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khrath
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 Posted: 03/29/03 - 05:29 Post subject: Texas to make Firewalls, NAT, ICS, and Encryption illegal
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grats, wtg texas hahaha
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/30003.html
The (DMCA) Digital Millennium Copyright Act clearly isn't enough for some people. Massachusetts and Texas are - in curious formation - considering bills that will extend it to make firewalls (among other things) illegal.
The strange synchronicity is illustrated by a quick look at the draft of the Texas bill then comparing it with the Massachusetts one, which you'll find in RTF format at Ed Felten's Freedom to Tinker, here. The strikeouts indicate that both, for whatever reason, have decided not to repress video this time around.
The repression that remains is however impressive. Felten points to this wording:
(b) Offense defined.--Any person commits an offense if he knowingly:
(1) possesses, uses, manufactures, develops, assembles, distributes, transfers, imports into this state, licenses, leases, sells or offers, promotes or advertises for sale, use or distribution any communication device:
(i) for the commission of a theft of a communication service or to receive, intercept, disrupt, transmit, re-transmits, decrypt, acquire or facilitate the receipt, interception, disruption, transmission, re-transmission, decryption or acquisition of any communication service without the express consent or express authorization of the communication service provider; or
(ii) to conceal or to assist another to conceal from any communication service provider, or from any lawful authority, the existence or place of origin or destination of any communication
Over to Ed here, because he puts it so well:
"Your ISP is a communication service provider, so anything that concealed the origin or destination of any communication from your ISP would be illegal -- with no exceptions.
"If you send or receive your email via an encrypted connection, you're in violation, because the 'To' and 'From' lines of the emails are concealed from your ISP by encryption. (The encryption conceals the destinations of outgoing messages, and the sources of incoming messages.)
"Worse yet, Network Address Translation (NAT), a technology widely used for enterprise security, operates by translating the 'from' and 'to' fields of Internet packets, thereby concealing the source or destination of each packet, and hence violating these bills. Most security 'firewalls' use NAT, so if you use a firewall, you're in violation.
"If you have a home DSL router, or if you use the 'Internet Connection Sharing' feature of your favorite operating system product, you're in violation because these connection sharing technologies use NAT. Most operating system products (including every version of Windows introduced in the last five years, and virtually all versions of Linux) would also apparently be banned, because they support connection sharing via NAT."
Ed points out that this boils down to 'use a firewall, go to jail,' but we really think he's not being nearly ambitious enough here. It strikes us that, as the proud owner of Internet Connection Sharing, Bill Gates develops, distributes and licenses a communications device which is used to conceal "the existence or place of origin or destination of any communication." So we say, 'use a a firewall, go to jail, but also send Bill Gates to jail.' Ah, decisions, decisions... ®
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Minion
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Posted: 03/29/03 - 05:48 Post subject:
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This is hillarious.
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TASB
Sir Postalot
Joined: 12 Oct 2002
Posts: 1104
Location: The Outback
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Posted: 03/29/03 - 05:55 Post subject:
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The irony being that all the texas goverment networks would be using this technology as well, so they would have to send themselves to jail too.
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Harkov
Luke Warm
Joined: 15 Oct 2002
Posts: 229
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Posted: 03/29/03 - 06:11 Post subject:
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that can't be real.. no way they could that.
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denuvien
Luke Warm
Joined: 11 Oct 2002
Posts: 153
Location: McMinnville, OR
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Posted: 03/29/03 - 06:45 Post subject:
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remember that most politicians are at least 50+, senators and congressman are probably older.
They don't read this with any sort of knowledge of what they're asking or expecting from the average computer user. All we can hope is that their staffs say "Um...NO." enough to make them understand that this is completely ridiculous.
Oh, and no, I don't have ANY problem believing this is real. When it comes to computers and encryption nothing the gov't does suprises me.
