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House Committee Passes "Informed P2P User Act"
An anonymous reader writes "This week the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed the 'Informed P2P User Act' and has sent it along to the full House for consideration. The bill, which appears to have heavy support on both sides of the political fence, simply states that P2P software must not install extra software or prevent users from removing it, in addition to being 'clear and conspicuous' about which files are being shared and getting user consent to share them. 'Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), the powerful committee chairman, opened the markup session by warning about "the danger of inadvertent sharing of sensitive information through the use, or misuse, of certain file sharing programs. Tax returns, medical files, and even classified government documents have been found on these networks. The purpose of H.R. 1319 is to reduce inadvertent disclosures of sensitive information by making the users of this software more aware of the risks involved."'"
Why is this limited to P2P software?
I'd like to see criminal penalties for bundling undisclosed and unwanted software with any application. See if that gets past the lobbyists.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
How do they expect to enforce this law on companies that produce software outside of the US?
Apparently they still don't understand how this internet thing works.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
If they're finding classified documents on the public internet, that means that they have a bigger problem like government employees disregarding security guidelines by putting them on unclassified networks.
The same users that are dumb/ignorant enough to share their tax and medical records are the same ones that won't bother to read any "clear and conspicuous" warnings. They'll either not understand it or hit "OK" without reading it. You can't write laws that eliminate stupidity.
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
It could be that this bill is being passed simply to remove a set of excuses people might use when caught using P2P for sharing copyrighted material - hence the name of the bill.
If the software plainly states that it will be sharing a file with other people, then you cannot say 'I didn't know I was sharing it'. Likewise, you cannot say that it installed without your knowledge nor can you say it installed but you couldn't uninstall it.
This is of course, only possible if the writers of P2P software actually give two hoots about the bill.....
Steve.
The purpose of H.R. 1319 is to reduce inadvertent disclosures of sensitive information by making the users of this software more aware of the risks involved.
Sure it is. Now, how about taking a closer look;
the term "peer-to-peer file sharing program" means[...]
to designate files available for transmission to another computer
to transmit files directly to another computer; and
to request the transmission of files from another computer.
Well, that's basically "using the internet". And using the definition of "protected computer", if you can add a tcp/ip stack to your toaster, it's a protected computer. So what will it be illegal to do using anything with a microprocessor and can communicate with the outside world? Also, "authorized user" -- I suspect a lot of EULAs are going to be updated so that every company that has a piece of networkable software installed on your system is now also an authorized user. Unintended consequences are a bitch, aren't they? Your system is now legally required to be insecure and full of backdoors. ...prevent the reasonable efforts of an owner or authorized user from blocking the installation [of a] program or function thereof
So installing is now okay. 'Using' not available for comment. So we can still f*ck with it at the operating system level, or neuter it in memory -- messing with the code after installation or during runtime isn't covered. Oops.
to fail to provide a reasonable and effective means to disable or remove from the protected computer...[excessive legalese deleted]
Translation: Installers should come with uninstallers. We need a law for this? And without a definition of what "reasonable and effective" constitutes -- well, need I say more? Anyone try uninstalling Norton Antivirus lately? It's quicker just to nuke the drive from orbit, and it's the only way to be sure you got everything. Can I expect federal pound me in the ass prison time for all the Norton executives? No? Why -- oh, right... they're rich. But you there, little open source developer -- we know you're evil. I mean, you don't even have a brand identity!
Yeah... this ends well.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Ok, so who funded this bill and why?
Almost certainly groups like the RIAA and the MPAA.
Their goal is in ratchet up the personal liability of the users who use these systems. By forcing applications to be much more explicit about what's being shared, they reduce the number of cases they lose against file sharers on the grounds that they didn't know what they were sharing.
One possible reason: Makes services like Freenet illegal. For example donating disk space and bandwidth to encrypted files where the user-node does not actually know what they are helping to deliver sounds like it would violate being "'clear and conspicuous' about which files are being shared and getting user consent to share them".
No "Common Carrier" status for P2P nodes here...
People should not be modded up for not reading the article.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"Anyone who says that the solution is to educate the users hasn't ever met an actual user."
-- Bruce Schneier
If there's anything more important than my ego around here, I want it caught and shot immediately.
Notice that this didn't ONLY ban spyware. It had stipulations that state that when a P2P app is installed it clearly indicates what is being shared. This will just prevent Joe Sixpack from installed AwesomeShareItAll v3.1 where it just shares out your entire hard drive without indicating it.
Personally, I just don't see too much evil in this bill.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Freenet could, barring a truly weird judicial interpretation, comply pretty easily.
The only "shared folder" is the folder, of user allocated size, where freenet stores its encrypted chunks. Each of those chunks is one of the shared files. All freenet would have to do is say "When you install freenet, all files in folder X will be shared with other freenet nodes, as well as any files you explicitly upload". The fact that the user does not and cannot figure out what exactly the encrypted chunks are is neither here nor there.
Please explain your position.
How would informing the P2P user about what is being shared on that user's computer prevent the user from using FreeNet and other anonymous sharing networks?
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Naah.
Freenet stores its data in encrypted files and refers to them with hashes, right? I mean: It's just files on a filesystem, isn't it? So, all the software has to do to stay in compliance is state which of those files are being shared.
It doesn't state that it must decrypt the files. Or that the content of them must be disclosed. It would just need to report to the user the same stuff that already gets reported to Freenet at large.
Doing so is neither against this bill, nor against the spirit of Freenet, nor in any way any significant technical hurdle to overcome.
(Unless I'm very mistaken, in which case I welcome any corrections.)
Kid-proof tablet..
Isn't it sad that now whenever any piece of legislation is crafted we automatically assume someone "bought" it and has ulterior motives to it's existence than what the bill would have you believe.