[free-sklyarov] Congress says: Keep Dmitry in jail! Washington loves DMCA...

[Tony Abou-Assaleh]

> We need to organize. Seriously. Before they turn IT into a sweat shop, slave
> industry or some damn thing. I would just love to see us organized to the
> point we could have a "Internet down day." Turn the thing OFF and then tell
> the marketing droids and excutwits "hey, you want it, you make the funny
> boxes go."
LOL .. I love it :O)

About a month ago .. the news warned of Chinese hackers attacking US
gov. and corp. servers. They were some what afraid. But if the
"hackers" around the world attack them .. they will be very afraid!

Most of their systems are not secure enough to require a hacker .. any
knowledgeable person or script kiddo can cause a lot of damage.

Of course attacking is "illegal" (but it won't really matter at that point
.. since thinking is illegal too), but just shutting down and/or blocking
traffic through ISP's and routers would have "fun" consequences.

TAA

-----------------------------------------------------
Tony Abou-Assaleh                           
Graduate Student, Department of Computer Science
University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada, N2L 3G1
Office:  DC2503
Phone:   (519) 888-4567 Ext. 3399
Email:   taa at acm.org
-----------------------[THE END]---------------------

On Wed, 25 Jul 2001, Mark K. Bilbo wrote:

> That DOES it. I am SO sick and tired of being made into a "criminal." I'd
> like to see these marketing frat boy types run the digital infrastructure
> WITHOUT us.
> 
> We need to organize. Seriously. Before they turn IT into a sweat shop, slave
> industry or some damn thing. I would just love to see us organized to the
> point we could have a "Internet down day." Turn the thing OFF and then tell
> the marketing droids and excutwits "hey, you want it, you make the funny
> boxes go."
> 
> Mark (steaming)
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Declan McCullagh" <declan at well.com>
> To: <free-sklyarov at zork.net>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2001 7:31 AM
> Subject: [free-sklyarov] Congress says: Keep Dmitry in jail! Washington
> loves DMCA...
> 
> 
> >
> >
> > ----- Forwarded message from Declan McCullagh <declan at well.com> -----
> >
> > From: Declan McCullagh <declan at well.com>
> > To: politech at politechbot.com
> > Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 10:24:10 -0400
> > X-URL: Politech is at http://www.politechbot.com/
> >
> >
> >
> > http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,45522,00.html
> >
> >    Congress No Haven for Hackers
> >    By Declan McCullagh (declan at wired.com)
> >
> >    2:00 a.m. July 25, 2001 PDT
> >
> >    WASHINGTON -- Even as the world's geeks march against the Digital
> >    Millennium Copyright Act, key legislators and lobbyists are dismissing
> >    concerns about the controversial law as hyperbole.
> >
> >    The law that led to the arrest of Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov
> >    last week and an immediate outcry among programmers continues to enjoy
> >    remarkably broad support on Capitol Hill. No bill has yet been
> >    introduced in Congress to amend the DMCA for one simple reason:
> >    Official Washington loves the law precisely as much as hackers and
> >    programmers despise it.
> >
> >    "The law is performing the way we hoped," said Rep. Howard Coble
> >    (R-North Carolina), chairman of the House Judiciary subcommittee on
> >    intellectual property.
> >
> >    The FBI arrested Sklyarov last week in Las Vegas for allegedly
> >    "trafficking" in software that circumvents the copy protection
> >    techniques that Adobe uses in its e-book format. Under the DMCA,
> >    selling such software is a federal felony punishable by up to five
> >    years in prison and a fine of $500,000.
> >
> >    "As far as I know there have been very few complaints from
> >    intellectual property holders," Coble, the chief sponsor of the DMCA,
> >    said in an interview Tuesday. "I am also encouraged by the Department
> >    of Justice's actions in this matter to enforce the law."
> >
> >    When Congress approved the DMCA in October 1998 after about a year's
> >    worth of little-noticed debate and negotiations, it was hardly a
> >    controversial bill. The Senate agreed to it unanimously, and a
> >    unanimous House approved it by voice vote, then bypassed a procedural
> >    step that would have delayed the DMCA's enactment.
> >
> >    Since the House procedure says attempts to rewrite copyright law must
> >    start in Coble's subcommittee, the odds of a DMCA rewrite in Congress'
> >    lower chamber seem remote.
> >
> >    Coble's counterpart in the Senate, California Democrat Dianne
> >    Feinstein, feels the same way.
> >
> >    "We need to protect copyrights and this law was designed to do that,"
> >    said Howard Gantman, a spokesman for Feinstein, who chairs the Senate
> >    Judiciary subcommittee on technology. "She's not looking to change
> >    it."
> >
> >    [...]
> >
> >    But in the world of Washington politics, geektivists are woefully
> >    outnumbered by the natives who populate and influence confirmation
> >    hearings: Corporate, nonprofit and trade association lobbyists.
> >
> >    "We believe that a careful effort was made by Congress to balance the
> >    rights of intellectual property owners and the rights of intellectual
> >    property consumers," says Allan Adler, vice president at the
> >    Association of American Publishers, which applauded Sklyarov's arrest
> >    last week.
> >
> >    [...]
> >
> >    The Free-Dmitry movement argues that programmers should not be
> >    prosecuted for creating software that can circumvent copyright
> >    protection -- since such tools have many legitimate uses, such as
> >    reading an e-book on another computer, as well.
> >
> >    But DMCA aficionados say there are precedents for broad prohibitions
> >    on selling devices that can have both legitimate and illegitimate
> >    uses.
> >
> >    Current federal law makes it a felony to own, distribute or advertise
> >    for sale bugging or wiretapping devices that are "primary useful for
> >    the purpose of surreptitious interception of wire, oral or electronic
> >    communications." That applies even to parents who might want to
> >    monitor what their young children are doing, or to other commonplace
> >    uses.
> >
> >    You're also not allowed to possess hardware or software such as cell
> >    phone cloning devices that let you "obtain telecommunications service
> >    without authorization" -- even if your motives are pure.
> >
> >    [...]
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list
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> >
> >
> > ----- End forwarded message -----
> >
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