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The Internet Government United States Technology

The Return of CISPA 97

Presto Vivace sends this news from the Hill: "House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and ranking member Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) said Friday that they plan to re-introduce the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) next week during a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. The bill is aimed at improving information-sharing about cyber threats between government and industry so cyberattacks can be thwarted in real time. ... It would also encourage companies to share anonymous cyber-threat information with one another, and provide liability protection for businesses so they don't get hit with legal action for sharing data about cyber threats. " You may recall CISPA from last year, when it was hailed as being even worse than SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act. We discussed why it was a bad bill back then; the new version is reportedly identical, so all of the same reasons will apply. The bill stalled last year against White House plans to veto it. Congressman Rogers said this about privacy fears: "We're talking about exchanging packets of information, zeroes and ones, if you will, one hundred millions times a second. So some notion that this is a horrible invasion of content reading is wrong. It is not even close to that." Don't worry folks; it's just zeroes and ones.
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The Return of CISPA

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  • Ca-ching! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Andrio ( 2580551 ) on Friday February 08, 2013 @04:30PM (#42837477)
    Hey Mike Rogers and Dutch Ruppersberger, can I borrow a few bucks? Come on, I know you've 'run in' to some money recently! ;)
    • Re:Ca-ching! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Nerdfest ( 867930 ) on Friday February 08, 2013 @04:43PM (#42837607)

      This also explains the recent wave of 'cyber-war' fear-mongering that's been going on.

      • They shouldn't have a problem with the social security numbers, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth and all the same for all their family members to be published on the internet. After all, they're only shared as 0's and 1's so it's not like it would affect their privacy.
    • Hey Mike Rogers and Dutch Ruppersberger, can I borrow a few bucks? Come on, I know you've 'run in' to some money recently! ;)

      ...and hey; it's just 0's and 1's, right? I could use a few more 0's and 1's in my bank account too....

      • Dibs on the 1's

        I need them to support the strippers in my neighbourhood. Think of their children.

        And not that way, you pervert.

    • by tippe ( 1136385 )

      I'm sure he won't mind, as it's just ink on paper, right? Just ink on paper.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    And I think I saw a two...

  • zeros and ones (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kimvette ( 919543 ) on Friday February 08, 2013 @04:31PM (#42837483) Homepage Journal

    "it's just zeroes and ones"

    okay, so if I start downloading MP3 and video files, the RIAA and MPAA will not object, because it's just zeroes and ones, right?

    • "We're talking about exchanging packets of information, zeroes and ones, if you will, one hundred millions times a second," he said. "So some notion that this is a horrible invasion of content reading is wrong. It is not even close to that."
      As long as we are just exchanging those zeros and ones, and no one accidentally reads one.
    • Re:zeros and ones (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Jah-Wren Ryel ( 80510 ) on Friday February 08, 2013 @04:38PM (#42837563)

      "it's just zeroes and ones"

      If that's all it is, then why is he so concerned about these zeros and ones that he was convinced to submit this bill in the first place?

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Because the zeroes and ones that convinced him were preceded by a dollar sign.

    • by sconeu ( 64226 )

      So if I can video tape the Congressman 24/7, he won't object, because once I make it digital, it's just zeroes and ones, right?

  • by DoofusOfDeath ( 636671 ) on Friday February 08, 2013 @04:35PM (#42837523)

    If the government isn't going to be reading them, then I assume we can cease construction of the huge new NSA data center in Utah [wired.com]?

  • Cost per/Legislation (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MyNameIsJohn ( 2637265 ) on Friday February 08, 2013 @04:36PM (#42837543)

    Just for future reference... is there somewhere to get a price list on each piece of legislation. Just so we know how much they are spending every time we shoot something down (or forget to and it gets through)...

    In Canada here they do the same thing so it would really be nice to have this posted. Like a pricing spreadsheet, making sure it lists the price of each elected (and non-elected) publish official, and the legal processes.

    Just for reference...

    • by do0b ( 1617057 )

      In Canada here they do the same thing so it would really be nice to have this posted.

      We do this in Canada?
      Please, show me!

    • by Mitreya ( 579078 )

      Just for future reference... is there somewhere to get a price list on each piece of legislation. Just so we know how much they are spending every time we shoot something down (or forget to and it gets through)...

