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.
Oh I get it.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oh I get it.... (Score:2, Insightful)
How do they expect people to react?
I will just push P2P netwoks into the next phase....
If this passes... (Score:3, Insightful)
I wish I could feel sorry for them.
Holy Cow. (Score:3, Insightful)
This is complete and utter bullshit. My money stays home if this passes. Anyone read any good books lately?
Re:The MPAA is declaring war (Score:5, Insightful)
Not just any crime... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The MPAA is declaring war (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Unconstitutional on it's face (Score:3, Insightful)
How low? (Score:4, Insightful)
John Ashcroft and Federal LEO's - 'Can we have immunity from the fourth ammendment and commit invasion of privacy against americans?' - Denied up until 9-11, then granted, despite the fact that they already had information about the WTC attacks. Permanent acception is pending the Patriot act's expiration date.
George Bush and Oil Industry CEOs - 'Can we have immunity from laws protecting the environment and virgin wilderness in order to increase our profits and control of the energy industry by drilling in Alaskan wilderness and completely ignoring global warming and any other environmental concerns that are too expensive for us to worry about?' - Pending.
What's next?
Preists - 'Can we have immunity from laws protecting children from molestation and rape so we can get our jollies with 9 year olds?'
Corporate Executives - 'Can we have immunity from laws protecting our investors and the general public so that we can pad our pocketbooks and live lives of luxury?'
Police - 'Can we have immunity from laws protecting citezens from police brutality so that we can beat, maim or kill with impunity?'
The Rich - 'Can we have immunity from laws protecting people from slavery and oppression so that we can further entrench our selves in oligarchy and profit from the abuse of our fellow humans'?
Re:Unconstitutional on it's face (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, consumers can boycott the movie and music industries. It is our money they use to bribe Congressmen and Senators. Don't give them any.
Don't worry too much (yet) (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if it passes its obviously unconstitutional and any judge in his right mind will strike it down.
(if it passes the house and goes to the Senate then I'll worry)
Re:The MPAA is declaring war (Score:4, Insightful)
It's all talk. The best thing to do is to send money, hardware, and expertise to the Free World where the MPAA and the RIAA aren't in control, and start letting the brain drain go the other way for a change. But unlike their ancestors, I doubt most American geeks are willing to move elsewhere to create a freer society.
It doesn't give blanket protection (Score:3, Insightful)
The very first page says:
"Notwithstanding any State or Federal statute or other law
Which indicates to me that you WOULD have "remedy against them" under whatever laws of the United States existed before this bill.
Furthermore, the bill makes it very clear that the copyright holder can only mess with your computer's ability to transfer copyrighted material, not anything else, and only if it does not adversely impact your computer with regards to anything other than the copyrighted material which is being illegally transferred.
And, far from being "allowed to DoS you in essentially any other way", they could only block, divert, or otherwise impair the UNAUTHORIZED transfer of copyrighted material. Whatever that other way of DoSing you is that you are worried about, it could only be used so long as it interferes only with the unauthorized transfer of copyrighted material. And only if it only causes economic loss to you of less than $50 per impairment to the property of the affected copyright holder, and only if it does not economically or materially impact anyone else.
I would say that this bill simply tries to put forth the notion that they copyright holders ought to be allowed to block illegal transfer of their copyrighted works, within very tight boundaries of conduct which ensures that they do not inadvertently cause any harm to any one else, or even to the illegal transferrer except for impairing their ability to make illegal transfers.
I am not saying that I agree or disagree with this bill, but the editorializer has clearly overstated the scope and effect of this bill. This seems to be a common tactic of those who rabidly defend an anti-copyright position with regards to modern file sharing.
What utter and complete crap (Score:4, Insightful)
A lot of people around here think there's no harm in hackers doing that to other people's computers, going so far to squeal when they get "ratted out" by others or end up in court for their actions.
Very few here thing that illegally cracking system security and breaking into computer systems is a "good thing." A fair number of people take exception to the absurd disparity between sentences and the severity of the crime, but few (if any) argue that engaging in this sort of behavior is in any way a positive act.
But when governments and large corporations can go around vandalizing and harming people legally, and the law makes it illegal to defend against such acts (by perhaps doing the same thing) for individuals, then, by any definition, we live under tyranny.
