Why all this Wil Wheaton stuff everywhere all of a sudden? I never knew this guy's name until a couple weeks ago, and now I see it all over the place. Was this a carefully planned attempt to distance himself from the "Wesley must die!" movement, or is this just another case of the media picking someone to hype for no apparent reason? Or is he being recognized for his accomplishments or some other seemingly obvious reason?
How important will PGP be to you when your entire home is destroyed by bombs/planes or wiped out by plague?
How important will a ban on encryption be when it does absolutely nothing to stop those things from happening? Less freedom does not automatically equal greater security. Would you feel more secure if you knew that you could be detained indefinitely for no reason? Would you feel more secure knowing that everything you do or say is being monitored by people you don't know? Would you feel more secure if you were forced to wear a ball and chain around your legs at all times? And remember, the criminals are the ones who, by definition, don't follow the law, so additional restrictive laws aren't very likely to stop people who are willing to break more serious laws. If you want to get people to stop complaining about losing freedom, you had better be able to show how the loss of that freedom is justified. If there isn't a Damn Good Reason(TM), then the freedom shouldn't be taken away.
From the Wired article about new gambling regulations:
Democrats were similarly split, with ranking member Rep. John LaFalce (D-New York) saying that college students must be shielded from gambling's lure.
"The chief users of Internet gambling are not terrorists, they are our youths," said LaFalce. "Lots of different kids are given credit cards -- not one -- multiple cards. It's easy to gamble from dormitory rooms, or with wireless connections from campus quads, or with Palm Pilots any place."
Great, so now it's not just "for the children," but also "for the immature adults." Shouldn't college students be shielded from alcohol's lure too? What about drugs, porn, and the horror of late nights coding madly while eating snack foods and watching Star Trek? We must protect our college students, they represent our future! They can't be exposed to anything bad that might force them to make choices or even learn something! Next it will be young adults ("They start the families that will rebuild our nation!"), middle-aged people ("They fuel our rebounding economy!"), senior citizens ("Their wisdom and experience help guide a new generation!"), dead people, and everyone in between who will need protection from their own stupidity. When will people be forced to take responsibility for their actions? When will lawmakers stop using stupid people as excuses for new laws? When will all of these laws result in a population that is incapable of dealing with hardship because "big brother" kept them safe and warm all their lives?
Like many other people here, I looked up the addresses of my three "representatives" in Congress and sent each of them a nice long letter printed on fancy paper and everything. Of those three, only one generated a response, and it was the typical "I'll vote for anything that says antiterrorism on it" form letter. It's so nice to know that my concerns about the danger of knee-jerk legislation passing without opposition, regardless of content, were so obviously unfounded...
On the bright side, the next big election is coming up in just over a year. If you don't like what's going on, start taking notes. Find out who is up for re-election next year (everyone in the House and roughly one-third of the Senate) and keep track of how they are voting and what they are saying. When the campaign is in full swing, send out a few letters to the editor, start discussions with your friends and co-workers, etc. The important thing is that you do something and not just sit back and complain when those who are elected to represent you fail to do their job.
Sorry, but despite what they would have you think, they DO NOT represent YOU, or ME, or any other member of the "public"... unless of course they have very large wallets.
Um, I did list bribes on my list of reasons why someone might support this legislation... I am quite aware that "government of the people, by the people, for the people" has indeed perished from the earth, or at least our corner of it, and that is exactly the problem here. Most of the time, there is at least some kind of legitimate reason for a bill, even if that reason is just a minor part of the bill. The SSSCA breaks this tradition and could help expose the true extent of Congressional corruption (not that it isn't rather obvious already). Whether or not the average idiot will understand the significance is still up in the air.
Tell them that it is fundamentally UnAmerican to limit what people do with their own property in their own homes
Unfortunately, laws of this type are nothing new. The earliest law limiting the use of electronic equipment in private that I am aware of dates back to 1934. In this case, the law states that "no one may receive, or assist in receiving, any radio communication to which they are not entitled and use that information for their own benefit," and also outlawed "the manufacture, assembly, possession, and sale of any device primarily useful for the surreptitious interception of such radio transmissions." Sound familiar?
It isn't too big a jump from limiting the private use of radio signals broadcasted in the clear to limiting the private use of locally stored data (any "collateral damage" like the death of free software is just the price for worry-free "copyright protection," or at least that's what the masses will be told). The descrambling of scrambled cable television stations is widely accepted as a criminal act, so that too lends itself to extension to data - you are given the content in a very specific form and are not allowed to do anything that would allow you to gain additional benefit from it.
The only difference in these cases is that you pay for most of the content that would be limited by the SSSCA (in the other cases, the law limits what people who don't pay for the content can do with it), but with SSSCA "protected" content, you aren't paying for the right to use it, you're paying to have the content providers tell you how to use it. You pay for cable, but only the channels the cable company wants you to see for the amount you pay; you pay for a DVD, but only for the use of it on an authorized player and without the ability to make direct digital audio clips or screen captures. History has shown that people will allow the government to tell them how they can use someone else's content, even in their own homes. The purpose of our representative government is to prevent the uninformed masses from making stupid decisions, so the problem here isn't with the people, but instead with the motivations of elected representatives.
Okay, so the idea here is to make every possible data storage device and the associated software play nice with copyright. The benefits are:
Copyright infringement in the original digital form is theoretically impossible.
Content providers, software manufacturers, etc. can sleep well knowing that their profits are secure, as long as people keep buying their products.
And some of the problems are:
Copyright "theoretically" expires, but protection methods don't.
Fair Use will be outlawed through technology.
Infringement will just require an analog capture method or good old reverse engineering (which of course is already illegal in some cases, even though it isn't...).
Hardware and software will be more expensive/less useful and there will be less to choose from, resulting in slower sales of new products and a surge in the used equipment market.
Content will be less useful, and therefore will have less value, meaning lower sales if prices do not fall considerably to compensate (take a look at the sales of e-books).
Updates must be made mandatory to prevent vulnerabilities from being exploited once they are discovered, meaning that the government must have access to your computer for this to work.
The feeling of the government trying to regulate or control every aspect of our lives will increase dramatically, adding fuel to the anti-government sentiment that has temporarily faded in the past month.
The acronym "SSSCA" doesn't even have the warm and fuzzy feel to it that "DMCA" does.
So why would someone support this?
Ignorance
Stupidity
Bribes
Greed
Totalitarianism
A general desire to screw people over
Am I missing something here, or could this show us what our lawmakers really think of the people they represent (assuming that they actually record the votes this time...)? We've seen much of this before, but this time they aren't even trying to make it look good.
