stoppliceware.org ~ What do you think?
 

I saw the link to this site in DuaneJeffers signature. Have you been to the site?? What do you think about it?

http://www.stoppoliceware.org

I dont think a bill would be passed that would invade our privacy in such a way. Also, what about the computers we have now? Would they come in our homes and install such sofware? I really dont think something like this would pass. (I did sign the petition however).

~ Missy

A bill like that is very difficult for governments to pass. The British government failed in a similar attempt a few years ago.

Ahhh... the SSSCA commonly referred to DCMA2. I hope this doesn't get past, is seems a lot harder sell the DCMA too though.

Write your local congressman: http://www.eff.org/alerts/20010921_eff_sssca_alert.html

the music industry was trying to do this with harddrives. don't worry yet. in the future i could see this as possible.
wether its right or not is another question. in a way yes it is, in a way no it isn't.
i take all my freebies from irc for granted, but if the law wants to fine me i think thats fine too, bring it on bitches.
they can't arrest everyone, but they can fine them

youre worried about the govy looking at your pcs, but ppl using fake card numbers, "Whoops" post don't seem to bother you all. card fraud is huge and even though were protected against orders over $100 we shouldn't sleep safely at night, oh well. bah

ah its just a bunch of bullshit.

reading that, i can tell you that it violates several laws already

not to mention the CONSTITUTION as it's restricting free speech (as I told the site Missy posted)
[edit]
but then again the constitution doesn't count worth a damn anymore
[/edit]

God dammit. I hate fucking idiots forming fucking opinions with out reading whatever it is that they are attacking. The authors of the anti-policeware site are no different. Kind of a shame, considering that they even have the proposed bill on their web page. There is already precedence for what is being proposed. All SVHS and MD recorders have copyright protection schemes all ready built in. Upholstered goods must have tags affixed to them, and the manufacturer is not allowed to rip them off.


SEC. 103. PROHIBITED ACTS.

(a) REMOVAL OR ALTERATION OF SECURITY. -- No person may --

(1) remove or alter any certified security technology in an interactive digital device; or

(2) transmit or make available to the public any copyrighted material or other protected content where the security measure associated with a certified security technology has been removed or altered.

(b) PERSONAL TIME-SHIFTING COPIES CANNOT BE BLOCKED. -- No person may apply a security measure that uses a certified security technology to prevent a lawful recipient from making a personal copy for time-shifting purposes of programming at the time it is lawfully performed, on an over-the-air broadcast, non-premium cable channel, or non-premium satellite channel, by a television broadcast station (as defined in section 122(j)(5)(A) of title 17, United States Code), a cable system (as defined in section 111(f) of such title), or a satellite carrier (as defined in section 119(d)(6) of such title.)


All this is doing is enforcing already existant copyright legislation, and expanding it's scope to digital devices. What we have now is completely inadequate... it was drawn up in the 70s, and no one has tried to update the law since now to keep up with new developments in technology.

If you are going to attack a law, at least try to understand the law first :rolleyes:

This has absolutely NOTHING to do with free speech, and everything to do with theft.

So let's go through this bill step by step.

Section 1 is just a standard preamble, outlining the goals of the bill.

Section 2 begins to outlined proposed changes to existing laws.

The next few subsections start to describe prohibited acts, as detailed by this bill.

Here, they are saying that it will be made illegal to sell or manufacture devices without certified copyright protections:
SEC. 101. PROHIBITION OF CERTAIN DEVICES

(a) IN GENERAL.--It is unlawful to manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide or otherwise traffic in any interactive digital device that does not include and utilize certified security technologies that adhere to the security systems standards adopted under section 104.

(b) EXCEPTION.--Subsection (a) does not apply to the offer for sale or provision of, or other trafficking in, any previously-owned interactive digital device, if such device was legally manufactured or imported, and sold, prior to the effective date of regulations adopted under section 104 and not subsequently modified in violation of (a) or 103(a).

Subsection b allows you to resell technology made before this act is passed. So, after the passing of this bill, American manufacturers must implement copyright protection schemes into any recording device, and devices which do not have such schemes will not be allowed to be imported.


