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....
The next phase is already here (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Crackdown by all copyright holders, like me (Score:3, Informative)
Fair Warning (Score:3, Interesting)
The young man gone to town.
Turned from hunted into hunter.
Gone to hunt somebody down.'"
-Van Halen
Lets get specific to who is getting DOS'ed here (Score:5, Interesting)
Okay by law they were given the right to DOS me but not the ISP which can still file criminal charges. So, it sound like they are still shit out of luck unless the law gives them a "get out of jail free card" for all acts commited during the execution of a plan to attack the offender. Wow, now if that were the case it would open up a huge new can of worms.
Re:Lets get specific to who is getting DOS'ed here (Score:4, Insightful)
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.)
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.
Re:Unconstitutional on it's face (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah!
This article [theregus.com] over at The Reg gives a satiric slant on that.
Go get yur black hats, podners!
MjM
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!
Re:Unconstitutional on it's face (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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.
Re:Unconstitutional on it's face (Score:5, Interesting)
Here is the simul email/fax I sent today:
Dear Representative Combest,
Recently, your colleague, Representative Howard Berman from California, introduced a bill that would allow copyright holders such as movie studios, publishers, or record labels to take 'technological measures' against computer networks they suspect of violating their copyrights.
These 'technological measures' are computer 'Denial of Service' or 'DOS' attacks, computer cracking, and other actions that are otherwise considered computer crimes. Right now, if an individual did the same thing that these content industries are asking to do via Berman's bill, he would be investigated by the FBI and put in prison for harming a computer network or a computer. These 'technological measures' are no different. Besides harming an individual's computer, who may or may not be guilty of copyright violation, they also harm Internet Service Providers, Universities, or any other business that is connected to the Internet. The bandwidth lost to 'Denial of Service'-type attacks doesn't affect just people the content industry suspects being guilty of copyright infringement, but everyone connected to the Internet by reducing the amount of bandwidth available for legitimate data.
Worse, if these industries are allowed to start perpetrating these kind of attacks on individuals or companies, it will become impossible for computer administrators, police forces, or federal investigators to differentiate illegal attacks from sanctioned attacks. Computer 'hacking' and cracking will rise in frequency and volume simply because malicious criminals will be able to take advantage of the 'noise' generated by legal attacks.
There is no difference between malicious computer attacks and the 'technological measures' proposed by Representative Berman. I urge you to oppose his bill in the strongest possible terms.
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.
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.
Re:Unconstitutional on it's face (Score:5, Interesting)
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: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.
If this passes... (Score:3, Insightful)
I wish I could feel sorry for them.
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 /.).
BS (Score:5, Interesting)
But that doesn't really matter, because the few people who seem to really take notice and care have historically shown that they aren't going to do shit about it, either. Remember when the DVD CCA had a kid arrested for helping to create DeCSS? There was indignation and outcry for all of a month, maybe, and then everyone put their DeCSS source code and anti-DVD CCA t-shirts back in their closets and bought themselves a brand spankin' new DVD player and a stack of movies.
They haven't declared war at all. They've got us eating out of their hands because when it came down to it, very few people would be willing to give up their Big Name movies and music in order to fight back.
Untrue (Score:4, Interesting)
Not true this time, because:
a) "Fighting back" this time doesn't involve lengthy and corrupt political processes.
b) We can do it while sitting on our fat (proverbial) asses.
I advise everyone here to start creating and publishing your own content right now, so you have a convenient excuse to legally hack and DoS wherever you please. Come on, even if you don't have a creative bone in your body, think about it this way: Neither does the RIAA/MPAA.
Re:Wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:If this passes... (Score:5, Funny)
Here's what the meeting looked like (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Here's what the meeting looked like (Score:3, Funny)
http://mediaservice.photoisland.com/auction/Jul/2
Holy Cow. (Score:3, Insightful)
This is complete and utter bullshit. My money stays home if this passes. Anyone read any good books lately?
What this might mean..... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What this might mean..... (Score:4, Interesting)
In practice the DOJ will say no to the little guy by stating some procedural BS reason. You may then sue the DOJ to have their decision reversed, but that will take forever and all that will result is that the law "as applied" might be struck down.
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."
and then ... (Score:2, Funny)
and then just wait till MS would do DoS to these nasty pirates...
Not just any crime... (Score:4, 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.
Immoral acts (Score:2, Flamebait)
For example, the death penalty for serious crimes. It's murder - except when the government do it!
And just look at religion. One of the commandments in Christianity is "you shall not murder". How hypocritical when their own god went and meticulously tortured and killed sections of a whole race of people (the Egyptians.)