I can see devices like this used to control complicated Battlebots, combined with a headmounted display and voice commands. Forget a bunch of joysticks, buttons, and switches, just assign different functions to different hand movements. Or just put some robotic hands on it and literally grab and toss your opponent... There must be some weapons configurations that haven't been practical due to control system limitations. Now if I could just figure out a way to get them to let me start a project on this at work...
In my idealistic view of the world, I can't see the harm in something done in private, alone, with material obtained through legal means, and without any impact on anything outside the privacy of your own home. This is what I believe copyright law should focus on - distribution, private use, and redistribution. The content creator/provider controls the distribution of material into your physical/virtual "home," law enforcement prevents unlawful redistribution, and you are left alone when in private and not affecting anyone else. Unfortunately, the push these days is to leave out that last part and jump directly from content control on the distribution link to redistribution prevention. Apparently all of these content creators/providers forgot that people pay for this content because they want to use it, not because they treat the entertainment industry like a charity.
There is a trade-off here - the content creators are encouraged to produce content and make it public in some form, opening it to the possibility of unlawful distribution, while we can benefit from this content, but are in turn required by law to respect the creator's rights to control first sale distribution and in some cases derivative works. Recent laws seem to be taking away the potential for benefit from produced content while also enacting stricter regulations on and penalties for unlawful redistribution. In other words, creators/providers win on both counts, citizens/consumers lose on both counts.
If you keep blocking the ads, then the advertisers will give up and you will get to pay for the content. It's that simple.
Who do you think pays for the sites now? Advertisers pay for banner ads because people who see them are more likely to buy their products and/or services. The difference between this and subscription viewing is that people like me, who only buy stuff when they want it and not because of an ad, pay nothing, while people who are easily parted from their money, people who see the ad elsewhere, or people who already do business with the company are the ones supporting the site (which means that site quality isn't as important as the number of ads displayed). Of course, whenever we buy something, we pay for the advertising of the product/service and the company selling it, so in the end, we pay one way or another. With ads, we pay for the content, the ads themselves, and the middlemen involved, with inflated prices (and the time wasted on ads). With subscription payments, we pay for quality content, without ads, large graphics, annoying animations, fancy scripts, or anything else that blocks us from that content. Subscription payments also keep out people who only want to annoy and/or take advantage of people, which is always a good thing.
Take a look at television in the UK - despite cultural differences (like an obsession with things like soccer and snooker), television there is much more pleasant to watch. Without ads, a 40 minute show lasts 40 minutes and not an hour (plus the occasional break, so you still get the most important benefit of commercials without the commercials). Sure, you end up with 20 year old episodes of Battlestar Galactica and other odd things, but it sure beats hundreds of sitcoms patterned after Friends.
Of course, we will never get rid of ads because people are more than willing to pay more for less if the cost is hidden from them. Ideally, sites with little or no value should just die, and other sites should exist either as minimally intrusive ad sites (like this one) or minimal fee subscription sites. The sites I visit most either have very few, well targeted ads, or have turned to subscriptions. The other alternative is a company's own site, where profits are funneled back to the customers in the form of useful features and services, which in turn attract more customers and generate more revenue. This is a business model that works much better than a banner ad on a free site advertising another free site that gives away money and also pays for television advertising, all from ad revenue from other free sites that all do the same thing... The money has to come from somewhere, so it might as well go there without thousands of useless executives in the way.
But haven't you seen that Simpsons episode where Homer joins the NRA? Guns can be used as TV remote controls, light switches (off only), beer can openers, etc. There's a world of possibilities out there.
On a serious note, the purpose of a gun is to propel a projectile at a high velocity. The gun does not (well, in most cases at least, target recognition and artificial intelligence aside) aim itself. It takes a person to decide whether to point the gun at a paper target, television, car, animal, person, etc. The issue isn't what the gun is capable of, but whether the person holding it is capable of handling the task of pointing it (this isn't always properly addressed by firearms regulations unfortunately).
Cryptography is quite a different issue, as it only affects the flow of information. Law enforcement agencies are complaining because they want all information to flow through them. The idea is that they must know what everyone is doing so that they will know when someone is doing something wrong. Since that is going a bit far, they will settle for just the option of knowing what someone is doing if they think that person is doing something wrong. Cryptography presents a challenge here, so back doors have been proposed to potentially remove the potential that someone could possibly be planning to maybe do something that could be bad without law enforcement knowing about it. If that sounds absurd, it's because it is, and that's the point.
Redundant? I posted this 13 minutes after the article was posted, and someone calls this redundant? First I get called a troll for having an opinion, now this. Wait a second... Seemingly random moderation, no obvious pattern... That's it, terrorists are using/. moderation as an encryption method! Quick, let's ban moderation before they can coordinate another attack.
The following is not necessarily based on any people, places, events, companies, or laws, real or imagined, and any similarity is coincidental. So there.
Here's Microsoft's worst nightmare (assuming that Microsoft is a collective entity that can think and dream):
Person A has a copy of Windows but doesn't want it. Person A just wants to get rid of the piece of junk, so Person A's asking price for the software and license is very low.
Person B sees a good deal on Windows from Person A and takes advantage of it. Person B notices that there are more people like Person A, giving Person B an idea.
Person C is being audited by Microsoft and is knee-deep in bovine excrement. Once the manure truck accident scene is cleared, Person C continues on to work, trying to figure out how to deal with the Microsoft situation.
Person B saw Person C at the scene of the accident swearing about some "Microsoft bullsh1t." Noticing that the manure truck didn't have Microsoft painted on the side, Person B realizes that Person C is being audited by Microsoft. Person B decides that the time is right to act.
Person B visits Person C's workplace and proposes a solution to the Microsoft problem. After some negotiation, Person B sells the necessary number of Windows licenses to Person C's company, at a substantial profit.
Person A is happy to be rid of Windows, Person B made a nice profit, and Person C didn't have to pay Microsoft off. Microsoft loses "potential sales" and doesn't get to torture Person C's company anymore.
Then Microsoft wakes up screaming, but realizes it was all a dream, making note to take action to prevent this horrible thing from ever happening. After reading "The Little Monopoly that Could," Microsoft was once more asleep, content that nothing could harm it.
Ok, great, we're at the beginning of Starfleet, picking up 100 years after where First Contact left off. We have a captain that has Kirk's Vulcan-frustrating illogical habits, John Crichton's cluelessness around aliens, and Sam Beckett's dialogue (just replace "Oh boy" with "Let's go"). Some of the opening scenes are almost straight out of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the alien hangout scenes are straight out of Farscape, and the disinfecting scene is straight out of Pay-Per-View porn, bulging nipples and all. Add in some rather unsuccessful attempts to make it seem like standard Star Trek stuff is new and confusing ("Kling-ons," fear of transporters, "new weapons," etc.), and it is mildly amusing in a accident scene sort of way.
