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Usenix Takes Stand Against ATA and SSSCA 230

Posted by CmdrTaco from the party-up-people dept.
Davin writes: "The Usenix Board of Directors has emailed all Usenix members, suggesting that they contact their Representatives to oppose ATA and SSSCA." And I've said it before, but lick a stamp. Representatives aren't tapped into the wired quite yet (Hello ... Navi)
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Usenix Takes Stand Against ATA and SSSCA More

Usenix Takes Stand Against ATA and SSSCA

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  • ATA? (Score:5, Funny)

    by b1t r0t ( 216468 ) on Sunday October 07, 2001 @06:19PM (#2399845)
    The Usenix Board of Directors has emailed all Usenix members, suggesting that they contact their Representatives to oppose ATA and SSSCA.

    Well, I'll admit I run SCSI or Firewire when I can, but ATA is still a pretty decent hard drive interface. At least it's cheap.

    • Re:ATA? (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by einhverfr ( 238914 )
      Yeah, well I have an ATA CD-RW drive on Linux and cdrecord doens't support ATAPI devices. The problem with SCSI is that it is expensive...

      Also, according to the Software RAID Howto, ATA hardware is fairly unsuitable for RAID. Problem is, no one has told Congress that ATA makes for bad RAIDs... ;)
      • Yeah, well I have an ATA CD-RW drive on Linux and cdrecord doens't support ATAPI devices.

        Yes it does. Pass "hdc=ide-scsi" along to your kernel, being sure to replace hdc with wherever your CDRW drive is, and it'll be recognized as a generic scsi device. Generic scsi support, scsi emulation support, and scsi cdrom support must be turned on for this to work.

        • Re:ATA? (Score:2, Informative)

          by einhverfr ( 238914 )
          Sorry, was trying to be funny.

          And the ide-scsi driver really just turns your ATA device into a SCSI device from the stand-point of your software...

          I was just trying to continue the joke. Now everyone thinks I was serious...
      • Yeah, well I have an ATA CD-RW drive on Linux and cdrecord doens't support ATAPI devices.

        RTFM. The ide-scsi module in the kernel makes your ATAPI CD-RW drive look like a scsi drive. cdrecord will work great with it.

        This advice is in every article, HOWTO, and doc I read about writing CDs on linux.

        • When I set it up, it only took me 20 mins with the CD-Writing How-To.

          Wow, the Slashdot folks think I was serious when I made that joke...

          As if the point about ATA making for bad RAID's and congress not understanding this should not have made this clear...
      • What? EVERYONE knows you use ide-scsi to make your CD-RW appear as a SCSI device. It is very simple and very easy.

        For example, my Congressman set up his office PC with a ATA RAID system 2 weeks ago. And his ATA RAID rocksors. He recompiled his kernel and included a scsi-ide-scsi bypass module that makes it so you don't have to use ide-scsi to make your IDE look like SCSI. And then he called Dell tech support up and was on the phone for 6 hours because his "sound thingy" didn't work... turned out he plugged the speaker output to the sound-out on his CD-RW drive. But you man, you've got problems. Sheesh!

    • No, I think he means you should fly Southwest, United or TWA, instead of America Trans Air.

  • This really works (Score:5, Informative)

    by UserChrisCanter4 ( 464072 ) on Sunday October 07, 2001 @06:22PM (#2399860)
    I e-mailed my Senators and Congressman (Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Phil Gramm, and Kevin Brady) twice each. Not a single response. When I took the time to snail mail a letter to each of them, I got a form letter response from Hutchinson and Gramm, and a real response from Brady. The fact is true... they simply don't read e-mail. Sad but true.

    I doubt that my single letter would have an effect, but I would bet that 100 letters on paper would have a much greater effect than 10,000 e-mails.

    • Re:This really works (Score:3, Insightful)

      by sheldon ( 2322 )
      Actually this past January I sent an email to both of my state's Senators, and one of them actually responded.

      It took a while for Senator Wellstone to respond, but sometime in March I received a response that was somewhat canned, but did have to deal with the topic of my original email.

      I agree that real mail is taken more seriously. Admittedly, shouldn't it be? It takes far more effort to send a letter than to send email, thus you can judge by that fact alone that someone is clearly committed to their opinion.
      • I send e-mail to my Senator and Reps. all the time. John McCain always sends a response, it's a form letter, but he does respond. Most of my Reps. do too.
        • Heh, they must have gotten their autoresponder working then, eh? Those new random reply delay and perl keyword sniffer modules are great for simulating human interaction. I don't know how they would stand up against Turing, but it seems to keep the proles happy.
      • Well, for most issues, reps have a stance (or have had a stance bought for them :) So a canned response is probably a normal thing, as chances are the canned response will at some point cover the statement of the mail/e-mail.

        When I contacted a senator about his vote on the ban on nuclear arms testing, I got a huge response detailing his view on nuclear arms, testing, etc...

        Then again, a while ago if you send an e-mail to president@whitehouse.gov, and inclosed an address, you'd get a letter via post. My e-mail was basically "I heard if you send an e-mail with an address you will get a letter". I got something saying about thanks for the support, blah blah blah...

      • Re:This really works (Score:4, Insightful)

        by dillon_rinker ( 17944 ) on Sunday October 07, 2001 @08:50PM (#2400351) Homepage
        I agree that real mail is taken more seriously. Admittedly, shouldn't it be?

        No. Unless you believe that one of the goals of a participatory democracy is to enact barriers to communication between citizens and their elected representatives.