Don't be shocked about this. There are many, many occurances of the same sort of thing to show that history does indeed repeat itself.
Corporations fuck Americans, news at 11 (Score:5, Interesting)
When will the American people wake up? It's so blatantly obvious to the rest of the world that your corporations are out of control. When are you going to finally realize it's time to put a leash on them?
Re:Corporations fuck Americans, news at 11 (Score:3, Funny)
We have more important things to worry about. The evil liberals took God out of the Pledge of Allegiance!!!
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.
new p2p scheme (Score:3, Interesting)
More questions and a film at 11.
Re:new p2p scheme (Score:5, Interesting)
Good bye internet... (Score:3, Interesting)
This had better not pass into law because it's an open invitation to civil war on the net. I can't believe such stupidity makes it this far in Congress, no, wait, yes I can believe it in the context of UCITA, DRM, etc., etc., seemingly ad infinitum.
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:Good bye internet... (Score:4, Interesting)
INTERVIEWER: Deputy minister, what do you believe is behind this recent increase in terrorist bombings?
HELPMANN: Bad sportsmanship. A ruthless minority of people seems to have forgotten certain good old fashioned virtues. They just can't stand seeing the other fellow win. If these people would just play the game, instead of standing on the touch line heckling -
INTERVIEWER: In fact, killing people -
HELPMANN: - In fact, killing people - they'd get a lot more out of life.
INTERVIEWER: Mr. Helpmann, what would you say to those critics who maintain that the Ministry Of Information has become too large and unwieldy
HELPMANN: David
INTERVIEWER: And the cost of it all, Deputy Minister? Seven percent of the gross national product
HELPMANN: I understand this concern on behalf of the tax-payers. People want value for money and a cost-effective service.
INTERVIEWER: Do you think that the government is winning the battle against terrorists?
HELPMANN: Oh yes. Our morale is much higher than theirs, we're fielding all their strokes, running a lot of them out, and pretty consistently knocking them for six. I'd say they're nearly out of the game.
INTERVIEWER: But the bombing campaign is now in its thirteenth year
HELPMANN: Beginner's luck.
INTERVIEWER: Thank you very much, Deputy Minister.
HELPMANN: Thank you, David
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
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:How low? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How low? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How low? (Score:4, 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:How low? (Score:3, Interesting)
IIRC - the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve has nothing at all to do with global warming. Whether they drill there or not doesn't make one bit of difference in the overall global warming picture. All drilling up there is going to do is kill a bunch of endangered (or soon to be endangered) species, which are pretty crucial to the ecosphere up there, which is already on the verge of collapse due to effects of global warming which has already happened. So basically, it doesn't really matter whether they drill up there anyway. Those animals are already living on borrowed time. Pity.
Loophole (Score:3, Interesting)
So if you managed to place the files in question on a server which also had some commercial purpose (say, hosting images for an eBay auction) might this trip the $50 limit and allow prosecution or civil action? I am only the son of a lawyer and not one myself, but this seems like a low threshhold for such a bill
Lets see how this would work (Score:5, Interesting)
These consulting firms would attack and disable some script kiddies computer who is serving MP3s.
So, what does the script kiddie do? He and his bunch of script kiddies go and shut down the offending consulting firms internet connection(s) with a DoS that's about 100 times more massive (because they can use everyone elses poorly protected servers to do it). And that's just if they pick on a teenager in the US.
Say they try and shut down some actual knowledgable hacker in, say, Russia. Wait a second... why are the bank account numbers, credit card numbers, home address and telephone for the head of the MPAA up on MPAA.com? Weird.
My question is, how does this web site [mpaa.org] even stay up?
I'm sure the script kiddies internet provider will just be pleased as punch that the MPAA just hacked one of it's customers and possibly used a DoS attack to do it (there by degrading the quality of service for all their clients)
Sounds great to me. It'll work like a charm this new law (if passed).
And why does the MPAA sound like a police orginization to me?
From their website:
To battle the problem, in 2000, the MPA launched over 60,000 investigations into suspected pirate activities, and more than 18,000 raids against pirate operations in coordination with local authorities around the world.
The MPAA/MPA directs its worldwide anti-piracy activities from headquarters in Encino, California. Regional offices are also located in Brussels (Europe, Middle and Africa), Mexico (Latin America) Canada and Hong Kong (Asia/Pacific).
Uhmm... that scares me
Re:Lets see how this would work (Score:3, Funny)
Here's the formula you're looking for... Figure up how much money you wish you made last year. Then subtract your actual net worth that year. This equals the $$ you lost.
Don't forget to add your god-given right for 5% profit margin increase each and every year. 6% if the economy is down.
