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US Entertainment Industry To Congress: Make It Legal For Us To Deploy Rootkits
An anonymous reader writes "The hilariously named 'Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property' has finally released its report, an 84-page tome that's pretty bonkers. But there's a bit that stands out as particularly crazy: a proposal to legalize the use of malware in order to punish people believed to be copying illegally. The report proposes that software would be loaded on computers that would somehow figure out if you were a pirate, and if you were, it would lock your computer up and take all your files hostage until you call the police and confess your crime. This is the mechanism that crooks use when they deploy ransomware."
These guys are the biggest thieves of the lot.
What's really surprising is that torrents aren't infected up the wazoo with malware anyway.
Maybe they should have a taste of how rootkits feel like.
I always been saying that the entertainment industry was the real pirate as what they were doing was closer to sailing the seas to sinking ship, steal booty and murder crewman then simply sharing data over the Internet. Now anyone not seeing it that way has no excuse.
"This is the mechanism that crooks use when they deploy ransomware."
Enough said.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Let's say this does get legalised, somehow. Have fun trying to export any infected products to the rest of the world!
And for everybody else trying to sell entertainment products made in the US, all the people who make sensible data with no rootkits in it, have fun trying to convince the rest of the world to trust you! People will just see "Made in the US" and read it as "This will destroy your computer" regardless of whether there's malware present or not.
So, if I do something that is legal but Sony thinks should be illegal then the laws are changed.
If Sony does something that is illegal but they think should be legal then the laws are also changed.
Seems reasonable.
Also, never let a product with the Sony-logo into your home. You never know what approach they will use to contaminate your computer.
It deeply saddens me that people continue to support companies that pull this kind of crap.
I'm sure that Sony/Microsoft et al would change their tune of their products weren't selling. But, when their selling millions of crippled or bugged titles, my lone voice is crushed by the cacophonous accusations of paranoia.
The RIAA tried to get an amendment added to the Patriot Act in 2001 that would do the very same thing. This is domestic terrorism on different level, but terrorism just the same.
I would accept that if politicians and big companies also install some sort of "corruption-detection rootkit" in their computers.
In fact, this proposal will probably be refused.
But this is a strategy:
1) propose a tough law
2) wait for its refusal
3) propose a "lighter" one
Since the lighter one will appear innocuous and since the first one has been refused, the second will be accepted.
And you can bet that they wanted to propose the "light" one first, but it would have been probably refused if submitted first.
With the dreadful formulaic schlock that Hollywood puts out, it's fair to say that they've already incorporated an anti-theft device, called "bad writing".
it would lock your computer up and take all your files hostage until you call the police and confess your crime
Or until you use repair tools to remove the rootkit. Once they figure out people can do that, then they'll ask to make it illegal to remove their rootkits.
My karma is in a nose dive
I do not trust a rent seeking organization of any sort to not "make mistakes" on calling people pirates.
They're trying to be judge, jury, executioner, AND witness.
These people sue grandmas and dead people to get settlements. I wouldn't trust them not to frame someone that happens to have a fat bank account.
And even if they were simply incompetent, I still wouldn't trust them to actually care about making mistakes.
Use the fear.
Obviously allowing media companies to deploy root kits will increase the number of vulnerable machines on our nations part of the internet. Assuming this some how only finds its way on to home PC it still leaves many machines more vulnerable to attack by additional malware which might make them botnet members which could be used in DDOS attacks against critical business sectors like Finance and Healthcare.
Clearly the desire to do this shows the media companies behind it are irresponsible citizens endangering our national security at best actively aiding and abetting our enemies and terror organizations at worst. These are unAmerican activities and the industry participants need to be call out on it.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Now is the time to think about how the entertainment industry can be hit back with their own law. How about legally deploying rootkits on their computers to grab copies of their newest products before they are released.
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
They also want to allow private companies to make "aggressive actions" in retaliation against "foreign cyber spies".
Like, there's no way THAT could possibly escalate or cause the end of the internet as we know it...