        Your argument, taken to its logical conclusion, is that individuals who exert more effort to communicate with elected officials deserve more attention from the government. It is this attitude which has given us the system of legalized bribery we have now. Email often gets no response, snail mail gets a form letter, and a check for $1000 gets the ear of the representative. This is evil at its greyest.

    • Re:This really works (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I recently went to Washington, where I met with my representative. No politics, just a chance to let my kids meet a 'real' congressman. The fact is that email is just too easy. He gets something like 5000-6000 email EVERY day. Other than an auto responder, how he can he possibly deal with this? Also there's no way to distinguish between real emails and those generated in bulk by special interest groups or even special interest individuals.
        • The fact is that email is just too easy. He gets something like 5000-6000 email EVERY day.

        So, under the current system, elected representatives actually "represent" too many people to be able to find out what those people want them to be doing?

        Is it just me, or does that demonstrate that our implementation of "representative democracy" is badly flawed?

        • Re:This really works (Score:2, Interesting)

          by sadr ( 88903 )
          Much more likely is that 4900 of the 5000 are from people in other districts who are emailing either every person in Congress or are emailing them because of their position on some committee.

          Also, it is very possible that 4000 of those 4900 are generated by a small group of people, since we all know how easy it is to spam.

          I won't even get into the inaccuracies of your post regarding our form of government. We're a Constitutional Republic, not a representative democracy.

          And it's their job to do the right thing for their district and the country based on their opinion, not the opinions of the residents of their district. If the residents don't like their votes, they can elect someone new next election.

          • Re:This really works (Score:3, Interesting)

            by Rogerborg ( 306625 )
            • We're a Constitutional Republic, not a representative democracy.

            Uhh... we're both. It's a descriptive term.

            • And it's their job to do the right thing for their district and the country based on their opinion, not the opinions of the residents of their district. If the residents don't like their votes, they can elect someone new next election.

            Sure, if you like. Although considering that your choice is this guy or that gal or a protest vote, it's no wonder that we have crappy turnouts (except when we're protest voting against The Other Guy).

            But let's try and be constructive (I know this is /., but what the heck). I'd prefer to have more layers of representation (neighborhood, city/district, state, federal) where each layer elects representatives to the next level. Actually, I'd really prefer a small beaurocracy implementing regular referenda, overseen by an elected judiciary.

            What's your take? Or are we fine as we are?

    • E-mails aren't paid attention to becuse they are to easy to write. Having to write a letter, fill out a envalope, spend 34 cents for a stamp and walk to your mailbox is coniserdly more effort then e-mailing "Micro$oft SUX!!! Biatch" to every congressperson and Superme Court Justice. High signal to noise ratio

      • Re:This really works (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Malcontent ( 40834 ) on Monday October 08, 2001 @12:51AM (#2400929)
        It's also much harder to raise $10,000.00 and hand deliver to your congress critter. That's why the corporations get heard and you don't despite your mail. Such is our democracy. We went from Jim Crow laws to legalized bribery. In the end it's the same result put barriers between the people and power.
    • Interesting.

      I sent a snail mail letter on the Sklyarov case to my Senator (Kennedy D-MA) and didn't get any acknowledgement. I wondered at the time whether his office sent out form letters in response to such letters, but I guess he's a bit too accustomed to steamrollering any opposition to be bothered.

      • I've had the same response from Kennedy on the many letters I've sent to him.... nothing. Senator Kerry (D-MA) has at least written back a few times.

        -S
      • I sent snailmail to my rep (Brad Sherman, D-Woodland Hills CA) re DMCA and Dmitry.

        I pointed out that I had spoken with him at a community night at my temple, and that I was a voting constituent.

        Nada. Zip. Nothing. No response... worse than sleeping at SPL 7.

    • Re:Better way to get attention from legislaturers (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      A roommate of mine used to work in the office of a rather prominent senator. Part of the work he did was responding to the huge amount of mail that the senator recieved. He informed me that if you want your senator to actually see your letter, make sure you write in the letter "I want (insert politician name here) to read this letter personally". Otherwise, you will likely recieve a response from a staff member.
    • This reminds me of a political science assignment the whole class had - we were supposed to write out representatives and/or senators. This is in Oregon - I remember the only people that got written responces were people who contributed money (even very small amounts) or people who had really wacky letters (one topic I recall was someone who was jokingly concerned about violence in the wwf). I didn't vote for any of these people (Defazio and Wyden in the area I was in at the time)

    • Re:This really works (Score:3, Informative)

      by Panaflex ( 13191 )
      Well, Gramm is notorious for ignoring email, and for a long time didn't even accept it.

      But for the past year, I have been emailing happily away to both Hutchinson and Gramm.

      I'll tell you who is a freaking idiot - DICK ARMEY. I have written him twice about the DMCA. He said he would forward some information to me (Never did), and wrote me a non-sensical letter about copyrights that didn't include the DMCA. (I had requested clarification on the legality of the DMCA).

      Anyhow, everytime I have written ARMEY, he has let me down. He doesn't understand the issue. He doesn't care. He does his job badly. Even if I don't agree with a congressman, I can appreciate their ability to at least get the basics about the issues. I'm voting against him, because he's stupid.

      Ralph Hall, on the other hand, is one of the BEST congressman we have in N. Texas. Always courtious, always to the point. And he's the first congressman to request clarification from me, ever. (Reguarding Echelon) I believe he covers alot of Collin County. (This guy got me a meeting set up with a Director at the patent office without even asking me).

      Pan
    • The fact is true... they simply don't read e-mail. Sad but true.