If for some reason this formula doesn't give you the number you wish for, simply change the stats on how much money you made until you're happy with the results. For instance, maybe you didn't make ANY money last year during the time you stood on your head in the middle of the road. College kids have heads! Colleges have roads!! College kids download music.... aha!! So that must be why you didn't make any money while standing on your head in the middle of the road.
Letter to the 6th District of North Carolina (Score:5, Interesting)
######
To The Editor,
For years, Congress and law enforcement has been telling us about the dangers posed by computer hackers. They have warned computer users about how you should be on guard for the damage that hackers can do to your computer systems.
However, Rep. Howard Coble is preparing to submit a bill in Congress that would grant almost complete immunity to large music and movie companies to hack into your computers, if they have the suspicion that you might be sharing copyrighted files. No proof or involvement by law enforcement will be needed. And what's more, if they damage your computers in this vigilante action, you'll need to prove real damages of over $250 and get the permission of the US Attorney General to file suit against them.
What Rep. Coble is saying is that computer hacking is bad, unless you're a rich corporation with lots of money to provide in campaign donations. The hypocracy of such a bill is stunning. The voters of Congressional District 6 need to decide whether Rep. Coble is looking out for their interests, or Big Hollywood's.
Re:Letter to the 6th District of North Carolina (Score:3, Interesting)
The People have been hearing for years about how computer hackers are evil, evil scum. If we can associate the *AA with hackers, it'd be a good PR win.
When this starts happening... (Score:3, Funny)
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)
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.
Re:It doesn't give blanket protection (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:It doesn't give blanket protection (Score:3)
If you are sitting in your home with a printing press putting out copies of the latest J.K. Rowling book, can the book publisher or author come busting in to your house and stop your presses? If you think I have stolen your cat, can you break into my apartment (without damaging anything) in order to look around and see if I did? I'm pretty sure (and I truly hope) the answer is no.
If I'm breaking the law and you want to stop me, have law enforcement do it. Sue me. Get me thrown in jail, and have me fined out the rear end. This is "taking the law into your own hands" in a very bad way (not saying there aren't some good ways). This is equivalent to letting you rummage through my stuff on the suspicion that I have something of yours. This is wrong.
-Puk
Re:It doesn't give blanket protection (Score:5, Funny)
You're new here, aren't 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.
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.
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 :).
Actions speak louder than /. posts ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Remember that technically they are supposed to represent US, not the person/corporation with the biggest checkbook.
It may also do well to write your senators -- A similar bill will likely start up there eventualy, or if this mess passes the house it will wind up in the senate eventually.
Find your Representative [house.gov] and your Senators [senate.gov] and make your opinion known.
(BTW - remember that paper letters are far more difficult to ignore than outraged emails. Especially en masse.)
Punishment without verification of a crime? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
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
Trusted Peer, Encrypted P2P Networks (Score:3, Interesting)
Assume that the MPAA and RIAA will be able to block packets from any P2P network that they identify as containing their works. I'm not sure how they'll do it, but it probably involves paying off the backbone owners and/or ISPs.
It seems to me that the obvious counter-measure is to use encryption and "trusted peer" techniques to preclude their ability to join the P2P network and/or identify who is trading what.
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.
According to the bill, there are large exceptions: (Score:5, Insightful)
- (B) causes economic loss to any person
other than affected file traders; or
- (C) causes economic loss of more than $50.00 per impairment to the property of the affected file trader, other than economic loss involving computer files or data made available through a publicly accessible peer-to-peer file trading network that contain works in which the owner has an exclusive right granted under section 106;
This means that if they dos someone on my local cable segment then I can sue them if it impacts my bandwidth, Comcast can sue if it deprives their customers of service and/or uses their resources, and all the backbones and other service providers whose bandwidth is eaten up can call for reimbursement.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
Massive Civil Disobedience (Score:3, Interesting)
Folks, it is clear to me that the legislative process is so corrupted by the Copyright special interests that the laws that it produces are not legitimate representations of the will of the people.
I believe that the only moral response in such a case is to violate those laws. Screw the MPAA. Screw the RIAA. Screw Congress. It is time for freedom loving people to declare openly that they will not recognize copyrights held by the MPAA and RIAA.
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?
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.
Remember, folks, GPLed code is copyrighted. (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's your chance to legally hack Microsoft and see if they're using your GPLed code.
Here's what I want to see happen:
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
Two Words (err.... one line) (Score:3)
They have no idea... (Score:3, Interesting)
Even if this laughable bill doesn't become law, the very fact that the MPAA and RIAA are pushing for it is probably going to land the IP address ranges of both companies in an awful lot of locally-maintained E-mail and web proxy blacklists, just on principal alone.
