Your rights online.

[cloasters]

Came across a disturbing fact reported in Slashdot today. http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/03/03/30...id=103&tid=193

Please, tell me if I'm wrong in asserting that some people REALLY don't like the 'Net. This story taken at face value may herald the end of the Web. Free speech really bothers those at the top. Keeps 'em up at night, worrying. I think, anyway.

[funnyperson1]

Indeed, there are many government officials who seem to have a problem with free speech. *cough* ashcroft *cough* What scares me actually is that many states will be able to pass this as "emergency security measures" and of course people who dont support it are hackers and terrorists

[Áedán]

Hope they don't like financial institutions out in Michigan then! VPN technology is used heavily by many of the banks.

I wish that people would bother to understand what they're trying to do before doing it.

Áedán

[Daniel ~]

Originally posted by Áedán
Hope they don't like financial institutions out in Michigan then! VPN technology is used heavily by many of the banks.

I wish that people would bother to understand what they're trying to do before doing it.

Áedán

Why if they did that they might stumble upon something called predictable out comes, or something horribly like them!

This way they can say :

"How were we suppose to know that!?"

[cloasters]

Why aren't Cisco and their brethren in router manufacturing screaming to high heaven about this? Do they assume that these amazingly stupid laws will be stricken from the books instanter?

Or are they content that this will become another "selective enforcement" legal stricture? As in "we don't like you." Illegal NAT! Guilty as hell, Your Worship.

"B-but Fred's tire and brake store next door does the same thing!"
"Huh, how about that. Next case!"

Question please. Will it behoove entities on the Web to type up a statement saying "we grant all legitimate parties accessing our public information the right to do so." ?

Is this a statement that ALL of us should file for the protection of folks we send email to, etc?

These laws couldn't be any more jackas*inine. Oh wait, I'm sure even more of them are waiting to be pushed through estupido state and federal legislatures.

[Phat Pat]

wow, thats really disturbing. looks like I might be going to Juvenile Court if the law comes to be around here.

[R0BB23]

Well i was thinking about starting another thread for the topic im about to discuss but i thought this was as good a place as any.

So WTF do you guys think is the cause behind all this disrespect for computer rights by the politicians and courts<?>

[Phat Pat]

Originally posted by R0BB23
Well i was thinking about starting another thread for the topic im about to discuss but i thought this was as good a place as any.

So WTF do you guys think is the cause behind all this disrespect for computer rights by the politicians and courts<?>

I blame the rap music, those crazy politicians and their violent lyrics. No wait, they tried to ban rap music didn't they?... Peer pressure, I blame peer pressure. (all the cool senators were doing it.) that and of course the T.V. shows about our government, its blurring the line of fiction and reallity for those poor, innocent polititans. All those movies, and T.V. shows, video games about banning things. They should ban them.

[Random Nonsense]

When a control freak doenst have control of something what does he or she do? Get control of it, or break it entirely.

Politicians like power. Why else would they do their job? 'cos they have the good of the people at heart? I somehow doubt that.

[Kaitain]

This is very reminiscent of two recent Bills put before commons. One was a number of years ago:

The e-commerce bill was designed to combat strong crypto:

Excerpt from The Observer, 12th March 2000
Reproduced in full: http://www.stand.org.uk/commentary.php3

The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill gives Mr Straw the power to demand you decrypt data on demand. Failing to provide the key will be a criminal offence, with a maximum penalty of two years in jail, and carries with it the presumption of guilt. You must somehow prove you do not have the key. That you may have mislaid or forgotten it will not be a defence.

And if, having suffered a miscarriage of justice under this statute, you decide to complain in public, 'Liberal Jack' has another ace up his sleeve - you can be sent down for a further five years!

The solution to this law was rather sly: a bunch of techheads registered a PGP key in the then Home Secretary, Jack Straw's name, and sent him a full confession of their e-crimes against this new bill... encrypted. That Mr Straw was unable to decrypt the files, even though the key was ostensibly his, rendered him a criminal. The letter they sent to Mr Straw is reproduced here.

I wonder whether there's something similar that can be sent to a few State senators...

[Daniel ~]

Just don't send them bribes in encrypted form... they could figure that out on their sticky fingers! It's genetic with politicians I think...