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Friday, October 4, 2002 |
... is not that it is ill-intentioned, says Professor Ed Felten in written testimony to the House Subcommittee. One major problem is its attempt to allow self-help by copyright holders over the Internet through a flawed definition of "peer-to-peer." And the bill, as currently written, authorizes self-help attacks on the World Wide Web itself, and not just illegal music file sharers who use services like KaZaa and Gnutella:
"It seems difficult to redraft the bill to carve out the Web and other legitimate network
services, without creating an escape hatch for the types of peer-to-peer networks that the
bill[base ']s supporters would like to see covered. The reason for this difficulty is simple: there is really little difference at a technical level between the Web and peer-to-peer systems like KaZaa and Gnutella."
Of course, circumspection suggests that we should avoid regulating an environment that is developing rapidly and is becoming a pervasive influence in everyday life. But cautious wisdom is not the way of the legislator. On the other hand, I think at some point the repeated efforts of well-lobbied lawmakers to shape the Internet, not for the greater good, but purely to help the entertainment industry will complete its Karmic circle and wind up biting them in the ass.
I'm not saying we shouldn't be worried about laws like the Berman bill (we should, because these lawmakers are obviously quicker to accept the views of Michael Eisner than they are to contemplate the technical concerns of Ed Felten), but as the Web's populace of users grows it will be much harder for these politicians to hide their agendas. It's one thing to pass a bill that adds a tax to the sale of home audio recording devices (no one is likely to notice the effect of suchlegislation), but when the Internet starts experiencing problems that can be traced to Content King's trying to use self-help to protect their venal interests you are going to see politicians become much more wary of passing laws just to help Disney boost profits a tad more. [Ernie the Attorney]
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The online magazine Salon has removed an article charging Thomas E. White, secretary of the Army, with participating in accounting practices that led to the collapse of Enron. [New York Times: Technology]
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FOXNews.com - Stop, in the Name of 'Bots. Nowadays, it seems as if more and more law enforcement is being done by machines. Unfortunately, they don't seem to be up to the job. And the humans don't want to take responsibility, either. [ ... ] Much like the operators of rigged traffic cameras, they're relying on their own institutional power -- and the hassle of opposing them -- to let them get away with near-criminal sloppiness. It's bad enough that you might lose your Internet connection because of such carelessness -- but you could wind up in even worse trouble. [ ... ] At the bail hearing for Johnston, Tinney and three other defendants in Houston, the "FBI'"s Kristen Sheldon ... testified that an IP address is, "in very simple terms, a Social Security number. Only one person at one specific time can have that number." In fact, an IP address identifies a computer, rather than a person, and may not even consistently map to a particular machine in networks that use dynamic IP addressing. Midway through the hearing, the presiding U.S. magistrate asked, "What are GIF files?" (Emphasis added.) This combination of cluelessness and irresponsibility is, unfortunately, not unusual. It also isn't challenged enough. As David Carr writes, who's going to stand up and complain when, if you do, some idiot will probably accuse you of being soft on child pornographers? But those idiots are, well, idiots. When the power to enforce the law is delegated to software employed by people who don't -- or can't be bothered to -- understand it, no one is safe. When you hear that people are using machines to enforce the law, remember the old computer-geek saying: "Garbage In, Garbage Out." Ask why -- at a time when ordinary people are being asked by politicians and corporations to take more personal responsibility for their actions -- the people who claim to be enforcing the law aren't willing to take responsibility for what they do with their machines. And ours. [Privacy Digest]
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Lawmakers are considering legislation that would fight Net censorship abroad, allocating $100 million over the next two years to develop and promote anti-blocking technology. [CNET News.com]
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The largest U.S. intelligence agency will spend millions to upgrade the technology it uses to sift through the huge volume of telephone conversations, e-mail and other worldwide communications chatter it monitors, under a new contract.
The National Security Agency has signed a $282 million contract with Science Applications International Corp. of San Diego to help develop a more refined system for culling useful intelligence from a flood of data it collects daily. Officials disclosed the 26-month contract on Monday.
[CNN - Technology]
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Maximillian Dornseif, 2002.
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