Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Pop_Quiz · 08-04-2003, 07:48 AM

I am no attorney or legislator but some of the wording on certain bills being passed/considered sound to me like firewalls could be outlawed in certain states. Granted the bills want to also address things like cloned cell phones, but in typical polital slash-and-burn policies, firewalls may be caught up in the dragnet. If I'm being paranoid, could someone set me straight? These bills have been floating around for months and it appears nothing has been said about them.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=8595
http://www.janegalt.net/blog/archives/004067.html

Seems the whole file-sharing fiasco is spilling out into the realm of online privacy and security; just another case of the DMCA further eroding people's rights (it's a privilege to drive/surf not a right.)

Being from Colorado, I have already emailed Gov. Owens and thanked him for vetoing our version, since it passed the Senate and House (yikes!).

Arken · 08-04-2003, 07:52 AM

Well... it is not a right to use the internet. Nowhere in our laws is internet use granted as a right. That said, I'd suggest publicizing this as much as possible, especially considering the Administration's latest dire hacker warnings that they have put out in the last few days. Showing that this act is directly counter to avoiding getting computers hacked is going to be some nice egg on their faces.

Feather · 08-04-2003, 09:25 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Arken
Well... it is not a right to use the internet. Nowhere in our laws is internet use granted as a right. That said, I'd suggest publicizing this as much as possible, especially considering the Administration's latest dire hacker warnings that they have put out in the last few days. Showing that this act is directly counter to avoiding getting computers hacked is going to be some nice egg on their faces.

Since when do rights have to be explicitly enumerated? According to the Law of the Land, all rights not enumerated in the Constitution are reserved to the States, and if not enumerated there to the people.

It would take some deft twisting of the meanings of words to classify the internet under interstate commerce or some other clause which allows Federal or State governments to interfere with it.

Or maybe I'm just being terribly naive here (in which case some pointers on where exactly I'm going wrong would be nice).

Arken · 08-04-2003, 09:29 AM

It is not a right for the simple fact that it costs money to maintain and that money comes from private institutions. Therefore, if you claim it is your right to be on the internet, you are essentially saying that those private institutions must be required to work for you regardless of what they feel. It is no more a right to be allowed to use the internet than it is a right to own a television. You can use it if you can pay for it or if someone agrees to foot the bill. If no one pays, then it isn't there. Therefore, it is not a right.

StrictSeparationist · 08-04-2003, 09:35 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Feather
Since when do rights have to be explicitly enumerated? According to the Law of the Land, all rights not enumerated in the Constitution are reserved to the States, and if not enumerated there to the people.

It would take some deft twisting of the meanings of words to classify the internet under interstate commerce or some other clause which allows Federal or State governments to interfere with it.

Or maybe I'm just being terribly naive here (in which case some pointers on where exactly I'm going wrong would be nice).

Under this version of unenumerated rights, American citizens might very well have the right to use the President's suit as a handkerchief. Unfortunately, you won't get far with that one in court either, since only enumerated rights and those rights that the Supreme Court has deemed "fundamental" (privacy and freedom of interstate travel being the main ones) are enforceable as a matter of law. The alternative is anarchy.

Pop_Quiz · 08-04-2003, 10:18 AM

My point was actually dissing the statement towards driving moreso than the internet. Whole point of the post missed by zeroing in on that random statement.
I should have included "right to securely use the internet ...unless that is now somehow simply a privilege. Gee, thanks. I am truly privileged. Guess the alternative is to have China's model of no private web usage.
But since anyone can make their own internet server at home, thus keeping outside business interests from being involved, would it still be a privilege to utilize a firewall? Is it a privilege to use Wordperfect or a 28k modem if so desired?
The point I'm getting at is yet more "privileges" and fewer "rights". Apparently we have no right to anything...or getting there quickly.

Feather · 08-04-2003, 10:21 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Arken
It is not a right for the simple fact that it costs money to maintain and that money comes from private institutions. Therefore, if you claim it is your right to be on the internet, you are essentially saying that those private institutions must be required to work for you regardless of what they feel. It is no more a right to be allowed to use the internet than it is a right to own a television. You can use it if you can pay for it or if someone agrees to foot the bill. If no one pays, then it isn't there. Therefore, it is not a right.

No, you are saying those private institutions must be required to work for me. I'm saying that the "right" of the private institutions to set up the network in the first place is what seems to be in question here. At least, it seems to me that your post indicated that private entities do not, in fact, have the "right" to set up such networks, because said "right" isn't spelled out in the constitution.

Happy Wonderer · 08-04-2003, 11:47 AM

Propeller-head hat on --

I'm not sure that Prof. Felton's argument holds water technically. The text of the bill prohibits technology that conceals 'place of origin' from your communication service provider. I suppose it comes down to how precise a location one requires for 'place of origin' -- after all, if I use WiFi you will never know exactly where I'm sending a message from.

This part of the argument is incorrect.

Quote:

If you send or receive your email via an encrypted connection, you're in violation, because the "To" and "From" lines of the emails are concealed from your ISP by encryption. (The encryption conceals the destinations of outgoing messages, and the sources of incoming messages.)