      The problem with e-mail is it is easy, quick, and emotional. In other words, there is a strong tendency for people who fire off e-mail not to not really be very committed to what they are saying (committed in terms of votes, money, time, or other support). It takes at least an hour to get a typed letter signed and out the door, which is a minimum expenditure of effort. So from a realistic point of view it makes a lot of sense for elected politicians to pay more attention to written letters than to e-mail.

      sPh

  • Check out www.capwiz.com You can email your reps there.

  • I did- (Score:5, Interesting)

    by firewort ( 180062 ) on Sunday October 07, 2001 @06:36PM (#2399931)
    I faxed all of my congressmen a week ago.
    Helms wrote back saying he supported Ashcroft in every way. Edwards sent back a photocopy of some unrelated speech he gave on the Senate floor.
    Price wrote back a relevant response in which he promised to be mindful of civil liberties, and shared my concerns about 'backdoors' in encryption- his was the most relevant response I received. I spoke very briefly with him this morning at a community meeting, and am going to try and schedule some face time with him to talk about PATRIOT ( H.R. 2975, the House version of the ATA) - I don't want to mix messages and bring in the SSSCA at that time, but if I can establish a rapport, then I can bring up SSSCA at a later date.

    He seemed to indicate that roving wiretaps might pass, but that indefinitely detaining a non-citizen wasn't going to be passed.

    • indefinite detention of non-citizens (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jonbrewer ( 11894 ) on Sunday October 07, 2001 @09:45PM (#2400511) Homepage
      I'm not sure if you are aware, but the US already can detain non-citizens indefinitely. They also do not have to tell detainees what they're accused of.

      Three laws passed in 1996 together allow this... and have led to over 3500 people indefinitely detained. The laws are: The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act, The Anti-Terrorist and Effective Death Penalty Act, and The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act

      The ACLU [aclu.org] has more information on these laws.

      Please do not construe my post to be an opinion on anything, just information.
      • Didn't the Supreme Court rule against this over the summer, forcing the INS to release several thousand non-deportable (because their home country won't take them back) detainees who had completed their sentences but were being held indefinitely?

  • SEND REAL MAIL (Score:2, Interesting)

    by FFFish ( 7567 )
    EMAIL DON'T DO DICK.

    If you can't march on down to your representative's office and bitchslap the silly ass, you gotta use POSTAL MAIL.

    Not to mention, IT'S TOO LATE. If you didn't want this to go through, you should have been hustling your ass a year ago. Every freakin' indication made it pretty damn clear that the government was going to restrict your rights more and more.
    • Slow it down there, release the shift key, good. Phone calls, faxes, and even email are treated equally in most offices. Try write your rep [house.gov] for more info.

    • Re:SEND REAL MAIL (Score:3, Informative)

      by Chagrin ( 128939 )
      What exactly are you basing this conclusion ("Email don't do dick") on?

      I have emailed my Senators and Representative in the past, and have received replies from all of them. Both Senators replied with an intelligent response, and the Representative sent a return email. None of the responses were "form letter" type.

      • Re:SEND REAL MAIL (Score:2, Interesting)

        by ediron2 ( 246908 )
        First, email's *absolute* effectiveness depends on the sen/rep involved. Pat Leahy in Vermont is pretty da**ed wired, so if he isn't reading all the messages, his staff is (with him getting a greatest hits selection and summary counts). If you're unlucky enough to be stuck with a bonehead like our state's senior senator (mamma said I could talk nasty if I didn't name names), there's a good chance he not only doesn't care about the wired segment but that he doesn't know how to connect.

        Second, Email's *relative* effectiveness is a given. Effective lobbying has been analyzed until it is a stronger science than Sociology. Lobbyists and political consultants have preached these things for years, and some make 6 figures telling politicians what to concentrate on.

        Here's the logic: A hypothetical politician gets 6 telexes and telegrams (they really still exist), 50 phone calls, 72 personally-typed or hand-written letters, 150 faxes, 600 obviously-form letters, and 2000 emails. On any issue, 90% of the arguments will be covered by the time they've read a few dozen, complete with a pretty strong impression of what way constituent opinions run.

        So, a pol has staff sort things like so:

        Gimme all the letters from people that donated $500 or more last election. Then give me another handful of good ones. Then give me a summary saying what the percentages are, breaking things down on any critical details like what aspects of the bill are deal-breakers, which ones could be altered to make a compromise, what the strongest political liabilities are given my constituent base.

        The staff starts with the telexes and handwritten's, moves to regular letters, and is quickly seeing a trend: 3/4 of their constituent base should be willing to live with the bill if altered *this* way, and several fat checks from industry fatcats can be expected if the so-altered bill passes.

        In the case of ATA/SSSCA: Senator DoNothing here in my backwater state will get a dozen 'No' letters from technogeeks, and six hundred 'Yes' from freaked out farmers whose kids have moved to Metropolis. He'll get a nice nudge from lobbyists and industry titans, they'll serve up a reminder of past donations, and they'll maybe even send over some second-tier J-Lo wannabe to sit on his lap and tell him how strong he is. Once she's gone, the mailstack appears. The above-guessed summary of opinions pretty much seals the fate of my opinion. I'll be part of a minority opinion, destined to live in the lower third of the stack of mail. When a position paper and related letter are drafted, I'll get one that disagrees with me, tailored a bit by an overworked staffer and signed by 'His own Rubber-Stamp'.

        Speaking of which, is my saying that a potential enfringement on Pink Floyd's 'The Wall'? I was thinking of it when I wrote it, but it's under 7 words or notes so fair-use might apply. Just in case, I'm out of here. Hmm... we all were aware that opression in the mideast could start a war. I just didn't expect it to lead to more opression here!
  • The degree to which someone will take you seriously and to which they will respond to your message is roughly directly proportional to the effort it takes to send that message. It takes essentially zero effort to send an email, therefore it garners essentially zero consideration. Snail mail, phone calls, etc. especially if well thought out, garner considerably more attention.
    • According to that rationale, I guess we should take the message sent by the terrorists on 9/11 very seriously. After all, whether you call it terrorism or jihad, they did go to alot of trouble.

