual Property Clearance Server', which will scan the message's text against a huge database of copyrighted texts. So if an email contains more than a few words that happen to appear in the IP database, it won't get sent. The 'IP Clearance Servers' will also scan for phrases which are too controversial.
This is WAR, folks!!!!!
The most significant event in US history since the Declaration of Independence and the Civil War.
Time for everyone to kick up the biggest fuss the country has ever seen.
Or else!
"He loved Big Brother"
-- last words of '1984' by George Orwell
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
This is typically American, Eisner and Chernin both want copy protection. They just want Intel and Microsoft to pay for it.
(besides my two front teeth) is... a hardware RAID5 SCSI board, some 10K rpm U-160 SCSI disks, and rather more really fast DDR RAM.
I won't ever buy any of that crippled crap they're thinking they'll push on the market. I'll use what works, and they'll have to pry my system from my cold, dead hands before I'll ever install any DRM hardware. Let 'em come and try to take it away! I'll shoot 'em coming in the door!
AOL-TW, Vivendi Universal, Bertelsmann, Disney/ABC, and all those MPAA and RIAA pimps and their whore lawyers can kiss my ass!
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2002 00:41:38 -0800
From: Phil Karn
To: zittrain@law.harvard.edu
Subject: Your NYT editorial
Reply-to: karn@ka9q.net
Jonathan,
I was very interested to read your editorial on the SSSCA in the New
York Times. I strongly oppose the SSSCA, so I certainly agree with
your points about how much useful innovation has come from the
openness of the personal computer.
But I think you severely damage your own argument with statements like
this:
Users may buy a trusted PC even if it won't show a digital video lent
by a friend, because it will act less like a temperamental computer
and more like a crash-free super-VCR ?
There is absolutely no reason to believe that a "closed" PC
architecture would be any more reliable than an open one. Indeed,
there is plenty of evidence for exactly the opposite. If openness
implies unreliability, then why is Linux so stable while Windows
constantly crashes? Why is Linux so rarely affected by worms and
viruses while many thousands of Windows machines are still trying to
propagate countless variations of the Code Red email worm?
By tempting consumers frustrated with unreliable Microsoft software
with the false promise of "reliability", you are playing right into
the hands of those who promote the SSSCA.
Regards,
Phil Karn
Its a warning to USA, you guys will not know how to or be allowed anything in 2010. ASia will be the new FREE WORLD, while USA will be like Hitlers dream dictatorship with crappy rules/laws to benefit only the few corporates ( note all corporates are basicly dictatorships without borders, ie CEOs etc.. are not VOTED in by the 'citizens' sorry , i mean under payed SLAVES )
Taking the bill to it's "logical conclusion" as you call it would be commiting a logical fallacy, invalidating any argument that you have against it. All you have done is set up a "straw man" that anyone can knock down.
I mean... if we are going to use fallacious arguments, there are better ones to use.
Ad Hominem - Jack Valenti is ugly, therefore this bill sucks.
Dicto Simpliciter - Laws that restrict our freedom are *usually* bad. This bill will restrict our freedom, therefore it is bad.
How about we try some logically valid arguments against the bill as it currently stands. That would hold more weight. I'm just glad that you didn't misuse "begging the question". That one's a pet peeve of mine.
one of my favorite sites about logical fallacies is The Fallacy Files
Here's from the article:
> Can technologists figure out how to replicate the reliability of airplanes, telephones, watches and televisions in future versions of Windows and Linux, so that a mischievous 12-year-old half a world away can't erase a thousand far-flung hard drives?
This is a good question, but the problem is he doesn't understand the complexity of computer systems is greater than appliances.
> Absolutely. In January Bill Gates sent a memo to all Microsoft employees declaring a new, overarching, even revolutionary mandate: Software must be reliable and "trustworthy."
The fact he takes the memo seriously is a significant point against his competance in technology issues. It's impossible for that many programmers to get it right regardless of how many billions they can throw at the problem.
>This new focus is both welcome and worrisome, because the very steps needed to secure our computers and networks can be the steps that will deaden them to continued innovation and creative uses -- while opening them to more intrusive monitoring by mainstream technology manufacturers and content providers.
This goes completely against the standard microsoft principal of eliminating innovation and creativity while decreasing security and increasing intrusive monitoring and advertising.
Don't believe me? Try installing windows XP and count how many times it wants you to sign up for a passport to hell. Try using XP for a day and see how many ads for microsoft services you find in the system.
