29 Mar
2002
29 Mar
'02
4:29 a.m.
In a message dated 3/29/02 12:50:30 PM Eastern Standard Time,
menadeau(a)attbi.com writes:
The classic computing hobby aside, The CBDTPA is
stupid on a number of
levels. Most electronics manufacturers are against it, for example. They say
it will discourage innovation and slow the development of new products.
Civil libertarians oppose it for potential privacy issues and its likelihood
of impeding the free flow of information.
By all means, contact your Congress critter if you want to express your
opposition. I suggest, however, that you bring up some of the more high
profile arguments against the bill as well as its impact on the hobby.
The CBDTPA is not a done deal. Powerful forces are lined up on both sides,
OK, I just read the CBDTPA.. It'll never work even if it were to be passed
and here's why...
The act specifically says the security measures *shall not* prevent a legal
owner from making a personal copy (presumably for backup perposes,etc..). If
you can make a backup, you can trade it, etc, just like it is happening now...
The second good reason it'll never work is they can't possibly enforce it.
You can't subject other countries to US rules policies, and the act doesn't
have any provision for open source or freeware, or PD goodies. The US nor
any other country can effectively poliece/control the internet.
Thirdly, you can't use a hardware decryption because there is no feasable way
of that method working on all available platforms (and imagine the US saying
to companies that they can't make such and such a product unless they install
"our pre-approved security gizmo"), so you would have to use software..
There's no way a software encryption/decryption would work because you could
not possibly keep the code from leaking out or being reverse engineered.
Lastly (at least how I see it) the act would invariably violate freedom of
speach by dictating how and where we could express information.
-Linc.
In The Beginning there was nothing, which exploded - Yeah right...
Calculating in binary code is as easy as 01,10,11.