Broad Bills to Protect 'Communications Services'

mttlg writes "According to Freedom to Tinker, MA, TX, SC, FL, GA, AK, TN, and CO have introduced similar bills that would make it illegal to possess, use, etc. "any communication device to receive ... any communication service without the express consent or express authorization of the communication service provider" or "to conceal ... from any communication service provider ... the existence or place of origin or destination of any communication." (Additional legalese removed for the sake of brevity.) This would seem to outlaw NAT, VPNs, and many other security measures. In other words, don't secure your communications, just sue if you don't like who receives them." The bills define 'communication service' as just about any sort of telecom service that is provided for a charge or fee. In effect, they would extend the already-extant laws relating to theft of cable TV services to any telecom service. For example, if your ISP charges per computer connected, using a router/NAT device would be illegal if these became law.

Comments

Read these *drafts* more carefully

[Gudlyf]

The key words in these draft bills is that these are in regards to the user acting "with intent to defraud" and is written to imply that it is the use of technologies "to defraud" that is the crime, not simple possesion. The bigger risk is that this bill could be used to tack on additional charges to some other crime (e.g. if you submitted a fraudulent tax return via an encrypted channel). Unfortunately, some cable vendors have very restrictive usage agreements so it may be quite easy find yourself technially guilty of "fraud".

Re:Read these *drafts* more carefully

[Happy go Lucky]

The key words in these draft bills is that these are in regards to the user acting "with intent to defraud" and is written to imply that it is the use of technologies "to defraud" that is the crime, not simple possesion.

Not in the Colorado bill. In ours, "A person commits a violation under this section if he knowingly [commits a prohibited act, which would take me about ten pages to transcribe and does appear to include the operation of an otherwise legal VPN or IP-masq firewall.]

Colorado residents: This late in the session, it shouldn't be too hard to make sure this thing dies. Call your state rep and senator (it's been introduced in both houses: you can get the numbers through www.vote-smart.org if you know your own ZIP code.)

Right now, it's in the State House Information and Technology Committee, and the (god only knows why) Senate Veterans and Military Affairs Committee. You can gripe to their chairmen, Rep. Shawn Mitchell at 303-866-4667 and Senator Doug Lamborn at 303-866-4835. Sen. Lamborn is the bill's Senate sponsor, so I don't know how much good that particular phone call will do.

Re:Read these *drafts* more carefully

[rizzo420]

the problem with your argument is that your ISP does not have any revenue from you if you use VoIP from someone else. if you steal VoIP from your ISP, then you are both harming and defrauding them.

using too much bandwidth is not defrauding anyone, in fact, unless you are specifically altering hardware to "get more bandwidth" or stealing a connection from the ISP, you aren't doing anything wrong. they provide you with the internet connection, it's their decision as to how they limit your use (some ISP's block P2P connections). if they want to shutdown your service after you transfer "too much" information to or from the internet, they can, but it should be written in the terms of service.

running a NAT box or router so more than one computer can connect is not a violation unless it is specifically stated that your connection is only for one computer and you must pay for each additional computer connected. if, and only if, your ToS says that, then yes, you are defrauding or "harming" your ISP.

as for changing the ToS, i have never seen it change drastically without them notifying you. usually a change is something small like the way they word something.

and a final comment. when getting broadband, i had the option of going with SBC DSL or with AT&T cable (which is now comcast). we got DSL because AT&T said you could not run servers using your connection (servers being ftp, http, telnet, ssh, whatever, probably includes P2P applications as well). i didn't like that, so i went with SBC even though the upstream sucks. so read the ToS before you sign up for anything anyways. but if i had AT&T, and tried to run my ftp server or "share my bandwidth" with others (since that's what they called running a server, i would be "harming" them. the bill gives more legal rights to teh telecommunications companies, but i don't see any questions as to what harm means. i think in this sense it's meant almost the same way as defraud.

Massachusetts

[ravi_n]

According to this the MA proposed super-DMCA bill has been referred to the committee on criminal justice and there is a public hearing scheduled on April 2. Doesn't sound dead to me (as one other poster claimed).

Does anyone know how people can get into that meeting and testify? I'd hope some quick grass-roots opposition could kill this.