Subject: RE: It's war, folks --- SSSCA formally introduced

From: Julia Finnegan <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 14:30:00 -0500

What he suggests is that this will save our economy. What?  More and more
businesses and consumers alike are growing more and more reliable on this
every single day. There is ALWAYS going to be piracy, just like there will
ALWAYS be crime rates.  If it's not in digital form, it will be in others
forms. It will always exist.  To morph the internet so drastically will send
our economy on a downward spiral.  

I agree that his suggestions could ultimately destroy the PC and could also
send the Intranet to ruins.  Since the majority of us are working in the
tech field, of course we're biased but the BIG picture is that of affecting
EVERY consumer AND business.

This guy didn't even run a spell check. :(  Hopefully his lack of
thoroughness will only radiate to the rest of his efforts in the matter-
even though the larger task is already out of his hands.

-----Original Message-----
From: Phil Karn [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2002 8:00 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: It's war, folks --- SSSCA formally introduced

The story just hit Slashdot -- Senators Hollings, Stevens, Inouye,
Breaux, Nelson, and Feinstein have introduced the so-called "Consumer
Broadband and Digital Television Act of 2002", formerly known to most
of us as the SSSCA. The text of Hollings' comments are available here:

http://www.politechbot.com/docs/cbdtpa/hollings.cbdtpa.release.032102.html

The Slashdot article (with links to other coverage) is here:

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/03/21/2344228&mode=thread&tid=103

I cannot overstress the awful implications of this bill if it becomes
law. The personal computer, as we know it, will be destroyed. The
Internet, as we know it, will be destroyed.

Hollings doesn't say that, of course. But all through his statement he
claims that there exist technological solutions to the piracy
problem. These apparently consist entirely of "do not copy" bits added
to copyrighted materials.

The fact that any "do-not-copy-bit" can be trivially cleared on any
personal computer that can be programmed by its user does not seem to
have registered yet with the authors of this bill. And when it does,
the logical next step will then become obvious to them: the licensing
of programmers and/or the prohibition of open source software as too
easily modified by end users. And when *that* fails, a total ban on
any personal computer that can be programmed by its user.

It's time for the IETF, its members and the IAB to react, and react
quickly and forcefully.  We need to say clearly that there is simply
no such thing as an "Internet copy prevention technology" that can
actually work in a world with programmable personal computers.

We need to steer policy makers in a different direction, toward
watermarking technologies that do not block copies from being made but
allows them to be traced after the fact.  Yes, effective watermarking
is technically difficult, and several have already been broken. But at
least it's *possible* to build an effective watermarking scheme
without utterly destroying both the personal computer and the Internet.

Phil

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2002 17:04:53 +0000

How can a single country legislate that music copying should be stopped.  This
seems like a over reaction to a small problem.  I have not seen anything saying
that movie companies are losing money.  I do not believe that the issue of
pirated Videos/music is as big a problem as is suggested by the media.
Certainly in the UK most users have 56Kbps connections, which prevents the
downloading of movies, even a MP3 can take a couple of hours.  I just wonder
what else is actually behind this new potential legislation over copyright.  I
understand that currently most of this comes out of countries that America has
now influence over!

Having said all of this I would like to see some sensible debate over this
problem and potential solutions.  I request this as we are told in the UK that
the majority of the VCD’s sold add funds to the IRA and other major crime
gangs, rather than individuals.

> without utterly destroying both the personal computer and the Internet.

-------------------------------------------------
This mail sent through IMP: http://horde.org/imp/