Slashdot Mirror
New P2P Battle is Heating Up
Digital Dharma writes "News.com has an article about a new P2P war just getting underway in congress. With Senator Hollings retiring, the RIAA and MPAA have found suitable replacement hosts in three key members of the House of Representatives. Lamar Smith, R-Texas; Howard Berman, D-Calif; and John Conyers, D-Mich are taking up arms against P2P networks with a bizarre new bill that would require companies that create certain types of software such as web browsers, instant messaging clients and e-mail utilities to add a warning that it 'could create a security and privacy risk.' How this would deter P2P activity is a bit of a mystery. The article also talks about putting software company executives in jail for failing to correctly label said software, empowering the FBI to release anti-P2P propaganda and other typical RIAA/MPAA sponsored oddities." A network application can create a security risk? Best firewall off every port!
Whose going to buy Interent Explorer when it becomes correctly labeled. Woudl you buy an application labled as "utter shit"?
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
I believe p2p is the future. Copyright issues aside, I doubt I'm the only one that's noticed that there are some downloads that are getting extremely large. Maybe it's a game demo, a movie trailer, or a software upgrade. How often has it happened that some thing comes out like, say, a Matrix trailer or a new game mod and people swamp the main server and mirrors alike to download it? Why else would recent Slashdot articles on popular downloads be linking .torrent files?
The problem is further escalated by the fact that the ranks of broadband users are growning every day. I hear that Verizon is wanting to dump somewhere around 11 billion dollars into their network to ensure that all of their customers are able to get DSL, and they have lowered their prices across the board...You can now get 1.5 down/128 up for a flat $30/mo, similar to what SBC's been offering. With all this broadband around, popular web sites will not be able to keep up, expecially if they have downloadable goodies. The answer is distributed computing. p2p represents the infancy of the inevitibility of distributed storage, processing, and bandwidth.
I Am Currently Broadcasting An Internet IP Address!
/me shoots computer
"People are violating copyright on the internet?"
"Pass a law banning Collies and Yorkshire Terriers from public areas!"
Stupid gits.
We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
Web browsers, instant messengers, and basically every other thing you use to do anything on the internet is going to give you one of those warnings. So pretty much everyone is going to be constantly assaulted by these messages and therefore get used to them and start to ignore every message like that they see. Not only will this NOT deter people from using P2P programs (since they'll just ignore the message anyways), it's DANGEROUS since they'll ignore warning messages that actually have some meaning behind them.
Yeah, this sounds like a great idea.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
People in (government) power usually have very little idea as to what there doing when they make legislature about technology. For example, most slashdotters could have told them the DMCA was a bad idea, especially the way it was written. But the legislatures only listened to what the big corporations wanted.
M$ Lawyer: But `gcc
...firewall off the entire United States, like they've done with Red China? I live outside the US and the odds of my complying with this asinine request are about...zero!
America we hardly new ye!
You're using her as bait, Master!
Wow! Stop the presses, this is a big shock. In 2004 here's the synopsis on how much milk each of these candidates sucked from the Entertainment titty. (They open in a new window).
Lamar Smith received a little over $21,000 from the TV/Music/Music lobbies in 2004
In 2002 he received almost $25,000
Howard Berman received a little over $4,000 from the TV/Music/Music lobbies in 2004
In 2002 he received almost (can you believe this?) $223,000!
John Conyers received almost $5,000 from the TV/Music/Music lobbies in 2004
In 2002 he received almost $50,000!
The ROI on congressional payoffs is insanely high..
Don't laugh -- many incompetent managers think this way. I am sitting behind a firewall that blocks all outbound traffic, with the exception of ports 80 and 21. This, I am told, will help prevent viruses from entering the network. Moreso, I might add, than any kind of coherent patching strategy.
============
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
maybe the congress should fine Darpa for funding the creation of TCP/IP too.
These kind of laws are showing how the government has always treated citizens, with mistrust. They are doing more for copyright protection then they are for things like healthcare, it really shows their prorities.
-Seriv
Now, give people free content without restrictions and you have something that everyone wants. Why are search engines the most popular websites? because the user types in what they want and gets it. From a users point of view, kazaa is the same as google except you can get everything that you cant get on google - its like the too hot for google channel. Are you seriously telling me that people dont want to be able to download all the music, films, porn, software, games, books and southpark they want for free!?!?! get real!
The only things that might kill p2p filesharing as we know it are:
Governments (well in the UK anyway) are pushing broadband for all sorts of PHB reasons like "education" and obviously the ISPs - AOL etc are gonna try and sell it. Sen. Hollings is even for it. The absolute irony here is that the very same people who are pushing broadband so they can sell content are the same ones who will be fucked out of their money by filesharing! its brilliant, serves them right for their evil DRM plans.
