____/ Mark Kent on Wednesday 09 January 2008 11:38 : \____
> [H]omer <spam@xxxxxxx> espoused:
>> Verily I say unto thee, that Darth Chaos spake thusly:
>>
>>> The Hegelian Dialectic, aka Problem-Reaction-Solution: Create the
>>> problem, feign a reaction, then offer a phony solution. Nothing more,
>>> nothing less.
>>
>> Hegel's dialectic is not about manipulation through deception though,
>> that is merely propaganda. He may have been prone to convolution, but
>> he wasn't a liar.
>>
>> Here is a clear case of political propaganda, serving an agenda that,
>> although hidden, is nonetheless transparently obvious. This has never
>> been about security, it is about the overwhelming corporate influence
>> that drives governments to secure "protections" for those who seek to
>> maintain monopolies. This is about so-called "Intellectual Property",
>> not the threat from cyber-terrorists.
>>
>> Two of the worst breaches in data security ever (in the UK), occurred
>> last year (the "Department for Work and Pensions" and "HM Revenue and
>> Customs"), and neither of those cases had the slightest connection to
>> "hacking". Are we actually supposed to believe that security breaches
>> will disappear, if the tools that facilitate them are made "illegal"?
>> I somehow doubt that any /actual/ terrorist is overly concerned about
>> the legal status of his hacking tools, since his entire raison d'être
>> is criminal anyway.
>>
>> Once the government has set the precedent, of being able to determine
>> the legitimacy of one piece of software over another (notwithstanding
>> copyrights), then they will be able to arbitrarily determine the fate
>> of *any* software, based on ever-more indefinite criteria. As Roy has
>> already pointed out, what's next ... Perl? With a scripting language,
>> and the right system hooks, one can conjure up alternatives to pretty
>> much *any* so-called "hacking" tool, or even devise new ones. Are the
>> British and German governments going to outlaw scripting next, or any
>> other form of programming? Are they going to outlaw source code, then
>> compilers, then books on programming? Will "Windows: Tips and Tricks"
>> be branded subversive reading material, and GNU/Linux classified as a
>> weapon? Should we start the bonfires now, or wait until after the gas
>> chambers have been built?
>>
>> The forces behind these initiatives aren't the democratically elected
>> representatives of the people, they are the corporations that want to
>> deprive us of our liberties for the sake of profit, using politicians
>> as proxies who are coerced by lobbyists and bribed by CEOs. Once they
>> have control of the laws that determine the legitimacy of a competing
>> product, there simply won't *be* any competition. There is barely any
>> *now*. Corporations like Microsoft, and cartels like the RI/MPAA have
>> always sought this degree of control through dirty tricks or bribery,
>> but now they increasingly turn to the law to do their dirty work, and
>> where the law does not suit their criminal agenda, they simply change
>> it by pulling puppet strings.
>>
>
> Just to take your scripting issue a tiny bit further, we'd have to ban
> compilers generally, since they enable people to compile source-code
> which could be used for hacking, eg., if you have the source for nmap,
> then obviously that can be used for intrusion assessment, if you can
> compile it.
>
> This means that source-code also needs to be banned, since having
> source-code means that you could change it in some way in order that it
> become a hacking tool which would then be illegal.
>
> Of course, even if you don't have the source-code or the compiler, a
> smart engineer could devise an electro-mechanical programme loader using
> switches and a "load" switch, so really, we need to ban electronics,
> switches and computers.
>
> Still, even with just a compiler, anyone could whip-up a basic packet
> sniffing tool, or a port-prodding tool.
>
> This is absurdity in the extreme.
Don't worry. Writing some law on a piece of paper will certainly 'prevent'
sharing of code. Just like DRM 'stops' the so-called pirates while defending
innocent costumers...
--
~~ Best of wishes
Roy S. Schestowitz | "Spam enchanted evening..."
http://Schestowitz.com | RHAT Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
12:20:01 up 30 days, 1:08, 4 users, load average: 0.38, 1.30, 1.74
http://iuron.com - Open Source knowledge engine project
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