    • That is some of the most as backwards logic I've ever heard. Personally, I tend to look on people who deliberatly make communication difficult as neurotic, masochistic, and generally to be avoided. By your logic, if I want to be taken seriously, I should send out all my correspondence engraved on stone tablets.

      To be fair, this may be the way some politicians actually think. I don't believe it should be encouraged though.

      • Well, if nothing, you have to admit that engraving your correspondence on stone tablets would garner attention. :-)
      • That is some of the most as backwards logic I've ever heard. Personally, I tend to look on people who deliberatly make communication difficult as neurotic, masochistic, and generally to be avoided. By your logic, if I want to be taken seriously, I should send out all my correspondence engraved on stone tablets.

        Frank Herbert wrote a story along these lines once. The theme: a techno-government was created that removed all obstacles to communication and action. The result: said goverment (and society) driven the brink of total chaos within days, as communication accelerated to the point where everything and nothing were being done all the time. The solution: a special Departement of Sabotage and Delay created to slow things down and impose barriers to communication. "Forbidden Planet" was another good variation on this theme.

        The plain fact is, there have to be some "effort expended" filters in any political system, otherwise Bill Clinton's poll-driven triangulation policies would look like the Rock of Gibralter in comparison.

        sPh

  • FAX AND CALL YOUR LEGISLATORS! (Score:3, Informative)

    by jasonbrown ( 142035 ) on Sunday October 07, 2001 @06:50PM (#2399992) Homepage
    Time is short. Freedom needs to be the priority since that is what we are defending in this war. If we allow our freedoms to be taken away in the name of terrorism, then the terrorists have already won. Fax or call your local legislators today and let them know how you feel before it is too late. Time is running out, these bills will be voted upon soon. Letters may be too slow at this point to stop this bills so please call or fax ASAP! See www.eff.org for more information.

  • Humm. (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    $343 Billion to for Anti-Terrorism Defense Package

    $15 Billion aid Package for the airline Industry.

    391 Senators and Congressmen passing broad laws to fight terrorism.

    Priceless.

    -
    Anyone have a $1.50? I want to buy a box cutter before they put backdoors in them, and pass a 10 day waiting period.

  • There is a reason they don't read email (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MongooseCN ( 139203 ) on Sunday October 07, 2001 @06:51PM (#2400000) Homepage

    It's because it's too easy to send an email. Representatives don't have the time to go through 100's of emails a day and see peoples opinions, they need the peoples input to be filtered so only the important messages get through. Snail mail takes more effort to send and thus the person sending it is more likely to spend more time expressing theirs and others opinions.

    It only takes a second to send a worthless email saying "SSSCA SuXoRs!", but if you take the time to write out a paper letter and post a stamp on it and mail it out, you are probably going to spend more time writing what you think.

    Also, sending it with restricted delivery [usps.com] or a return reciept will make it stand out more from the other mails that get sent in.

    • Re:There is a reason they don't read email (Score:5, Interesting)

      by spudnic ( 32107 ) on Sunday October 07, 2001 @08:43PM (#2400323)
      All of your points make perfect sense. Rather than wasting time on email, does anyone know of any politicians that are using web enabled opinion polls to help them understand the thoughts of their constituants?

      Each registered voter could be mailed a username and password that would allow them to voice their opinions. It would obviously have to carry a similiar disclaimer as the polls here on /., but having to login could help prevent some of the abuse. It would certainly be more relevent than email where one small group of people could generate thousands of fraudulent email messages in a few minutes. And it would definately be easier to handle for the office staff.

      Have hundreds of questions or options up there that are searchable. Only reply to the ones that interest you.

      Keep it constantly updated.

      Be able to view the current results? I dunno, it might be better not to.

      If you MUST do it, allow a comment to be added to each survey question. At least then the messages would be sorted in some sort of logical manner to be reviewed.

      I know if one of my congressmen did this that they would be one up in my book when it came time for elections.
      • The only problem with such a survey that you didn't cover is, how would a visitng politician tell accurately which respondants, or percentage of respondants were his contituents.

        After all, the politician only is responsible to his constituents, and not the whole of the internet.

        If you've got a sure-fire method for handling this, I'd love to help implement it.
        • As I said, access to voting could be controlled by passwords. Have the congressmen follow the lead of the bank I do business with. They mailed me 2 envelopes on seperate days. One contained my login name, the other my password. Congress people are allocated large funds to send mail to their constituants.

          I understand some of the implications of voting via the Internet. What if someone came into my home and forced me to vote a particular way? This really isn't a huge problem when it comes to public opinion polls like I am talking about. I don't see any reason why this couldn't work.

          Please, if you have any ideas this wouldn't work, this is the best forum for it. The brightest minds in the computer information field are right here. Why not?
          • Congress people are allocated large funds to send mail to their constituants.

            Actually, just to make one minor correction, Congressfolks are not allocated large funds to send mail - unless you count an infinite amount as large ;)

            The practice is known as "franking", and it's one of the most treasured porky privileges of sitting Congressmen. They don't need funds for mailings to constituents, because mailings to constituents are all free.
          • I am already dubious about the accuracy of computer tabulated votes, where I can't see the code. How do you think I would feel about internet mediated voting, where there's not only the code at each end, but also the code on each relay station in the middle that needs to be trusted. There are ways to handle this, but how can one be sure that they are being used?

