Time To Care

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

What's been happening in our various govern-
mental bodies is shameful. With each passing day it
seems there's some other horrendous piece of legisla-
tion on its way to becoming law. Our rights as indi-
viduals 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 re-
cent 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 Sys-
tems 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 secu-
rity technology, regardless of the reason. Or manda-
tory restrictions of any feature which could be used to
copy something. Entire operating systems could be
outlawed. Computer security research will be crip-
pled. Technology itself could come to a screeching
halt since all digital technology will be forced to ad-
here 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. Dig-
ital technology under these rules will be mandatory.
Take a look at what's happening to analog broadcast-
ing 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 on-
line, 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. Copy-
right 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 con-
cerns, will likely persuade most broadcasters to sim-
ply 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 In-
dustry 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 ac-
quire 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 un-
constitutional 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 "inappro-
priate 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 DCS-1000 (more aptly named "Carni-
vore" in the past), the mysterious FBI e-mail snooping
program installed in the offices of Internet Service
Providers nationwide. And there's Magic Lantern, an-
other 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 shut
down 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 tech-
nology. 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 swal-
lowed up by the "industry," we have an understanding
of the technology and the ability and desire to commu-
nicate 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 ACLU, 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 hand-
outs 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 ac-
tual 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 legis-
lation 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 in-
spire 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?