Link
I'm a dreamer, the world is my playpen. But hey, I'm a serious person, I can't dream all the time.
It sounds like a classic witch hunt. I wonder if people miss the point of history class or simply forget what they learn. It seems like people want or even need somebody or something to blame. The Vulcans of the Star Trek universe were onto something. This emotional, fear, and anger based thinking are what have always plagued our species. Humans as a species need to learn to set feelings aside, or at minimum, learn to be aware of and understand emotions, as the Vulcans (fictionally) did if we want to truly solve our problems. It seems to me that our emotional reasoning is the biggest enemy humanity has. Since the Vulcans were (most of the time) in complete control of their emotions, I think we should strive to be at least partially like them. This is a bit philosophical, but I think it is relevant because it seems this group is likely being driven by some sort of misguided self-righteousness (a FEELING of superiority, IMHO) that would not occur if people were to adapt a more Vulcan mindset.
On Slashdot, we bitch and complain about folks being stupid, asshats, and tell them to get the fuck off our lawns. I think the best thing that we can do to prevent and resolve situations like this, that appear (I didn't read TFA because I am connected through a proxy with a filter that is blocking it) to be witch hunts, dichotomy, irrational laws based on special interests and/or emotions, is to support psychiatric, psychological, and neurological research that can provide insights into this behavior. Once we can truly understand how the mind works and why the reasoning (SW) behind these kind of events occur, we will be able to progress from this.
This is a lot of opinion, some will probably disagree. I look forward to reading the reasoning behind the disagreements.
So they basically want the right to maliciously hack and damage other people's computers on their belief that someone is stealing from them.
No court, no proof, just what they believe. So they want to be judge, jury, and executioner.
OK Anonymous, there's your targets. Each one of the people who contributed to this report are now fair game. Since they've decided it should be their right to hack us, they're now perfect valid targets. Their families, bank accounts, and mistresses are good starting points.
What a bunch of douchebags. These guys would have us undercut all of computer security to give them special access to enforce their claims without oversight, and in the process, they'd probably make most computers far less secure.
If these guys want the right to commit what would be crimes for anyone else, then I suggest they don't deserve a whole lot of consideration.
This is shameful, and I really hope the lawmakers tell them a big "no friggin' way".
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
So how about a system that requires registration to make it illegal to remove the rootkit? They could even make that registration database searchable so that people can decide for themselves whether or not they wish to form a contract by agreeing to the installation of a rootkit. Perhaps it could be called the "National Copyrighted Works Database" or something like that? A searchable database of things you can't copy would be good for creators as it would indicate their intent on not having their works copied, and it would be good for the people as it would provide them with them a list of content whose owners do not wish to be copied. Such a database would be a win-win and perfectly doable.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
The last stripes of a so called "free market" are being washed away into corporte feudalism, where the corporations now take over law enforcement, and soon after, law creation and destruction.
Denying citizens all due proccess of a Jury of their peers, set up by a democraticly elected republican government is an assault on everything we stand for as a nation. This moves beyond the scary police state, dirrecty into feudalism. No longer do corporations control us with soft power, but they not have the right to directly interfere in our lives in place of the government, without the shred of due process the former has afforded us. This even gives them more power than the NSA/FBI, who to date have yet to request or start putting root kits on people's hard drives.
It should go without saying that the RIAA will likely use this based on past actions to:
1. Falsely labeling people as pirates, due to apathy. Don't give a damn who's really a pirate or not.
2. Falsely label random people as pirates due to malice.
3. Black Hat activities against critics. They could plant evidence of serious crimes(kiddie porn, bomb making materials, terrorist manefestos, etc..) on the hard drives of victims. They could also remotely wipe hard disks, spy, and delete or manipulate selective files, making it harder for people to mount a defense against their
4. Set people up. I.e. open connections to whatever machine they want and do whatever activity they want. They want someone to say something terrorist related they can now.
and locking there machines, wiping their hard drives, deleting files related to criticism, giving them virrii, planting evidence, setting them up for criminal activity, etc....
