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The End of Net Anonymity In Brazil
DieNadel writes, "The Brazilian senate is considering a bill that will make it a crime to join a chat, blog, or download from the Internet without fully identifying oneself first. Privacy groups and Internet providers are very concerned, and are trying to lobby against the bill, but it seems they won't have much success." From the article: "If approved, it will be a crime, punishable with up to 4 years of jail time, to disseminate virus or trojans, unauthorizedly access data banks or networks and send e-mail, join chat, write a blog or download content anonymously."
...be sure to identify yourself when you distribute trojans!
Will a 10 years old kid go to trial if he posts anonymously on a forum like slashdot?
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
First off, passing a law that the criminals will disregard is just about useless. They're already criminals. Breaking another law is not going to deter them.
Secondly, there are so many ways around this when you are a criminal. Crack someone else's machine and you can do whatever you want as if you were legally that person. Who stupid is that?
If you're really good, you'd crack 2 machines outside Brazil and use them to bounce traffic around before it got to you. Your machine and record would be 100% clean.
Finally, let's talk wireless. Unless the government wants to crack down on unsecured wireless connections, they're going to lose this one.
This is nothing more than an attempt to scare the good citizens into self-censoring their legal activities. And that is disgusting.
Reply with your full name, address, job, a list of your family members, government ID number, and your hopes and dreams and I'll tell you why.
>What is PSDB-MG, anyway? Piece of Shit Damn British MG?
This is slashdot, and you didn't think a question like that would go unanswered, did you ?
PSDB is Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (http://www.psdb.org.br/) translates to the Brazilian Socio-Democracy Party. MG stands for Minas Gerais, the state Senator Azeredo represents.
As a Brazilian I should add:
* PSDB is the leading opposition party in Brazil. Its candidate just lost the presidential race (39% to 61%).
* Normally I wouldn't think this sort of thing to come out of PSDB (usually more liberal than the government). But heck...
* Mr Azeredo has been involved in an unrelated corruption scandal after proposing the law ("valerioduto").
* I also do not agree with such a law, as many brazilians don't (babelfish this, for instance: A Liberdade da Rede corre Perigo)
* This law may not pass (be approved) -- I hope it won't.
* Even if it does, it may not be enforceable, as someone here already pointed out -- Freenet comes to mind.
Quem a paca cara compra, paca cara pagará.
So, how about if all the laws on the books had a limited life span? After 8 years (or 16 or 32 or whatever), they expired and needed to be passed again?
That way Congress could continue to "be tough on X" without needing to do any actual work or impact our Freedoms at all?
If you mean "assuming the requirement is not abused", that would not be a serious question. Every coercive power over others is always abused, to the greatest degree that interested parties can get away with. The whole problem of freedom is minimizing the opportunities for such abuse.
Of course no one objects to a prohibition of spreading malware. Here are a few of the more obvious problems with the removal-of-anonymity part.
I'm from Brazil and if this law pass I will with I were in China.
The worst part is what I saw on the local news: they want us not only to provide our ID data, but also PROVIDE A XEROX COPY OF OUR ID CARDS to the sites we wish to have access to! After they approve our data, we will be able to access them.
Politicians don't have the slighest idea of how technology works...
So say we all
Yes, right, despite thinking you're being sarcastic. Because collecting huge amounts of information about legitimate travellers does nothing to stop terrorists. Just look at the No Fly List, that catches every terrorist who books a ticket under his own name (i.e., none) while inconveniencing thousands with similar names. Idiotic security theatre. And how many times must it be pointed out that the 9/11 terrorists mostly had legit IDs and clean records; they would have walked though today's security just as easily, after surrendering their shampoo bottles. Money tracing? Similar profiling goes on here, inconveniencing every poor schmuck trying to send money home to his family, if his name happens to be Mohammed, while the actual terrorists duck the whole system.
All the information needed to predict, and prevent, 911, was already in the US government's hands before the event. They need better, smarter analysis, more people on the ground, not more noise. But that's what bureaucrats know how to do, and that's their solution to every problem.
Good thing I use a PC! Mwuahahah
(it's just a joke)
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
I'm Brazillian.
Have you heard about prizon riots in Sao Paulo - Brazil? PSDB is the party that have governed Sao Paulo State for the past 12 years, and will govern Sao Paulo State for the next 4 years. Eduardo Azeredo was president of the PSDB party (and founder) until he renounced this year, after he declared he received money channelled from the government in backdoor business deals, through Marcos Valerio.
Laws in Brazil are usually proposed in response of something that happened. The text of the projects have lots of revisions and discussions before voting, and usually more revisions and more voting. The happening was Google refusing to cooperate with the police in identifying racist groups acting through Orkut. I think there are other better proposals to deal with this situation, Azeredo's just reacting "good vs evil" style.
He may be crazy. I know he's scary.
An arrest full of Anonymous Cowards?
I guess all cell walls soon will contain the words "First Post".
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Like this article talked about?
The article doesn't mention any specific penalties for posting anonymously. 4 years of prison time is an absurd penalty for a (usually) harmless offense. It does mention other, more serious offenses than insulting someone and "up to 4 years ..." so I'd guess that if you say "that guy's an idiot" without revealing your identity and you are (somehow) discovered, then the penalty won't be as severe as hacking into "data banks" or knowingly spreading a virus.
And, as in the U.S., the politicians really and truly do not understand technology. At all. My hunch is that the politicians in power just want some way to prosecute people who post "less-than-favorable" information about them - even if it's true.
What is the MAC adddress of my analog modem?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
The 1988 Constitution of Brazil already forbids anonymninty in any media (not only the Net) so all this talk about "a new law enforcement" is just ludicrous and redundant. They can pass a law on the subject just to regulate the Internet use of its citizens (think China?) but the war against pornog^dw anonymnity is old news. Bad enough, the non-techie general public seem to endorse the goddam law.
./ also...
The whole thing started because former president Jose Sarney was being (fairly) accused of corruption by many blogs. Sarney's attorneys managed to shut down the majority of them, even the foreign ones.
Oh, wait, he'll shut down
Hatredman
That senator, Eduardo Azeredo, belongs to the PSDB party, and PSDB is now opposition, not government.
Eduardo Azeredo was the governor of my state, Minas Gerais. He was accused of receiving illegal donations to his last run for the Minas Gerais government. The sad thing is that he is a former sofware developer and, with this law, proves that most polititions forget all the good knowledge when they have some power. The bills he's proposing (not just one) will have 0% effectivity against cybercrimes. Unfortunately, this guy still has more 4 years in our Senate.