Use a Firewall, Go to Jail

syngod

syngod

Moderator
The states of Massachusetts and Texas are preparing to consider bills that apparently are intended to extend the national Digital Millennium Copyright Act. (TX bill; MA bill) The bills are obviously related to each other somehow, since they are textually similar.

Here is one example of the far-reaching harmful effects of these bills. Both bills would flatly ban the possession, sale, or use of technologies that "conceal from a communication service provider ... the existence or place of origin or destination of any communication". Your ISP is a communcation service provider, so anything that concealed the origin or destination of any communication from your ISP would be illegal -- with no exceptions.

Full article @ Freedom to Tinker
 
I think this is really messed up especially after Ridge and Bush came out after 9-11 saying it was unpatriotic and a risk to national security for individuals not to be running a firewall & AV software.

How do you feel about this proposed bill? Share your thoughts here.
 
Security wise, these people don't have a clue. This can have some very adverse affects on businesses for starters. This is an attempt to basically control our PC's, without regard for security. Plus, people will get around it, despite being illegal. The MPAA is pushing part it too, which means big trouble. They want to control their product at all times, whatever it takes, including policing people and violating privacy.
 
This is stupid.

People may have personal files on their Personal Computer, that is why firewalls exist.

The same reason why you put a lock on the door of your home.
 
lol I read that too, those ppl just dunno about firewalls and internet ;)
If they only gave their ip I can show 'em why ppl use a firewall :p

I'm sure it wont become illegal to use a firewall
no offence, but im glad this wont be european law :)
 
Actually I wouldn't be suprised if it went through, after all the MPAA has a fairly large lobbying budget.

ISP's willing to report offenders is another thing though.
 
Yup. Just because it's a law doesn't mean it's always enforced that well, if at all. I don't really support the ACLU, but I support them going up against stuff like this---which I wouldn't be surprised if they did.
 
Actually just reread the page and it looks like it has already passed in a few states.

I'm all for companies having the ability to protect their interests but when it comes down to opening a security or privacy risk for individuals it's beginning to cross the line. Next thing you know the RIAA, MPAA and BSA will be able to show up on your doorstep and confiscate your system whenever they want to be able to check to see if everything is legal.
 
They've pushed this stuff at a time when people aren't likely to notice, with the major world fixture being on Iraq. I have the same sentiments as you Syngod. This everyone is a criminal attitute by the RIAA, MPAA, and the like is ridiculous. They don't mind squashing people's rights in protecting their own. I can understand them going after people who record and sell CD's and movies in large volumes, but this door-to-door attack is nuts. So far, it hasn't been passed in my state...so far.

This is a crock: we won't have enough IP addresses with the current IP version. We have to go to IP version 6 to fix that, but there's some problem with the ol comatibility portion of it.
Then we have to remember companies like Cisco, D-Link, and others that produce networking products that end up violating this law. I don't know about you, but I'd be mighty pissed if this came up. Plus, there's the security risks that some people with encounter since non-US area's don't seem to have crap like this coming down the pipes. Someone from, say, Canada could use this opening to knock out a company's servers, and no one could find them. 2 kicks in the gut right there.
 
Hehe us Canadians are to busy playing hockey and chasing beavers to be able to do something like that :).

My main concern is that I've had business be affected by a couple of DoS attacks, so I can just imagine what would happen if everyone in the US was forced to drop their firewalls and allow any script kiddie to be able to take over their pc and use it to mount a massive attack.

Apart from that e-commerce is pretty much screwed, you remove the ability to hide your customers data behind a firewall or private network and it'll be back to '95-97 when everyone was scared to use their CC's on the net.

I don't get why the MPAA seems to be pushing this as much as it is. They're fairly protected from piracy compared to the music & software industry, while their is movie piracy how many average users are willing to spend a day downloading a movie that is either going to be crap quality or in the case of a dvd rip is going to be lower quality and with less features when you can go out and buy it for $20.

The RIAA's problem is pretty much brought on by themselves so I don't feel too sorry for them. They helped the rise of Napster by making such a public spectacle of their lawsuit against them and then when they do open up site where you can download music it ends up costing you more to download an album than to buy it or even worse not even being able to burn it. If they can get their act together and develop a site where all the studios are involved and even allow you to download a cd at half the retail costs I'm sure it would attract quite a few users who don't want to make sure artists are compensated but don't want to pay the RIAA tax.
 
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