      All laws should require re-confirming every 4 years or so. Once something gets on the books it is impossible to get rid of it

      Automatically expiring laws would be worth somewhat less lobbying money than what they are worth now.

      • I'm not sure, but I *think* some states (such as Alaska) already do this as standard practice. (Self-expiring legislation that requires votes to extend)

  • by ohnocitizen ( 1951674 ) on Friday February 08, 2013 @04:37PM (#42837557)
    These bills are just going to keep coming back. We need to organize, and here are a few places to start:

    1. Track politicians. Get a sense of who, over time, is authoring, signing on, voting for, or otherwise supporting these bills. Companies develop advanced analytics by tracking consumer behavior, let's do the same by tracking politician behavior.
    2. Let's barge into the money game. By identifying and publicly shaming/boycotting involved companies (with a focus on attacking their brand), and raising money to support politicians who reliably stand against these kids of bills.
    3. Continuing to raise awareness. Internet outrage sparked the death of SOPA. We can keep doing it over and over. We can also start supporting primary opponents and general election opponents against politicians we've tracked and verified push these bills.
    • 1. Track politicians. Get a sense of who, over time, is authoring, signing on, voting for, or otherwise supporting these bills. Companies develop advanced analytics by tracking consumer behavior, let's do the same by tracking politician behavior.

      Is there any easily, public accessible govt system that provides bills, and the names of the politicians authoring them? Same or different system showing those that voted for/against said bills?

      That would be the best place to start data mining this stuff.....

    • by Mitreya ( 579078 )

      1. Track politicians. Get a sense of who, over time, is authoring, signing on, voting for, or otherwise supporting these bills.

      Not enough of those politicians face viable competition.
      You can shame them all you want, but if due to the masterful feat of gerrymandering they have a reliable 70%+ base in their district, there is nothing you can do to depose them.

  • Right, so now that Aaron Swartz is out of the picture they think they can just waltz in and throw this crap around?

    The MPAA/RIAA should be forced to pay a fine for wasting so much of our taxpayer money on this shit.

    • I'm POSITIVE they think of the payoffs to the congress critters as "fines" already.

      I used to say that congressmen get more expensive every year, but I'm starting to think this bunch are running bargain basement sales in an effort to capture more of the customers.
  • by rnturn ( 11092 ) on Friday February 08, 2013 @04:46PM (#42837649)

    ...or their staffs knew half as much about technology as the average teenager.

    Whoever wrote the bill knows exactly what the intent of all this monitoring and exchange of data is for. And those people did another masterful job of training these elected buffoons to spout crap like "it's only ones and zeros" to divert attention from that intent.

    Maybe someone should ask Rogers exactly what an alphabetic character looks like when it is transmitted across the internet. (My guess is that he doesn't care unless he's getting a campaign contribution as a reward for knowing that.)

    • by MrKaos ( 858439 )

      ...or their staffs knew half as much about technology as the average teenager.

      Whoever wrote the bill knows exactly what the intent of all this monitoring and exchange of data is for. And those people did another masterful job of training these elected buffoons to spout crap like "it's only ones and zeros" to divert attention from that intent.

      Maybe someone should ask Rogers exactly what an alphabetic character looks like when it is transmitted across the internet. (My guess is that he doesn't care unless he's getting a campaign contribution as a reward for knowing that.)

      Indeed, and wasting the time of those who do know and understand the ramifications. It seems we need a 'Anti-Stupid legislation Organisation' that monitors for this and responds accordingly.

    • by Virtucon ( 127420 ) on Friday February 08, 2013 @05:00PM (#42837789)

      Whoever wrote the bill knows exactly what the intent of all this monitoring and exchange of data is for.

      Congress doesn't write the laws they actually pass, they may change the wording or an ammendment but by and large they come from staff or from lobbyists. In the case of CISPA I would have to think that some federal agency decided to push it forward, possibly the NSA? Anyway, I'd really be interested in understanding who actually wrote vs. sponsored this piece of crap.

    • by Mashiki ( 184564 )

      ...or their staffs knew half as much about technology as the average teenager.

      In general, laws and politics are around 20 years behind technology. So don't hold your breath, just wait until you or I hit 60 and we'll be wondering what these young whipersnappers are whining about over people wanting to control their wetware.

    • ...or their staffs knew half as much about technology as the average teenager.

