Time to Care

It's sometimes hard to imagine which causes more harm - corruption or indifference.  One thing is becoming clearer by the day: They're both needed to ensure an ominous future.

What's been happening in our various governmental bodies is shameful.  With each passing day it seems there's some other horrendous piece of legislation on its way to becoming law.  Our rights as individuals are either being wiped away to benefit some corporate interest or being severely compromised in the name of September 11.  Either way it's a repugnant development, one which must be fought on multiple levels by people of all backgrounds.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is something we've all become acquainted with in recent years.  Passed in 1998, the DMCA was designed to implement treaties signed at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) back in 1996.  So far it's gotten us sued and gagged, a Russian programmer thrown into an American prison for writing software, and a whole host of intimidation tactics, lawsuits, and threats sent to individuals and companies all over the world.  It is forever changing the concept of free use of technology and it's the foundation upon which even more dangerous laws are being built.

The Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA), formerly the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA), is but one example.  It sounds consumer-friendly but this bit of legislation is going to make the DMCA look like kid stuff.  Imagine it being illegal to disable any security technology, regardless of the reason.  Or mandatory restrictions of any feature which could be used to copy something.  Entire operating systems could be outlawed.  Computer security research will be crippled.

Technology itself could come to a screeching halt since all digital technology will be forced to adhere to a government-mandated standard.  And we all know how long it takes any government to get a grasp on new technology.  Going analog to avoid all this nonsense won't even be an option in many cases.  Digital technology under these rules will be mandatory.  Take a look at what's happening to analog broadcasting to see how serious they are about this.

The Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel (CARP), another offshoot of the DMCA, is targeting Internet radio as if it were the second coming of Satan.  The DMCA determined that Internet broadcasters must pay a specific fee for playing commercial music online, regardless of how badly degraded the quality is.  CARP has come up with a fee structure to enforce this which will now be decided upon by the U.S. Copyright Office.  That fee is actually based on a per song, per listener equation which would not only bankrupt most small and independent broadcasters, but would actually require them to keep track of their listeners, unlike their over-the-air counterparts.

The overhead of such an operation, not to mention the privacy concerns, will likely persuade most broadcasters to simply shut down and let the more commercial interests take over.  Of course, with enough support, this could actually come back to haunt the recording industry.  Independent musicians alienated by the Recording Industry of America (RIAA), not to mention many from other parts of the globe, may unite against this act of greed and create a new alternative sound.  But who knows what new laws will spring up to thwart such a development once it becomes a reality?  It's clear that anything seen as a threat to those who manage to acquire everything will be quickly struck down in one way or another.

And of course we will always have gems like the Communications Decency Act (CDA), which was overturned by the Supreme Court in 1997 as an unconstitutional attack on free speech.  That led to the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), passed in 1998, which basically threatened to reduce the Internet to a playground for kids, imposing severe criminal and civil penalties on providers who may have "inappropriate material" somewhere.  Despite its being struck down by a court in 1999, more variations just keep on coming.  Now it's the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), which went into effect last year.  This time libraries were targeted.  Those that don't comply with mandated blocking and filtering standards will lose funding.  And the dance continues.

There's DCS1000 (more aptly named "Carnivore" in the past), the mysterious FBI e-mail snooping program installed in the offices of Internet Service Providers nationwide.  And there's Magic Lantern, another FBI project, which reportedly infiltrates a user's computer via an e-mail attachment and then sets up monitoring software which can capture keystrokes, thereby helping to make encryption futile.

We could even talk about the badly thought out USA PATRIOT Act (which actually stands for "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism") and all of its attacks on fundamental freedoms, not to mention the preponderance of imitators which seek to destroy what it is our nation stands for as some sort of way of attacking those who want to destroy what it is our nation stands for.

It's easy to become completely overwhelmed by all of this and, as a defense mechanism, to simply shutdown and stop paying attention.  In fact, this is rather essential in order for such crazy laws to work in the first place.  Imagine what would happen if everyone realized the threat, if everyone understood the technology.  The secret that is being kept from most is that people power does work, that activism is effective, and that "eternal vigilance" means continuous action, not simply quoted words.

This is where the hacker world comes in.  Unlike legislators and unlike those who have become swallowed up by the "industry," we have an understanding of the technology and the ability and desire to communicate with others outside our world.  What better way to translate the evils of these new laws into terms that even one's grandmother could understand?

There are many groups already involved - EFF, EPIC, the ACLjU, and more.  They are all in desperate need of support.  It's absolutely vital that we help to take on this task.  A look at many websites and handouts concerning these issues shows that many quickly become lost in legal or technical jargon that means nothing to the average person.  The result is that the actual threat never burns itself into that person's mind and it becomes a non-issue to them from that point on.  We can help to fix that.

This will be one of the goals at H2K2 this July.  There will be many people from outside the hacker world who will come to hear what we have to say and who will be in a position to help us greatly if the facts are made clear to them.  We need to come up with a comprehensive plan to fight not only what has already been proposed and adopted, but all of the future legislation that currently only exists in some warped law makers' minds.  To do this, we will need to predict how their corrupted logic will proceed and be able to inspire those who might otherwise not care.  It's going to be a long and hard battle and the odds are already clearly against us.  Can you think of a reason not to get involved right away?