As uncool to say, and as extreme as it sounds, the digital sky is truly falling. Our freedom of expression is under wholesale and organized and concerted attack from both the media cartels and Microsoft, and the tame politicians they have in their pockets, and the reasonable sounding denials of these very stark facts don't make them any less true. We will either wake up and get involved politically and socially, educating our representatives and the lay public about these issues, or, just like the British Crown did with the printing press when it enacted the first iteration of copyright law, we will have the modern, digital equivelent of the printing press taken from us. In other words, our ability to speak and publish freely, and be heard, will be taken from us, and modern general purpose computers as we've come to know them will become a very restricted item.
Even Microsoft is publicly admitting that the end of open computing is at hand
If you are such a lackey, or so blinded by your own petty greed or agenda, that you cannot see this coming, then you will no doubt be getting exactly what you deserve. Unfortunately, the rest of us, who have the observational and congnative skills that exceed those of the common garden slug, will be taken down into the pit along with you.
Write your Representative (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately for me, my rep is Lamar Smith (R-TX) who is one of the bill's sponsors.
I wrote him yesterday (before I knew he was a sponsor) and made several objectsions to the bill:
1) It's vigilante justice. False positives -- the MPAA and RIAA have a strong market pressure to ignore false positives, because alternative methods of distribution challenge their business model
2) The "digital piracy" problem is not a problem
3) The MPAA and RIAA have subverted the democratic process and the will of the people regarding copyright law
4) Trying to stop file-trading is futile. Free Speech and "Total Control" Copyright are fundamentally incompatible. The People would rather have Free Speech than the MPAA and RIAA.
I wrote him today and told him I would vote against him.
Re:Unconstitutional on it's face (Score:1, Insightful)
Better than that, even.
So long as no actual damage to those RIAA and MPAA computers/networks is done, anything you might happen to download from their computers would be fair game. No harm/LITERALLY no foul.
Have you ever wondered what kinds of internal emails or other docs might be avaiable to bolster cases of fraud, restraint of trade, etc. Now's your chance to find out, free of charge(s).
Let me get this straight... (Score:5, Insightful)
Write your representative. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure you could use the link above to write in electronically, and that's fine, but you should more or less expect that if you don't write a physical letter then you'll be ignored. It's not always competely true, but it's true enough. If you don't write your rep and this thing passes then you've pretty much forfieted your bitching rights.
Re:If this passes... (Score:5, Insightful)
I want to know who they're going to get to do the hacking. Those programmers will be ostracized in the online communities for the rest of their lives... as it should be. Hacking into people's boxes legit-like based upon some stupid 'right to hack' law, for moulah... Much like NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) we should form a coalition against programmers with no self-respect: NOM/. (Not on my /.).
Injunction (Score:2, Insightful)
What about collateral damage? (Score:5, Insightful)
If the MPAA or RIAA decides they want to DDoS him for sharing their material, it's darn sure going to impact my EverQuest and Warcraft III connections (as well as whatever more "legitimate" uses I may be putting my bandwidth to).
Will non-infringers who suffer such collateral damage have any recourse against the companies or trade groups who are "protecting their rights"?
Hmm...no cancelled checks in my account made out to any Congressmen, so I somehow doubt it.
It wouldn't just be hackers anymore....... (Score:3, Insightful)
If this bill passes, it'll be proof enough that our government has basically sold us all out to Big Business. As if the events of recent years hasn't been proof of that anyway...........
Re:How low? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
What this bill boils down to, is that a group wants a special privelege to defend itself against a crime that has technically not occurred. They're asking for the ability to act as an arm of the judicial system, wherein they can determine whether a crime has been committed and determine the proper remedy, and then become an agent of the executive, and actually dole out the punishment.
Not a whole lot of due process going on here.
Playing into their hands (Score:5, Insightful)
If/When the law passes each attempt to hack into their computers for any reason will be met with the recently passes "capital crime" of hacking punishment.
You are an individual. They are a corporation.
You are a terrorist. They are protecting the rights of American copyright holders.
You will get 5 - 25 years. They will get new releases on how good a job they are doing stopping these kids from stealing their products.
They donate large sums of money to congress. You are listed as a non-voting demographic. [Better than opposition party or extremist, you are a non-entity.]
I will be surprised if this makes the nightly news anywhere. They want this to be a non-story and will pay plenty to keep it that way. Any story that does arise will be spinning the "protecting America against copyright theft."
If you really want to do something, take five minutes, right now and FAX your representatives [You could try email. Are they any better at reading them today than last year?].