      Whoever wrote the bill knows exactly what the intent of all this monitoring and exchange of data is for. And those people did another masterful job of training these elected buffoons to spout crap like "it's only ones and zeros" to divert attention from that intent.

      Maybe someone should ask Rogers exactly what an alphabetic character looks like when it is transmitted across the internet. (My guess is that he doesn't care unless he's getting a campaign contribution as a reward for knowing that.)

      Or, we can ask Rogers where he stands on the Abortion debate. After all, all lifeforms are just made up of electrons, protons and neutrons.

      Draw parallels between this debate and something there'd be a political mess about if he made the same arguments, and you'll see things change quickly.

    • ...or their staffs knew half as much about technology as the average teenager.

      Then they wouldn't even be able to access their Facebook accounts. Most teenagers hardly seem to be computer literate (not to any degree I'd consider impressive, anyway). They're likely better than these congressman, but not by much.

  • That is only 20% of the single digit numbers, 3 through 9 have escaped this time!

  • How about we put together an Indegogo or Kickstarter campaign to buy back our government from Hollywood...
    I can see the perks now ... own your own senator...

  • Just to add to the endless litany of "...zeroes and ones..." comments:

    "We're talking about [exchanging oscillations through the air], if you will, [continuously]. So some notion that this is a horrible invasion of content reading is wrong. It is not even close to that."

    So, we should be able to ask Rogers to read off his medical history to a full audience and not expect him to care, right?

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Do these politicians understand what they are doing?

    I mean, really understand, like appreciate some of the implications of what they are proposing?

    Or is this something that their corporate backers want, that would be a good career move if these politicians got it through? It just sounds good, who doesn't want to protect America from cyber threats, what are you some kind of terrorist or something?

    These are serious questions. Does anyone know the answers?

    • by 0123456 ( 636235 )

      Do these politicians understand what they are doing?

      They understand that passing laws will bring in campaign contributions, and that money will get them re-elected.

  • by Virtucon ( 127420 ) on Friday February 08, 2013 @05:12PM (#42837919)

    http://mikerogers.house.gov/legislation/sponsoredbills.htm [house.gov]

    The only thing this guy has sponsored and has become law are re authorization of the Patriot Act and two Funding actions for National Intelligence.

    1. H.R.67 : To extend expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 and Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 until February 29, 2012.
    Sponsor: Rep Rogers, Mike J. [MI-8] (introduced 1/5/2011) Cosponsors (None)
    Committees: House Judiciary; House Intelligence (Permanent Select)
    Latest Major Action: 1/24/2011 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security.
    Note: For further action, see H.R.514 , which became Public Law 112-3 on 2/25/2011.

    3. H.R.754 : Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011
    Sponsor: Rep Rogers, Mike J. [MI-8] (introduced 2/17/2011) Cosponsors (None)
    Committees: House Intelligence (Permanent Select)
    House Reports: 112-72
    Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 112-18 [GPO: Text, PDF]

    7. H.R.1892 : Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012
    Sponsor: Rep Rogers, Mike J. [MI-8] (introduced 5/13/2011) Cosponsors (None)
    Committees: House Intelligence (Permanent Select)
    House Reports: 112-197
    Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 112-87 [GPO: Text, PDF]

    This guy is in bed with the NSA and the CIA, that's where the legislation came from. He thinks that spying on Americans is the best way to protect us from all those folks in the Middle East and China. I think he's a cross between J. Edgar Hoover and Jack Valenti. Also don't forget who's in charge of the MPAA now, good old Chris Dodd [mpaa.org]. The stench is all around on this one folks.

  • by monkeykoder ( 1820796 ) on Friday February 08, 2013 @05:13PM (#42837945)
    So who is registering "itsjustonesandzeros.com" so we can replace wikileaks with it? I mean it's just ones and zeros...
  • by koan ( 80826 )

    "and provide liability protection for businesses so they don't get hit with legal action for sharing data about cyber threats. "

    You mean prevent litigation due to customer data loss.

  • Give the people what they want, then encrypt your shit w 4096-bit keys, not enough? Double it. Modern connections can support it just fine. I honestly believe, that the politicians in washington right now don't understand the nature of the internet, not even a bit. And... this is a bad way to go about it, but does anybody else think that average people using the internet actually need a bit of help?