Just went you thought SOPA and PIPA cannot be worse.
I think we need to propose our own laws permanently banning the practice across the board, and stiff penalties for everyone who would try. The laws need to have the CEOs, and corporate officers go to jail. The law also needs to make whoever wrote that, go to fucking jail.
By go to jail I mean
1. Pre-dawn raid where they shoot they're pets, smash their houses, and intimidate their family
2. Denied bail, intimidated into making confessions with ridiculous sentences.
3. Freeze their bank accounts so they can't pay for lawyers.
4. at least 15 years in federal prison in general population.
I would seem that the only reliable means of distributing these rootkits, etc., would be to lace existing softeware accordinfy and release onto pirate sites. Am I missing something or doesn't this risk exposing and therefore crippling a whole load of supposedly legitimate corporations who have been shown to use pirated versions of software?
the response the first time a major corporation's computers become the "victim" of a legal root kit.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
In the end, socalled IP can only be enforced in this manner: Control over the machines used by the buyers, ie. the potential buyers, ie. the rabble. Only when we no longer control our machines, can you "sell" access - you need a gateway to extract money! Since the "you need the LP/CD/DVD"-model has died, the only possible gate is access and control over the machine.
So, the Free Software movement asks again: Who should own and control the machines we all use for work, entertainment, living?
IAIFARSIJDPOOTV - I Am In Fact A Reality Star; I Just Don't Play One On TV
Are we still having this conversation in 2013? You lost. It's over. Our society at large accepts and supports file sharing for non-commercial use. You can't put that toothpaste back in the tube, you can't roll back the cultural clock. You will not stop filesharing. Figure out a way to make money in this new economy or die quietly. Something as non-essential and ephemeral as the entertainment "industry" doesn't deserve a minute of face time with our government. There are important matters to be dealt with, going after filesharers doesn't even register on the importance-scale.
Is anyone really entertaining the delusions of these detached, clueless, dinosaurs? Meanwhile, our infrastructure is literally collapsing, and they want us to waste government time having a discussion about imaginary property. Grow up. Your racket is over, you had decades of a free ride, longer than you deserved, to see this coming and do something about it. You sat on your hands, so now knuckle under and let that sweet creative destruction wash over your entire industry.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
This is the part where you go find out who is behind this or those most responsible and you kill them, very publicly and very gruesomely. .
That was Jefferson's stand, I believe.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Director Richard Ellings, Deputy Director Roy Kamphausen, Casey Bruner, John Graham, Creigh Agnew, Meredith Miller, Clara Gillispie, Sonia Luthra, Amanda Keverkamp, Deborah Cooper, Karolos Karnikis, Joshua Ziemkowski, and Jonathan Walton.
I wish news articles put faces these types of outrages. The above people are the commission.
We've seen similar approaches in the past where some company installs a root kit into their product. Sony did this with some music CD once and there have been other instances. The problem arises when the hacking community discovers the rootkit (and they always do) and they make use of the rootkit for their own purposes and it turns into a gateway for malware getting onto the person's computer. Again, this is not conjecture, this has already happened.
Additionally, this would lead the way to false positives where a company thinks a person has pirated software but has in fact not. Look at the headaches with Windows activations where the software suddenly assumes that it has been pirated and is disabled / crippled until the user gets it sorted out..
Like any weapon, this kind of stuff can be turned against lawful people and it is not worth implementing.
If companies are so worried about piracy and the costs to them, they should stop attacking the enduser sitting at home and go after the large organized crime groups in other countries where piracy is rampant and effectively sanctioned by the local government. THAT is where the big numbers for revenue lost to piracy comes from, not from some kid at home downloading games or music to try a few times.
That kind of talk will get you put in Gitmo or killed by a drone here. Nobody talks violence against the new masters of the United Corporate States of America.
Take the Red Pill.