...and John Conyers...
Have you seen this boy?
It's a good thing the senate doesn't apply this warning to every piece of technology. Pretty soon we might wind up putting warning stickers on telephones and whatnot
The way it would create a security and privacy risk is that you would be at risk because your privacy would be interrupted by Ashcroft's stormtroopers weilding the DMCA in their hand. They would put your personal security at risk by opening a can of Patriot Act whoop ass. That's how.
No trees were harmed in the composition of this; however, numerous electrons were inconvenienced.
And what else floats on water ?
A Duck..."A DUCK!"
"Exactly! Soooo . . . "
" . . . If she weighs . . . as much as . . . a duck . . . "
"Yes?"
"Then she's made out of wood . . . "
"And therefore . . . ?"
" . . . . A WITCH!"
"A WITCH!"
"BURN THE WITCH!"
"BURN HER!"
"To the scales!"
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
Most software already comes with various warnings attached, so I don't see the fundamental problem of showing them more prominently. Furthermore, I find it hard to believe that a web browser (or any network-related software for consumers) exists for which this warning is unjustified.
(Obviously, there is no P2P connection at all. That is just Slashdot spinning.)
... that fail to label "copy protected" CD's properly. It's simple fraud (you're not buying a "CD" per se), plus, with some schemes, it's outright vandalism.
I believe it is our fate to be here. It is our destiny. I believe this night holds for each and every one of use, the very meaning of our lives. This is a war and we are soldiers. What if the Prophecy is true? What if tomorrow the war could be over, isn't that worth fighting for? Isn't that worth dying for?
I have over 70 freaks, do you?
Since this measure would apply to all developer-provided software dealing with network traffic, I'd be less likely to write my own network-enabled (read: internet-enabled) software.
Perhaps this is the point of the bill: to keep software writing in the hands of those rich enough to hire a group of lawyers who can keep away other lawyers.
Please, do keep in mind that this IS America. You know, that place that has safety labels on laundry detergent that say "Not for oral consumption."
Of course, then again, we all know that thousands of people still die every year from a nice warm class of bleach. Don't quite see how Internet Explorer can cause people to die. Well, on second thought...
Trent Polack
www.polycat.net
Same goes for IM. THe only port they can connect on is through the secure port 443. Of course none of the employees have quite figured this out so I am the only one that can IM with outside people. Rendevous only works on the internal network so they can only chat with other employees.
I guess I may be one of those "Pointy Haired Bosses", but we're a small shop and cannot afford to have someone download a warezed application then get busted by the software wannabe police & music police. One employee had about 6GB of mp3's they had downloaded on company time. Plus we're not paying people to chat with friends. Funny how project completion times went up after I disabled the port.
If we were not in graphics & printing, then I would have Linux thin clients that would give empolyees access to only what they need.
With such a warning, maybe some would heed it. I don't think many would, but some might think twice about it
Yes I am an ass about our technology policy, but coming from a technology security background, I am not going to take stupid risks when things can be made reasonably secure.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
It would set 1,000-year mandatory jail sentences for members of congress who become pawns for multi-national mega-corps, spouting out ignorant and inflamatory propaganda to please their campaign-financing Masters.
Anyone care to sponsor?
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Not a mystery to me!
By saying that this product that you're willfully installing has a "privacy risk", you're saying you don't mind if the product compromises your privacy.
It's a legal loophole that could allow the RIAA/MPAA to install plugins that will monitor you at your machine. After all - you agreed to it when you installed the software. You said you didn't mind if your privacy was compromised.
This one is very sneaky. I'd never install anything that told me it might compromise my privacy.
Weaselmancer
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
How this would deter P2P activity is a bit of a mystery.
Is it any more of a mystery than the belief that spying on every American citizen will deter terrorism?
Reefer Madness! Stop the P2P insanity before your children become godless open source socialists! FIrst free music, then free love. Then, before you know it, they will be rejecting the corporate values that make our society great! The values of profit and greed! Anything for a buck, reality is what I say it is and to hell with the rest of the world! Just like God intended!
(for those of you a little slow today and before I get accused of being flame bait, this is sort of a 'toungue in cheek' rant).
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
If we would simply produce a P2P app. that was easy to use and popular, then this would be a non-issue. This would ensure our privacy and rights. Additionally, how could P2P be regulated if no-one knew the content of transfers? Without entrapment or illegal snooping it couldn't. It's time for a good encrypted P2P client so we can maintain our privacy.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= - The Celtic - =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Let's post a similar warning in front of Capitol Hill.