    It's not most of the people on here that are getting their identities stolen, kids getting molested, &

    • Give the people what they want, then encrypt your shit w 4096-bit keys, not enough? Double it. Modern connections can support it just fine. .

      Encryption doesn't matter when NSA is tapping at the unencrypted source or has access to the keys.

      • Most encryption is end to end and the keys are generated on the fly based off of dynamic variables.

        • You are thinking secure protocols protecting data in transit which is an improvement. I am talking about NSA having direct access to gmail at the servers which is a far bigger problem to solve even with things like public/private keys like pgp etc. You also need to fix all the shit like Facebook where people happily publish the boring details of their life.

          • The only way to fix gmail if the NSA has root access is to stop using it. Physical access is game over.

            • Then NSA just moves on to the next huge mail provider. The key is exposing just how deep NSA has their fingers in the pie and getting a large enough public outcry.

  • ...it's a series of tubes!
  • B.S. (Score:5, Informative)

    by 7-Vodka ( 195504 ) on Friday February 08, 2013 @05:53PM (#42838425) Journal

    The bill stalled last year against White House plans to veto it.

    Bull-Fucking-shit.
    You might recall a bill called the NDAA of 2012. The NDAA is passed every year to authorize funding of military action and this one was a real doozy because sneaked into this one was for the first time codified law that intends to allow the government to secretly and indefinitely detain anyone [wikipedia.org] without ANY due process.

    Some real fucked up communist shit, the Stazi [wikipedia.org] would be proud of.

    If you were paying attention you will also remember that the White House said for months it would veto this bill because of the indefinite detention sections. In the end, obama signed this piece of filth into law on new years eve, when Americans were more than nominally uncaring, unwatching and ignorant.

    Shocked? Well hold on to your panties because it also became apparent that the White House was secretly pressuring the authors of the bill to include the indefinite detention section [youtube.com] and telling them in secret that they would veto the bill if it came to them without indefinite detention or if there was clarification that excluded it's application to Americans. The exact opposite of what they were telling the public.

    I warn you now. Do not put your faith in White House lies about using veto on authoritarian bills. They will sign them.

  • "We're talking about exchanging packets of information, zeroes and ones, if you will, one hundred millions times a second. So some notion that this is a horrible invasion of content reading is wrong. It is not even close to that."

    I have been saying for years that doing things with ones and zeroes hundreds of millions of times a second is fine. Things like hacking into bank servers and changing ones and zeroes so that they think you have lots of money, and changing the ones and zeroes on your own harddrive in such a way to allow you to watch the latest movies in HD without paying for them is fine. It's just ones and zeroes.

    I am pretty sure this congressman's email account password and home address are only ones and zeroes somewhere

  • .. but they are my zeros and ones.
  • Did anyone else read that as "The Rectum of CISPA"?
  • but some readers might be interested in Un-Corrupting Congress: A System-Changing Solution [correntewire.com]
  • Download all the movies and music you want folks! After all, it's all just zeroes and ones!
  • by whois ( 27479 ) on Friday February 08, 2013 @08:04PM (#42839671) Homepage

    There is no way to kill a bill with prejudice. No way to say "NO, and don't ever bring this up again!"

    So the same congressman who was there last year and the year before keeps bringing up the same bill over and over again until it passes. It doesn't cost them anything to introduce a failed bit of legislation. If anything, it costs the less the second time around because they didn't have to retype it.

    Everyone already acknowledges that nobody reads these things, they're hundreds of pages of nonsense most of the time, and everyone knows there is some pork thrown in there somewhere to fund someones pet project, since that's the only way they'll vote for it.

    Eventually, the public gets tired of standing up for their rights and just goes home. They'll wear down the protestors enough to the point where they won't notice or care that it's been backdoored into the "stop children's recitals act" of 2014.

  • Sounds like Megyn Kelly... "It's a food product, essentially" in reference to the U.C. Davis protesters being pepper sprayed...
  • They've recently killed most important activist standing in the way of pushing this down the citizenry's throat. By killing Shwartz they've made an example for anyone wishing to oppose and now they're trying again again to get it through. This tells me a lot about US political class. Mentally they seem to be the same kind of crap you normally see in all those petty dicatorships around the world (most installed by the USofA, BTW). I'd urge you to protest this as strongly as you can right from the beginning.

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