I mean really most people do not buy CD's anymore or use PC's to listen to music, Rootkits are no longer an issue for the vast majority of multimedia content users. No need to get your knickers in a twist.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Many large corporations, including the entertainment industry, are using -- or are looking at using -- proactive strategies as part of their security playbook. There was an interesting report on NPR concerning this a few months back. Currently, deploying malware is, to all intents and purposes, simply illegal. As it should be. These guys want a self-defense avenue for deploying destructive or surveillance programs against their perceived enemies. IMHO our corrupt congress will -- sooner or later -- be bribed into letting them have their way.
YOYO. You're On Your Own.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
It is unbelievable that somebody would actually propose something like that.
If this goes through, the safest way to protect private PC regardless of if you are a pirate or not would be to start using Linux desktop. Id does not guarantee 100% malware free but it is one of the safest. Linux desktop might still have a chance !.
I wonder if they will eventually ask to be allowed to just take the money directly from citizens' accounts. Their ultimate goal is to control the entire development and consumption of all things culture.
Signature intentionally left blank.
It is difficult to underestimate the Greed of the entertainment industry. These people replace the energy industry as the poster child for robber barons.
As I read it, this plan constitutes a conspiracy to commit extortion; such a conspiracy is a felony under California law. I think it should be brought to the attention of the Attorney General of the state of California.
What is Chris Dodd' sinvolvement in this? Since he left Congress and works for the MPAA now, you can bet he's in it somewhere...
C|N>K
And kill them.
actually, thats an old one, and often tried, the european union is currently trying to pass a law with a very similar intent:
quite a coincidence, eh.
https://netzpolitik.org/2013/eu-will-grenzuberschreitende-anordnung-von-telekommunikationsuberwachung-und-trojanern-verpflichtend-regeln/ (german)
http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/de/10/st09/st09288-ad02.de10.pdf (german)
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2012:0010:FIN:DE:HTML (german)
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2010:165:0022:0039:DE:PDF (german)
http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/de/11/st18/st18225.de11.pdf (german)
if anyone has those papers in english, would be great if you could share them.
on a personal note on the situation: its sad how we all are dumb enough to fall back for centuries of social competence and living quality.
that would somehow figure out if you were a pirate
By definition by the content industry,
return TRUE;
would be enough.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
In return for the entertainment industry installing root kits on our computers to lock up files if they believe they've found a case of piracy, the public gets to install root kits on the entertainment industry's computers that will lock up their files if we believe they've acted on a false positive that they didn't properly verify. Once the entertainment executives who were responsible for the program show up at a police station, confess to their crimes and are properly charged, the files will be unlocked.
I think it would take less than 48 hours to shut down all of Hollywood.
Eventually the entertainment companies will get the point and either eliminate rid of the program or go bankrupt since they can't produce anything with the constant shutdowns. Either way, we'll be done with this silliness and we'll have put at least some of the idiots proposing it where they belong; in jail.
This would just backfire so fiercely that it would turn the Entertainment Industry inside out. Publishers are not needed. They add no value to the work. The bits are in infinite supply, thus no value. What's valuable is the ability to create new works. We now have the ability to pay the artists directly for their new works -- They can simply withhold their efforts until money is assured -- Like Mechanics, Home Builders, Burger Joints, 100% crowd funded projects, etc.
With a burger, home or car, there is one customer purchasing the work -- The work benefits one customer. With arts the customers are all mankind. Marvel of Marvels: The bits are infinitely reproducible! Is this a match made in heaven? No, it is the nature of information. Humans are information duplication devices, right down to their very DNA. All Life Is.
The current publishing model runs counter to the Nature of the Universe, and employs evil economically untenable practices such as Artificial Scarcity, and Data Sharing Restrictions. To force the people into a system counter to human nature is what it means to create a police state. This has always backfired. The sooner, the better.
Using government force to destroy individual freedoms (like in this case - right to own and operate private property and right to a trial before being found guilty of some crime, etc.) is the exact opposite of the free market.
