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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.
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.
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)
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!"
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
I mean, we have a situation where it is possible to make copies, one as perfect as the first, no degradation of quality, for almost no cost at all.
How can this be negative? I mean, it should be the best thing since sliced bread! It is absolutely astonishing that technology has progressed this far, it was unthinkable just a few years ago.
This fact that there is no scarcity makes it possible to share everything at no cost. For the first time in history can we share everything we make with everyone.
Ok, so what's the problem? The problem is that people can't envision a viable business model in this kind of society. Especially not the suits. Without a business model, how do you make sure that the creative people can go on being creative?
Ok, so this is the problem. However, enforcing scarcity is just a Wrong Solution[tm]. It is means destroying the most fundamental technological advance that the world has seen in a very long time. You shouldn't do that.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
It's interesting that you mention that DIVX was never hacked. The nearest experience I've had with a similar system is with digital satellite systems, and these have been thoroughly hacked. In fact it's likely that the hackers understand the system nearly as well as it's designers. For those of who don't have one, they work like this: there is a plastic card in inserted in your receiver that has an custom embedded microprocessor that keeps track of what tiers of channels you're allowed to watch and also decrypts the data stream using keys tied to your receiver as well as continually changing ones in the stream. Hackers quickly learned how to glitch these cards and rewrite the data on them. The satellite companies, however, can reprogram the cards as well as the receiver's eeproms through the data stream, potentially destroying them. It's a constant arms race between the hackers and the companies, with the hackers countering the security updates and in turn being countered by new ones within a few months.
Yet despite the fact that the system has been utterly hacked, I would guess that no more than 5% of the viewers are using hacked cards. Why? Mostly because the effort and knowledge required to keep a hacked system going is sufficient that only the dedicated hobbyists will make the effort.
I guess the moral here is that while any secure system can be cracked, it's really only necessary to make the process difficult enough that the average person won't tolerate it to make the system effectively secure.
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
Here, have a .sig:
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
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
One thing I just realized is that the SSSCA is raising way too many questions. Just look through all the recent Slashdot comments about it for proof. A piece of legislation that has such a high ratio of questions to answers is obviously not good.
The market is just not ready for SSSCA.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
After reading the article for the fourth time, I have come to the conclusion that this Harvard Expert must be one of the many Business orientated technophobes that litter the technology community by virtue of their appointment to some board or company due to their business expertise. His article makes little sense when he goes and compares the operating system of a computer to the hardware of a refrigerator. Its not a fare comparison, akin to that of apples to oranges. Since I am not a console gamer(Never owned one, never will.. Not till that PS9{the brain spore one} comes out:P) I cant claim the reliability of a console to a PC, except on the rare occasion of watching a peer in the heat of the action just to be caught by a bug in a game. (thats not to say that never happened to me in a PC Game...)
Aaanyway.. It just seems to me that this content lockdown, wether the author is for or against it, is in general a bad idea, not for the PC manufacturer, but more for the content creator. Since the begining of the computer age home brew systems have existed, and if this comes into being, that community will see a resurgence in popularity (not that it never died). I forsee, in the event of this highly unlikely situation, that systems designed from currently available "legacy" hardware using "alternative" operating systems will become common place, to a level equal to, if not superior to the major PC manufacturers of today. Maybe I'm Right, maybe I'm wrong, but I predict that if this does happen, not only will content creation companies lose cash buy the truck load from all their lobbying, they will lose support from the all important consumer because I know I am not the only one who sees this as an infringment on the basic freedoms of a United States Citizen. It can not be a proactive activity to choke out software and media development and place it in the hands of the few mighty.
This post seems to be rambling on, so I will sum it up in one clean sentence: If this happens, The world will never be the same again!
I'm a little tea pot.