> Mr. Gates and the co-captains of his industry are producing blueprints for so-called "trusted" PC's. They will employ digital gatekeepers that act like the bouncers outside a nightclub, ensuring that only software that looks or behaves a certain way is allowed in. > The result will be more reliable computing -- and more control over the machine by the manufacturer or operating system maker, which essentially gives the bouncer her guest list.
Sure, I guess these are the same reliable certificates of trust that some hacker got issued in microsoft's name?
> And as soon as there are limits on the software a PC can run, there will be limits on what PC users can do. That's exactly what executives like Mr. Eisner and Mr. Chernin want. They'd like software and hardware companies to build PC's to allow a publisher an exquisite level of control over a book or a song or a movie in the hands of a consumer.
This contravenes copyright laws in every western nation, basically they argue that a DVD is a software program not a recording.
Just because a DVD has weak regional encoding and wimpy content encryption does not make the recording a software product.
By this logic, I could record a radio station, encode it as an MP3 and call the MP3 a free software file under the GPL. I don't think they could argue for royalties on public domain information.
> Trusted PC users might spend $1.95 for a single viewing of the latest Disney animated feature, or a single viewing of the latest Disney animated feature, or they might pay a similar amount for three listens of U2's most recent single. Security, stability, reliability -- and control.
Why would pay per view work as well on computers as on TV? You don't get security, stability or reliability on a computer like a TV.
> Users may buy a trusted PC even if it won't show a digital video lent by a friend, because it will act less like a temperamental computer and more like a crash-free super-VCR -- like the just-released Microsoft X-box.
Trust & microsoft in the same sentance? What planet is he on anyway? Will he ever visit earth?
> But in the process of "improving" our PC's, the manufacturers and their partners will be able to determine what software will and won't be allowed to run, what we can and can't do with the information to which we're exposed, and what data about our online activities will be collected and sent to the manufacturer or content provider to assist in future marketing.
This is called "Windows", you can't run Java on XP unless you get an older JVM on XP. Passport is now tied into Windows and the product activation sequence sends off everything it knows about you.
(It would tell Microsoft marketing what color underwear you're wearing if it could.)
> Apart from manufacturers' desire not to define the uses of a PC too narrowly, the public interest in flexible computer platforms and open data exchange remains almost entirely absent from this debate.
In other words, nobody has heard about BSD or Linux commitments to free, flexible and open data. Send a fax or email to your local politician with reasons in favor of flexible systems.
> Disney and its cohort are free to view PC's as delivery systems for Mickey Mouse and friends -- and to make their content available through broadband. But it's an entirely different matter to re-engineer the PC so it becomes simply another appliance.
Not really, Sony has the evilla internet appliance. It's nothing to retrofit existing or even obsolete technology like Be OS for content control.
> The PC platform and the Internet to which it connects is the engine of the information revolution -- as important to our economy and culture as all the movies in Hollywood.
Actually, it's more important. Computer games alone make more than Hollywood does. Microsoft is the best example of how much money can be made from mediocre software.
> A shift from open platforms to closed appliances may be inevitable, as our consumerist desire for trustworthy PC's dovetails with information providers' obsession with control. But we should beware the haste with which some would sacrifice flexibility for control. If we can't at least temper this taming of the chaotic PC, the victims will be competition, innovation and consumer freedom.
It happened when Windows 95 was released, netscape, Be, AOL, Apple, Sun, Oracle are all victims of an anti-competitive monopoly which is hostile to any innovation and cusumer choice.
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
First, let me state that I do NOT agree with this bill or any restictive legislation like it. BUT, what would happen if it did pass? I see something akin to prohabition. Restrictive bill gets passed. Restrictive bill is repealed. Noone brings it up again. Roe vs Wade is an almost similar case. The bill's that never get passed never seem to go away.
Not that I can hack or mod or even as this bill would imply, CRACK, but I would if I could just for the sake of it. So they block the internet to 'unsafe' computers. Does that mean pirate net wouldn't happen. I figure that once the MPAA and RIAA see that the technology is as hard to control as the people they'll give up. This about who ended up running the show after prohabition. The son of a boot-legger. (JFK) We might actually need this BS to pass so we can all point our collective fingers at Hollywood and laugh at their failures. You never know, we might end up with a leader who knows what a boot-loader is.
Someone hates these cans.
