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

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

#181

Post by TheCondor »

munin wrote: post #13

"...there are increasing calls for creating a more permissive environment for active network defense that allows companies not only to stabilize a situation but to take further steps, including actively retrieving stolen information, altering it within the intruder’s networks, or even destroying the information within an unauthorized network." this is actually way worse than the headline indicates. the crazy bastards…

Would that require disclosure?

A problem now which is more frightening (I can secure my network from the media companies, not worried about that one bit) is the remarkable number of companies with known security problem that won't and don't disclose it. Going on the offensive should be illegal unless they can disclose damages which justify it and then their customers can sue.

I don't see this happening in a healthy world, defense will get much much better much more quickly if it was to be legal though, ultimately it would involve violence though.

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

#182

Post by AnthonyMouse »

coffeeaddicted wrote: post #170

I suppose this is about demanding extremes to have lots of room to negotiate in the inevitable following political negotiations. So they can be like - we didn't request the shoot-pirates-on-sight thing, we even gave up on the idea of rootkits, BUT we have to make stand on . Politicians will by their nature try to make compromises. So if you start by demanding what you really want you will lose it.

This is why I sometimes defend the people who want to abolish copyright. I don't think it would actually be optimal, but neither would it be a serious catastrophe, and by making the argument and convincing people of the plausibility of it you create a rational baseline from which to contextualize the naked batshit insane power grabs of industry executives.

The trouble with all of this is that it's ruining politics. The way you optimize social utility is for each side to negotiate in good faith and give up the thing which is more valuable to the other side than it is to them. But in a situation where each side has a veto on getting anything done, refusing to compromise is an extremely effective strategy for exactly as long as it takes the other side to mirror it, and then it becomes a high stakes game of chicken where everybody goes over the cliff unless both sides blink. Because a screaming contest is ineffective, but one side utterly and repeatedly capitulating to the other is even worse.

And that's the situation we're in until the extremists at the heads of these companies give up on demanding absolute control over everything.

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

#183

Post by kyboren »

regularfry wrote: post #158
mikegagnon wrote: post #51

When I read those excerpts from this report, I assumed it was written by some extremist lobbying group that doesn't have any real power. Then I read this statement from Congressman Mike Rogers (Chair of CHPSCI, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence): “It is already clear to me that this report is going to make a very important contribution to the discussion about the grave danger that IP theft poses to our…

The cognitive dissonance involved in playing up the "Chinese economic espionage" threat while simultaneously supporting a move to legally make everyone's computers less secure is astounding.

When put in context, this is hardly surprising. His wife was recently the CEO and vice chairman of Aegis, LLC, and is now a high-powered lobbyist for Manatt [1].

Straight from her biography: ...she focused on business development and new-market-entry relationship building for Aegis LLC and the worldwide Aegis Group, drawing on her established global network of relationships with key stakeholders in U.S. federal civilian, defense and intelligence agencies, foreign governments and leading private sector companies to pursue and secure new business opportunities in Latin and South America, the Caribbean, the Middle East and Africa, and to land U.S. defense and intelligence contracts. [Ibid] (emphasis mine).

She presumably still has equity in Aegis Group.

Playing up the Chinese espionage threat plays well with her key stakeholder relationships, and making everyone less secure certainly opens up new market opportunities and brings more visibility to defense services.

Rogers' agenda is just to influence the legislative process to line his own pockets. Business as usual in Washington.

[1]: http://www.manatt.com/KristiRogers.aspx

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

#185

Post by justanother »

At a past address, neighbors would leave a bundle of fresh green coconuts, and a few DVDs to back up, at my front stairs. This worked well; They'd get their DVDs backed up (hey, I didn't ask questions), I'd get my coconut water fix.

At my current address, I have access to my own coconut bundles by the dozen, but I still have to wonder, if this came to pass, imagine how many coconuts would I get for 'unlocking' and recovering the computers they would leave at my door due to MPAA 'stabilizing' their situations!

Put another way, like DVDCSS, this is just another minor annoyance to the technically inclined, and only serves to penalize the less-computer-literate, and enrich the people who do favors for them.

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

#186

Post by kintamanimatt »

dylangs1030 wrote: post #133
kintamanimatt wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was actually a really attractive guy. [1] You can still see he's fairly attractive for a 60 year old under the disheveled hair and beard, and excess weight. [1] http://en.wikinoticia.com/Technology/linux/33921-the-young-r...

I don't mean to split hairs, but you might be exaggerating just a bit.

You're not splitting hairs because you're not being pedantic!

How might I be exaggerating?

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

#187

Post by rednukleus »

beloch wrote: post #99

What qualities do people look for when buying movies and music? 1. The content they want. 2. Quality (i.e. resolution, bitrate, etc.) 3. Reliability (it actually plays) 4. Low annoyance (no ads, warnings, etc.) 5. Safety (guaranteed freedom from malware, etc.) The movie and music industries haven't done a perfect job of delivering #1-4. Region coding means the content users want is frequently only available through p…

You left out one important point:

6. Convenience.

I believe that the content industry is relying on a sufficient number of people still finding it easier to buy a DVD/Bluray rather than pirate. For technical people, pirating is already sometimes more convenient for reasons that you stated.

There is also a

7. Ethics

Some people do not find pirating ethical under any circumstances, and will inconvenience themselves to avoid it.

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

#188

Post by mcintyre1994 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #160
onemorepassword wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "illegal theft of intellectual property" Say what? Such bizarre phrases make me seriously doubt the intelligence and education of the people who wrote this.

They are not stupid. This isn't a mistake. It's Dark Arts. They're trying (quite successfully) to attach the word "theft" to copyright infringement, so that people discuss it in terms of moral intuitions about stealing. 'cause if it is called "stealing" then it must be evil, right?

And they've been doing so for a long time. "You wouldn't steal a car" etc. were all about equating piracy with stealing from a shop or whatever.

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

#189

Post by mcintyre1994 »

ihsw wrote: post #8
smegel wrote: post #5

So downloading copyrighted content makes you a "hacker" now?

That's hardly the point, which is that they can get Congress to bend over backwards for them. Since this piece of legislation is obviously absurd, they'll attempt for something pared down but clearly authoritarian with minimal (non-existent?) oversight. At this point they're just flexing their muscle to see how much wiggle room they've got. A small part of me wishes votes on legislation were anonymous so our congress…

I can see where you're coming from regarding anonymous voting on legislation, but I'd definitely disagree. It's much more important in my opinion that our representatives are transparent, or else how do we know whether we want them to continue representing us?

It's true that campaign donors have too much influence over the success of legislators, but maintaining a representative democracy is far too important to lose in order to deal with that issue.

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

#190

Post by [deleted] »

rednukleus wrote: post #187
beloch wrote: post #99

What qualities do people look for when buying movies and music? 1. The content they want. 2. Quality (i.e. resolution, bitrate, etc.) 3. Reliability (it actually plays) 4. Low annoyance (no ads, warnings, etc.) 5. Safety (guaranteed freedom from malware, etc.) The movie and music industries haven't done a perfect job of delivering #1-4. Region coding means the content users want is frequently only available through p…

You left out one important point: 6. Convenience. I believe that the content industry is relying on a sufficient number of people still finding it easier to buy a DVD/Bluray rather than pirate. For technical people, pirating is already sometimes more convenient for reasons that you stated. There is also a 7. Ethics Some people do not find pirating ethical under any circumstances, and will inconvenience themselves to…

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