Be polite, be firm and be specific. DMCA got passed because many people expected someone else(our representatives) to see the lunacy in the approach. This just proves we can never underestimate the ability of smart people to do dumb things with the right incentive.
Here are the contacts:
Senate Locator [senate.gov]
House of Representative Locator [house.gov]
Do it now
This will increase network security. (Score:3, Insightful)
1. The outcome will be true to the traditional form of computer security: the more people you have banging on something, the better it'll get in the long run. People who design and develop the P2P networks and the systems they run on will have intense motivation to make those systems more secure against crackers. More bugs will be found and squashed since the attackers in this case are not afraid of legal ramifications.
2. Pirates'll change their software. Most pirates are probably on fairly insecure systems [microsoft.com] at the moment. When they find themselves being shut down in this manner, they'll move to more secure [openbsd.org] platforms and services.
3. Whoever these entities are will eventually blunder such that they will destroy both their credibility and make them look like jackasses. In time, they are going to hire people who will abuse this to the maximum possible extent. There's also the extreme likelihood that some attacks will be waged on critical systems for businesses or whoever (someone sets of a warez depot on their company's xyz server).
These people who want this nonsense fail to realize exactly how pointless all this is. They don't understand that they are dealing with an animal that heals faster than it can be injured. When they took out Napster, a dozen file sharing services popped up to take its place. Likewise today, when they start cracking to take down sharing networks and systems, the users will only build them up stronger. Not to mention that no matter at what scale they launch these attacks, the MPAA, RIAA, or whoever could never have enough attackers to even make a dent on the whole system. There's at least an order of magnitude more pirates than there are people stopping them. Again, they will make themselves look like jackasses.
Damn fools. Greed makes them both blind and stupid. They could spend some time coming up with a fair business model that could survive out there today without a lot of extra bullshit (Palladium, DRM, etc). That would require a lot less time and money.
Active countermeasures (Score:5, Insightful)
No reputable system administrator will use "active countermeasures" today (with a few extraordinary-case exceptions) because they understand that the community as a whole is better served by enforcing the rule of law on the people who attempt to destroy our systems. It can be frustrating to see the legal process grind slowly, but it's better than a world of vigilantes that burn down anyone they think did them wrong.
But if the courts are removed from us, what are we supposed to do? Sit by and watch our own businesses fail because the MPAA *thinks* that we have an infringing file and its effective immunity means that they have absolutely no motivation in behaving even remotely reasonably?
Nope, the true effect of this law is to effectively require active countermeasures. You attempt to take down my site, and I'll hit you with everything I have. It may not be legal, but under this law there is effectively *no* legal response available, and at least this way I have a chance of surviving for another day.
Finally, even if you're willing to play "mother may I" with the AG, how could you ever *prove* that you lost sales because your systems were down, data inaccessible, etc.?
P.S.
According to the bill, there are large exceptions: (Score:5, Insightful)
The two downsides of this is that the bill is not limited to dos. It is pretty wide open in that they can do pretty much anything technologically which has the effect of "disabling, interfering with, blocking, diverting, or otherwise impairing the unauthorized distribution, display, performance, or reproduction" of their material. Which includes crashing or otherwise rendering inoperable network communications on the computer.
Not only that, but anyone who tries to face up to them needs very deep pockets to fight them - even if they caused more than $50 of damage they'll still have to prove it in court.
In other words, "Shoot now, ask questions later" and "You are guilty until proven innocent" should be stamped across this bill.
Translation: Fight the bill here and now. It'll be ten times more difficult and costly to remove it from law than it is to keep it from being placed there in the first place.
-Adam
Berman & Coble Are HOs For Media Industries (Score:3, Insightful)
1 TV/Movies/Music $186,891
2 Lawyers/Law Firms $97,100
The top industries supporting Howard Coble [opensecrets.org] are:
1 Lawyers/Law Firms $35,515
2 TV/Movies/Music $33,483
There is nothing these two "gentlemen" would not to to keep sucking at the media industry tit. Even to the degree of drafting such nonsensical law that clearly violates the "equal treament" under privilege or immunity of the 14th Amendment [cornell.edu] by immunizing corporations against felonious activities conducted by them against citizens without considering due process.
Re:Good bye internet... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm fed up with this BS to the point of supporting publicly-funded campaigns. Anyone running for elected office who takes so much as a penny either directly or indirectly from anyone else (business or individual) while running for or serving in elected office wins a minimum ten year "office" with Jerome, the ButtBuddy from Hell, cell block#. This means hard time in a standard prison, not some cushy "Club Fed" type facility with golf courses, tennis courts, etc.
