IP: SSSCA is no Mickey Mouse

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> From: "Janos Gereben" <janos451 () earthlink net>
> To: "jg" <janos451 () earthlink net>
> Subject: SSSCA is no Mickey Mouse
> Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 23:20:51 -0700
> X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200
>
> SSSCA: like the DMCA, only worse
> Rachel Chalmers - www.the451.com
>
> San Francisco - Many people in the computer industry are becoming
> alarmed over the proposed Security Systems Standards and Certification
> Act (SSSCA), now under consideration by the US Senate. A glance at the
> draft document amply explains their alarm. It begins by making it
> illegal "to manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide or
> otherwise traffic in any interactive digital device that does not
> include and utilize certified security technologies."
>
> The bill is backed by Democratic senator Fritz Hollings, chair of the
> Senate Commerce Committee. Disney is said to be the chief commercial
> sponsor. Where the hotly contested Digital Millennium Copyright Act
> (DMCA) made it illegal to circumvent copy protection, the SSSCA would
> make it illegal to sell anything with a microprocessor in it unless
> the device had copy protection built in. Anyone who sold such a device
> without copy protection would be liable to fines of up to half a
> million dollars and five years in prison.
>
> Such an extreme piece of legislation prompts the question, Are they
> serious? "Yes, but no," said Free Software Foundation general counsel
> Eben Moglen. "Serious about having Fritz Hollings hawking their
> ultimate wish list around the Hill, putting weight behind it in a
> major way, and about starting with an extreme position because they
> know that in order to get a coalition built in the Senate, where
> nothing can be done without an industry consensus, they have to start
> by yanking the conversation as far as they can in their own
> direction - the consumer electronics and hardware industries, which
> are way bigger than they are, will yank it as far back the other way
> as possible."
> Moglen has been closely involved with the defense of Shawn Reimerdes
> and the other hackers who helped reverse-engineer the DVD content
> scrambling system. That case is now on appeal before the Second
> Circuit. Moglen claims credit for having predicted, in a speech he
> gave at New York University in March, that: "when the DVD cases ripen
> and the First Amendment conflict with DMCA-style technology control
> becomes fierce, Disney will introduce legislation to make free
> software illegal. This is the bill. Which means they're getting as
> worried about the Second Circuit in Reimerdes as I am getting
> hopeful."
>
> Moglen may be right in thinking that the extremity of Disney's
> position reflects the company's perception of the threat it faces.
> Other, less sanguine observers wonder whether the consumer electronics
> and hardware industries will oppose the bill at all. As they point
> out, the proposed copy protection schemes resemble nothing so much as
> the so-called Trusted Computing Platform that Compaq, HP, IBM, Intel
> and Microsoft have been working on for years.
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Janos Gereben/SF
> janos451 () earthlink net



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