If all distribution of content will be done over the internet in the future will anyone be able to release DRM protected content and be able to demand payment?
If so then couldn't each individual artist release their own music without the need for anyone to print CD's for them. Distribution becomes cheap and easy and the need for publishers disolves.
Perhaps Big Media knows this and is trying to use legislation to make as much money now while it still can. Why should anyone write music so a publisher can take 90% of the profit when you can release it yourself?
You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
Actually you did a better Jew Hating Troll from that Mein Kampf chapter, it looks better when it' s not all bold text on a simple hate subject.
Although I disagree with racism, I would agree that the isreali jews are the troublemakers.
(one of my classmates was a israeli commando, he believes isreal is a racist state now.)
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
The patriots are alive and well and their trying to control the flow/distribution of data from Arsenal Gear!
298UGH3892HOEWIGH98H2UIEWHG89HGEE
298UH3G92H392RSIDHGHU98UWHEFE9239
23HFUSHHFHOIWE90G9UGHUIHG98UFQOIE
UI2OHG290239URJJHSUIHGEUIHG90EUFH
----
Can't read the above? That's because your SSSCA-compliant computer refuses to decode my SSSCA-compliant message, because you haven't paid Microsoft $1,000,000 for the right to legally decode messages sent to you by your constituents. That you got the above at all was only because I paid Microsoft $10,000 for a license to send messages to Congress.
----
Of course, the above hasn't happened yet. But it will, if the SSSCA passes. Because the SSSCA will give COMPLETE and ABSOLUTE control over what you are allowed to do and not do to only those corporations that are given the privilege to write the operating system and other software for SSSCA-compliant computers.
Some in Congress might actually regard it as a good thing that constituents are no longer able to communicate with Congress, especially by computer. If you are one of those, then I will make it my mission in life to make sure that you never get elected to any public office ever again.
Thank you for your time.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
All you need is the GIMP to make your favorite popstar go nude.
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
Except that you could code an alternative os on top of just about every software with the microsoft's infamous macro languages (which won't ever get removed even from most obsolete places no matter how draconian laws there will be) and pass any messages you wish using simple steganography.
end of story, please stop writing about it. it's NOT going to happen.
In Australia, we have an old saying for a situation like this... Dont steal, the government hates the competition
By the looks of this bill, the music and movie industry in the states wants to apply our saying to their own means. It's a a pretty basic bill really... "we're right, you're wrong, give us all your money and we wont put you in jail for being a scum-sucking thief who wont give us money".
All I can really see is the computer industry going to hell and taking the rest of the world economy with it. If this law comes to pass, I will not want to buy something from the states because it's cheaper anymore, why should it... all of a sudden, I cant use my computer do make my own music CD's, I wont be able to back up my original software media. I wont even be able to back it up to the hard drive. Hell, the way I read this law, I wont even be able to backup my hard drive in case of a computer crash
Considering that there are a lot more people outside of the states who would have brought hardware from the states because it is dirt cheap than there is in the states. I really dont see the hardware manufacturers bending over to get shafted because of this law. Why make two identical products (one with the SSSCA crap in it) when you only have to make one and not sell it to the US.
I think that it will be cheaper for them to move offshore and stop dealing with the draconian laws of the USA than it will be for them to stay in the states and suddenly have to build a separate manufacturing line to build their products for internal US use. Why should they, they have already spent billions on the current crop of production plants that are working just fine.
How do you think that the defence department is going to react when they develop a custom, top secret, piece of software for their network and they have to submit it to the SSSCA inspectors just to make sure that it conforms to the standard...
I really dont think so...
So is the US government going to really welcome something like this that stops them from being able to innovate and develop their little programs. Ohh I forgot, they wrote the law... so I guess that means that their hardware will be exempt from the law. Ahhhh, it's good to be the king (to quote Mel Brookes, History of the World Part 1)
and now we are back to that old saying in Australia... Dont steal, The government doesnt like the competition (and neither does the MPAA and the RIAA)
This is my view of the SSSCA and it's effects on the rest of the world, it is meant to be a semi-humourous view and should be taken as such. Flame me if you want, but just consider the point of view from outside the cube. If you dont like the implied repercussions, write to your local representative and get them to check out anything that disturbs you.
*** I had a
Ah, but I never moderated. Not even once. But I'd like to have the option.
Keep reading, post occasionally with grace and wit, and you'll get your turn to moderate.
