De fleste er jo klar over dette, men jeg tenkte kansje noen ville ha litt mer info.
License to Hack
A bill introduced into Congress gives copyright holders -- that's the RIAA, the MPAA, and similar guys -- the right to break into people's computers if they have a reasonable basis to believe that copyright infringement is going on. Basically, the bill protects organizations from federal and state laws if they disable, block, or otherwise impair a publicly accessible peer-to-peer network.
There are two things going on here. The first is to wonder why copyright infringement needs special laws allowing vigilante justice (if someone broke into a bank's computers and stole $1B, the bank wouldn't be legally allowed to retaliate by disabling the attacker's computer), and the second is to ponder the nature of counterattack.
The best defense is a good offense, and that's what counterattack is. Passive defense is making yourself harder to hit. Active defense is fighting back. Counterattack is turning the tables and attacking the attacker. It's by far the most effective means of defense, but it's also the most error prone.
In almost all of civilized society, counterattack is not legal. If you catch someone burglarizing your home, it's not legal for you to follow her home and shoot her. If you're being blackmailed by someone, turning around and blackmailing him back is just as illegal as the first crime. I can't think of any exceptions to this. Law enforcement is the sole purview of the police, an organization that has what I have previously described as "a state-sponsored monopoly on violence."
The exception to the above is warfare. In war, the rules about counterattack -- and preemptive attack -- are different. In war, attack and defense are so jumbled up that counterattack is the norm. In war, the difference between an offensive weapon and a defensive weapon is the direction it's pointing. But that's not what we're talking about here.
Counterattack is wrong, both legally and morally. Vigilante justice is wrong, both legally and morally. Victims of attack are allowed to defend themselves, but they're not allowed to take the law into their own hands and attack back. That's why we have police.
None of this is new or controversial, so why are copyright holders even talking about this? This bill would make it legal for the MPAA, the RIAA, and its ilk to break into computer systems they suspect (with no standard of evidence) are guilty of copyright infringement. It will allow them to perform denial-of-service attacks against peer- to-peer networks, release viruses that disable systems and software, and violate everyone's privacy. People they choose to target would be deemed guilty until proven otherwise. In short, this bill would set up the entertainment industry as a Gestapo- like enforcement agency with no oversight.
To me, it's another example of the insane lengths the entertainment companies are willing to go to preserve their business models. They're willing to destroy your privacy, have general-purpose computers declared illegal, and exercise special vigilante police powers that no one else has...just to make sure that no one watches "The Little Mermaid" without paying for it. They're trying to invent a new crime: interference with a business model.
Sad, really.
Hvis du vill lese mer om dette og Crypto generelt anbefaler jeg:
Counterpane inc
License to Hack
A bill introduced into Congress gives copyright holders -- that's the RIAA, the MPAA, and similar guys -- the right to break into people's computers if they have a reasonable basis to believe that copyright infringement is going on. Basically, the bill protects organizations from federal and state laws if they disable, block, or otherwise impair a publicly accessible peer-to-peer network.
There are two things going on here. The first is to wonder why copyright infringement needs special laws allowing vigilante justice (if someone broke into a bank's computers and stole $1B, the bank wouldn't be legally allowed to retaliate by disabling the attacker's computer), and the second is to ponder the nature of counterattack.
The best defense is a good offense, and that's what counterattack is. Passive defense is making yourself harder to hit. Active defense is fighting back. Counterattack is turning the tables and attacking the attacker. It's by far the most effective means of defense, but it's also the most error prone.
In almost all of civilized society, counterattack is not legal. If you catch someone burglarizing your home, it's not legal for you to follow her home and shoot her. If you're being blackmailed by someone, turning around and blackmailing him back is just as illegal as the first crime. I can't think of any exceptions to this. Law enforcement is the sole purview of the police, an organization that has what I have previously described as "a state-sponsored monopoly on violence."
The exception to the above is warfare. In war, the rules about counterattack -- and preemptive attack -- are different. In war, attack and defense are so jumbled up that counterattack is the norm. In war, the difference between an offensive weapon and a defensive weapon is the direction it's pointing. But that's not what we're talking about here.
Counterattack is wrong, both legally and morally. Vigilante justice is wrong, both legally and morally. Victims of attack are allowed to defend themselves, but they're not allowed to take the law into their own hands and attack back. That's why we have police.
None of this is new or controversial, so why are copyright holders even talking about this? This bill would make it legal for the MPAA, the RIAA, and its ilk to break into computer systems they suspect (with no standard of evidence) are guilty of copyright infringement. It will allow them to perform denial-of-service attacks against peer- to-peer networks, release viruses that disable systems and software, and violate everyone's privacy. People they choose to target would be deemed guilty until proven otherwise. In short, this bill would set up the entertainment industry as a Gestapo- like enforcement agency with no oversight.
To me, it's another example of the insane lengths the entertainment companies are willing to go to preserve their business models. They're willing to destroy your privacy, have general-purpose computers declared illegal, and exercise special vigilante police powers that no one else has...just to make sure that no one watches "The Little Mermaid" without paying for it. They're trying to invent a new crime: interference with a business model.
Sad, really.
Hvis du vill lese mer om dette og Crypto generelt anbefaler jeg:
Counterpane inc
