SSSCA Introduced in Senate

Peter BG Shoemaker writes: "Wired is reporting that Hollings has officially submitted his newly renamed SSSCA, carrying the moniker Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA). It carries all the provisions we've been worrying about...there is a new battlefield folks..." Newsbytes has another story. Reuters has a story about News Corporation and Disney lobbying in support of the bill. I haven't seen the exact text of the bill as introduced; it will probably be in Thomas tomorrow. Update: 03/22 00:12 GMT by M : Declan McCullagh has collected several documents pertaining to the SSSCA, errr, CBDTPA. He's got a faxed copy of the bill (barely legible; read it on Thomas tomorrow), plus statements from Hollings (read it!), the MPAA, the RIAA, and several lobbying groups for the tech industry, who seem less enthralled about it.

Comments

End of the electronic era

[guttentag]

The bill ... prohibits the sale of any kind of electronic device -- unless that device includes copy-protection standards to be set by the federal government.

The world laughed when I introduced my steam-powered CD-ripper, but now it will be the only game in town! I'll be rich! (insert maniacal laughter here)

Might as well outlaw science and engineering

[EccentricAnomaly]

Any computer that can do unrestricted computations can be used to break encryption and be used to copy this forbidden data. If only disfunctional computers are legal, then how can scientists or engineers do calculations with computers anymore?? A computer that can't break encryption surely won't be much use to study DNA or to calculate spacecraft trajectories.

We'll be limited to spreadsheets and graphing calculators.