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Spy Act of 2007 = "Vendors Can Spy Act"
strick1226 writes "Ed Foster over at InfoWorld describes the Spy Act bill (H.R. 964) as having the same relation to the prevention of spyware that the CAN SPAM Act had to the prevention of spam. It allows exceptions for companies to utilize spyware for any number of reasons; if this bill had been law when Sony distributed their rootkit, they would have had perfect cover. Most troubling is that the bill would preempt all state laws, including those more focused on the privacy of people's data, and disallow individuals from bringing suit. It is expected to pass soon with 'strong bipartisan support.'"
Oh, there a number of lawsuits and attorney general investigations too.
...then all spyware will be legal. COMPANIES are the ones who install spyware in the first place. It's there for ADVERTISING. Who does advertising? COMPANIES! This bill will only completely legalize spyware.
Exception Relating to Security- Nothing in this Act shall apply to--
(1) any monitoring of, or interaction with, a subscriber's Internet or other network connection or service, or a protected computer, by a telecommunications carrier, cable operator, computer hardware or software provider, or provider of information service or interactive computer service, to the extent that such monitoring or interaction is for network or computer security purposes, diagnostics, technical support, or repair, or for the detection or prevention of fraudulent activities; or
OK, your ISP can do network trouble shooting. Your HW / SW vendor can provide on-line tech support. Seems reasonable to me.
(2) a discrete interaction with a protected computer by a provider of computer software solely to determine whether the user of the computer is authorized to use such software, that occurs upon -- (A) initialization of the software; or (B) an affirmative request by the owner or authorized user for an update of, addition to, or technical service for, the software.
Microsoft can run their "Genuine Advantage" crap. Not thrilled about it, but not surprised.
I don't see anything to get terribly alarmed about. What am I missing?
[Insert pithy quote here]
You're right on the first point, but you've got the last one backwards: without a free market (i.e. freedom to act as you wish so far as it involves your own property, and freedom to engage in voluntary exchange with others without coercive interference) you cannot exercise those "human rights." You have human rights to the exact extent that you have property rights; they are fundamentally inseparable.
As far as democracy is concerned, you don't live in a democracy (assuming you live in the U.S. or Europe). The U.S. is a constitutional republic, and the important aspect of such a government is the constitutional limits, not the elections.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
You seem a little paranoid, have you switched your desktop to OpenBSD yet?
You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads!
"Never say Never."
Free Markets and Free Enterprise don't mean the freedom of Enterprise to do whatever the heck they feel like. It means a freedom for people to engage in enterprise (you know, selling things to each other) as long as they're both willing and able to do so. Nothing in this is contradictory with democracy or against human rights.
Tell that to the people of Bolivia after their water supply was privatized.
mod this guy up.. he gets it.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
List of sponsors: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR009 64:@@@P
I wonder how much donations from companies these guys get.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
correct me if i'm wrong, but doesn't the constitution only apply to interactions between the people and their government?
if so, it would have no effect on any law regarding bussiness, as a bussiness would be bound by no such restrictions.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
As far as I'm aware, organisations always have had the legal cover (if just barely) to distribute spyware, as long as they say it's being installed in the EULA. If not, CoolWebSearch et all would have been sued out of business a long while ago. According to the article, and if I read it correctly, this seems to be more about giving large companies the legal arse-covering required to hack into your computer "just to check" if you've got, say, a dodgy copy of Autodesk Inventor.
What I'd be interested in is how this and other such spyware could be subverted, possibly with some false (and FOSS, naturally) piece of software that sends ridiculous junk to the remote servers. Sort of an anti-spyware, if you will. The best analogy I can think of off-hand would be programs like the fake SubSeven servers, that as I recall made your computer pretend to be infected with the SubSeven trojan. If you got someone connecting, you could give them a false directory tree, or press a button to blast their computer with a gazillion windows in their SubSeven client.
I think maybe a little hacktivism is called for, although naturally I would not advocate breaking any laws in the process! Oh no, sir!
09F9 1102 9D74 E35B D841 56C5 6356 88C0
Don't they make money from the vendor on each transaction? Isn't that why the family-owned gas station attendants always want me to use debit rather than credit?
I have found there are just two ways to go.
It all comes down to livin' fast or dyin' slow. -REK, Jr.
Absolutely not informative. Outright lies. Please see this comment and you'll find that Ed Towns is a Democrat and 23 of the 36 co-sponsors were Democrats. See this Congressional biography if you're too lazy to look it up yourself.
Stand back baby, I'm a Nessus monkey with a long list of a**holes, a can 'o nmap, a fully loaded Metasploit, and I ain't afraid to use 'em.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Those "transaction fees" are nothing more than chump change compared to the >20 percent they charge on interest and the $40 late fees, etc.
You are welcome on my lawn.