You have, on many occasions, advocated for the complete abolition of the criminal justice system, to be replaced by one run by the infinite beauty and wisdom of the free market and the corporate players that drive it. So I ask you then, what in such a system would guarantee the right to a trial before being found guilty of a crime?
The answer is obvious, of course. Nothing would guarantee a trial at all in such a system. A trial would be an impediment to profit and hence would not happen. There is no profit motive for equal justice, as we have seen many times throughout history. Your corporate overlords would be judge, jury, and executioner at their own discretion with nobody allowed to question their judgment.
But this of course is just part of your standard M.O. You want more power and wealth for the powerful and wealthy, and you want to deliver fascism for the people.
Putting absolutely any content on somebody else's computer without their permission and effectively blackmailing them by then charging them for its removal is already illegal, so there's no way to legally exploit this to do what you describe here.
Such a law is problematic for an entire host of reasons...but that's not one of them.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Make a claim in one direction but do the opposite. In this case it makes the claim a tool for stealing from users.
Please. Go ahead. Get Congress to authorize you to deploy rootkits. While you're at it, better make sure Congress also holds you immune from any damages done to the user's computer by either you or a third party who exploits your rootkit on the user's machine. I really want you to do this. I really sincerely hope this legislation goes through.
Because that will be the end of you. That will bring to an end the era of Big Entertainment .as people take special pains and use soon-to-be-written FOSS software to ensure that no part, fragment, snippet or bit ...nothing, NO-THING of what you produce ever has any contact whatsoever with any machine they own.
One way to kill your enemy is to give them everything they want. This works especially well when the enemy is the coke snorting sociopathic lawyers and executives in an industry who would corrupt every last vestige of civil society and even democracy and free speech itself in order that they can go on making money in just the way they've set themselves up to make money.
So please, go ahead .. make my day. (footnote 1)
Footnote 1-t
The phrase "Make my day" is copyrighted by Warners Brothers and is used here without permission despite the fact that Woofy Goofy was fully cognizant of the copyright and also the need to seek legal permission before using the phrase "Make my day" and further, it was Woofy Goofy 's intent to, with malice of forethought , defraud and and deprive Warners Brothers of its legal right to compensation for the usage of its copyrighted material and this defrauding was not intended by WoofyGoofy as a political act or protest but rather and only to secure financial gain for WoofyGoofy, regardless of the amount of such gain or whether such gain could reasonably be inferred to have materialized through any means, and for no other reason whatsoever.
This will fail, but the industry will just make deals with ISPs that, unless you install their scanning software on your PC, your PC cannot be 'trusted' to go on the network.
They're not the victims. We are.
If something doesn't work, just do it harder. Then it'll definitely work. At this point, it's better for innovation to just kill the bastards behind this, because the damage caused by it will be orders of magnitude more important than the bread and circuses provided by those pushing for this.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Well said. A decade ago I remember being shocked that end-to-end encryption was being attempted in the PC all the way to the monitor. Lest you think that was naive, the mindset back then was that it really was ludicrous given how many technical obstacles existed (which included resistance from the user btw).
But now it's readily apparent that source-to-consumption control was being taken very seriously by content producers and tech companies. It was the end-game for them because there was no other option to preserve the business models. So they methodically broke down each hurdle through technical tricks, law making and user conditioning.
It's not completely there yet but when you look at today's video game consoles and smart tvs, it's pretty much a given that a majority of our media and computing devices will be taken out of our control within the next 5-10 years. They'll be nothing more than vending machines. Coupled with the law making process and help from the ISPs, the signs are all there to make it happen, secure boot, broadcast flags, dependence on internet as a utility, et al.
Sure it's depressing but it's a rare case where we all know in great detail what the future holds.
It's called the cloud. Just say they have reason to believe (insert your favorite could service here) there are pirated programs on it. Get a court order to search thru it... you're toast.
