Senator Hollings is at it again

Sat Mar 23 03:44:45 UTC 2002

Stoned koalas drooled eucalyptus spit in awe as Sean M. Doran exclaimed:

>
> Perhaps their interests and the Hollywoods' interests
> dovetail so much that we could see mergers between big
> content owners and last-mile owners.  Then there'd be
> the fun choice between actively-filtered broadband
> ("watch all the high quality [as determined by Congress!] digital
> content you can pay for, and see none of that darned free stuff!")
> and no broadband at all, on a market-by-market basis.   Cooooool!

"Hollings' solution, backed by Disney, would modify personal computers to 
block piracy. At the hearing, an Intel executive said that Disney wanted to 
dictate how computers would be designed, crippling their functionality."

Source:  http://www.commweb.com/article/IWK20020321S0022

I should've known that Disney had a hand in this somewhere.  I wonder how 
much they paid him?

> So cool, in fact, that I think that this bill is doomed because
> it does not go far enough to support exactly that sort of development.

What I would like to know is, in the unlikely event that this bill passed, 
how is it supposed to be implemented?  Particularly among the free software 
community, which most likely wouldn't have the resources to implement this 
in the timeline specified in this bill.

Also, unless I have missed something, the term "digital content" doesn't 
seem very well defined.  Does this mean that my personal, non-profit web 
site is "digital content?"  It's painfully obvious that Mister Hollings is 
completely ignorant of the very technology he is attempting to legislate.

How do we, as network operators, fit into the picture?  Must we ensure that 
our customers use only approved hardware and software?  If we have to make 
upgrades to our infrastructure, who is going to foot the bill?  I suppose 
that Hollings doesn't know that spare cash is getting harder and harder to 
find in this sector.

This isn't the first time that Hollings has shown his ignorance.  Remember 
the SSSCA?

http://cryptome.org/sssca.htm

What a waste of skin.

Jeff

--
Jeff Workman | jworkman at pimpworks.org | http://www.pimpworks.org