Slashdot Mirror
Washington State Outlaws Spyware
An anonymous reader submits "Today, the Governor of Washington signs a a bill outlawing spyware (bill history) which imposes penalties of $100,000 per violation. Spyware is broadly defined. It includes everything from changing a browser's bookmarks or homepage settings, "Opening multiple, sequential, stand-alone advertisements in the owner or operator's internet browser", keystroke-logging, taking over control of the computer, modify its security settings, and even "Falsely representing that computer software has been disabled." But here is my favorite: "Prevent, through intentionally deceptive means, an owner or operator's reasonable efforts to block the installation or execution of, or to disable, computer software by causing the software that the owner or operator has properly removed or disabled automatically to reinstall or reactivate on the computer." Microsoft and Ebay both testified in support of the bill. On May 10th, a similar law banning Internet and email phishing was also passed."
For those that do not follow Washington politics, the Governor's race was very close. A republican won the first count and the first machine re-count. The margin of victory in each was less than 100 votes. On the hand recount, the democratic person won by 142(?) votes. There are some issues about dead people voting, and people voting twice. While the results have been certified, the republican party has taken the case to court. As of today, there is a democratic governor, but how long she will be in power is unknown.
Actually, the Republican party is mostly claiming that felons were illegally voting. The problem is, many of the people the Republicans are claiming are felons - aren't. Most have juvy crimes, which should have been sealed at 18 which did not affect their voting rights. Others, never had their rights removed at all, or had their voting privilages reinstated.
Meanwhile, in the Democratic heartland of King County, 50 valid ballots were found to have never been counted, and are still in their envelopes. What a mess. I just hope my vote isn't one of those 50.
The whole mess has been playing out in the papers for months now, it's getting very old.
Tepp
Here is a Timeline for the events (with an obvious conservative slant).