Wuddooeyeno? IITYWYBMAD? Like nuts? eclecticallyincorrect.com
so with training software / videos they can get a back door to the power gird and other systems? NO WAY!!!!!!!!!!
so I can make a free game or some other trial ware with a this stuff it to strike back at them and it does not even need to be a game it can be some utility software.
just need to add in fine print saying free for home and small business but big business must pay up or you systems will get locked down.
A better question is whether AMD or Intel will ever put backdoors into their hardware (for any purpose).
If they don't then I think we're OK.
This is really what we need! We just need to slip in a small amendment that automatically restitutes twice the full purchase price for every service interruption, and an barely bounded amount for collateral damage. (e.g. I can't work because it locked up).
While probably most people here will agree that in general this is a bad thing, the REAL bad thing is that they want this without having any responsibility at all.
The industry already made deals with major ISPs in the USA to monitor your internet use.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
This sort of thing is why old people need to fuck off out of the way, retire and make room for younger people who know what they're doing.
Our society wrongly values both the stupid and young ('Peter Pan' effect) and the stupid and old (clueless old farts who don't take a hint and just retire).
Less developers. Still required for making anything NEW or for providing support.
Also, more secretive development, like what many corporations do today already - the protections were put in place to encourage the publishing of secrets for the benefit of society rather than be forgotten. One could go back to the old model and probably do better than we are today; reverse engineering is pretty advanced. Sure, huge expensive projects will not be worth the risks until they become cheaper - but then is there really that big of a benefit to having something sooner? Today it does more harm than good and is slowing down research.
Lawyers never stop in the invention of new jobs for themselves. They've created so much overhead that progress is nearly impossible.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
I have more faith in the power of voters and the desire and the whole "state monoploy on violence" meme to ever see this get anywhere near the light of day. If they want to go down that road with open hostilities...theres more of us than them...just sayin...
The whole undercurrent of protection = retaliation being peddled in TFA is equally nonsensical. Nothing is as it seems on the Internet..most source addresses are either total garbage or unwitting victims. Without human level AI any automated retaliation can and will be leveraged as a weapon by the very people you seek to defend against.
Divest yourselves of your sugar-daddies and follow the Constitution YOU swore to protect!
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
If it has not been done before, can we coin the term Cyberlynching to refer to hanging up a computer in pursuit of an unproven allegation of crime without due process of law? It helps to have a clearly understood name for something you are discussing.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
People will simply use external harddrives for storage and maybe getting a second PC. Not store anything on the system disk, and they can just swap to a fresh system disk when they'll get infected. Assuming there's no easy way to remove the infection.
It would do more to boost HDD and PC sales than software/media IMO.
For example, if you take every copy of a work and lock it away, then it's been stolen.
If you claim copyright or patent control over a work without valid justification, then it's been stolen.
If you take from the public domain then copyright it so you alone now own it, it's been stolen.
In all three cases, the right of others who have the right to copy have had that right removed at least semi-permanently (if you get your stolen iPhone back, it doesn't mean it wasn't theft).
What ISN'T theft is making your own copy of something. Unless you stole someone else's copy, rather than make your own.
Wait a minute, is this proposed legislation or a review of Neal Stephenson's "REAMDE"?
And the entertainment industry would require more powers and indirect help from the government to "combat the scourge of international terrorism funded by bootlegging DVDs".
Don't think it'll happen?
It's happened already.
Not completely there yet?
Take a look at the Apple TV.
Note that it does not receive broadcast TV. It does, however, hook directly into iTunes so you can buy or rent TV shows.
It does not have much in the way of onboard storage - enough for an OS and that's about it. It streams whatever you want to watch from either other systems on your home network or the Internet.
It has one video output - HDMI. Which, I'm sure you know, provides encryption.
It can also playback files you have in an existing collection, but that's a relatively small part of the package. It'd be trivial for a firmware update to remove this functionality.
