Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits

boingboing.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 269 posts

Re: US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits

#31

Post by kunai »

betterunix wrote: post #25

Frankly, this might be the sort of kick in the ass people need to start writing more secure software. Who wants their software to be known as the MPAA's attack vector? On the other hand, I suspect that the MPAA would be in for a world of hurt if they did this. They would not only be dealing with file sharing, but also a coordinated campaign by blackhats to take down their systems, boycotts organized by the EFF and th…

Forget black hat; any sane person would organize attacks against the MPAA.

I know Anonymous is one of the prime offenders in this area, but I wouldn't be surprised if many on Reddit organized and attacked the MPAA's systems.

Re: US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits

#32

Post by EliRivers »

obviouslygreen wrote: post #21
kunai wrote: post #11

I'm sick and tired of being in such a lazy-ass, apathetic society that possesses zero regard to freedom. Stallman may be a nut, but when you think long and hard about what he says, and think about SOPA, PIPA, and this lobby, in horror, your face twists in fear and you watch, helplessly, as your fellow citizens bend over backwards and let the government have their way. I don't even know what to do anymore. Nobody will…

And your answer is Stallman ? Yes, he is a nut. In the sense of "no one will ever take him seriously, especially anyone involved in mainstream decision-making, who has ever read anything he has written," which is in this case the most relevant metric. Stallman is never going to be any help here, nor is anyone like him, because any "normal" person -- that is, one that other people won't ignore out of hand -- will igno…

We need Stallman because he's our extreme figure. He sets the bar for crazy-level. He makes you look like Jimmy McReasonable and your demands look sane.

Re: US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits

#33

Post by kintamanimatt »

obviouslygreen wrote: post #21
kunai wrote: post #11

I'm sick and tired of being in such a lazy-ass, apathetic society that possesses zero regard to freedom. Stallman may be a nut, but when you think long and hard about what he says, and think about SOPA, PIPA, and this lobby, in horror, your face twists in fear and you watch, helplessly, as your fellow citizens bend over backwards and let the government have their way. I don't even know what to do anymore. Nobody will…

And your answer is Stallman ? Yes, he is a nut. In the sense of "no one will ever take him seriously, especially anyone involved in mainstream decision-making, who has ever read anything he has written," which is in this case the most relevant metric. Stallman is never going to be any help here, nor is anyone like him, because any "normal" person -- that is, one that other people won't ignore out of hand -- will igno…

The best thing Stallman could do is improve his outward image from hippy to something less ... hippy. Appearances matter and his, together with what he says makes him, and therefore his message, unpalatable and unrelatable to most people.

We live in a shallow society and the best thing the pro-privacy movement can have are moderately attractive, presentable, glib spokespeople.

Re: US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits

#34

Post by oakwhiz »

greenyoda wrote: post #3

Are they also going to push for laws that mandate that all anti-virus software must ignore their rootkits? And with secure boot in Windows 8, it will be harder for rootkits to remain undetected by hiding in the boot loader. Will the entertainment industry push for laws that force operating system vendors to provide back-doors for the official malware?

Unless Microsoft signs the rootkits purposefully.

Re: US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits

#35

Post by kintamanimatt »

maeon3 wrote: post #10

Would it also then become illegal to program software that would defend against such software rooting your machine and erasing things that goes against its views of fairness? I'd like see them try to root my Gentoo box.

Just about every Linux kernel version has had some root privilege escalation bug. So long as they can get some executable software on your system (perhaps not easy!) it's reasonable any such bug could be exploited, and voila, they can install a rootkit!

Re: US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits

#36

Post by markdown »

obviouslygreen wrote: post #21
kunai wrote: post #11

I'm sick and tired of being in such a lazy-ass, apathetic society that possesses zero regard to freedom. Stallman may be a nut, but when you think long and hard about what he says, and think about SOPA, PIPA, and this lobby, in horror, your face twists in fear and you watch, helplessly, as your fellow citizens bend over backwards and let the government have their way. I don't even know what to do anymore. Nobody will…

And your answer is Stallman ? Yes, he is a nut. In the sense of "no one will ever take him seriously, especially anyone involved in mainstream decision-making, who has ever read anything he has written," which is in this case the most relevant metric. Stallman is never going to be any help here, nor is anyone like him, because any "normal" person -- that is, one that other people won't ignore out of hand -- will igno…

Stallman isn't an activist for the end user, he's an activist for the activists.

> Yes, he is a nut.

Eccentric is what he is. Must be fun living in a black and white world.

Re: US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits

#37

Post by coldcode »

doktrin wrote: post #12
TheBiv wrote: post #9

I tried to be rational and then I got to the second paragraph of their own brief: "The second and even more pernicious effect is that illegal theft of intellectual property is undermining both the means and the incentive for entrepreneurs to innovate, which will slow the development of new inventions and industries that can further expand the world economy and continue to raise the prosperity and quality of life for…

Yes, they might as well have thrown "... for the good of mankind..." in for good measure. On another note, thanks for linking to the source material.

And ... won't someone please think of the children

Re: US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits

#38

Post by cynicalkane »

EliRivers wrote: post #32
obviouslygreen wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And your answer is Stallman ? Yes, he is a nut. In the sense of "no one will ever take him seriously, especially anyone involved in mainstream decision-making, who has ever read anything he has written," which is in this case the most relevant metric. Stallman is never going to be any help here, nor is anyone like him, because any "normal" person -- that is, one that other people won't ignore out of hand -- will igno…

We need Stallman because he's our extreme figure. He sets the bar for crazy-level. He makes you look like Jimmy McReasonable and your demands look sane.

Crazy doesn't help in the long run and often isn't helpful even in the short run. People exhibit something like an immune reaction to crazy ideas, and develop an allergy to the stimulus. Marxism has scared people away from social policy. Andrea Dworkin types have scared people away from feminism. (When I left liberal Oakland to go to U Chicago for college, I was shocked to hear people say, "I support equal rights but I'm not a feminist...")

The civil rights movement and the early neocon movement are two examples of movements that suppressed crazy elements, and were highly successful for it.

Re: US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits

#40

Post by yareally »

kunai wrote: post #29
obviouslygreen wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And your answer is Stallman ? Yes, he is a nut. In the sense of "no one will ever take him seriously, especially anyone involved in mainstream decision-making, who has ever read anything he has written," which is in this case the most relevant metric. Stallman is never going to be any help here, nor is anyone like him, because any "normal" person -- that is, one that other people won't ignore out of hand -- will igno…

Do you really think that Aaron Swartz, Larry Lessig and the masses of people protesting Capitol Hill last year when SOPA came around didn't make a difference? They were activists. Do you really think we'd have so much free/open source software today without the contribution of Eric S. Raymond, Stallman, et al.? They're activists. Do you really think that we'd be here today if Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Jame…

For what it's worth though, Ben Franklin was much more diplomatic and compromising than RMS. RMS would be more like a modern day Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine or Samuel Adams. Though all mentioned parties during the revolution played a key role in the independence of the United States. So I guess one could say it "takes people of all sorts."
Post reply on HN