They should also be prohibited by both law and severe penalty from going to work (directly or indirectly) for any company or in any industry which gained favor by a bill submitted, co-authored, co-sponsored, or voted favorably on. Lastly, they should never, ever be allowed to work lobbying for any company or industry before the elected body in which they served.
Sorry for the rant, but I'm really steamed. Here's the dictionary.com definition for graft.
graft (2)
n.
Unscrupulous use of one's position to derive profit or advantages; extortion.
Money or an advantage gained or yielded by unscrupulous means.
tr. & intr.v. grafted, grafting, grafts
To gain by or practice unscrupulous use of one's position.
Re:Unconstitutional on it's face (Score:5, Insightful)
Write a letter or call your congressional representatives, senators, activists, and/or media outlets pointing out the audacity of big corporations to ask for special privileges and less accountability even in the face of the ongoing accounting and financial investigations. Ask them how we are supposed to trust big corporations with legal immunity from federal laws when we can't even trust them to tell the truth. Tell them that CEO's still just don't get it and that this proposed legislation is further proof that corporate lobbyists are out of control and out of touch with reality. Tell them that allowing corporations to legally unleash hackers on private citizens will be the first step on a slippery slope of immunity and abuse. Tell them that corporations can't be trusted to a lower standard than citizens - if anything they should be held to a higher standard.
Ask candidates if they are planning to support legal immunity for greedy companies that take the law into their own hands or if they are going to take a stand against corporate excess and fight this latest example of abuse of trust. Ask them if they'll stand up for the little guy, or if they plan to let corporations get away with anti-consumer vigilante tactics. With a little suggestion and the upcoming elections in mind, somebody should recognize the opportunity to run with this issue and make it totally unpaletable before it ever passes.
Pass the crackpipe please (Score:3, Insightful)
EXCUSE ME?? You (or some script kiddie) have ZERO right to impede the use of MY computer. None. Zip. Zilch. There is no justifiable reason on Earth why you, or anyone else, should have the ability to maliciously attack my computer, denying me service that I have paid for, let alone any sort of income I may be gathering from said service.
Your rights end at the tip of my cat5, and unless you can come up with some reason why your attacking me better serves the public good than my being online, you have no business interfering with mine.
Re:new p2p scheme (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How low? (Score:3, Insightful)
Poor - 'Can we have immunity from our own stupid decisions and lack of self motivation so that we can continue to live off the fruits of other people'?
I happen to agree, by and large, with the first two allegations you make. The rest is no more than left wing baiting in my opinion. And before you whine that I'm a right wing asshole, you're wrong. I'm about as moderate as it gets. Rhetoric too far to either side disgusts me with the lack of intelligence it exhibits.
Re:What this might mean..... (Score:3, Insightful)
By the way, since I assume you're on the Internet, you should probably know that the entire Internet falls under the definition of "publicly accessible peer-to-peer file trading network".
I quote:
"(2) 'peer-to-peer file trading network' means 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 (ii) enable the connected computers to request the transmission of files or data from other connected computers; and (iii) enable the designation of files or data on the connected computers as available for transmission; and (B) does not permanently route all file or data inquiries or searches through a designated, central computer located in the United States"
In other words, you are on a peer-to-peer network if you use your computer's web browser (software) to connect to the MPAA's web server (another computer). You're presumably doing so primarily to transfer files from them (HTML, images). They're also able to "request" files from your computer (cookies).
There is no "designated, central computer" located anywhere. I can't guess what they could have meant there. Maybe in a future bill they'll create a directory of "designated, central computers."
Re:Punishment without verification of a crime? (Score:1, Insightful)
Suspicion (Score:3, Insightful)
But I kid.
Re:Pass the crackpipe please (Score:2, Insightful)
Is it illegal for me to ping your host? To do it twice? To do it when someone else is doing also doing it?
I have no way of knowing what speed your net connection is; for all I know you're connecting to the Internet via packet ham radio, and I might inadvertently swamp your feed by asking if you serve http? My actions would not be malicious, but you'd never know that from the effect you see.
When you decided to connect to the internet, you decided to offer a set of services. Why should you expect anyone else to not make use of those services. (Is that even what you want?)