Oh, it's a gorgeous small box. Tiny thing. And the UI is a joy compared to virtually every other set top box I've ever seen. But it's pretty much exactly what you're describing and it's available to buy today.
at least this approach involves the police, as opposed to some of their other just-let-us-handle-it schemes
It's not the opposition that have stopped thinks like internet spying, it's the people, and this has proven to be quite effective. The trick is finding the critical mass to make a statement.
legalize the use of malware in order to punish people believed to be copying illegally
That would be a joy.
I have already been hit with FALSE POSITIVES in the past. I had a game (Knights of the Old Republic, if I recall correctly) stop working and tell me it was because of Daemon Tools on my computer.
Point 1. None of their business what other software I am using.
Point 2. I had never even heard of Daemon Tools at the time, and it was not on my computer.
This was one of a few incidents I have had over the years with stuff that is "defective by design".
If this was legalized, they should expect the same in return.
Also they should have to pay for compute time on my hardware, and for space on my hard drive, and bandwidth on my internet.
Rofl ransomware. Yea, completely violating everyones privacy and destroying their personal property and holding it for ransom is justified by someone torrenting a shitty movie to decide if it's shitty.
If this happens I will never buy physical media again. my 100-odd CD collection will remain the same, my 50-odd dvd collection will remain the same.
I don't want to be forced to run software from a media company They're seeking to not only make it easier to pirate, but safer too. What happens if there is a bug in their rootkit? Are they going to pay to fix my computer and compensate me for lost time?
How is this even possible to stop anyone copying media on a large scale? If I play a CD via a virtual machine and record the output, no problem. If I play the CD in a CD player and record via optical connection, no problem. If I turn off auto-play, no problem. If I don't use Windows, no problem...
Only way I see this going to is a "mom and pop" who legally buy a CD put it in their computer where their kid has downloaded something, sometime via Napster 10 years ago get sued for staturoy damages and have to declare bankruptsy.
I already shun Sony due to their earlier rootkit CDs.
Hopefully this will not give some people the idea to create just-as-nasty malware that "does it stuff" when it finds itself on a computer that is part of a *.mpaa.org or *.riaa.com active directory, or one of its members...
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
I love this from the report:"Hundreds of billions of dollars per year. The annual losses are likely to be comparable to the current annual level of U.S. exports to Asia—over $300 billion. The exact figure is unknowable,"
So they don't know how large the losses are from piracy but they are likely (In a Dr. Evil voice) ) Hundreds of billions of dollars!!!
of course. the usual riaa/mpaa/ea logic is that they're entitled to more money than what the consumers have.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
They always include a ludicrous^2 proposal to distract the discussion from ludicrous^(3/2) which itself exists to ensure that ludicrous^(5/4) is barely noticed.
If anyone from the EFF is reading this, it might be worthwhile for you guys to take some time and write a point by point rebuttal of this document. It may also be beneficial to remind our lawmakers that even if such programs were technically feasible, which of course they're not, they would render any discussion of US cyber security moot. Can we really afford to expose our vital infrastructure to cyber attacks merely because the entertainment industry believes that it will lose revenue if we don't? It's madness to expect that we can secure our vital infrastructure while opening up security holes on purpose and equally foolish to believe that our enemies will not target those weaknesses. The economic and military might of the United States depends upon the reliable operation of our civil and military infrastructure which in turn depends upon reliable computing. If for no other reason, this request by the entertainment industry should be denied simply on grounds of national security, quite apart from other compelling economic arguments against their requests.
I think this is a great idea, but ....
To keep things on a even keel, if there is even this slightest hint of playing with the artist money, would require a root kit on all the machines the company owns. No more playing with the books!!! They be out of business in a day.
Here's a list of the commission members. Perhaps a note should be added to their Wikipedia pages.
I would like a legislation that allows me to burn a corporation assets when I am not satisfied with product quality or customer support. Do you think I have a chance if I ask government?
I'm just going to go ahead and start pirating everything. Including cars. Suck it, industry.
When do they get it?