Next, the bill outlines prohibited acts, as defined by the bill:

SEC. 103. PROHIBITED ACTS.

(a) REMOVAL OR ALTERATION OF SECURITY. -- No person may --

(1) remove or alter any certified security technology in an interactive digital device; or

(2) transmit or make available to the public any copyrighted material or other protected content where the security measure associated with a certified security technology has been removed or altered.

(b) PERSONAL TIME-SHIFTING COPIES CANNOT BE BLOCKED. -- No person may apply a security measure that uses a certified security technology to prevent a lawful recipient from making a personal copy for time-shifting purposes of programming at the time it is lawfully performed, on an over-the-air broadcast, non-premium cable channel, or non-premium satellite channel, by a television broadcast station (as defined in section 122(j)(5)(A) of title 17, United States Code), a cable system (as defined in section 111(f) of such title), or a satellite carrier (as defined in section 119(d)(6) of such title.)

Part 1 makes the removal or tampering with of protection schemes. This is similar to laws which do not allow the removal of catalytic convertors on cars. Secondly, broadcasting copyrighted materials is banned IF the ability to broadcast such material is a direct result of the removal of copyright protection. This still allows you to broadcast or transfer copyrighted material if you have a license, or if the copyright protection allows you to.


This sets out necessary criteria for the implementation of a standard copyright protection scheme:

SEC. 104. ADOPTION OF SECURITY SYSTEM STANDARDS.

(a) CRITERIA. -- In achieving the goals of setting standards that will provide effective security for content and certifying as many conforming technologies as possible to develop a competitive and innovative marketplace, the following criteria shall be applied to the development of security system standards and certified security technologies:

(1) Reliability

(2) Renewability

(3) Resistance to attack

(4) Ease of implementation

(5) Modularity

(6) Applicability to multiple technology platforms

This gives electronics manufacturers 12 months to implement a scheme into new devices:
(b) PRIVATE SECTOR EFFORTS. --

(1) IN GENERAL. -- The Secretary shall make a determination, nor more than 12 months after the date of enactment of the Act, as to whether --

(A) representatives of interactive digital device manufacturers and representatives of copyright owners have reached agreement on security system standards for use in interactive digital devices; and

(B) the standards meet the criteria in subsection (a).

(2) EXTENSION OF 12-MONTH PERIOD. -- The Secretary may, for good cause shown, extend the 12-month period in paragraph (1) for a period of not more than 6 months if the Secretary determines that --

(A) substantial progress has been made by those representatives toward development of security system standards that will meet those criteria;

(B) those representatives are continuing to negotiate in good faith; and

(C) there is reasonable expectation that final agreement will be reached by those representatives before the expiration of the extended period of time.

The 12 months can be extended if deemed necessary.

This gives the Secretary (of Commerce) the power to approve a protection scheme. Any approved scheme must follow the guidelines set out in SEC.104:

(c) AFFIRMATIVE DETERMINATION. -- If the Secretary makes a determination under subsection (b)(1) that an agreement on security system standards that meet the criteria in subsection (a) has been reached by those representatives, then the Secretary shall --

(1) initiate rulemaking within 30 days after the date on which the determination is made to adopt those standards; and

(2) publish a final rule pursuant to that rulemaking not later than 90 days after initiating the rulemaking that will take effect 1 year after its publication.

When a scheme has been approved, a law must be passed in Congress 1 month later (this is to ensure that the electronics industry doesn't just sit on it, effectively quashing this bill). After ratification of the law, the electronics industry has 1 year to comply.


This just states that if the Secretary finds a proposed scheme in contradiction to the approved guidelines, the electronics industry must try again:
(d) NEGATIVE DETERMINATION. -- If the Secretary makes a determination under subsection (b)(1) that an agreement on security system standards that meet the criteria in subsection (a) has not been reached by those representatives, then the Secretary --

(1) in consultation with representatives described in subsection (b)(1)(A), the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Register of Copyrights, shall initiate a rulemaking within 30 days after the date on which the determination is made to adopt security system standards that meet those criteria to provide effective security for copyrighted material and other protected content; and

(2) publish a final rule pursuant to that rulemaking not later than 1 year after initiating the rulemaking that will take effect 1 year after its publication.