Yes, the internet would be a better place for all of us if the script kiddees would just grow up. But wake up, already. The script kiddees (and spammers, etc.) are going to continue having their fun until there's no longer any internet left for them to have fun on. Maybe then they'll understand what they've destroyed, but I'm not counting on it.
7 days warning: p2p will evolve (Score:2, Insightful)
Societal problems usually can't be solved with technical solutions. The law is there to directly address societal conflicts - using the law to back a technical solution simply results in technical workarounds. This is just bad law.
- Fzz
Re:Massive Civil Disobedience (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, that is step one. Step two in a civil disobedience campaign would be to openly and publicly violate their copyright and fully accept the consequences of that act. You see, the point of civil disobedience is that you want to get arrested and charged under the unjust law, and you want to received the punishment mandated by that unjust law in the hopes of making the public at large aware of just how bad the law is.
Are you still down with that?
Re:How low? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not what I meant... (Score:4, Insightful)
Ya know, reading this further, since it's on the "file trader" (I love that term) to notice and complain about the action, any time you lose a file or "get hacked", you should send a letter all of the MPAA/RIAA folks asking for a report on what they removed and why (See 2A through 2C).
Since there's no way to know who actually did it, and there doesn't appear to be any reason to believe the DoJ would care to tell you, you'd have write all of them to figure it out. Wonderful law eh!
Write the opposing candidates, too (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, write your elected officials. But write the people running against them, too. We want to send a clear message, no matter who wins in November.
For extra credit, in addition to the letters to D.C., write one to each "committe to [re]elect" (a.k.a. "Friends of Blah Blah Blah"), and enclose a personal check to the committee. (Do not send cash!) It doesn't have to be big; ten or twenty dollars is enough to get a little attention. Our money talks, too!
License to commit acts of terrorism (Score:3, Insightful)
Terrorism is wrong, unless your a big company....
Re:How low? (Score:4, Insightful)
FIRST (Score:3, Insightful)
FIRST, read the bill [politechbot.com]. Second, read Berman's analysis. Third, read Berman's statement.
Only then should you write a letter to your representative. And be sure to back up your statments very thoroughly if they contradict Berman's in any way.
If you'd like to have someone try to tear holes in your argument, feel free to reply here :).
Re:Unconstitutional on it's face (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not just any crime... (Score:4, Insightful)
"As of a few days ago"? The Patriot Act is still in full effect, is it not? What this all means is that if they get their way (when do they not?), corporations can hack/DoS you all they want, but if you return fire in any way, you're a fucking TERRORIST.
IMHO, anybody who would even consider passing or proposing anything like this is far more of a terrorist than any John Q. Mp3trader ever could be. It pisses me off to no end that corporations could even think of doing crap like this, and that our government would let it happen. Oh, corporate interests can do this to anybody they don't like, but private citizens are treated as terrorist scum if they even think about doing it. The Constitution is being defecated upon in the name of corporate interests and big money.
Double standards annoy me as is. But to make a distinction between being perfectly legal and being an Osama Bin Laden in training just because of how much money you have is the dumbest fucking thing I have ever heard.
Re:RTFB (Score:3, Insightful)
You could stop someone from physically trespassing on your property.
Not if the person is determined enough to break in.
Look at a jail, they stop people from trespassing all the time.
Without using the law, they would be unable to do that. I could break into a jail if I really wanted to. But I'd get caught, and probably shot, as a result. Without physical property laws, we'd have chaos. Without laws against hacking, we wouldn't.
You can't tap into a cable line that is on your property, because you don't own the mineral rights to the land most likely.
Mineral rights to the land? How does that apply?
I mean, by the same logic you should be able to tap into the electrical pole and bypass the meter because it's on "your" property
Oh, I see what you're saying. I was referring to a cable which was entering your house. As in, you pay for basic cable and then "steal" HBO. I don't think that should be illegal.
Re:Wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Lets get specific to who is getting DOS'ed here (Score:4, Insightful)
*If* they have the technical means. (Score:2, Insightful)
The distinction here is subtle, but can be summed up as this: no-one (including a copyright holders ISP!) is obliged to allow an attack to take place.
ISP: "I'm sorry sir, I know you can't get any network connectivity outside of our network, but that seems to be because you've violated their terms of service."
Any ISP which has an even remotely sane Terms of Service is well within their contractual rights to terminate, without compensation, any wrongdoers network link if they start abusing it - copyright holder or otherwise, regardless of whether this bill passes into law.
First draft talking points. (Score:3, Insightful)
Irvu.