As for their tactics; Any SysAdmin worth their salt can easily detect, isolate, and block a DoS attack at the router level. Such an attack has little effect if the attacking system gets no response whatsoever from the target IP.
In any case, that's really beside the point. The way I see it, this kind of crap has the potential to release a widespread public-relations and consumer backlash that the industry as a whole may never recover from.
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....
Functional requirements for next generation P2P (Score:4, Interesting)
They will probably direct their DoS attacks against the internals of the P2P protocols, rather than the users machines. They will use disposable (and anonymous) nodes to do so--they may be unscrupulous, but they are not stupid.
Nonetheless, the proposed law is extremely prone to being abused.
What we need to do is start designing the next generation P2P systems that will be immune to things like legitimate-looking users posting bogus files, etc.
----------------
Here's what I can think of on the spot
1) Community-based systems (akin to slashdot) where some nodes have more "credibility" points.
Node "karma" would be based on
-Total Kbytes streamed out
-Moderation by other "trusted" nodes
The community aspect must not get in the way of reaching a "critical mass" of users, without which any P2P system is bound to fall.
2) Ability to randomly sample small segments of files on remote nodes in order to determine whether they are legit. This would stop them from uploading complete garbage, or legitimate-looking beginnings followed by garbage.
3) Distributed method of establishing trust. This is the tricky part. We could use public-key crypto in some fashion. Perhaps nodeID blacklists or whitelists could be distributed among the users, or uploaded to FreeNet. Before downloading a song from an unknown node, my machine would query 10-20 random nodes for blacklist info. This would make it a lot more difficult to set up random nodes hosting garbage.
5) Other heuristics to determine the trustworthiness of nodes and/or files.
7) Doing all of the above in a relatively speedy (i.e., not impractically slow such as gnuTella) and relatively anonymous/pseudonymous way.
-----------
Please reply (i.e., follow-up to the post) with any further ideas. Perhaps we can seed the minds of the developers who'll be coding the next generation of P2P software. Are there any ideas we can glean from eBay's trust management system?
Re:Functional requirements for next generation P2P (Score:3, Interesting)
Trust/Karma should be open ended and climb with diminishing returns making it more difficult to whore.
I trust the bank to meet my cheques, I don't trust it to keep my privacy. I may trust a usenet poster to paraphase articles accuratly, but not his judgement in drawing conclusions. I may trust a poster to debunk UFO myths, but not his Politics. Therefore, Trust/Karma should against a set of seperate attributes/objectives.
The RIAA and MPAA don't realize (Score:3, Interesting)
WE pay their salaries, WE pay their employees, WE pay their artists when WE buy their products.
If they get us sufficiently mad, WE will not spend our hard-earned money on their products any more and THEY will feel it.
It's about time to organize a month-long media boycott. Show the "big boys" exactly how much power we have over "their business". Pick a nice date like January, 2003, and just swear off ANY CD/Movie Ticket/DVD purchases for a month.
Easy to do - if you wanna watch a movie or listen to some music, just borrow it from a friend, but don't spend a RETAIL DIME purchasing anything.
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.)
First draft talking points. (Score:3, Insightful)
Irvu.
Re:The MPAA is declaring war (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The MPAA is declaring war (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:The MPAA is declaring war (Score:3, Funny)
The side with better lawyers.
- A.P.
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:What's the big deal? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it's the duplicity that the government is showing is what everyone has a problem with.
"DoS'ing people is bad. Bad bad bad bad bad. Oh wait a minute... except for them."
It's just another instance of someone trying to have it both ways.
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.
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.
Re:bill number? (Score:3, Interesting)
Suspicion (Score:3, Insightful)
But I kid.
Re:Corporate Republic (Score:5, Interesting)
Um, hello? They already do. Microsoft has not paid Federal income tax for 5 years. And Washington State does not have State tax. Therefore, Microsoft pays NO FUCKING TAXES.
Think of how many government resources ($) have been funnelled TO Microsoft:
Copyright enforcement
Spending time listenting to the BSA
Playing games with standards committies
Antitrust lawsuits and consent decrees that went ignored (ahem 1995).
SEC and FTC investigations of fraud and insider trading (all dropped).
Money spent on Microsoft product for government use because they're basically offered no alternative by the HOLY HOLY HOLY market.
DOD to defend the US from attack from foreign countries who would change the economic structure of the nation if they took over, such that Microsoft and other rich corporations would suffer - the average Joe probably would not notice in most cases. Might even benefit.