MPAA Requests Immunity to Commit Cyber-Crimes 1180
The news has been buzzing around for the last couple of days that Representative Berman, whose palm has been crossed with silver by the entertainment industry, would introduce a bill permitting copyright holders to hack or DoS people allegedly distributing their works without permission. Well, the bill has been introduced - read it and weep. Although the bill wouldn't allow copyright owners to alter or delete files on your machine, they would be allowed to DoS you in essentially any other way. Let me restate that: the MPAA and RIAA are asking that they be allowed to perform what would otherwise be federal and state criminal acts and civil torts, and you will have essentially no remedy against them under any laws of the United States.
Unconstitutional on it's face (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, and this post is Copyright (c) 2002, by me, "sconeu". I reserve the right to search any and all computers for unauthorized reproductions of this post.
In other news (Score:5, Informative)
On top of raising existing levys, they want to tax any media that can store copyrighted material. This includes Hard drives and Flash media. While the MPAA is crashing your computer in the US the CPCC is robing you blind every time you buy recordable media.. And how much are the artists getting??? According to reports, after 2 years of the levy being collected NOTHING has been paied to ANY artist.. Theroy has it they are spending all the money lobying for higher levys.
http://www.sycorp.com/levy/index.htm
"(B) causes economic loss to any person other than (Score:2, Informative)
Logically it seems impossible to me that they can do anything over the internet that cannot be said to cause economic loss to someone else. In other words, any traffic they put on the internet could be said to cause economic loss to someone, because ultimately someone is paying for that bandwidth.
This bill doesn't seem like a very solid piece of legislation, even for what they want it to allow them to do.
Re:It doesn't give blanket protection (Score:4, Informative)
Write your representative (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.house.gov/writerep/
Norm Dicks (Washington, 6th district) previously wrote back to one of my queries on the CBDTPA, with the response that he didn't support it. I'm hoping he's got similar views on this bill.
Read it all (Score:2, Informative)
So following those lines share some random txt file you wrote. If they DDOS you sue them since the legitimate file was affected by their attack. You could probably even tip toe around the fact that you illegally had copyrighted works on your PC.
Of follow subsection b.C which states the file trader cannot sustain more than a $50.00 loss for any reason because of an attack.
They also have to notify the DOJ each time they want to do it. Now I'm going to be writing my representative tonight on this but realize that this is not an unrestricted license to hack by any means.
Notwithstanding (Score:5, Informative)
notwithstanding Pronunciation Key (ntwth-stndng, -wth-)
prep.
In spite of: The teams played on, notwithstanding the rain.
adv.
All the same; nevertheless: We proceeded, notwithstanding.
conj.
In spite of the fact that; although.
IN SPITE OF any other federal or state laws, they can do what they like.
Oh, and they can delete any file they want if it is "necessary" to prevent you from trading their copyrighted files.
Yes, it REALLY is that bad.
The next phase is already here (Score:4, Informative)
GNUnet (Score:1, Informative)
Once this network gets up to a significant size they would have to practically take down the entire internet to stop it.
US Elections coming up soon (Score:2, Informative)
Coble, on the other hand, sold out for $5734 from the RIAA, according to www.opensecrets.org. I would've thought my rights would cost more than that.
Re:What this might mean..... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Unconstitutional on it's face (Score:5, Informative)
Contact your Congressman [house.gov], although many don't have fax numbers on their website. You can always call.
Anyone else notice this? (Score:3, Informative)
The bill defines a peer-to-peer network as being:
two or more computers which are connected by computer software that (A) is primarily designed to (i) enable the connected computers to transmit files or data to other connected computers... (B) does not permanently route all file or data inquiries or searches through a designated, central computer located in the United States
This would seem to obviate any centralized file-trading system (like Napster). In fact, it would exclude any system not truly peer-to-peer. Odd.
The bill also includes provisions for suing the copyright holders if they cause at leaset "$50" in economic damages to you. However, it specifies "Monetary" damages. Does this mean hardware repair, as opposed to the less tangible lost bandwidth? If so, can we throw this back at their somewhat intangible "losses to piracy"?
They also must notify the Justice Department 7 days in advance, as I read it. Given the shitfting nature of the Internet, that seems useless to the **AA.
Okay, this bill sucks, but it doesn't seem nearly as dangerous (yet) as everyone makes it out to be.
~Chazzf
What Other Bills Are Pending? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, but numerous other unconstitutional bills are on the books, and some have even been upheld by the supreme court, citing "compelling national interests," which is just a fancy way of saying "yeah, it is unconstitutional but we like the law so we're keeping it anyway."
More importantly, we need to be asking ourselves what other laws are working their way quietly through congress, and what other amendments to unrelated legislation are they trying to slip under our radar?
In point of fact, two senators have written the FCC asking them to make a rule requiring any computer connected to the internet contain DRM technology, thereby circumventing the legislative process altogether. Before dismissing the possibility that the FCC might comply, consider the fact that (a) no beaurocracy has ever been able to turn down power when it is offered and (b) it was the FCC that gave billions of dollars worth of public airwaves away to broadcasters a few short years ago. If that doesn't demonstrate whose pockets they are in, nothing will.
I would be very surprised if there isn't a third, forth, and perhaps even fifth attack on our digital freedom underway at this very moment, one that none of us have as yet noticed.
Be vigilant, and in the effort to fight this appalling legislation do not lose site of the other sleazy bills, amendments, and extralegal efforts that are currently under way by Microsoft and the Media Cartels to make personal general computers a thing of the past.
