it's getting ugly out there again!

Sun Mar 24 13:05:17 PST 2002

Take a look at the latest snake in the grass from the copyright 
industry-- it's the SSSCA all over again, plus extra.  The broad
and comprehensive technology provisions would affect many of the
components we use (starting with disk drives, but even touching
things like compact flash cards, PCMCIA storage cards, etc).  The
legal provisions are an even bigger kettle of fish, and will change
the way that any network/user base is administered, plus opening
up (as I understand it) personal civil/criminal liability for
sysadmins.  Yeek.  I hope I'm wrong on the last part especially.

I've taken the liberty of sending Cindy Cohn of the EFF a request
for her or someone else from the EFF to come do a 10-15 minute
briefing on this as a pre-meeting chat for April or May.  Here's
some info:

http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html

and

> Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 22:01:40 -0500
> From: Declan McCullagh <declan at well.com>
> To: cryptography at wasabisystems.com
> Subject: Text of Sen. Hollings' revised SSSCA, now called the CBDTPA
> 
> Wired News article on the CBDTPA:
> http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51245,00.html
>    The bill, called the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television
>    Promotion Act (CBDTPA), prohibits the sale or distribution of nearly
>    any kind of electronic device -- unless that device includes
>    copy-protection standards to be set by the federal government.
> 
> The text of the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion
> Act (CBDTPA) is available here:
> http://www.politechbot.com/docs/cbdtpa/
> 
> Here's Sen. Fritz Hollings' (D-SC) statement and press release:
> http://www.politechbot.com/docs/cbdtpa/hollings.cbdtpa.release.032102.html
> 
> Statements from supporters and opponents:
> http://www.politechbot.com/docs/cbdtpa/mpaa.cbdtpa.release.032102.html
> http://www.politechbot.com/docs/cbdtpa/riaa.cbdtpa.release.032102.html
> http://www.politechbot.com/docs/cbdtpa/bsa.cspp.iti.release.032102.html
> 
> Archive on SSSCA (now, of course, called the CBDTPA):
> http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=sssca
> 
> -Declan
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Strata Rose Chalup [KF6NBZ]                      strata "@" virtual.net
VirtualNet Consulting                            http://www.virtual.net/
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