I could keep going if you want....

Re: stoppliceware.org ~ What do you think?
 

--0101010110101YOUR MESSAGE HAS BEEN RECORDED. PLEASE WAIT WHILE POLICE FORCES REACH YOUR ACTUAL LOCATION.010101101010----------

Ok, the rest of the bill, which I haven't explained, pretty much deals with how the government will enforce the law, and is asking Congress for funds so that the recording industry may fight piracy. The majority of the bill is spent explaining why the money is necessary. But there is one interesting part of the bill, which I think is the cause of all this confusion:

SEC. 207. DEVELOPMENT OF AUTOMATED PRIVACY CONTROLS.

Section 20 of the the National Institute of Standards and Technology Act (15 U.S.C. 278g-3), as amended by section 206, is further amended --

(1) by redesignating subsections (f) as subsection (g); and

(2) by inserting after subsection (e), the following:

"(f) DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNET PRIVACY PROGRAM. -- The Institute shall encourage and support the development of one or more computer programs, protocols, or other software, such as the World Wide Web Consortium's P3P program, capable of being installed on computers, or computer networks, with Internet access that would reflect the users preferences for protecting personally-identifiable or other sensitive, privacy-related information, and automatically execute the program, once activated, without requiring user intervention.".

There is nothing ominous about this. All it is saying is that the recording industry needs the funding to further research into copyright protection schemes that would be embedded into internet enabled computers. The bill limits such technology so that it would be able to personally identify individuals. The only logical conclusion, then, would be that the aim of such technology would be to completely disable the ability of computers to transfer copyrighted material. I'm assuming that this would take the form of Sony's MagicGate technology. If you are unfamiliar with Sony's Memory Stick MP3 player, it has a unique "check-out/check-in" copyright protection scheme. You can "check-out" the songs on any CD that you want. However, if you don't check those songs out, you can only record a song 3 times. When you check out a song, you connect the player to the computer, and the computer transfers the song to the player. When checking out, you connect the player to the computer, the player tells the computer that it is going to delete the file off the players memory, then deletes it. This is just a way to keep track of songs... if you fail to check out, that particular song may only be transferred three times. This makes sure that the owner of the player owns the CD and the computer, thus, preventing unauthorized recordings.

So, the recording industry wants something like this embedded into computers, so that piracy will be made impossible.

No, no need for that RM. But you do have a point. I just put it on my sig because I felt so strongly for it. How is the government going to monitor one's computer actions if 1) the computer is offline, 2)one has a firewall restricting the file from contacting the "server".

Thanks Missy for bring what is on my sig to a disscussion in the forums. :)

-Duane

That's my whole point. The intention of the bill is not to monitor.

Duane,
I found this very interesting, and thought it a good topic of discussion in here. No need for the thank you. I thank you for bringing the site to our attention.


RM, if I get what you said right, is the bill is not being passed for the government to monitor our computers, but for funding for the entertainment industry to create software to protect their music, movies, ect...... ?

~ Missy

Pretty much, yeah.

The entertainment industry has a hard job at hand. I feel with whatever they create there will always be someone able to hack into it.

I was reading a news article that cd/album sales are up 10% this year than previous years. I will have to do a search and find the article to back up what I am saying here.

~ Missy

h4x0r5 0wn j00
 

h4x0r5 0wn j00 w00t?

Oh, so all this means is that the government is going to give the entertainment industry a lot of money, and make it illegal to sell copy devices without copywrite-protection schemes? Oh, nevermind then! What an awesome bill! Thanks for clearing that up, RM! I hope it passes!

edited the subject typo :)


I don't have much to say about this, so just saying that I think it'd wrong sums it up. It's like putting a security camera in every hone in the country to find the 1 out of every 10000 or so drug dealers, rapists, etc...