      • [...] Representatives don't have the time to go through 100's of emails a day and see peoples opinions [...]

      Let me synopsise: our system of representative democracy doesn't work. The ratio of plebians to representatives is too high.

      • The ratio of plebians to representatives is too high.

        It's likely to get continually worse. If we keep adding reps, there will too many for them to communicate effectively with each other (some say we've already reached that point).

          • If we keep adding reps, there will too many for them to communicate effectively with each other

          Ouch, yes. We need more layers of representation, or (better) a small beaurocracy to implement the decisions of referenda. I can't think of a time when voters felt both disenfranchised and apathetic to such a degree (unless they've voting against someone). Of course, throwing away votes because it's too much bother to count them doesn't exactly help to get home the message that your vote counts.

  • At what cost? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Ldir ( 411548 )
    The terrorists are attacking our values and our way of life. Our government officials (U.S.) have a history of manipulating the uninformed and jumping on any opportunity to push their agendas. If our officials cannot rise above this legacy, the terrorists will win.

    Please write your congress critters. Let them know that some of us still value our freedoms and our rights.

  • What I can't believe (Score:4, Insightful)

    by einTier ( 33752 ) on Sunday October 07, 2001 @06:59PM (#2400028)
    is that Congress will sell out the entire technology sector and presumeably everyone and anything else to protect the profits of one sector -- the entertainment sector.


    • is that Congress will sell out the entire technology sector and presumeably everyone and anything else to protect the profits of one sector -- the entertainment sector.

      Funny, I'll be surprised if they DON'T. Every crisis is just an excuse for the government monster to grow a bit more, and your rights to shrink. Been that way since the civil war, will probably be that way until enough people get fed up enough with it to lop of its head in some fashion.

      • While I won't argue with your cynicism, I do disagree with this statement when applied to the SSSCA:

        Every crisis is just an excuse for the government monster to grow a bit more, and your rights to shrink.
        Although our rights would shrink if the SSSCA passes, I don't think that governmental power would grow. In fact, I think that the government would be "selling off" some of their power to the entertainment industry.
    • It's not just the entertainment sector that will benefit. MS will benefit, until it gets too greedy and drives the country into bankruptcy.

      I give it two years to get started. Possibly three years from there. The WinX license trial balloon showed which direction they want to push things.

  • McCarthyism (Score:4, Interesting)

    by perdida ( 251676 ) <{thethreatproject} {at} {yahoo.com}> on Sunday October 07, 2001 @07:08PM (#2400059) Homepage Journal
    McCarthy did some fucked-up stuff, besides going after those who could be connected with Communism in some way.

    If you opposed some despotic statute which was designed to get the Communists, you were "soft on Communism."

    Consider what would happen if a new, digitally savvy McCarthy used the fears of terrorism, which are amplified by our wartime action, to push through legislation such as SSSCA.

    Any legislator who opposes such a figure could be labeled "soft on terrorism."

    The law is swayed by politics, and war is a juggernaut in politics. Maintain your own security, privacy and anonymity, regardless of these laws; whether they are passed or not, there are always people waiting for the excuse to tighten surveillance.

    • I think it is a little different now though. I am not as afraid of acts of terrorism on American soil as those people were afraid of the spread of Communism.

      You haven't been bombarded w/propaganda bullshit about how terrorists lie in wait in everyone including your father. You don't have 1st graders coming home to mom and dad eyeballing them for the first sign of terroristic actions.

      They are not waiting for an oppertunity to tighten surveillance, they are waiting for an oppertunity to hold us down even more than they already have.

      Seatbelts are the perfect example. The legislators decided they wanted people to wear them (to benefit the individual of course) but they forgot that I am not hurting anyone else if I die in a fucking accident b/c I wasn't wearing mine. Who the fuck are they to tell me that I have to wear a restraint when driving my car?

      Who the fuck are they to tell me that I can't do what the fuck I want when I want to do it? Including sending unbreakable encryption to whoever about how many times I smoke pot a day.

      Get over it people. They want to get more control and that's it.
        • The legislators decided they wanted people to wear them (to benefit the individual of course) but they forgot that I am not hurting anyone else if I die in a fucking accident b/c I wasn't wearing mine

        Your insurance payouts hurt everyone else's premiums. Or worse, you end up a vegetable and tie up a hospital bed for the rest of your life.

        Not that I'm disagreeing with your point, but pick another example.

  • If you want more details (Score:5, Informative)

    by BrookHarty ( 9119 ) on Sunday October 07, 2001 @07:10PM (#2400066) Journal
    Goto senate.gov [senate.gov] And search for Bill "H.R. 2975"

  • Representatives aren't tapped into the wired quite yet (Hello ... Navi)

    The write your rep [house.gov] program has been going on for quite some time and I've gotten snail mail replies to my letters. A rep that doesn't accept email will usually not even post an email address or ask to be contacted a different way.

  • slashdot them (Score:5, Informative)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Sunday October 07, 2001 @07:15PM (#2400091) Homepage
    If only 10% of the readers were to send a real letter this would be squisked in a hearteat.

    But as normal Slashdotters are way too lazy and really care much less than they really say here.

    Underage? who cares! write a genreal letter anyways, they dont cross check your name with the social security branch and then run a background check. I wrote my letters over a month ago, got a nice reply from both of them. as far as the senators and house of rep. members are concerned, if they dont hear from you in mass then what they want is what you want.
    • write a
      genreal letter anyways...

      Misspelling words is fine for Slashdot posts, but make sure you spellcheck your letters before you send them. If your letter looks like it's from a 1337 h4x0r wanna-be, it will most likely be ignored.


