[ale] DMCA Protests]

[Michael Barker]

Alan Hightower wrote:

> On Tue, 24 Jul 2001, Jonathan Rickman wrote:
> 
>> On Tue, 24 Jul 2001, Joseph A. Knapka wrote:
>> 
>>> Absolutely. If it's illegal to make security-defeating tools, then
>>> there is no real security, only the illusion thereof. If Adobe or
>>> anyone else is using the DCMA as an excuse to avoid supplying real
>>> security in their products, they're idiots, because mere illegality
>>> never stopped anyone. (OK, it stops some people, but not everyone.)
>> 
>> You just hit the nail right on the head. I enjoy computer security
>> research. Thus, I am in posession of tools and exploit code that
>> serves absolutely NO purpose other than circumventing / testing the
>> security of a given system. Were this made illegal, I'd have to give
>> up that part of my research. The bad guys, however, are already
>> breaking the law. Thus, they could care less about the "tools of the
>> trade" being illegal.
> 
> 
> Next thing you know it will be illegal to posses knowledge of
> vulnerabilities in existing eCommerce solutions - i.e. Win2k et. al.
> Heaven forbid a smart kid might discover one and deface the FBI
> web site rather than alerting CERT.  In fact lets go one step further
> and make it illegal to even think about commiting a crime.  That
> will make me sleep better at night.
> 
This current line of discussion reminds me of two books I read  a few 
months ago about the developement of cryptography in this country and 
the UK.

Singh, Simon, The Code Book: The Secret History of Codes and 
Code-breaking (London: Fourth Estate Limited, 1999)

Levy, Steven, Crypto: Secrecy and Privacy in the New Code War (London: 
Allen Lane, 2001)

Both books conatained stories of how our government (the NSA mostly) 
fought hard to keep this technology out of public hands.  Their argument 
was basically; if you have the technology then the criminals have the 
technology.  We are here to protect you let us do it and don't worry 
about your security.

Without going into personal privacy, according to the constitution I 
have the right to protect myself and my property (the crime rate is 
really low in Kennesaw according to those I know living there ;-)).

This action under the DMCA sounds like another attempt to keep security 
in the governments hands.

That's all I have to say about that...

Michael

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