Fine it's a new show, so of course it is going to borrow from what came before it. So what is it adding that's new? Well, there's that horrible pop-ish opening theme song. Ok, so that's not a good example. Um, there's a female in a bodysuit that prominently displays her breasts. Right, that's been done. How about a ship far away from home exploring new worlds? Time traveling bad guys and temporal nonsense? Shapeshifters? An unusual doctor with various pet projects?
So none of the elements are really all that original, what about the character development and plot? I know it is a bit too early to tell, but you should at least be able to identify the characters and see how they will interact in the future, right? There's that T'Pau Vulcan chick, Captain Archer, Doctor, um, Flox, the linguist, the dimwit, the guy who brought out the guns, and the token black guy. There's probably a few more, but with identical uniforms and dim lighting, it's tough to tell people apart, especially since they all seem to have the same personality. Well, maybe they'll get to that later. There's at least some chemistry between the Vulcan and what's-his-name, but they kind of overdid that one scene and didn't put anything a little more subtle in to support it. There's the Human-Vulcan tension, but that was delivered with a sledgehammer too. And there's the Klingons, who didn't do much of anything yet. And of course we can't forget the shapeshifting temporal bad guys... So we've got a bunch of inexperienced, headstrong humans on a ship in the middle of nowhere, with some contrived time travelling plot mixed in (How long before a character from one of the other Trek shows travels back in time to help them?). And despite not having much technology to work with, they still manage to inject random technological solutions to their problems...
There's some potential here, but this first episode really didn't do much. All of the other Trek pilots seemed to have more of an impact than this one. Maybe it was just the challenge of working from a "historical" reference point and moving to an original storyline, but I'm not impressed. I would really like to enjoy this show, but I don't have a good feeling about it so far.
Too many people seem to be automatically against anything that Ashcroft might call for, without actually knowing what the specific proposals are. For example, one of the new powers that Ashcroft has called for is that when a surveillance warrant is granted, it be tied to the individual rather than a specific phone, which seems totally reasonable to me.
Until they have taps that can be inserted into the human brain, I would prefer that a warrant specifically limits what can be tapped. If the problem is that it takes too long to get a new warrant when the communications device is changed, then the law should be changed regarding how warrant issuing is handled, not the scope of the warrant.
In future discussions, how about if we discuss specific proposals and make specific criticisms rather than general statements about how the government is just looking for the chance to turn the country is a police state?
Sure, let's be as specific as the legislation is. Ashcroft's bill is intended "To combat terrorism and defend the Nation against terrorist acts, and for other purposes." You've got to love that "and for other purposes" bit. Let's see what other "specifics" this bill contains:
by inserting "or other facility" after "the line"
by striking ", or who has been ordered by the court" and inserting "or applied, or who is obligated by the order"
by replacing "or firearm" with ", firearm, or other weapon or dangerous device"
"As used in clause (iii), the term "terrorist organization" means any organization-
"(I) designated or redesignated under section 219;
"(II) that commits or materially supports, or that has a significant subgroup that commits or materially supports, terrorist activity, regardless of any other activities conducted by the organization or its subgroups;
"(III) that intends to commit or materially support, or that has a significant subgroup that intends to commit or materially support, terrorist activity, regardless of any other activities conducted by the organization or its subgroups; or
"(IV) that has committed or materially supported, or that has a significant subgroup that has committed or materially supported, terrorist activity, regardless of any other activities conducted by the organization or its subgroups, unless the Secretary of State has determined in his sole discretion, after consultation with the Attorney General, that as of a date specified by the Secretary the organization shall not be considered a terrorist organization."
"Notwithstanding any other provision of law, an indictment may be found or an information instituted for any Federal terrorism offense at any time without limitation."
The amendments made by this section shall apply to the prosecution of any offense committed before, on, or after the date of enactment of this section.
by striking "does not include" and inserting "includes"
in subsection (b), by inserting "expert advice or assistance," after "training,"
No reward offered by the Attorney General in connection with hijackings or terrorist acts shall be subject to any per- or aggregate reward spending limitation established by law, unless the same should expressly refer to this section, and no reward paid pursuant to any such offer shall count toward any such aggregate reward spending limitation.
by striking "$5,000,000" and inserting in lieu thereof "$10,000,000, except as personally authorized by the Secretary of State if he determines that offer or payment of an award of a larger amount is important to the national interests of the United States."
etc., etc., etc...
This bill is full of stuff like this, taking out specifics and inserting vague terminology that can be interpreted in many different ways. This bill isn't about specifics, it is about generalizing the law to broaden the power of law enforcement. That is the specific point that people are worried about, and it can't be pointed to on a single line. In fact, many lines are difficult to understand (Why can't they learn to use hyperlinks?) because they only say something like "by striking the word 'and.'" This bill reads like a list of Christmas presents that Ashcroft would like, not what is necessary, Constitutional, or even right. Hopefully, this will be seen as too extreme by enough people in Congress to keep it from becoming law.
One of the most successful uses of encryption in human history has been the constantly evolving slang terminology used by teenagers. It is almost completely incomprehensible, yet manages to convey information without appearing significant. Just think, the next time you see some teenagers speaking to each other, they could be sending messages between terrorists...
Ok, so we have a study that says that only a small percentage of pictures on eBay seem to have some kind of steganographic content, but none of them can be confirmed to actually contain this information. You can conclude several things from this, depending on your personal bias:
-Steganography is not used on the web.
-Steganography is not used on eBay.
-We can't detect steganography.
-Any steganographic we can detect can't be decoded.
-Steganography isn't widely used - yet.
You can mix and match these to fit your personal agenda, which I'm sure many people will do. In reality though, these results say almost nothing. The only way to know where, how, and how often steganography is used is to find out from the people using it.
Unfortunately, I have a feeling some people in Congress and elsewhere in the US government will use this as proof that if they can control encryption, there won't be too much use of other methods of hiding data. Ignoring all of the flaws in this conclusion, there is a further flaw in the assumption that by changing the security in encryption, the amount of use of other methods will remain the same. I would not be surprised if there aren't any people on eBay using steganography, nor would I be surprised if the same was true on most other sites; with available alternatives, this is just one of many tools that could be used to transmit messages securely. If the alternatives are removed, more effort will be spent on steganography, resulting in more widespread use and more resistance to detection. In other words, a ban on secure encryption would just encourage development in other areas, even if such development is dormant right now.
On a final note, if you want to look for steganography, try a sleazy porn site. Not that I've seen any myself, but I've heard that they toss all kinds of random stuff up on those, grabbing the images from all over the internet. This would seem to make a more representative sample than a site full of people selling their junk.