The myth of pens-and-paper. (Score:2, Informative)
What you stated is a myth, perpetuated by people who would rather that the American public stay left behind when dealing with the government. Using the internet tools available between congress.gov, house.gov, and senate.gov, along with various online news sources, any American can easily get in touch with his elected officials, using offical and verifiable information, at a speed exceeding anything avavailable before. America's corrupt corporate power base that controls the media works to keep Americans from exploiting the excellent resource that is the internet, so that they can use their own connections (Lobbyists.) to outweigh public needs and desires.
Officials do read and consider electronic messages. I regularly communicate with my elected officials via the internet, and have recieved the same courtesy and responses that handwritten, mailed letters get; ranging from form letters, to letters from staff, to individual letters from the officials themselves.
Every time an official recieves an electronic message, the internet gains more political power. Eventually, people using the internet to deal with politicians immediately will be seen as the serious, influential voters, and those who pull out the personal letterhead and sign with MontBlanc pens will be the foolish old guard too unconcerned to actually keep up with politics.
So stop discouraging people. Encourage the use of the internet, and teach America to use online resources to keep our leaders in check.
Re:Oh I get it.... (Score:3, Informative)
If you're using Linux 2.4, you can configure iptables to cloak your site. Determine what netblocks the ??AAs are using and use something like this to drop inbound traffic:
iptables -A INPUT -s x.y.z.0/24 -j DROP
While they might still be able to chew up bandwidth by dumping a ton of bogus traffic on you, it's not too likely they'd do that without determining that you have moviez and/or mp3z on your system. Your machine won't respond to their pings...if they're smart, they'll assume that your system is offline and not bother. I suppose a search in $P2P_SOFTWARE would still list the files you're carrying, but their attempts to download from you would also be unsuccessful. If they're smart, they'll assume that it's old data that's still cached somewhere and move on.
(Note that I'm assuming a certain minimal level of intelligence on the part of the ??AAs. This may or may not be a valid assumption. Whether the assumption is valid is an exercise left to the reader.)
Americans fuck themselves (Score:3, Informative)
American corporations are strong legal entities only because the American public let them get that way. The beauty of the US Constitution is that whenver Americans truly want to exercise their rights, they can reign in powers that threaten to undermine our freedoms.
It's happened before. Look at the Robber Barrons. Their excesses spawned a raft of trustbusting legislation. Of course, that legislation didn't just create itself. Normal voters rose up and made their voices heard.
Talk of revolution is nifty, and we'd all doubtless love to engage in a Matrix-style rampage against corporatism. But the real solution isn't revolution, it's working within the political system we already have. The problem is, that requires.. shudder!... actual participation in the process. You can't just write a fucking email or hack your Playstation and get results in politics.
Revolt? Not likely, when Americans can't seem to use the power they already have.
Hrmm... (Score:2, Informative)
From my limited personal experience with DoS attacks, I've found that a sizeable force attacking even a cable modem user can have unforeseen consequences.
I had a network admin friend of mine that worked for a DSL ISP shove a DS3 line full of packets directed straight at my cable modem one early morning. He performed a brutal DOS attack on me for about 20 seconds.
As soon as "Doing it... NOW" came across the IM, the lights on my modem fired up solid and my mouse quit working. The only remedy I had was to disconnect the cable modem, but it still had caused my system to become unstable to the point where the reset button was the only remedy - no mouse or keyboard response whatsoever. When I restarted, the Windows Scandisk message came up and, sure enough, it found problems with the file system... files lost.
Net Police (Score:3, Informative)
(I'd LOVE to waste some of my spare bandwidth/cpucycles hammering the servers they use to search for files - but this would have to be done by a larger number of users than just me.)
Re:Crackdown by all copyright holders, like me (Score:3, Informative)
Goody Goody - It's Open Season (Score:1, Informative)
The MPAA and RIAA are composed of members who tend to be multinationals. All it takes is one of these organisations to attack a computer in the UK and the UKs Computer Misuse Act [hmso.gov.uk] kicks in and their members can be tried in a criminal court in the UK, assuming that they have a presence here (they all do). Even better - if it's a .gov.uk machine that gets attacked then our anti-terrorism legislation kicks in and that is some nasty shit to have levelled at you.
I wonder how much trouble it will cause when Sony, Disney and AOL/TW suddenly get hauled into a UK court under the provisions of the Anti Terrorism Act [hmso.gov.uk] and are effectively barred from trading in Europe - this may sting just a little more than the sales they lose through P2P sharing. What's more this can even be proved due to the UKs wonderful new RIP act [hmso.gov.uk]. Lots of fun to be had in the near future when multinationals discover that the Internet is not just an American thing and get sued in courts all over the world that isn't the US. Fun Fun Fun
contact riaa on http://www.riaa.com/Contact.cfm (Score:2, Informative)
I've essentially told them to think twice before going after everybody, or they will have trouble on their hands from nations who's premiers aren't president ("tatoo idiot on forehead now") Bush's lapdog. Companies never listen to complaints until you explain to them how their actions will lead to a decrease in profits for them. That's how I get £20 off my mobile phone bill some months...bad reception, I tell them about all the p**sed off people in the area who are thinking of leaving, I get £20 off and am happy until I have to complain again.
The RIAA and MPAA should realise that by walking down this very dangerous path, not only could they lose a lot of business, look bad, but also start an international incident that could have serious ramifications for years to come.
I mean, terrorists already get pissed off by the U.S.A.'s desire to control everything outside their borders...this just gives them more ammunition.
Good luck to the RIAA and MPAA, they're going to need it.
Re:Pass the crackpipe please (Score:2, Informative)
Of course, you could ignore those obligations, but then there's not much of a point in being connected to the network; kinda like going to a party just to sit in the corner.
Here's a hint; there are services you are obligated to offer when you send packet one; long before you've even figured out who your local gateway is.
I Found The Money (Score:2, Informative)