      And don't forget to check the grammar. Computer grammar checking is worthless, so you'll have to get a human to do that. (It's also a good way to spread the word, by getting more people exposed.)

  • Write your reps! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rice_burners_suck ( 243660 ) on Sunday October 07, 2001 @07:35PM (#2400160)

    Yes, I mailed snail-mail--with a stamp (though it's a self-adhesive; I don't know if that makes a difference). If you haven't done so yet, I urge you to do so NOW! It's easy--I mailed the EFF's sample letter [eff.org] because they pretty much summed it all up. It took ten minutes to do the whole thing. (It would have been cool to print out the 11,000 some odd signatures (mine is in there) on the petition [petitiononline.com] and mail that with the letter. But in the words of my intelligent employer, "Oh well.")

    I'll try to locate mailing addresses for others who might send letters as well. You might try talking to folks who own small businesses or even mail letters to large companies, telling them about the catastrophic consequences of such legislation. This isn't about music. I suggest you don't even mention music because that causes folks to think you're an MP3 pirate or some geek or something. This is NOT about media or any bullshit like that. This is about policeware on YOUR belongings. This is about your computer making decisions for you. This is about your fair-use rights going down the tubes. This will have an enormous effect on small business owners who make "digital devices" for a living, who will probably be put out of business by defective legislation like this. (Rest assured there will be an ENORMOUS price on certification. Only companies the likes of Sony could afford it. And best of all, this won't benefit the individual artist--it will fill the pockets of beaurocrats and RIAA executives, empowering them to come up with more innovative legal solutions. What, did you actually think the artist would benefit?!)

    This is about our rights and our responsibility to protect those rights. It's NOT the responsibility of government to do that, contrary to what most people believe.

    Let's talk about the consequences for a moment. Where do you draw the line on what contains policeware? Will industrial automation systems (these are digital devices) contain policeware? (How about the position readout (digital device) for the lathe?) Don't forget the computer in your car--that thing is a full-blown digital device. Or aircraft control systems--I'm sure there's something digital in those. Don't even mention medical devices--on second thought, I think those should be the first to receive this technology. The patient has a song stuck in their head, so the life support systems turn off and kills them. Hey, thinking about a song is a copyright violation! How about business computers? (I'm not talking about a Dell desktop, I'm talking about computers the size of refridgerators.) What about ICs? Like 74F373 (latch/flip-flop)--that's a "digital device." Oh, I know, let's put Microsoft DRM software on every transistor. Will wristwatches (digital devices) need to contain government-mandated digital rights management? Will it be illegal to "traffic in" Swiss watches, which don't contain this compelling enterprise solution? Think this is funny? Think again. This is DEFECTIVE, but someone somewhere will go to PRISON for it if this gets passed. It could be you. I suggest you mail that letter ASAP. Either that, or buy some open airline tickets and have a suitcase packed and ready at all times. Better yet, just move out of the country while you have the chance.

    Oh yeah, and let's see... the SSSCA is a sort of "extension" to the DMCA. I wonder what kind of law they'll come up with five years from now? Oh, I have a good idea: How about a law that states you have to mail $100 to the RIAA every time you get a song stuck in your head? Yeah, let me write up a draft and mail it to Congress.

    • How about business computers? (I'm not talking about a Dell desktop, I'm talking about computers the size of refridgerators.)
      Sigh... I remember when a SMALL computer was "big" like that...
      • I mailed the EFF's sample letter [eff.org] because they pretty much summed it all up

      Welcome to their round file. Form letters are better than nothing, but if you actually believe in the issue, demonstrate that by spending five minutes of your time on it

  • At the bottom of this Usenix "Call to Arms", one finds this formal letter [acm.org] listed as a discussion of restrictions on encryption, by (the most honorable) Spaff, and Barbara Simons, addressed to Sen. Judd Gregg.

    What surprises me is that, while many of the arguments against crypto-strangulation are quite well stated and carefully ordered, they have given only peripheral awareness to the most glaring fact. Namely, that crypto is already, and will continue to be, free software. Also not to mention the fact that it's been available on the Internet (for free) for a long, long time. relatively speaking [slashdot.org] anyways.

    The propogation and long-term storage realities of the internet simply make it impossible to un-ring this bell.

    Again, the only way to win this fight, is for the good guys to learn crypto as well as the bad guys. This includes ALL of the "relatively unsophisticated users", that Spaff mentions, too.

  • While trying to research a previous comment, I found that, suddenly, searches in older stuff [slashdot.org] now return zero (0) results for searches on PGP, and PKI keywords. Is this accidental? I'm certain I've found matches in older stuff before, with these keywords.

  • IIRC, Disney co-authored the proposed SSSCA. Remember the Boycott Adobe [boycottadobe.com] site? There is, by chance, a Boycott Disney [boycottdisney.com] site, though it makes no mention of the SSSCA. I'll try to contact the owners. Maybe we can get a bunch of information posted there. Once that happens, I'll try to get the word out to all my friends. Everybody should mail letters to their reps, but in addition to that, companies need to know that they will lose MUCH business when they try to pull off schemes like this.

    (Getting the aforementioned company's shares to fall through the floor is left as an exercise for the reader.)

  • Take a picture, put it in a safe. The world will change if SSSCA is aproved.

    Imagine if technology development becomes much more bourocratic in US, with lot's of government licenses and taxes and bourocracy. Will the big corporations, that already keep their production in foreign coutries, spend money in development in the US? I don't think so.

    What are the reactions? Try to imagine it? The developement will be done in foreign coutries (like Brazil or India, or even China, Cuba), and these countries will have a big economy growth, and will be a solid growth, because the technology development will be done there, where there's no bouracracy.

