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Did you know I did a google search the other day for 'alcoholic programmers' and nothing came back??? Who are they trying to kid?
-- Mr. Bad
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As has been expected, Sen. Hollings, who after 40 years of service in the Senate
is still the junior Senator from South Carolina, introduced the revised SSSCA
under a new title - Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act,
or CBDTPA. After a quick read through it appears just as horrible as
many technical people have been predicting.
Section 5 of the CBDTPA prohibits:
A manufacturer, importer, or seller of digital media devices may not--
(1) sell, or offer for sale in interstate commerce or,
(2) cause to be transported in, or in a manner affecting interstate commerce
a digital media device unless the device includes and utilizes standard
security technologies that adhere to the security standard adopted under
Section 3.
Section 3 requires that any Standard Security System provide effective security
for copyright works. and that it be a) reliable, b) renewable, c) resistant
to attack, d) readily implemented, e) modular, f) applicable to multiple technology
platforms, g) extensible, h) upgradable, i) not cost prohibitive.
And "digital media devices" to which is act applies are defined
as any hardware or software devices that reproduces, displays, retrieves or
accesses any kind of copyrighted work. Which will soon be your dishwasher and
already encompasses most new cars. Wonderful, now the MPAA is deciding how cars work.
It is pretty clear to me that this is an impossible task, so
instead, the committee that is charged with making a universal DRM system will
square the circle and just jam as much control into the devices as possible
and hope that it is enough to prevent people from making any copies. This
tactic will clearly hurt honest people by making life much more difficult, but
will do nothing to stop those that wish to continue making digital copies as
it will always be possible to convert digital content to an analog signal and
then back to digital content.
Anyway, this is a horrible piece of legislation and you need to contact your
representatives and let them know how you feel... cause if you don't act now,
your future PC will be loaded with clumsy annoying software that makes you wish
you had.
There is a nice write up on Wired.
Check it out yourself
punchbowl@pigdog.org
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