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Occulis
RealPoor Jedi
Joined: 11 Oct 2002
Posts: 13293
Location: Moral Relativity Central
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Posted: 03/29/03 - 14:30 Post subject:
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I've spoken to 1 senator on the phone and he was confused by the phrase "CD-ROM." Also I had to specify "click the button on the right side of the mouse" rather than saying, "right-click." But, to be fair, the latter incident is common.
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Braid
Luke Warm
Joined: 01 Jan 2003
Posts: 447
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Posted: 03/29/03 - 20:00 Post subject:
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I hope it does pass so those f*****g fogies will learn that not everything computer related is used for hacking and piracy, but that some of it is used for the underage porn that they browse regularly.
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Spitulski
RealPoor Guru
Joined: 23 Nov 2002
Posts: 4344
Location: Washington
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Posted: 03/29/03 - 21:13 Post subject:
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Wow.
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Goraz
RealPoor Guru
Joined: 11 Oct 2002
Posts: 3736
Location: Philadelphia
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Posted: 03/29/03 - 23:07 Post subject:
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Texas sucks anyway so who really cares?
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TASB
Sir Postalot
Joined: 12 Oct 2002
Posts: 1104
Location: The Outback
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Posted: 03/30/03 - 02:42 Post subject:
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Goraz, it's the precedent it would set.
prec·e·dent ( P ) Pronunciation Key (prs-dnt)
n.
An act or instance that may be used as an example in dealing with subsequent similar instances.
Law. A judicial decision that may be used as a standard in subsequent similar cases: a landmark decision that set a legal precedent.
Convention or custom arising from long practice: The President followed historical precedent in forming the Cabinet.
Please add that word to your vocabulary.
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compusmack
RealPoor Master of Posts
Joined: 15 Oct 2002
Posts: 6354
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Posted: 03/30/03 - 04:40 Post subject:
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total retardation....
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Celestra
RealPoor Master of Posts
Joined: 11 Oct 2002
Posts: 6929
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Posted: 03/31/03 - 03:53 Post subject:
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What purpose is that law supposed to serve? (if it is real)
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Massnova
Luke Warm
Joined: 04 Feb 2003
Posts: 108
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Posted: 03/31/03 - 05:46 Post subject:
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WTF
So that would make it illegeal for Mcafee to sell and make it also and any other CO that produces firewalls like zone alarm and symantic right
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TASB
Sir Postalot
Joined: 12 Oct 2002
Posts: 1104
Location: The Outback
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Posted: 03/31/03 - 06:06 Post subject:
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I want to know if the law was made with computer networking in mind or if it was something that was noticed later by a third party.
It seems strange that a law which is going to have such massive effects towards everybody would be implimented without a long phase in process to switch in a new network archicture.
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Gutak
Rookie
Joined: 13 Oct 2002
Posts: 90
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Baha
Sir Postalot
Joined: 12 Oct 2002
Posts: 1214
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Posted: 03/31/03 - 21:32 Post subject:
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And is anyone really going to do something about it? Of course, everyone already knows the answer..
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Sabathius
RealPoor Guru
Joined: 11 Oct 2002
Posts: 2179
Location: San Angelo
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Posted: 03/31/03 - 21:34 Post subject:
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f**k you Goraz.
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Goraz
RealPoor Guru
Joined: 11 Oct 2002
Posts: 3736
Location: Philadelphia
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Posted: 04/01/03 - 10:18 Post subject:
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funny.
hahah
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denuvien
Luke Warm
Joined: 11 Oct 2002
Posts: 153
Location: McMinnville, OR
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Posted: 04/01/03 - 14:15 Post subject:
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I THINK the idea is to stop all those evil hackers and pedophiles that make up the majority of internet traffic (obviousely nobody uses the internet for anything well-meaning or legitimate, otherwise old people, like senators, would know how to use it) from hiding behind their firewalls and sekret l33+ h@x0r tools like NAT routers that the evil h@X0r store Comp-USA sells for 99 dollars.
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Rennol
RealPoor Guru
Joined: 11 Oct 2002
Posts: 3741
Location: Charleston, IL
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Posted: 04/01/03 - 15:35 Post subject:
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4 tru
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