The next time some issues like this comes up, if people really want letters to get written, it needs to be spelled out in black and white, with links accessible directly from that issue. As in: mail letter X from EFF.org to address Y depending on your state by date Z.
I have always had a problem with the whole form letter lobbying method. Any idiot can print out a letter and drop it in the mail. I know that if I got large amounts of identical letters, I would be very likely to ignore them, maybe keeping one copy to compare to any real letters that I received. It is unfortunate that this method ever has any success, because it makes one person's opinion look like hundreds or thousands through a kind of "me too" method. This is how flawed opinions can gain support and have an impact on our laws - people who can't express their own opinions and only regurgitate someone else's often don't even fully understand what they are regurgitating.
I have a nice little Christian fundamentalist propaganda book that I look at once in a while for a good laugh, and, in addition to the instructions on how to pray "the right way" and reasons why homosexuality and women's rights are evil, it explains how to write to your elected representatives. Even these people know that identical form letters don't have much impact, so they give you "sample letters" and tell you to change things around a little and repeatedly state that these are your own personal opinions (which they will be if you are a good little Christian and believe exactly what they tell you to believe...), to make it look like you actually put thought into your letter (they come right out and tell you to deceive your elected representatives, which makes me wonder how stupid they expect their readers to be).
Anyway, the point is that while some people in Congress might be fooled by such a low-effort letter writing campaign (after all, they frequently pass legislation they don't even understand), the smarter ones will just disregard the whole batch (remember when Microsoft got caught doing this?). It would be helpful to know which ones are total morons so that an attempt can be made to keep them out of any public office (perhaps a letter writing campaign about child molesters sending penis shaped waves over the internet to children through their keyboards would help...). Giving people an easy way out of putting the effort into expressing their opinions might result in more letters, but it would also decrease the number of different opinions being expressed.
And yes, I had my three page 100% cotton fiber letter mailed to my three elected representatives in Congress last Monday. I will probably have more letters and e-mails out by the end of the week if this nonsense keeps going. The bottom line though is that Congress doesn't listen to engineers (or anyone else with an informed opinion usually), so logical reasoning probably won't work here. A lot of people are very worried about what our government could do in this situation, so as we show the terrorists that we won't let them walk all over us, we must do the same for our own government. It is unfortunate that we can't expect the government to be "of the people, by the people, for the people," but the First Amendment is there for a reason - it is up to us to fix our government's problems.
"the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
From there you can go to their individual web sites and find contact information for their various offices (if no mailing address is listed, then you'll have to send an e-mail instead and mention the lack of a mailing address). Is that accessible enough for you?
Whenever something bad happens, people have a hard time accepting it. Instead, they try to assign blame to anything and everything, without any rational thought. Some of this blame is deserved, but the sheer amount of blame going around can make figuring out the reality rather difficult.
Islam has been blamed for the fundamentalism that has been used to motivate these attacks, but the religion itself isn't at fault.
The US has been blamed for its actions in the middle east that have created some strong anti-American sentiment, but it takes opportunists and fanatics to go from hate to terrorism.
Airports, airlines, and the FAA have been blamed for not stopping the terrorists, but despite the actual security problems, a determined terrorist is almost impossible to stop every time - stopping dozens of organized terrorists is even less likely.
The architect of the World Trade Center has been blamed, but the fact that the towers remained standing so long after the impacts shows how unwarranted this blame is.
Building codes banning asbestos, the lack of regulations requiring special additives in jet fuel, etc. have also been blamed, despite the lack of any proof that any changes could have prevented this.
And now, as expected, encryption and people who develop encryption algorithms are being blamed, just because the terrorists might have used encryption.
All of this blame accomplishes nothing and only makes it more likely that we will do harm to ourselves rather than work towards recovery. At the same time, we want revenge, increasing the possibility of unfocused military actions in the middle east. As a nation, we need to calm down before taking any action; we need to give ourselves some time to let reality sink in so that we can think clearly and take action that will have the greatest chance of real success. This latest round of blame proves that we aren't quite there yet.
The US government is demonstrating an unprecedented amount of unity. Which of course is a very bad thing. The main reason why our government is often unable to screw people over effectively is the automatic opposition across republican/democrat lines. Without that, and with the full support of other important officials, just about anything can become law if it can be called "antiterrorism." Add in the fact that congressmen don't listen to engineers, and even good ideas could result in bad implementations. Our government has the capability right now to make some very big mistakes that could take years to correct, so there is no such thing as overreacting. We must substitute our voices for the usual voices of opposition that have gone silent, so that our nation's delicate emotional state does not give the terrorists yet another victory to celebrate.
Whoever modded this "Troll" should learn what a troll is before moderating. My post clearly stated my feeelings on the topics being discussed and was not meant to infuriate others or start a flame war. Last I checked, having an opinion does not make one a troll.
I honestly don't know why Cartoon Network would try to run adult-oriented shows or why anyone would want Cartoon Network running their shows. Cartoon Network has a history of random, unannounced schedule changes, skipped episodes, and other screw-ups. This stuff should be running on Sci-Fi, where it belongs.
And as for not showing certain programs because some viewers might not like it, why not let the viewers decide. We already have a ratings system to tell people what they can expect to see in a show, so why can't people be allowed to judge for themselves what is or isn't acceptable for them to watch?
On the "deleting all references to the World Trade Center" front, that's just silly. We can't just erase the World Trade Center from the history books because it might make someone feel bad. We laugh at France for going nuts over the mere possibility that someone in France could find a way to purchase some Nazi-related item, but now the same kind of thing is happening in our entertainment industry. Now the terrorists have succeeded not only at taking the towers down in real life, but also at taking them out of other aspects of our lives. Is there anyone out there who isn't assisting the terrorists in the aftermath of this tragedy? How much more will we lose because of people overreacting?
I'm surprised it took this long for this to get reported. It was obvious from the start that this coordinated terrorist action would be used as justification to restrict cryptography. As expected, the knee-jerk reaction has come, creating another threat for informed people to worry about. Unfortunately though, in the current situation, all kinds of restrictive laws can be passed without any serious opposition in Congress in the name of defense.
So why is this such a problem? After all, the necessary decryption tools would only be made available under specific, government-controlled conditions. The problem comes in a few forms. First of all, the government needs to be treated as a trusted party in all of our communications. Regardless of the regulations, a corrupt government or certain corrupt individuals could bypass these regulations, resulting in a digital Big Brother. Even on a small scale, this is completely unacceptable. The worst case is that the people's right "peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances" could be restricted by identifying and silencing anyone who tries to organize a coordinated protest and fears such a response to public expression of government opposition.