I do my best to avoid politics and stay focused on technology. This issue just gets me fired up. What these greedy people are proposing is anti-constitutional. It is more than a simple minded attack on the 1st amendment. It is trying to force censorship into our personal belongings and all to appease a dying industry. Artists just neeed to find a new model for releasing their work. Just like those who created GPL or OSDN etc.. Linus didn't charge anything and he seems to be doing alright. When your the best money takes care of itself. This proposal is, at best, temp help for losers and a gross infringment on everybody's rights. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!
Hmm. I'm clueless about what you're trying to express.
To do what? Register your concerns with their office staff? /. type of interface might be a good choice for writing public bills to submit to congress and senate...you know the song from school house rocks...I'm just a Bill ;) /. type of interface for moderating
/.ers. They've all got so much to say, some of it even intelligent ;)
I'm beginning to think that a
imagine a
*feasibility
*cost (how to finance law)
*repercussions
*forces
*punishment (no punishment= no teeth in law)
*specify agency for enforcement (no jaw for the teeth, see above)
This is about YRO, why not a bill builder for
Put it to use.
DGD
Anyway, it shouldn't be that important - it's not as if you couldn't express your own thoughts...
Kiwaiti
Member of the Legion Of Microsoft Haters
In our Republic, things like the SSCA should be a no-brainer. Like knowing to wear coat when it's cold outside.
I feel like I've been forwarding the issues of freedom forever to a brick wall. Some people just don't get it. The people who value freedom in this country are a solid minority. Like terrans suddenly discovering that they are aliens on their own planet. The louder we scream, the more fringelike we seem to the simpletons.
Look at the people around you. How often have people looked you in the eye and said "But why is privacy so important?"
Human beings deserve no less, that's why. Keep your filthy hands off my life. Molest my liberty no more.
...the rest of the world should also be allowed to vote in the US elections.
What's decided here has a huge impact for the rest of the world. If this gets through, MS and Intel (and other US based companies) will have to enforce it, and that hardware/software gets pushed to the rest of the world. Thus the rest of the world will have to take up DRM too, all because one nation decided it should be so.
Ok,
So if this levy is there to compensate the recording industry for piracy, will it still be in their interests to continue to persue piracy, and moreso, would any revenues created from sueing pirates then go back to the owners of these devices in the form of a tax rebate? Or, more specifically, since society is picking up the bill for piracy, it would presumably be the obligation of the government to stop piracy with the intention of cutting this levy.
It sounds like what the media companies really want are network computers or set top boxes, as defined over the last couple of years.
They *aren't* ubiquitous, despite being available more cheaply than PCs and offering more manageability and lower costs to corporations. This says to me *the public don't want it*.
The media companies want to limit access to their content? What's to stop them using the network computers that already exist and simply limit their content to those platforms? It could be done *right now* without the need for legislation.
Deleted
From article: "Users may buy a trusted PC even if it won't show a digital video lent by a friend, because it will act less like a temperamental computer and more like a crash-free super-VCR." How long would it be before someone produced an equally stable computer that could show copied DV? Not long. In fact, I'm probably using one now.
As a transplanted Vermonter of 20+ years, I think you should place the blame properly, and not with Jim Jeffords.
Blame instead the Religious Right, who have been transforming the Rupublican Party into something Jeffords no longer could reconcile with his conservative-centrist views. I'm an Independent, have never registered with any party, and never will. I vote for whomever I think/feel will do the best job, regardless of party affiliations. That includes Jim Jeffords.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Seriously, no kidding. The pornographers have cracked the problem. They know how to make money out of the Internet where content can be copied perfectly.
Copy their business model.
Deleted
Here is an article over at my site that may be a bit alarmist and done with the worst case scenario in mind. http://music.tinfoil.net.
end plug
tinfoilmedia
Hope my lawyering background doesn't bias me here, but I thought he did all right for a lawyer.
Too much time on the freedom vs. reliability thing.
Sure, making reliable machines means curtailing freedom, but not the freedoms he thinks. It means curtailing the freedom of developers to do bad things in the code they write, not curtailing their freedom to deliver capabilities to the consumer.
What he missed altogether was the potential for reduced reliability as the result of systems designed to keep you from doing things. As with all things done by mere humans, there will be bugs, there will be shortcuts, there will be...oh, you get the idea.
The end result will be things that don't work that would work in the absence of controls.
OTOH: He is bang-on about letting the market decide and bang-on about the ultimate loss of utility that comes with content providers' desire to clamp down on PCs.
