Polygon, the Dancing Bear

Occasional notes on politics, history, technology, architecture,
and the life of a county clerk

2002:
May / June / July
August / September / October
November / December

2003:
January / February / March
April / May / June / July
August / September / October
November / December

2004:
January / February / March
April / May / June / July
August / September / October
November / December

2005:
January / February / March
April / May / June / July
August / September / October
November / December

2006:
January / February / March
April / May / June / July
August / September / October
November / December

2007:
January / February / March
April / May / June / July
August / September / October
November / December

2008:
January / February / March
April / May

Current entries

Monday, March 31, 2003, 4:39 pm

Firewalls now illegal here? A new Michigan law, enacted during last year's lame duck session, takes effect today. Among the features of our new "super-DMCA" — similar bills, sponsored by the MPAA, are pending in many other states — are sweeping new restrictions on telecommunications.

Public Act 672 of 2002, besides amending various other criminal code provisions, purports to "update" prohibitions on theft of cable and telephone service. But the law as written would ban many widely used computer security measures.

The language is extremely broad: starting today, it's a felony to "assemble, develop, manufacture, possess, deliver, offer to deliver, or advertise" any device which are intended to, among other things, conceal the origin or destination of a communication, even without any intent to defraud anyone. That covers firewalls, encryption, steganography, remailers, NAT, tunnels, Kerberos, SSH, IPSec, pretty much the gamut of secure communications.

Act 672 (the DMCA part) amends three sections of the Michigan penal code: 750.219a, 750.540c, and 750.540h.

Penalties under the law range from 93 days to ten years in prison. Violation of the section which appears to ban most encryption technology is a felony punishable by four years in prison, or a fine of up to $2,000.

In his blog, Freedom To Tinker, Princeton University computer science professor Edward W. Felton describes the potential impact of similar legislation introduced in other states:

Here is one example of the far-reaching harmful effects of these bills. Both bills would flatly ban the possession, sale, or use of technologies that "conceal from a communication service provider ... the existence or place of origin or destination of any communication". Your ISP is a communication service provider, so anything that concealed the origin or destination of any communication from your ISP would be illegal -- with no exceptions.

If you send or receive your email via an encrypted connection, you're in violation, because the "To" and "From" lines of the emails are concealed from your ISP by encryption. (The encryption conceals the destinations of outgoing messages, and the sources of incoming messages.)

Worse yet, Network Address Translation (NAT), a technology widely used for enterprise security, operates by translating the "from" and "to" fields of Internet packets, thereby concealing the source or destination of each packet, and hence violating these bills. Most security "firewalls" use NAT, so if you use a firewall, you're in violation.

If you have a home DSL router, or if you use the "Internet Connection Sharing" feature of your favorite operating system product, you're in violation because these connection sharing technologies use NAT. Most operating system products (including every version of Windows introduced in the last five years, and virtually all versions of Linux) would also apparently be banned, because they support connection sharing via NAT.

And this is just one example of the problems with these bills. Yikes.

(Another incidental outrage in this little-examined bill: it doubles the criminal penalty for unmarried cohabitation. Michigan is one of the few states which still prohibits couples from living together without being married; the Legislature affirmatively decided to continue and even strengthen this law.)

Some other items on the spread of super-DMCA laws at the state level -- currently breaking news in legislatures all over the country:

Slashdot: Michigan First With A Law That Could Outlaw VPNs
Inquirer: Firewalls set to become illegal in many American states
News.com: DMCA Critics Decry State-Level Proposals

(I posted a similar text to Political State Report).

....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum Comments

Monday, March 24, 2003, 4:22 pm

How Caroline Got Embedded. Caroline Glick, a war reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times and Jerusalem Post, tells the story of getting press credentials in Kuwait:

I read on the Internet that the Kuwaitis issued a statement telling the international press corps in Kuwait that anyone transmitting reports to the Israeli media would face criminal prosecution.

I began to panic. I was about to board a flight to Kuwait where my primary objective would be to transmit reports of the war to the Israeli media....

On the face of it, the Kuwaitis could have easily passed over my name and not bothered with me. I am an American citizen. I applied for my Kuwaiti visa with a letter of accreditation from the Chicago Sun-Times. For the Kuwaitis to go after me they would have to really want to.

On Monday, after the cab ride from the Crowne Plaza where I was staying by the airport, to the Kuwait Hilton on the seacoast, I realized just how determined the Kuwaitis were.

Read the rest here (free registration required).

....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum Comments

Monday, March 24, 2003, 2:50 pm

Churchill and Toy Theaters. Recently, the following comment about Winston Churchill's oratory was posted on a historic preservation email group:

Actually W.C. was a great kid who apparently never grew up verbally. A few years ago, I curated an exhibit of Victorian Toy Theatres, the miniature paper and wood table-model theatres for which many famous plays were written or condensed for use by the children and the childlike. During Victorian times, especially in England, they were the popular historic equivalent of TV today, — a box on a table with dramatic action happening inside for the amusement of people gathered around watching in the living room after supper. Anyway, Winny Churchill was a extremely avid toy theatre aficionado as a youth, and when you read the play scripts published for those plays that he performed, you will find phrase after phrase of famous lines used in his public speeches during his famous political career. It is easy to document. I guess it was just another example of the old English adage that all the world is a stage. Once you read the old plays, his most famous speeches begin to sound trite, just simple recitations of exciting old melodramas.

....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum Comments

Monday, March 24, 2003, 2:23 pm

The World, Upside-Down. Another dispatch from Ken Parker, retired Arkansas newspaperman:

I just received this from a friend in Switzerland:

You know the world's gone mad when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the Swiss hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the United States of arrogance, and the Germans don't want to go to war.

....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum Comments

2002:
May / June / July
August / September / October
November / December

2003:
January / February / March
April / May / June / July
August / September / October
November / December