The more important problem here is that, like "access control mechanisms," these measures will not stop the intended targets. The first step would have to be a ban on non-compliant encrypted transmissions in addition to a ban on the distribution of hardware and/or software that can be used to produce such transmissions. Even if it were possible to filter out all non-compliant encrypted traffic (this process alone is scary), this can only work for encryption at the bit level (and even then only if non-compliant encrypted data wrapped in compliant encryption can be detected and rejected). A simple word substitution code could bypass this, and a more elaborate system (think industrial strength word level encryption) could be very secure and impossible to detect. Considering that only criminals would be developing and using such "illegal" encryption, a law against it will not act as a deterrent. The criminals will still have encryption, law-abiding citizens will have no privacy, and the government will continue to pass increasingly restrictive laws of this nature. In other words, nothing good can come from this.
Wow, a radio control car with a camera on it that you can use to spy on people or just make yourself look really geeky. Been there, done that, got tired of it 5 years ago... Sure my version used an old Color QuickCam, so it was tethered 15' from a laptop, but it still got interesting reactions in the dorm. These days, you could probably make a much better one with a wireless color CCD camera and a cheap RC car from Radio Shack. Just rip the body cover off, mount the camera, and customize as desired for a functional yet geeky toy to amaze, impress, and scare everyone you know.
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Why all this Wil Wheaton stuff everywhere all of a sudden? I never knew this guy's name until a couple weeks ago, and now I see it all over the place. Was this a carefully planned attempt to distance himself from the "Wesley must die!" movement, or is this just another case of the media picking someone to hype for no apparent reason? Or is he being recognized for his accomplishments or some other seemingly obvious reason?
How important will a ban on encryption be when it does absolutely nothing to stop those things from happening? Less freedom does not automatically equal greater security. Would you feel more secure if you knew that you could be detained indefinitely for no reason? Would you feel more secure knowing that everything you do or say is being monitored by people you don't know? Would you feel more secure if you were forced to wear a ball and chain around your legs at all times? And remember, the criminals are the ones who, by definition, don't follow the law, so additional restrictive laws aren't very likely to stop people who are willing to break more serious laws. If you want to get people to stop complaining about losing freedom, you had better be able to show how the loss of that freedom is justified. If there isn't a Damn Good Reason(TM), then the freedom shouldn't be taken away.
Democrats were similarly split, with ranking member Rep. John LaFalce (D-New York) saying that college students must be shielded from gambling's lure.
"The chief users of Internet gambling are not terrorists, they are our youths," said LaFalce. "Lots of different kids are given credit cards -- not one -- multiple cards. It's easy to gamble from dormitory rooms, or with wireless connections from campus quads, or with Palm Pilots any place."
Great, so now it's not just "for the children," but also "for the immature adults." Shouldn't college students be shielded from alcohol's lure too? What about drugs, porn, and the horror of late nights coding madly while eating snack foods and watching Star Trek? We must protect our college students, they represent our future! They can't be exposed to anything bad that might force them to make choices or even learn something! Next it will be young adults ("They start the families that will rebuild our nation!"), middle-aged people ("They fuel our rebounding economy!"), senior citizens ("Their wisdom and experience help guide a new generation!"), dead people, and everyone in between who will need protection from their own stupidity. When will people be forced to take responsibility for their actions? When will lawmakers stop using stupid people as excuses for new laws? When will all of these laws result in a population that is incapable of dealing with hardship because "big brother" kept them safe and warm all their lives?
Like many other people here, I looked up the addresses of my three "representatives" in Congress and sent each of them a nice long letter printed on fancy paper and everything. Of those three, only one generated a response, and it was the typical "I'll vote for anything that says antiterrorism on it" form letter. It's so nice to know that my concerns about the danger of knee-jerk legislation passing without opposition, regardless of content, were so obviously unfounded...
On the bright side, the next big election is coming up in just over a year. If you don't like what's going on, start taking notes. Find out who is up for re-election next year (everyone in the House and roughly one-third of the Senate) and keep track of how they are voting and what they are saying. When the campaign is in full swing, send out a few letters to the editor, start discussions with your friends and co-workers, etc. The important thing is that you do something and not just sit back and complain when those who are elected to represent you fail to do their job.
Um, I did list bribes on my list of reasons why someone might support this legislation... I am quite aware that "government of the people, by the people, for the people" has indeed perished from the earth, or at least our corner of it, and that is exactly the problem here. Most of the time, there is at least some kind of legitimate reason for a bill, even if that reason is just a minor part of the bill. The SSSCA breaks this tradition and could help expose the true extent of Congressional corruption (not that it isn't rather obvious already). Whether or not the average idiot will understand the significance is still up in the air.
Unfortunately, laws of this type are nothing new. The earliest law limiting the use of electronic equipment in private that I am aware of dates back to 1934. In this case, the law states that "no one may receive, or assist in receiving, any radio communication to which they are not entitled and use that information for their own benefit," and also outlawed "the manufacture, assembly, possession, and sale of any device primarily useful for the surreptitious interception of such radio transmissions." Sound familiar?
It isn't too big a jump from limiting the private use of radio signals broadcasted in the clear to limiting the private use of locally stored data (any "collateral damage" like the death of free software is just the price for worry-free "copyright protection," or at least that's what the masses will be told). The descrambling of scrambled cable television stations is widely accepted as a criminal act, so that too lends itself to extension to data - you are given the content in a very specific form and are not allowed to do anything that would allow you to gain additional benefit from it.
The only difference in these cases is that you pay for most of the content that would be limited by the SSSCA (in the other cases, the law limits what people who don't pay for the content can do with it), but with SSSCA "protected" content, you aren't paying for the right to use it, you're paying to have the content providers tell you how to use it. You pay for cable, but only the channels the cable company wants you to see for the amount you pay; you pay for a DVD, but only for the use of it on an authorized player and without the ability to make direct digital audio clips or screen captures. History has shown that people will allow the government to tell them how they can use someone else's content, even in their own homes. The purpose of our representative government is to prevent the uninformed masses from making stupid decisions, so the problem here isn't with the people, but instead with the motivations of elected representatives.
And some of the problems are:
So why would someone support this?
Am I missing something here, or could this show us what our lawmakers really think of the people they represent (assuming that they actually record the votes this time...)? We've seen much of this before, but this time they aren't even trying to make it look good.
I can see devices like this used to control complicated Battlebots, combined with a headmounted display and voice commands. Forget a bunch of joysticks, buttons, and switches, just assign different functions to different hand movements. Or just put some robotic hands on it and literally grab and toss your opponent... There must be some weapons configurations that haven't been practical due to control system limitations. Now if I could just figure out a way to get them to let me start a project on this at work...