Making an illegal copy cannot be theft by definition. Theft means "illegal transfer of possession" and the original is never 'lost' in any way, only duplicated.
It's copyright infringement, nothing more. But "theft" sounds much more serious so they use that - even if it's completely wrong on every level. Sigh.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
Fuck them. They should not be releasing their stuff in a manner compatible with my computer. They do NOT get root just because they choose to release their stuff in certain formats. If they are so worried about piracy, they can create their own dedicated devices. I refuse to accept that there will no longer be ANY computing devices available to me that I have no absolute control over.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
Oh sure, the RIAA has sued grandmothers for downloading rap music using a program that doesn't run on granny's Mac computer. And, yes, they bully people into settling because paying $3,000 to settle is cheaper than spending years and thousands more settling. And, yes, they've made sure that the penalties that people face for copyright infringement are so high that they can bankrupt the average individual for life. And yes, they sue based on the flimsiest of evidence. ("We have this IP address in our list therefore you're a dirty, stinkin' pirate!")
But I'm sure that they won't misuse this power. I'm sure they won't make some "minor clerical error", infect someone's system with malware and then threaten not to unlock their files unless they pay up. I'm sure that they won't tell the people that they can't sue the entertainment industry for locking out their files or they'll tie them up in court until they are bankrupt for life. I'm sure they'll never interfere with a person's livelihood or with a business by locking up files until they go out of business. Nope, they'd NEVER* do that!
* Never - as defined by the Entertainment Industry - something you promise you won't do until you get the power to do it.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
rootkits are cybercrime. I suppose if we want to revoke the 18 U.S.C. 1030 law preventing unauthorized access to a computer. Then consumers could retaliate by accessing entertainment industry computers and install malware, particularly ransomware, then it might be equitable. Whats good for the goose...
I suppose, on the other hand, this would open the door for entrepreneurs to develop tools to find and eliminate these rootkits. Also I'd be curious to see what kind of backlash the entertainment industry suffers from this.
...The Entertainment Industry, hiding behind "Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property" which is an obvious sock of the MPAA/RIAA Mafia, wants to further blow their toes off with suggesting putting Malware on all their stuff?
Lets totally ignore the Constitutionality of this and go strait to the other various laws that this proposal will violate... Starting with all those dealing with distributing malware and work our way up to those pesky laws dealing with privacy and illegal search and seizure that will cause most of the evidence against actual pirates to be dismissed in a court of law. Oh and lets just further cut the industry's throat by having all exports be denied by countries that think having malware preloaded is bullshit.
But what do I know? I could never be that blind drunk/stoned and I highly doubt the planet Earth has enough Weed and Booze to make the recommendations this commission came up with make any kind of valid sense.
Ransomware, rootkits ... all these are tools from bad people, not from good ones. ... I am not so fool.
This is like to work against another government and to define that a biological weapon will be used to defeat the enemy. Soon or later, this weapon will turn back and shoot the originator feet, because it is not good to use these types of tools, period. Nobody can control them well, not now, not tomorrow.
At the end, trying to protect the intelectual property industry, what they will provoke is that all the people will run to any open source and/or free alternative, making that all the closed sourced business be in bankrupcy. If there is the minimum possibility that something like that work wrong and that I be in a situation where I can't use my own "intelectual property" because it was stolen because of an error, I never will use that type of tools
It is time to stop watching movies and listening to music with standard copyright restrictions. It is hard, but you can do this. The first step is to avoid and ignore the brainwash advertising, that makes you want something that you would otherwise be indifferent to.
Simply avoid these corporations which make criminals out of their own market. Choose creative commons and free entertainment only. If you pay for content, then you are only perpetuating a system which will make criminals out of your children. Because this is the channel through which they consume media and the existing distributors are not up to the task of providing it in a legal manner.
Stand up for the freedom of your children. Stop paying for media and stop downloading content with restrictive licenses. Otherwise, your children deserve the fines, criminal records and jail time that your actions force upon them.