    What about US? The high investments in University will stop, it won't be interesting for big corporations (like Sun, IBM, HP) to invest in Amaricans Universities. So the college education will lower quality, which will take a step back for US economy in a long term.

    There are many and many companies that has born in garages. Companies like Sun, HP, and many others we all know. They will stop appearing, they will appear where home-made technology is possible. That's horrible for US, but wonderful for the rest of the world.

    Imagine US without linux. Without BSD, how secure will be US internet? IIS? Apache will be outlaw! Imagine all the servers around US infected with Nimda, and nobody but M$ can do anything to change this.

    What will you choose, the present or the future?

  • The ATA has already been stonewalled by congress and an alternative bill called Provide Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (PATRIOT) Act [cnet.com] is making its way around Capitol Hill. CNet states that
    The bill lists more than 40 criminal offenses, including computer intrusion and damaging a computer, and defines those offenses as terrorism if they are "calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion...or to retaliate against government conduct."

  • Mail, Phone, and Fax (Score:3, Informative)

    by dada21 ( 163177 ) <adam.dada@gmail.com> on Sunday October 07, 2001 @08:32PM (#2400300) Homepage Journal
    Make sure you do all three. I know personally that all my representatives read their faxes. E-mail has worked too (I do get a response from every e-mail, every time).

    The second thing to do is ALWAYS visit your rep during their visits to your state if they have an open forum for constituents. Get them to remember you by name.

    The third thing to do is try to visit Washington once per session and take advantage of their constituent coffee or breakfast forum. You'd be surprised how thankful and how strong such a visit is.

    Lastly, and definitely the most important, is to vote Libertarian each and every time you can in a Congressional or Senate election. Each and every Libertarian is vehemently against many of the things that ./'ers are against: they advocate total personal privacy, abolishing the current copyright laws to the Constitutional definition (7+7 years maximum, ending Intellectual Property ideas), and all Libertarians want to end the limited liability that goes along with becoming a corporation -- this means that CEOs and other officers will be held personally responsible for their actions governing the company.

    Also, Libertarians want to make Congress so weak, campaign donations by large corporations and the rich won't do anything because Congress won't have the power to enact any subsidies.

  • The article mentions similar legislation in Canada. Does anybody know where Canadians can find more information about this proposed legislaton?
  • If you're going to write your congresscritter about this, here's a good question to ask in your letter: whether writing a 'wrong' computer program should carry a longer jail term than getting drunk, getting behind the wheel, and running over pregnant women with your minivan.


    Around the same time that Dimitri Sklyarov was arrested, there was another incident in Brooklyn, NY that received some local (and a little bit of national) publicity around here. An off-duty cop spent all night drinking beer in a parking lot. In the morning, he got behind the wheel, and ran into a pregnant woman with his minivan, killing her, her unborn child, and her teenage sister.


    In my letter to my elected representatives, I briefly described both incidents. I also observed that Dimitri could potentially spend more time in jail than that drunk driver. In my letter I asked my representatives if they agree that delivering a speech at a conference should potentially carry a longer jail term than vehicular manslaughter. I mailed the letters last week, so I won't receive any replies for a little while, but it should be interesting to see what they say. I also mentioned SSSCA, and I asked them to help me find out more information about that bill. I wanted to know whether using non-compliant computer hardware will send me to jail for a longer period of time than if I ran over a pregnant woman, while drunk.


    I think that this is probably the strongest point to criticize these bills with, and the one that is the easiest to communicate. Arguing the main subject SSSCA/DMCA is going to be a little bit difficult, since you'll have to fight the computer H4X0R stereotype. Pointing out that the penalties in these bills are completely out of whack looks to be a more productive approach. If anyone has an opportunity to talk to their congresscritter in person, just ask them point blank whether you should spend more time in jail for viewing DVDs with an unlicensed program, than for driving drunk.

    I can't imagine how they'd argue this point. I won't be surprised if they do (nothing about Congress surprises me any more) but even if they do they'll still be very uncomfortable doing that.

    • I wanted to know whether using non-compliant computer hardware will send me to jail for a longer period of time than if I ran over a pregnant woman, while drunk.

      The SSSCA has a couple of paragraphs (108) which effectively says, "Violating the SSSCA carries the same penalties as the DMCA."

  • Contacting Washington (Score:3, Insightful)

    by PingXao ( 153057 ) on Sunday October 07, 2001 @10:47PM (#2400700)
    There are some good links to finding names, addresses and phone numbers for your reps/senators in D.C.
    THIS LINK [senate.gov] has Senate information.
    THIS ONE [house.gov] leads to House of Representatives information.
    AND THIS ONE [vote-smart.org] at Project VoteSmart is about the only central repository for FAX numbers.
    We need a database of all this information in some easy-to-use format like MySQL or Access (shudder) so that popping off letters and faxes is as easy to do as possible. Email is easy. Snail mail is most effective. If we can't get rid of paper entirely - and this would appear to be the case for effective communication with congresscritters - we need to make it as painless as possible. I have found that the biggest pain in snail mail is NOT the cost of the stamp or the tedious activity of putting folded paper in envelopes. Instead, it's collecting all the relevant addresses and/or FAX numbers in one place. I can't believe no one has done this yet. I've made a small database for maybe a dozen people in Washington, but to do it for every elected rep. and senator would take more than a week. If we could agree on a common format (or formats) then one person per state could get it done in no time at all.

    Special interest groups and political action committees have these tools. It's basically targeted spam, but it gets the best results.

  • From overseas (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ballpoint ( 192660 )
    I am living in Europe, a part of the world that, while not being the USA itself, nevertheless has very close ties with the USA.