The 'From' field in email is basically a comment, with minimal knowledge of the mail transport protocol (SMTP) you can make mail 'from' anyone. (I frequently sent friends emails from God or the President.) So encrypting the headers of an email message has no effect on determining the actual source. Modern versions of SMTP tack on the IP address of the sender as one of the message fields, and that won't be encrypted. Remember, it is the ISP who is the person you are prohibited from concealing from, and the ISP has to know the destination of even a secure connection.

(Of course, all that may tell law enforcement is that the email comes from a hotmail account, but nobody knows who is behind a hotmail address anyway.)

The encryption conceals the destinations of outgoing messages... You don't have to be a propellerhead to know how silly that argument is. Somebody has to know where the message is going!

Quote:

Worse yet, Network Address Translation (NAT), a technology widely used for enterprise security, operates by translating the "from" and "to" fields of Internet packets, thereby concealing the source or destination of each packet, and hence violating these bills. Most security "firewalls" use NAT, so if you use a firewall, you're in violation.

This also seems like a poor argument, given that 'you' will still not be able to conceal your location from your ISP, at least any more than you could by using your cell phone and a laptop. The ISP will know the source account for any address that they are relaying. They may not know, for example, which individual machine in a corporation a packet comes from, but it seems to me that "an email sent from XYZ corporation" is a reasonably precise address. I don't see that the corporation owning a NAT-enabled router puts them in violation of this law and I certainly don't see that a homeowner using a HomeLink router is in violation.

The whole bill does seem silly though, with hotmail and internet cafes I don't see how you can ever really know where a message originates (unless you are the NSA...) I'm not entirely sure what the bill's intent really is, it is likely that the politicans and lawyers don't either but are trying to craft something that sounds good and anti-terrorist.

hw

Jimmy Higgins · 08-04-2003, 12:07 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Arken
It is not a right for the simple fact that it costs money to maintain and that money comes from private institutions. Therefore, if you claim it is your right to be on the internet, you are essentially saying that those private institutions must be required to work for you regardless of what they feel. It is no more a right to be allowed to use the internet than it is a right to own a television. You can use it if you can pay for it or if someone agrees to foot the bill. If no one pays, then it isn't there. Therefore, it is not a right.

The right is not whether or not you can use the internet, its whether:
1) You can do so anonymously
2) You are allowed to keep people from trespassing onto your machine

If you can have a private telephone number, there is absolutely no reason why you can't have anonymous internet service.

08-04-2003, 07:48 AM	#1
Pop_Quiz Junior Member Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Mile High City, USA Posts: 30	DMCA seems headed to outlawing firewalls I am no attorney or legislator but some of the wording on certain bills being passed/considered sound to me like firewalls could be outlawed in certain states. Granted the bills want to also address things like cloned cell phones, but in typical polital slash-and-burn policies, firewalls may be caught up in the dragnet. If I'm being paranoid, could someone set me straight? These bills have been floating around for months and it appears nothing has been said about them. http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=8595 http://www.janegalt.net/blog/archives/004067.html Seems the whole file-sharing fiasco is spilling out into the realm of online privacy and security; just another case of the DMCA further eroding people's rights (it's a privilege to drive/surf not a right.) Being from Colorado, I have already emailed Gov. Owens and thanked him for vetoing our version, since it passed the Senate and House (yikes!).

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

08-04-2003, 07:52 AM	#2
Arken Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: North Hollywood, CA Posts: 6,303	Well... it is not a right to use the internet. Nowhere in our laws is internet use granted as a right. That said, I'd suggest publicizing this as much as possible, especially considering the Administration's latest dire hacker warnings that they have put out in the last few days. Showing that this act is directly counter to avoiding getting computers hacked is going to be some nice egg on their faces.

08-04-2003, 09:29 AM	#4
Arken Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: North Hollywood, CA Posts: 6,303	It is not a right for the simple fact that it costs money to maintain and that money comes from private institutions. Therefore, if you claim it is your right to be on the internet, you are essentially saying that those private institutions must be required to work for you regardless of what they feel. It is no more a right to be allowed to use the internet than it is a right to own a television. You can use it if you can pay for it or if someone agrees to foot the bill. If no one pays, then it isn't there. Therefore, it is not a right.

08-04-2003, 10:18 AM	#6
Pop_Quiz Junior Member Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Mile High City, USA Posts: 30	My point was actually dissing the statement towards driving moreso than the internet. Whole point of the post missed by zeroing in on that random statement. I should have included "right to securely use the internet ...unless that is now somehow simply a privilege. Gee, thanks. I am truly privileged. Guess the alternative is to have China's model of no private web usage. But since anyone can make their own internet server at home, thus keeping outside business interests from being involved, would it still be a privilege to utilize a firewall? Is it a privilege to use Wordperfect or a 28k modem if so desired? The point I'm getting at is yet more "privileges" and fewer "rights". Apparently we have no right to anything...or getting there quickly.

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.