Damn, my IE don't open Pop Up's.. :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:
I hate Microsoft...
I have intalled it 1000 times over, nothing happens...
:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

No, it would be like tagging every dope plant in the world with a special tracker, than requiring door fram manufacturers to include a special sensor in their frames to prevent tagged dope to enter your front door in the first place. However, this technology doesn't exist yet, so they need money from Congress to develop it.

hmmmm...I agree with missy on this one, I don't think they'd allow a bill like this to be passed.

RM, how much time did you spend reading that? Seems like a long proposal...

It's pretty short for a bill. The Patriot Act is 124 pages :eek:

and after they develop it, it will be able to be bypassed in a very short time.:D

I have to agree with you s1138. The entertainment industry would spend so much money and some 14 year old hackor would come along and find a way to bypass it all. It seems like a lot of wasted money on their part. Also, if congress gives them money, wouldn't it be our tax dollars that they would get?


~ Missy

im really startin to severly dislike republicans. Georgey boy doubled the presidential sallery and the senate and congress increased their payroll. in a downwarad economy shouldn't they be cutting their pay roll?

anyways this bill is afarce. i would just go to canada by components their at a better deal and build a pc out of that. i would also buy a version of windows up their unless the code is put into all windows products then i would just use linux.

if this happened many people would want to switch to linux

i think the greatest way around this is to make a really good peer to peer file sharring program that is hard to stop and hard to track.

the DMCA is a farse and this is a farse. i being 17 am going to write a letter to my congressman and my senators and i urge all of you people to do the same.

I will also make copies of the letter and have my dad mom brother and sister and all my friends sign it and send copies of it

as of the legalites of the above, the NRA does it, and the Christian Right does it.

Everyone write to their congressmen and senators and they will vote it down for you.

Hardware controls are hard to get around. So far (to the best of my knowledge) no one has been able to disable the serial copy protection system on minidisc (there are ways around it though, but you need expensive commercial equipment). This wouldn't be a serial code kind of thing, therefore, you couldn't "crack" it, per se. It would be some kind of physical barrier, so unless you wanted to open up your MP3 player or hard drive, and physically remove a chip, you wouldn't be able to get around the protection mechanism. But, you see, tampering with the mechanism would be made illegal. So pah!

With regards to people switching over to Linux, that would have no effect. You still wouldn't be able to load digital multimedia devices (i.e. flashbased MP3 players, etc.) with copyrighted material... the protection system would be not only in software, but in hardware to. I'm assuming that hard drives and other hardware storage systems would also have this protection mechanism builtin, so no matter what OS you loaded on to your computer, your hardware would still prevent you from unauthorized use of copyrighted materials.

you'd think that unconsitutional bills wouldn't get passed,
then again, look at the anti-terrorism bills currently going through the works in canada and the U.S. Unconstitutional as hell, but other than angry editorials, they're going to go through
they trample on basic human rights that have been long accepted, all in the name of protecting the country

it's the same (though on a far grander scale) as this policeware stuff.
then again, this is an american bill, i'm canadian, WOOHOOO

you know the astalavista website that everyone goes to. the reason it doesn't get shut down for the cracking of countless millions of dollars worth of software is because it's in Russia.

now, if it's saying the software that would be transfered, and would allow the user to crack/hack this copywrite technology, would be illegal to be transfered (in the US) where would the servers be that would hold the files? not in the us, in a different country.

people will always be able to hack it. and this bill.. i doubt it would pass through.

anywhoo it's in the US so hahaah canada doesn't get it yet ..

if it does go through, of course!

a) I thought I already made it clear that this bill is NOT unconstitutional.

b) Neither is the most hated parts of bill C-36... the hoopla is all media-created... if you would read the parts in question, you'd notice that it merely lays out the grounds for conviction, one of them being religious beliefs. It specifically says that if you commit terrorist acts due to religious, political or idealogical reasons, you can be prosecuted. Nothing in the Charter protects you from commiting acts of terror (which can be viewed as treason... a far worse crime). The only iffy part of the proposed bill is the ability to prosecute an act of ommission, which is in contradiction to charter.

c) You fail to recognize that Canadian lawmakers always follow the lead of our cousins to the South. So, if this bill is passed in Congress, you can expect a similar law up here soon after.