This sounds futuristic but if the SSSCA passes, then this would cripple the PC as we know it. And
would end free speech on the internet. This would
also cause people who believe in free speech to rise up revolt. Why the hell do I have a digital camera or image scanner? I use WinTV theatre and Linux to create home movies, I don't care about
f&#kin& mainstream movies. Mickey Mouse can kiss my a$$.
There's a few paths to follow. First to expose the money trail that links the senetors pockets to the MPAA, try to educate the dumb a$$ people
o why this is wrong, wage protexts until these
senators who march to thier own drummer are ripped out office, put our people there, and get the SSSCA legislation revoked.
OR...
Boycott all crippled hardware. bombard congress and the senate with mail, email and faxes.
Boycott all movies, music, etc.
What i've never understood is, if the RIAA or MPAA folks don't want people to make copies of digital works, why do they keep releasing digital works? If there's no CD available, then i can't copy it.
Piracy is a social problem, not a technical one, yet the recording industry keeps insisting on technical solutions. They released products into the market place which people realised they could use in new and interesting ways which hadn't occurred to the industry folks. So now the RIAA is stomping around shouting, "Wait! Wait! That's not what I meant!" Well, that doesn't mean we need to legislate the rights of the consumer. It means the recording industry should be smarter next time.
You shouldn't get federal legal protection for making stupid business decisions, you should get the opportunity to learn from your mistakes. It seems like we're going about this whole problem bass-ackward.
big brother^H^H^H^H^H^H^H mickey is watching you
in the year i've been using it, every day 10+ hours a day (i'm a developer), i've never crashed Win2k. i rarely ever crashed WinNT, in the years i used it, too.
Windows is far more stable than any Gnome or KDE installation i've ever used; plus it's more coherent, cohesive, comprehensive and easier to use. i'm not fan of the way MS does business, but they have a far superior (desktop) product than anything available for Linux.
get your head out of the sand.
-c
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
You are a total dumbass. I lost my ability to moderate NOT BECAUSE OF META MODERATION.
600 people lost their ability to moderate because they modded the great Slashdot troll investigation as interesting. (It was!).
Admin can, and HAVE taken away people's ability to moderate on whims many many times.. WITHOUT META MODERATION EVER HAPPENING.
I love the line in the article "It makes no sense to let a mouse, even one with deep pockets, run the zoo."
We live in a time where the criteria for defining what should be in the public domain (and why); and making wise policy, which benefits the greatest number over the long term; have never been in such flux or so important.
Y'know, we could stop coporations from suggesting these laws and requests to the US congress. Just don't buy their products. Don't go to their amusement parks. Don't watch their multimedia.
Make it corporate suicide and a social embaressment to suggest laws like these. Then it will stop.
Even if you don't dodge all the satelite companies and affiliates, it still makes an impact.
This SSSCA is certainly legislatable, but hardly enforceable. Ya can't stop people from owning compilers. The US IT economy would stifle itself so fast that foreign heads would spin, no other country would enact similar legislation, and the US IT infrastructure would collapse. That's IFF they actually tried to enforce such legislation.
I do not fear this legislation. Part of me hopes the bozos actually pass it and enforce it, even though it would make me a criminal, just for the sheer fun of watching all the resultant confusion build up as various deadlines approach.
I gather one of the goals for terrorists from Timothy McVeigh to al Qaeda is to sow so much confusion that the target system gets more and more restrictive and finally collapses from within. Sort of like carrying any argument to the extreme just to show how ridiculous it is. This SSSCA is just the ticket to make a mockery of all intellectual property.
Infuriate left and right
Karma -8 (mostly the sum of moderation done to users comments)
usrsharedictwords has posted 5 comments.
damn, that was fast
Hell, just look at this site. Just yesterday Malda plugged some new shiny object from Sony (a MPAA & RIAA member). All the slashbots who yell "boycott" fawned all over it.
I am officially gone from
In his "proposal" the *AA members would get the money, not the artists.
Note to the reading comprehension challenged: Remember, he was making an Ad Absurdum argument.
critters, the totally amused contempt in which
anywone whose ever heard of a Turing machine holds
for them? Is there any way to get across to them
that if it can't copy and transform information
in any possible way then it isn't a computer?
You'd think that anyone who trades in credibility would run from such idiocy like
a cat from water.
