Monday, 4 March 2002

I have just read an article at http://www.shacknews.com/ about the proposed Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA). I can understand Hollywood may be justifiably concerned about piracy, but this is simply taking things too far. The SSSCA, among other things, will make the following illegal: Assembling a home-built PC. Using a non-secure computer (ie, a computer built before the would-be implementation of the SSSCA) on a network. Widespread development of open-sourced (non-copyrighted and “digitally unsigned? software. Use of open-sourced software (essentially the entire software platform for the UNIX and Linux operating systems, on which Computer Science research relies). University and corporate research on systems, debugging, security, and watermarking. I first thought this was a hoax but it seems to be on most of the major news networks. I personally don't think this will come to pass but you never know. I have been building PC's for more than ten years and have never purchased a name brand assembled PC. I will continue to build my own regardless of what happens. If this does get through, I believe it will only create a black market or create a split market in PC and network standards. Man, the shit they try and pull sometimes is unbelievable. 6:24:27 PM