There is a trade-off here - the content creators are encouraged to produce content and make it public in some form, opening it to the possibility of unlawful distribution, while we can benefit from this content, but are in turn required by law to respect the creator's rights to control first sale distribution and in some cases derivative works. Recent laws seem to be taking away the potential for benefit from produced content while also enacting stricter regulations on and penalties for unlawful redistribution. In other words, creators/providers win on both counts, citizens/consumers lose on both counts.
Who do you think pays for the sites now? Advertisers pay for banner ads because people who see them are more likely to buy their products and/or services. The difference between this and subscription viewing is that people like me, who only buy stuff when they want it and not because of an ad, pay nothing, while people who are easily parted from their money, people who see the ad elsewhere, or people who already do business with the company are the ones supporting the site (which means that site quality isn't as important as the number of ads displayed). Of course, whenever we buy something, we pay for the advertising of the product/service and the company selling it, so in the end, we pay one way or another. With ads, we pay for the content, the ads themselves, and the middlemen involved, with inflated prices (and the time wasted on ads). With subscription payments, we pay for quality content, without ads, large graphics, annoying animations, fancy scripts, or anything else that blocks us from that content. Subscription payments also keep out people who only want to annoy and/or take advantage of people, which is always a good thing.
Take a look at television in the UK - despite cultural differences (like an obsession with things like soccer and snooker), television there is much more pleasant to watch. Without ads, a 40 minute show lasts 40 minutes and not an hour (plus the occasional break, so you still get the most important benefit of commercials without the commercials). Sure, you end up with 20 year old episodes of Battlestar Galactica and other odd things, but it sure beats hundreds of sitcoms patterned after Friends.
Of course, we will never get rid of ads because people are more than willing to pay more for less if the cost is hidden from them. Ideally, sites with little or no value should just die, and other sites should exist either as minimally intrusive ad sites (like this one) or minimal fee subscription sites. The sites I visit most either have very few, well targeted ads, or have turned to subscriptions. The other alternative is a company's own site, where profits are funneled back to the customers in the form of useful features and services, which in turn attract more customers and generate more revenue. This is a business model that works much better than a banner ad on a free site advertising another free site that gives away money and also pays for television advertising, all from ad revenue from other free sites that all do the same thing... The money has to come from somewhere, so it might as well go there without thousands of useless executives in the way.
But haven't you seen that Simpsons episode where Homer joins the NRA? Guns can be used as TV remote controls, light switches (off only), beer can openers, etc. There's a world of possibilities out there.
On a serious note, the purpose of a gun is to propel a projectile at a high velocity. The gun does not (well, in most cases at least, target recognition and artificial intelligence aside) aim itself. It takes a person to decide whether to point the gun at a paper target, television, car, animal, person, etc. The issue isn't what the gun is capable of, but whether the person holding it is capable of handling the task of pointing it (this isn't always properly addressed by firearms regulations unfortunately).
Cryptography is quite a different issue, as it only affects the flow of information. Law enforcement agencies are complaining because they want all information to flow through them. The idea is that they must know what everyone is doing so that they will know when someone is doing something wrong. Since that is going a bit far, they will settle for just the option of knowing what someone is doing if they think that person is doing something wrong. Cryptography presents a challenge here, so back doors have been proposed to potentially remove the potential that someone could possibly be planning to maybe do something that could be bad without law enforcement knowing about it. If that sounds absurd, it's because it is, and that's the point.
Redundant? I posted this 13 minutes after the article was posted, and someone calls this redundant? First I get called a troll for having an opinion, now this. Wait a second... Seemingly random moderation, no obvious pattern... That's it, terrorists are using /. moderation as an encryption method! Quick, let's ban moderation before they can coordinate another attack.
The following is not necessarily based on any people, places, events, companies, or laws, real or imagined, and any similarity is coincidental. So there.
Here's Microsoft's worst nightmare (assuming that Microsoft is a collective entity that can think and dream):
Person A has a copy of Windows but doesn't want it. Person A just wants to get rid of the piece of junk, so Person A's asking price for the software and license is very low.
Person B sees a good deal on Windows from Person A and takes advantage of it. Person B notices that there are more people like Person A, giving Person B an idea.
Person C is being audited by Microsoft and is knee-deep in bovine excrement. Once the manure truck accident scene is cleared, Person C continues on to work, trying to figure out how to deal with the Microsoft situation.
Person B saw Person C at the scene of the accident swearing about some "Microsoft bullsh1t." Noticing that the manure truck didn't have Microsoft painted on the side, Person B realizes that Person C is being audited by Microsoft. Person B decides that the time is right to act.
Person B visits Person C's workplace and proposes a solution to the Microsoft problem. After some negotiation, Person B sells the necessary number of Windows licenses to Person C's company, at a substantial profit.
Person A is happy to be rid of Windows, Person B made a nice profit, and Person C didn't have to pay Microsoft off. Microsoft loses "potential sales" and doesn't get to torture Person C's company anymore.
Then Microsoft wakes up screaming, but realizes it was all a dream, making note to take action to prevent this horrible thing from ever happening. After reading "The Little Monopoly that Could," Microsoft was once more asleep, content that nothing could harm it.
The End
Ok, great, we're at the beginning of Starfleet, picking up 100 years after where First Contact left off. We have a captain that has Kirk's Vulcan-frustrating illogical habits, John Crichton's cluelessness around aliens, and Sam Beckett's dialogue (just replace "Oh boy" with "Let's go"). Some of the opening scenes are almost straight out of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the alien hangout scenes are straight out of Farscape, and the disinfecting scene is straight out of Pay-Per-View porn, bulging nipples and all. Add in some rather unsuccessful attempts to make it seem like standard Star Trek stuff is new and confusing ("Kling-ons," fear of transporters, "new weapons," etc.), and it is mildly amusing in a accident scene sort of way.
Fine it's a new show, so of course it is going to borrow from what came before it. So what is it adding that's new? Well, there's that horrible pop-ish opening theme song. Ok, so that's not a good example. Um, there's a female in a bodysuit that prominently displays her breasts. Right, that's been done. How about a ship far away from home exploring new worlds? Time traveling bad guys and temporal nonsense? Shapeshifters? An unusual doctor with various pet projects?