    While Europe certainly tries to follow its own course, it is affected in both good and bad ways by what's happening in the USA on nearly all fronts.

    Technology is one, legislation another. Things tend to - slowly - trickle down.

    This means that on the legislation side, once a law gets passed in the USA, it's likely to be adopted in one form or another in the EU as well, and it becomes extremely difficult to turn it around at that stage.

    So a bad law passed in the USA is a bad law passed in the EU as well. It makes no sense to start complaining now to local legislators as they don't know yet what you are talking about. By the time they do know, it is too late.

    So I'm asking for ideas about how we could help from here. Contacting an US senator probably isn't going to help, or is it ?

    • Re:From overseas (Score:3, Insightful)

      by sphealey ( 2855 )
      [From a citizen of an EC country]So I'm asking for ideas about how we could help from here. Contacting an US senator probably isn't going to help, or is it ?

      Well, two points come to mind: (a) if you don'tcontact them, you can be sure that your concerns won't be heard (b) it can't hurt.

      In theory, Senators (more so than Representatives) are supposed to look after the interests of the country as a whole, and some do take quite a bit of interest in the world outside the USofA. So I would say that you should identify the chairman of the Senate committee responsible for your area of concern, and write to that person with your views. (Note that you will of course have to write in English; no Brussels-style translator corps at the US Capitol that I am aware of!).

      sPh

  • People fear what they do not understand, and most people do not understand technology, encyption, CSS (style sheets and the encryption on DVD's).

    And this is just regular people (J6P's et al) but the scary part is that it goest double if not triple for congress "critters"...simple fact is that most of these draconian laws are introduced and passed because the congress ppl don't understand technology and are out of touch (for the most part) with the people they represent.

    Think about it for just a moment:
    Your non-techno-smart friends (you do have them to remind you what ppl are like outside your niche, right?) don't know all the in's and out's of tech, much less the politics involved.

    This is amplified much by congress ppl...
    silence implies consent, ignorance is bliss and its not illegal/immoral until you are caught.
    We've seen what congress/the judiciary/lawyers for or against (decss,napster, FITB) just don't get it regardless of defense/prosecution of laws such as the ATA/SSSCA/DMCA.

    Will such a initiative work? Yes, but here is how to "better the cause" using the #'s to your/our advantage:

    1) you know how those annoying virus messages (hoax, real) get to you by a # of FWD's...use some of those messages to further *this* cause...the more people see, the better (ignore the fact this is spambot snacks) and add your representatives email as the primary addressee and CC all the other people.
    If even a measley 7% of /. readers do this this would make somone take notice.

    (Low signal, high noise...but a skipping record/cd is similar and usually gets attended to in quick order...no?)

    2) Write the letter (or get a "form letter" if your skills are as poor as mine at times) and sign, date, and address it to every rep. you can think of...do it a few times and if you get a form letter back, try a hand written letter.
    tit for tat...if a hand written letter does not get attention by your rep, copy it to your local newspaper editor and imply "is anyone home in our rep's office?".

    two to three % of /.'ers, tops...stir the hornets nest.

    3) this is the best one yet: Take a day off or two (we are overworked, aren't we?), but, instead of marathon quake sessions go down to where your reps office or his/her's aides and camp out for a day or two. Try to get an appointment, or a word or at the very least a *hand delivered letter*.
    And, once again, a "letter to the editor" to your local rag would be even better in this instance.

    A "you mean this person is representing me and does not have the time/want to see me? taxation and passing laws w/o representation? have we BEEN here before?

    Heh, I'm just the kind of person to do the 3rd.
    A) I need a vacation, B) You know the phrase "there is one in every crowd"? /me extends his hand and says "hi, nice to meet you".
    C) Stallman is right about standing up against an evil system. Heck, I used to work for the local paper...I know they can dish it out and can't take it...but this kind of thing the *feed on*.

    Moose (on his way to get a leave form)

  • Alright folks; I already mailed the sample letter from the EFF to my reps, but some of you said I should write my own letter to express my views in my own words. I have done so, and here it is. I will hand-write this letter neatly and mail it certified mail with signature and return receipt, but first, I'd like some constructive criticism and stuff. If anybody wants to, you can mail this letter or modify it to suit your needs. Thanks...

    Dear [],

    As a constituent, I am gravely concerned over the draft Hollings/Stevens copyright legislation, "Security Systems Standards and Certification Act" (SSSCA), principally authored by the Walt Disney corporation. Please vote AGAINST SSSCA when introduced.

    Entertainment companies are pushing this legislation for their convenience, at the expense of unrelated industry nationwide. Introduced as a copyright bill, SSSCA will force electronics and computer software manufacturers to include copyright enforcement technologies in their products. Essentially, Hollywood will dictate design decisions affecting products that have nothing to do with entertainment.

    Many important and necessary technologies will become illegal if SSSCA is passed. Computer programs classified as Open Source are an important example. These programs power vast portions of the Internet and are utilized by companies the likes of IBM, the NYSE and even government agencies from NASA to the NSA. Briefly, Open Source programs allow custom modifications to their inner workings. The possibility of removing copyright enforcement presents a big SSSCA loophole, impossible to solve without outlawing Open Source. For obvious reasons, this cannot and must not take place.

    Despite these devastating consequences for legitimate business nationwide, SSSCA will NOT benefit copyright holders. Those who use electronics to infringe on copyrights will continue to do so using older, uncrippled products. The SSSCA punishes legitimate individuals and companies for no reason at all. I strongly urge you to oppose such legislation and vote AGAINST SSSCA when introduced.

    Sincerely,

    [Your name & address]

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