The key word here is not "security", it's "privacy". Here's what this bill really means:
In the current 9 year-old suing world of the RIAA, victims are found by firing up Kazaa (or Grokster or [insert your favorite gnutella-like p2p client here]) and seeing who is sharing and who is downloading. The "who" is given by the IP address of the P2P client computer. Now.. that doesn't really do the RIAA any good because they cannot sue an IP address. So they bully smaller, weaker ISP's into giving out their private customer information. Thus an IP address leads to a name.
Here comes the problem. Some ISP's aren't buying it. Some are saying "our customer privacy is more important than your rampage". This bill makes it so that the clients have "agreed" that they are not annonymous, and that the federal government has the right to grab your personal information and hand it over to the RIAA as they see fit (or just allow the RIAA to grab the now-non-private personal information directly from the ISP). What's more, you cannot counter-sue for privacy infringment because you've agreed to this (since you're using this software that has these statements embedded, and it's all part of the EULA).
a bizarre new bill that would require companies that create certain types of software such as web browsers, instant messaging clients and e-mail utilities to add a warning that it 'could create a security and privacy risk.' How this would deter P2P activity is a bit of a mystery.
It is possible that this is meant in part to help RIAA attack users' machines through the P2P medium... if everyone accepts the risk, the RIAA could claim that this is a sort of consent to allow projected electronic damage by those running the software, or at least an acknowledgement that it may happen. I know it is a stretch, but why else would the RIAA push for this?
Agreed, firewall off every port. I'm sick of all the worms that crawl through irresponsibly managed computers. Apps with security holes are setting up PCs on broadband as spam relays, DoS drones, and other blended threat tools.
Many current P2P, email, and instant messaging apps are security risks, and cause problems for naive Internet users (i.e., the vaste majority). Those insecure apps, quite simply, pose a risk to network security, privacy of the end-user, etc. They should be behind firewalls. I find no rational reason to disagree with those stated intentions for the bill, aside from FUD relating to the RIAA's intentions and long-term goals for their puppets.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
this is scary stuff!
Man, I'm going to block all my ports right now, starting with port eigh
Error!
No route to host on Port 80
Connection timed out
For those of you who haven't noticed yet, the way to get a crazy ass bill like this passed is to make the first draft lean insanely toward your side. Then as you make changes and cuts to please your opponents, what's left over is what you intended in the first place.
You look like the good guy for "fixing" the bill while still getting exactly what you wanted. How many times have we seen people say things like "I'm so glad so-and-so grew a brain and fixed that crazy bill/policy/rule/whatever" and then later realized it was still a piece of crap when finished?
Uh, just because you are communicating over 443 does not mean that your data is encrypted or secure in any way. You can set up a telnet server on 443, and it is no more secure than using the default port 23)
If you are running an unencrypted IM client over 443, then you will be running an unencrypted IM client over 443. There's nothing secure about it. You are a dumbass and a retarded admin.
Somebody mod the parent down, he ain't interesting or informative...
---
(This is part of the new M3 Moderation system, for people who can't M or M2 Moderate.)
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Making all programs tell people there is a security risk will allow them to put backdoors in the programs to delete illegal/pirated material.
It's kind of a nice way to say that using this product has no garantee that your data is safe from RIAA.
Well that's my paranoid opinion.
I want a *Secured* P2P client. What I mean by secure is that it searchs only the 5 or 6 computers that I tell it to. Think friends and family only plus six degrees of freedom outlook. I want to only let my direct family or friends search or download by box. This would be a very very short list for me under 20 boxs computers. But I wouldn't have to worry about copyright and who was searching because every single person searching or downloading my machine, I know. The same would apply the other way as well. I might have only 20 contacts, but my brothers would have about 100 each. My mom most likly only 5 or so. Anyone that searchs the box that hasn't been expressly granted permission is hacking and is a terrorist that needs to be jailed and fined for every attempt to gain access to my or a family members box! Ok. I could see that working against me as well. The big threat to P2P is that you don't know who is searching your machine and downloading files. Actually, I'd be happy to burn family members CD's rather than P2P. At home, I'm on a 56K line. (Only option which really sucks.) It would be nice of having very very limited extended family or extended friends search. I would not want anyone downloading though from my machine with out my express permission. Maybe a system that I search one hop away through friends and family, but any downloads have to be downloaded by the family memeber or friend that they *trust.* O.k. maybe it would be a download request on my part that my friends and family could look at. If they want to download or introduce me to the person that has the information that I want ok.
Is there a system already like this?