[iwar] [fc:Send.Congress.Back.to.School]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2002-08-19 18:02:36
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From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
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Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2002 18:02:36 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [iwar] [fc:Send.Congress.Back.to.School]
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Send Congress Back to School
Why lawmakers should stop legislating the Internet until they understand it
better.
By Tim Mullen Aug 19, 2002

So this aide walks into the office of Jack Valenti, President and CEO of the
Motion Picture Association of America... "Sorry for the interruption, Mr.
Valenti" she says, "but it's about the Berman Bill. What should we do about
it?"

Valenti smiles and says, "Pay it."

Coverage of the "Hack Bill" has been so prominent that the subject itself is
almost hackneyed.

Fortunately, every intelligent human being with an ounce of technical
perception has denounced the bill for the utter folly that it is.
Unfortunately, most of those inhabiting a seat on Capitol Hill will have to
push away a pound of obscurity before they can begin to address the issue.

That's the part that scares me.

Momentarily deferring elaboration, let me say that I am aware that many are
speciously equating the Berman Bill with my "hack-back" technology. It is a
tangential argument at best. I call for the use of neutralizing processes by
qualified personnel in response to definitively identified worm attacks,
leaving offending systems fully operational.

Berman, in contrast, calls for inflicting willful and deliberate damage
directly on the end user and/or ownership entity by any third party
copyright holder who presumes the target is illegally sharing content. There
is an unbridgeable chasm between the two.

That being said, my fear is the developing trend of our representatives, who
are supposed to speak for us and represent our voices, to draft proposed
laws that ultimately restrict our freedoms and increase our costs while
focusing revenue streams and business opportunities onto a select few.
They are like doctors who drill holes in our heads to relieve their own
headaches.
For all of its proposed power, implication, and potential for abuse, the
Berman Bill is only about 1,600 words in detail. One would think that a
technology bill would be, at the very least, somewhat technical. It isn't.
For instance, the definition of a "peer-to-peer file trading network" is
"two or more computers which are connected by computer software that is
primarily designed to enable the connected computers to transmit files or
data to other connected computers."

You and I would call that the "Internet."

Granted, he does attempt to further qualify possible targets, but in the use
of equally ambiguous language, he fails grievously. Additionally, the
requirement for deploying any given offensive action is that the copyright
holder must submit technical details of the attack to the Attorney General
seven days prior to production use. They don't have to get an 'okay' -- they
just have to submit it.

In a speech to the CCIA, Berman reveals that his technical insight into the
Internet piracy issue stems from having a college-age daughter.

Legislative Quackery
You see, there is inherent danger in having lawmakers legislate technology
when they have no understanding of what it really is. They are like doctors
who drill holes in our heads to relieve their own headaches.

Similarly, Fritz Hollings' Consumer Broadband and Digital Television
Promotion Act will require that any "digital media device," being any
hardware or software product that can reproduce copyrighted works in digital
form, be enabled with a standard security technology that is reliable,
renewable, resistant to attack, readily implemented, modular, applicable to
multiple technology platforms, extensible, upgradeable, and not cost
prohibitive.

Of course, no one has any idea what that is.

But, that ignorance does not keep them from submitting a bill that will
require any qualifying device to adapt the technology within a year of them
figuring it out. Yes, you read that correctly- they want to pass a law now
that will require anything that can reproduce a digital signal to adopt
technology that has yet to be determined.

To be fair, I should mention that there is a deadline for arriving at what
that technology will be. However, in representation of his best political
form, Hollings has written into the bill that upon reaching that deadline,
it can be extended. Bravo.

And don't forget the implications of the original Patriot Act, or the recent
House of Representative passing of the Cyber Security Enhancement Act, which
grants life imprisonment sentences for malicious hackers as well as loosens
telephone wiretap and Internet sniffing restrictions.

When it comes to technology and the law, we are still in our infancy. Now is
the time to educate ourselves, and our representatives, as to the
implications of our actions, lest we find ourselves maturing into a troubled
adulthood.

Timothy M. Mullen is CIO and Chief Software Architect for AnchorIS.Com, a
developer of secure, enterprise-based accounting software.

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