is this true or... ?

Sat Mar 29 00:31:44 UTC 2003

On Fri, 28 Mar 2003 12:06:56 -0500, blitz wrote:

>If it is, it reveals how utterly clueless our legislators really
>are....

	The text I saw talks about a device's "primary purpose". The primary 
purpose of NAT is not to hide anything, it's to allow multiple 
connections to share a scarce resource. If you download your email 
over an encrypted link, your primary purpose is to conceal the 
*content* of communications, not their source or destination. 
Similarly, the primary purpose of a firewall is to enforce policies 
about security, not to hide the origin of a communication.

	So the issue is really more narrow. The issue is whether it's ever 
legitimate to do something primarily for the purpose of hiding the 
origin or destination of a communication from an ISP. I would argue 
that most people don't care if their ISPs know where there 
communications originate or terminate; however, the law is bad 
because there certainly are legitimate cases where my ISP has no 
business knowing who is talking to me or who I'm talking to.

	However, Felten's claim that "anything that concealed the origin" 
would be illegal is FUD. In fact, his spin no it is pure FUD, IMO.

	That said, if it takes a bit of FUD to get attention to a bad law, 
that's maybe not such a terribly bad thing. The risk is that 
lawmakers will refute the FUD and then feel comfortable going ahead 
with a bad law.

-- 
David Schwartz
<davids at webmaster.com>