So none of the elements are really all that original, what about the character development and plot? I know it is a bit too early to tell, but you should at least be able to identify the characters and see how they will interact in the future, right? There's that T'Pau Vulcan chick, Captain Archer, Doctor, um, Flox, the linguist, the dimwit, the guy who brought out the guns, and the token black guy. There's probably a few more, but with identical uniforms and dim lighting, it's tough to tell people apart, especially since they all seem to have the same personality. Well, maybe they'll get to that later. There's at least some chemistry between the Vulcan and what's-his-name, but they kind of overdid that one scene and didn't put anything a little more subtle in to support it. There's the Human-Vulcan tension, but that was delivered with a sledgehammer too. And there's the Klingons, who didn't do much of anything yet. And of course we can't forget the shapeshifting temporal bad guys... So we've got a bunch of inexperienced, headstrong humans on a ship in the middle of nowhere, with some contrived time travelling plot mixed in (How long before a character from one of the other Trek shows travels back in time to help them?). And despite not having much technology to work with, they still manage to inject random technological solutions to their problems...
There's some potential here, but this first episode really didn't do much. All of the other Trek pilots seemed to have more of an impact than this one. Maybe it was just the challenge of working from a "historical" reference point and moving to an original storyline, but I'm not impressed. I would really like to enjoy this show, but I don't have a good feeling about it so far.
Until they have taps that can be inserted into the human brain, I would prefer that a warrant specifically limits what can be tapped. If the problem is that it takes too long to get a new warrant when the communications device is changed, then the law should be changed regarding how warrant issuing is handled, not the scope of the warrant.
In future discussions, how about if we discuss specific proposals and make specific criticisms rather than general statements about how the government is just looking for the chance to turn the country is a police state?
Sure, let's be as specific as the legislation is. Ashcroft's bill is intended "To combat terrorism and defend the Nation against terrorist acts, and for other purposes." You've got to love that "and for other purposes" bit. Let's see what other "specifics" this bill contains:
by inserting "or other facility" after "the line"
by striking ", or who has been ordered by the court" and inserting "or applied, or who is obligated by the order"
by replacing "or firearm" with ", firearm, or other weapon or dangerous device"
"As used in clause (iii), the term "terrorist organization" means any organization-
"(I) designated or redesignated under section 219;
"(II) that commits or materially supports, or that has a significant subgroup that commits or materially supports, terrorist activity, regardless of any other activities conducted by the organization or its subgroups;
"(III) that intends to commit or materially support, or that has a significant subgroup that intends to commit or materially support, terrorist activity, regardless of any other activities conducted by the organization or its subgroups; or
"(IV) that has committed or materially supported, or that has a significant subgroup that has committed or materially supported, terrorist activity, regardless of any other activities conducted by the organization or its subgroups, unless the Secretary of State has determined in his sole discretion, after consultation with the Attorney General, that as of a date specified by the Secretary the organization shall not be considered a terrorist organization."
"Notwithstanding any other provision of law, an indictment may be found or an information instituted for any Federal terrorism offense at any time without limitation."
The amendments made by this section shall apply to the prosecution of any offense committed before, on, or after the date of enactment of this section.
by striking "does not include" and inserting "includes"
in subsection (b), by inserting "expert advice or assistance," after "training,"
No reward offered by the Attorney General in connection with hijackings or terrorist acts shall be subject to any per- or aggregate reward spending limitation established by law, unless the same should expressly refer to this section, and no reward paid pursuant to any such offer shall count toward any such aggregate reward spending limitation.
by striking "$5,000,000" and inserting in lieu thereof "$10,000,000, except as personally authorized by the Secretary of State if he determines that offer or payment of an award of a larger amount is important to the national interests of the United States."
etc., etc., etc...
This bill is full of stuff like this, taking out specifics and inserting vague terminology that can be interpreted in many different ways. This bill isn't about specifics, it is about generalizing the law to broaden the power of law enforcement. That is the specific point that people are worried about, and it can't be pointed to on a single line. In fact, many lines are difficult to understand (Why can't they learn to use hyperlinks?) because they only say something like "by striking the word 'and.'" This bill reads like a list of Christmas presents that Ashcroft would like, not what is necessary, Constitutional, or even right. Hopefully, this will be seen as too extreme by enough people in Congress to keep it from becoming law.
One of the most successful uses of encryption in human history has been the constantly evolving slang terminology used by teenagers. It is almost completely incomprehensible, yet manages to convey information without appearing significant. Just think, the next time you see some teenagers speaking to each other, they could be sending messages between terrorists...
Ok, so we have a study that says that only a small percentage of pictures on eBay seem to have some kind of steganographic content, but none of them can be confirmed to actually contain this information. You can conclude several things from this, depending on your personal bias:
-Steganography is not used on the web.
-Steganography is not used on eBay.
-We can't detect steganography.
-Any steganographic we can detect can't be decoded.
-Steganography isn't widely used - yet.
You can mix and match these to fit your personal agenda, which I'm sure many people will do. In reality though, these results say almost nothing. The only way to know where, how, and how often steganography is used is to find out from the people using it.
Unfortunately, I have a feeling some people in Congress and elsewhere in the US government will use this as proof that if they can control encryption, there won't be too much use of other methods of hiding data. Ignoring all of the flaws in this conclusion, there is a further flaw in the assumption that by changing the security in encryption, the amount of use of other methods will remain the same. I would not be surprised if there aren't any people on eBay using steganography, nor would I be surprised if the same was true on most other sites; with available alternatives, this is just one of many tools that could be used to transmit messages securely. If the alternatives are removed, more effort will be spent on steganography, resulting in more widespread use and more resistance to detection. In other words, a ban on secure encryption would just encourage development in other areas, even if such development is dormant right now.
On a final note, if you want to look for steganography, try a sleazy porn site. Not that I've seen any myself, but I've heard that they toss all kinds of random stuff up on those, grabbing the images from all over the internet. This would seem to make a more representative sample than a site full of people selling their junk.
I have always had a problem with the whole form letter lobbying method. Any idiot can print out a letter and drop it in the mail. I know that if I got large amounts of identical letters, I would be very likely to ignore them, maybe keeping one copy to compare to any real letters that I received. It is unfortunate that this method ever has any success, because it makes one person's opinion look like hundreds or thousands through a kind of "me too" method. This is how flawed opinions can gain support and have an impact on our laws - people who can't express their own opinions and only regurgitate someone else's often don't even fully understand what they are regurgitating.
I have a nice little Christian fundamentalist propaganda book that I look at once in a while for a good laugh, and, in addition to the instructions on how to pray "the right way" and reasons why homosexuality and women's rights are evil, it explains how to write to your elected representatives. Even these people know that identical form letters don't have much impact, so they give you "sample letters" and tell you to change things around a little and repeatedly state that these are your own personal opinions (which they will be if you are a good little Christian and believe exactly what they tell you to believe...), to make it look like you actually put thought into your letter (they come right out and tell you to deceive your elected representatives, which makes me wonder how stupid they expect their readers to be).
