SPAM: Important Legislative Alert (fwd)

[Mike Black]

Sounds a little paranoid to me...and I quote from H.R. 2281:

Re: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c105:1:./temp/~c105ALwm9K:e9304:

Sec. 1201. Circumvention of copyright protection systems

     `(a) VIOLATIONS REGARDING CIRCUMVENTION OF TECHNOLOGICAL PROTECTION
MEASURES- (1) No
     person shall circumvent a technological protection measure that
effectively controls access to a work protected under this title

This is talking about bypassing a copyright protection scheme with the sole
purpose of doing so.

So, things like:

#1 - Video copier that can copy protected tapes -- has no other real
purpose.
#2 - Disk copier that can copy copy-protected disks -- has no other real
purpose.

This has nothing to do with the general tools which reverse engineer things
or to general encryption schemes which are not targeted at copyright
protection.  Basically, it extends copyright protection to disallowing tools
explicitly aimed at violating copyrights.  The "copying of text" reference
below has nothing to do with this bill.
There's no mention made of anything other than copyright
protection...So...if you aren't violating copyrights now this bill won't
touch what you're doing.

Question I would have relative to this list is "is the NT Domain protocol
copyrighted??"  If so, then reverse engineering it in any way (other than
clean room) would seem illegal.

-----Original Message-----
From: Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton <lkcl at switchboard.net>
To: Multiple recipients of list <samba-ntdom at samba.anu.edu.au>
Date: Wednesday, June 24, 1998 2:07 PM
Subject: SPAM: Important Legislative Alert (fwd)


>this has serious ramifications for the "nt domains for unix" project.
>luke.
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 13:25:57 -0500
>From: Simple Nomad <thegnome at NMRC.ORG>
>To: NTBUGTRAQ at LISTSERV.NTBUGTRAQ.COM
>Subject: SPAM: Important Legislative Alert
>
>June 23rd, 1998 - The World Intellectual Property Organization treaty has
>already passed the US Senate and is close to passing in the House. The
>treaty would make it illegal, with extremely stiff penalties, to break
>security schemes without the permission of the company that makes the
>product.
>
>Programs like Pandora would be made illegal. People could not publish
>vulnerabilities in products and encryption schemes, as done by NMRC in the
>Hack FAQs. We would go back to the days of security vulnerabilities only
>circulating in the underground as mailing lists like Bugtraq, NTBugtraq,
>and Netware Hack are made illegal.
>
>Even products such as Net Nanny and CyberPatrol, which "bypass technology"
>by reverse engineering how various products work would become illegal.
>Technically you could not refuse a cookie from a web site, so web sites
>would be allowed to write files directly to your hard drive and you
>couldn't do a damn thing about it.
>
>This is plain and simple security through obscurity. Intellectual property
>owners are using the legal system to protect their products instead of the
>tried and true method of open systems and public review.
>
>How will we know if anything is secure if all the "white papers" and
>reports on a system's security are paid for by the manufacturers only?
>Unbiased, "Consumer Reports-like" groups will be outlawed. Say goodbye to
>NMRC, L0pht, Counterpane, and any consulting firm that does security
>assessment of commercial software.
>
>In addition, you will not be able to "quote" information from the Internet
>without written permission. For example, I lifted the bulk of this text
>from www.l0pht.com and re-edited it -- and under this proposed
>legislation this would be illegal without getting written permission.
>Reporters would be unable to "lift" quotes, students would be unable to
>"lift" research material, and you would be unable to "lift" security info
>for detailed reports without gaining the author's permission. This is NOT
>the way the print media operates -- this could impact everyone you know.
>Imagine pulling CD-ROMs from libraries and computers from elementary
>schools. H.R. 2281 passes and you have started down this path running.
>
>The Nomad Mobile Research Centre is vehemently opposed to this proposed
>treaty. It has serious freedom of speech implications. It also gives
>companies a license to produce shoddy, inadequate systems without fear of
>exposure. Call your House Representative today and voice your concerns.
>
>               .o.
>Simple Nomad  .oOo.  Data warrior, knowledge hunter/gatherer
>www.nmrc.org  .oOo.  thegnome at nmrc.org
>               .o.
>