Protecting intellectual property with WMDs
So it's no enough to extend copyright protections until we have to pay royalties on the Rosetta Stone. Orrin Hatch thinks it's a good idea to enable copyright holders to destroy your computer if you get an illegal copy of their stuff.
"'No one is interested in destroying anyone's computer,' replied Randy Saaf of MediaDefender Inc., a secretive Los Angeles company that builds technology to disrupt music downloads. One technique deliberately downloads pirated material very slowly so other users can't.
"'I'm interested,' Hatch interrupted. He said damaging someone's computer "may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights."
"The senator acknowledged Congress would have to enact an exemption for copyright owners from liability for damaging computers. He endorsed technology that would twice warn a computer user about illegal online behavior, 'then destroy their computer.'
"'If we can find some way to do this without destroying their machines, we'd be interested in hearing about that,' Hatch said. "'If that's the only way, then I'm all for destroying their machines. If you have a few hundred thousand of those, I think people would realize'" the seriousness of their actions, he said.
Dana Blankenhorn suggests letting Hatch know your opinion of this, which (if you can stand the annoying form/information request he's put in your way) is a good idea. But I can't endorse what he suggests you tell him:
You might start by pointing out that, if someone can destroy your computer through a firewall, we can destroy his, too. And someone likely will.
because, though true, it could cause the Feds to show up on your doorstep.
His second post on the topic, The Nature of Secrets, is a better message to deliver to you congresscritters:
The nature of secrets is they don't stay secret long. The bigger the secret, the faster the discovery.
The A-Bomb didn't stay secret. The H-Bomb didn't stay secret.
It has been possible to "remotely destroy" another computer for some time. The method is called a virus. …
… What if it were possible to slip something behind a firewall, something that would not be identified as a virus, some sort of power surge, and destroy someone's computer remotely, through the Internet, as they were downloading something a copyright holder identified as theirs that hadn't been paid for (by the person whose computer it was residing on)?
The answer is hackers would get the technology very, very quickly. Terrorists would get the technology very, very quickly.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 6/18/2003 10:31:48 AM |