Anyway, the point is that while some people in Congress might be fooled by such a low-effort letter writing campaign (after all, they frequently pass legislation they don't even understand), the smarter ones will just disregard the whole batch (remember when Microsoft got caught doing this?). It would be helpful to know which ones are total morons so that an attempt can be made to keep them out of any public office (perhaps a letter writing campaign about child molesters sending penis shaped waves over the internet to children through their keyboards would help...). Giving people an easy way out of putting the effort into expressing their opinions might result in more letters, but it would also decrease the number of different opinions being expressed.
And yes, I had my three page 100% cotton fiber letter mailed to my three elected representatives in Congress last Monday. I will probably have more letters and e-mails out by the end of the week if this nonsense keeps going. The bottom line though is that Congress doesn't listen to engineers (or anyone else with an informed opinion usually), so logical reasoning probably won't work here. A lot of people are very worried about what our government could do in this situation, so as we show the terrorists that we won't let them walk all over us, we must do the same for our own government. It is unfortunate that we can't expect the government to be "of the people, by the people, for the people," but the First Amendment is there for a reason - it is up to us to fix our government's problems.
"the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
You do realize that you can find this information on, of all places, the web, don't you? Here's where to start:
http://www.senate.gov/senators/senator_by_state.cf m
http://www.house.gov/writerep/
From there you can go to their individual web sites and find contact information for their various offices (if no mailing address is listed, then you'll have to send an e-mail instead and mention the lack of a mailing address). Is that accessible enough for you?
Whenever something bad happens, people have a hard time accepting it. Instead, they try to assign blame to anything and everything, without any rational thought. Some of this blame is deserved, but the sheer amount of blame going around can make figuring out the reality rather difficult.
Islam has been blamed for the fundamentalism that has been used to motivate these attacks, but the religion itself isn't at fault.
The US has been blamed for its actions in the middle east that have created some strong anti-American sentiment, but it takes opportunists and fanatics to go from hate to terrorism.
Airports, airlines, and the FAA have been blamed for not stopping the terrorists, but despite the actual security problems, a determined terrorist is almost impossible to stop every time - stopping dozens of organized terrorists is even less likely.
The architect of the World Trade Center has been blamed, but the fact that the towers remained standing so long after the impacts shows how unwarranted this blame is.
Building codes banning asbestos, the lack of regulations requiring special additives in jet fuel, etc. have also been blamed, despite the lack of any proof that any changes could have prevented this.
And now, as expected, encryption and people who develop encryption algorithms are being blamed, just because the terrorists might have used encryption.
All of this blame accomplishes nothing and only makes it more likely that we will do harm to ourselves rather than work towards recovery. At the same time, we want revenge, increasing the possibility of unfocused military actions in the middle east. As a nation, we need to calm down before taking any action; we need to give ourselves some time to let reality sink in so that we can think clearly and take action that will have the greatest chance of real success. This latest round of blame proves that we aren't quite there yet.
The US government is demonstrating an unprecedented amount of unity. Which of course is a very bad thing. The main reason why our government is often unable to screw people over effectively is the automatic opposition across republican/democrat lines. Without that, and with the full support of other important officials, just about anything can become law if it can be called "antiterrorism." Add in the fact that congressmen don't listen to engineers, and even good ideas could result in bad implementations. Our government has the capability right now to make some very big mistakes that could take years to correct, so there is no such thing as overreacting. We must substitute our voices for the usual voices of opposition that have gone silent, so that our nation's delicate emotional state does not give the terrorists yet another victory to celebrate.
Whoever modded this "Troll" should learn what a troll is before moderating. My post clearly stated my feeelings on the topics being discussed and was not meant to infuriate others or start a flame war. Last I checked, having an opinion does not make one a troll.
I honestly don't know why Cartoon Network would try to run adult-oriented shows or why anyone would want Cartoon Network running their shows. Cartoon Network has a history of random, unannounced schedule changes, skipped episodes, and other screw-ups. This stuff should be running on Sci-Fi, where it belongs.
And as for not showing certain programs because some viewers might not like it, why not let the viewers decide. We already have a ratings system to tell people what they can expect to see in a show, so why can't people be allowed to judge for themselves what is or isn't acceptable for them to watch?
On the "deleting all references to the World Trade Center" front, that's just silly. We can't just erase the World Trade Center from the history books because it might make someone feel bad. We laugh at France for going nuts over the mere possibility that someone in France could find a way to purchase some Nazi-related item, but now the same kind of thing is happening in our entertainment industry. Now the terrorists have succeeded not only at taking the towers down in real life, but also at taking them out of other aspects of our lives. Is there anyone out there who isn't assisting the terrorists in the aftermath of this tragedy? How much more will we lose because of people overreacting?
I'm surprised it took this long for this to get reported. It was obvious from the start that this coordinated terrorist action would be used as justification to restrict cryptography. As expected, the knee-jerk reaction has come, creating another threat for informed people to worry about. Unfortunately though, in the current situation, all kinds of restrictive laws can be passed without any serious opposition in Congress in the name of defense.
So why is this such a problem? After all, the necessary decryption tools would only be made available under specific, government-controlled conditions. The problem comes in a few forms. First of all, the government needs to be treated as a trusted party in all of our communications. Regardless of the regulations, a corrupt government or certain corrupt individuals could bypass these regulations, resulting in a digital Big Brother. Even on a small scale, this is completely unacceptable. The worst case is that the people's right "peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances" could be restricted by identifying and silencing anyone who tries to organize a coordinated protest and fears such a response to public expression of government opposition.
The more important problem here is that, like "access control mechanisms," these measures will not stop the intended targets. The first step would have to be a ban on non-compliant encrypted transmissions in addition to a ban on the distribution of hardware and/or software that can be used to produce such transmissions. Even if it were possible to filter out all non-compliant encrypted traffic (this process alone is scary), this can only work for encryption at the bit level (and even then only if non-compliant encrypted data wrapped in compliant encryption can be detected and rejected). A simple word substitution code could bypass this, and a more elaborate system (think industrial strength word level encryption) could be very secure and impossible to detect. Considering that only criminals would be developing and using such "illegal" encryption, a law against it will not act as a deterrent. The criminals will still have encryption, law-abiding citizens will have no privacy, and the government will continue to pass increasingly restrictive laws of this nature. In other words, nothing good can come from this.
Wow, a radio control car with a camera on it that you can use to spy on people or just make yourself look really geeky. Been there, done that, got tired of it 5 years ago... Sure my version used an old Color QuickCam, so it was tethered 15' from a laptop, but it still got interesting reactions in the dorm. These days, you could probably make a much better one with a wireless color CCD camera and a cheap RC car from Radio Shack. Just rip the body cover off, mount the camera, and customize as desired for a functional yet geeky toy to amaze, impress, and scare everyone you know.