The reality is very plainly and simply that
the universe isn't built the way the entertainment
industry would like. Their "product" is ephemeral
and insignificant in the economics of time-space-matter-and-energy. Trying to make computers enforce copyright is identical to trying to build a machine to make Pi = e = 3. Sorry, but the Truth is that God doesn't believe in copyright.
I wrote about this
last September, and again a couple of weeks ago.
"Finally," indeed!
Hiawatha Bray
Tech Reporter
Boston Globe
thats what you get for using IE, mozilla doens't suffer from page widening problems.
The media industry has in effect neutered our availablility to information. Why were we attacked on September 11th? Can anyone say anything other than they were a bunch of savages from caves?
I believe, because the media industry has been so wound up in who is giving who blowjobs, news stories told in 40 words or less, and flat out not telling us about potential problems rising outside our culture and country - they are literally destroying the United States.
Now that they have destroyed effective government in the US, they now are working on the resources the citizenry have to freely communicate with each other after all, it is communications they make their money on.
Hopefully they will not have driven the technology business outside of the United States before I retire, but I fear that they will. Where once I was an innovator, they have now branded me a criminal merely by the programs I have created.
Already tobacco is being smuggled between states because of high taxes. It is certain that tech will become a smuggler's boon and little Johnny will go to jail for possession of a MP3 player.
To all the people who wrote there representitives, and told other people about this bill, Thank you.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Users may buy a trusted PC even if it won't show a digital video lent by a friend, because it will act less like a temperamental computer and more like a crash-free super-VCR
Saying that copy protecting my computer will make it more reliable is like saying that putting copy protection in my car's CD player will improve my gas mileage.
Thank God for this guy, but I wonder if he still has a job at Intel...
Chris
Once all this goes into effect, I'll use my computer until it dies. Then I'll become a farmer and forget about the digital world.
Software currently isn't considered as part of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product). But any legislator who doubts the link between the health of the tech-industry and the general welfare of the economy at large need only examine the .com collapse. Stiffling innovation in the nascent stages of the Internet has disastrous consequences, for both tech and non-tech companies. Irregardless of the design philosophy of the internet (open community), in strictly economic terms, the SSSCA is a bad idea.
Bureaucracies move slowly. The DMCA came into being in 1998 I think, and only now is Europe looking into their own version. The proposed SSSCA has an 18 month waiting period, I think. It would probably take another year or two for the government agency to propose rules if industry doesn't. Then there will be court fights. Meanwhile, the ugly truth will gradually leak to the mainstream press, and the hideous implications come to light. I doubt the implications would be ignored at that point. Instead, the damned law will be repealed and some sanity restored, and Hollywood will be exposed like the fools they are, just as they were for not liking reel-to-reel, cassettes, VCRs, etc. And I see this as the last of those battles -- any new copying technology from now on will be computer based, and tough bananas for Hollywood.
It will be an interesting few years. I would not be surprised if Hollywood wakes up at some point and waters down the SSSCA just because they too will begin to see the collapse of IP if they push it to the max.
Infuriate left and right
Had an article today about taming the consumer
h tml
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/11/opinion/11ZITT.
It talks about taking control away from the users. It also mentions Microsofts "trusted" PCs. The author seems to think mainstream userse will gladly buy a computer with limited capability if its easier to use and less likely to crash (more like a vcr, gaming system, etc.)
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
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I have many points in my comment, if you lack the ability to concentrate on reading a single page, you're dumb.
Actually he is opening up to more control if you read his article carefully.
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
1.the sssca bars connection to unsecure computers.
2.non american computers,hubs,routers,servers are
non secure computers.
3.all usa computers must not connect to foreign networks.
result: no internet
well duh. who asked to shave em?
Mozilla: the OFFICIAL BROWSER of SLASHDOT TROLLS!
Wow, I'm writing this on a 400mHz PII. I thought my computer was obsolete, but as soon as this law goes into effect and CD-ROM drives are crippled with regard to ripping, my non-crippled machine will be worth a lot for its content-manipulable hardware. Maybe I'll keep it around a bit longer.
.doc files.
What we need to do is copy as much stuff as we can now to hard disks, before we can do so no longer. Even if they can keep me from transferring a CD to disk, they can't control the circulation of MP3s on the Internet through hardware restrictions. I'll just rename all my MP3s to
"Aren't you going to get into costume?"
"I never get out of it."
-- Tom Stoppard (R&G Are Dead)