Jessica, I'm of two minds about this kind of stuff. I was living in France when the government insisted on retaining 40 bit encryption and prohibited importing Internet Explorer with 56 bit or more encryption, not to talk about PGP or other encryption programs. The idea was that the government wished to maintain its ability to monitor terrorist activity. Along about 1999 the government finally gave up and approved 128 bit encryption, figuring that the volume of data going over the internet defied monitoring. In those days you couldn't download 128 bit encyption program from the US if you came in over a French ISP.

I guess I don't mind if big brother monitors to catch bad guys. What this thread started out with was the idea that a router could be illegal. ...or that connection sharing could be illegal. Personally I don't think so. An IP is an IP, even if it is translated behind a router to an internal IP such as 192.168.1.1, the default for LinkSys routers.

The ISP assigned IP is still defined and specific, traceable to the subscriber. I dont' know of anyone who disguises his e-mail address tho I guess a lot of us would like to, given the high volume of porno and pharmacy spam.

That said, there are some disconcerting things going on in DC, I hope the US voters will wise up next time around.

i'm not trying to change the subject...or anything like that.
but what the patriot act 2 does, is ..the govn't well now be able to hold anybody indefinately if suspicion..and also revoke someones US citizenship...along w/ a bunch of other stuff.

like you, i had no problems w/ patriot act 1...when it was more along the lines of badguys....but now its getting closer to being able to target ANYONE.

but alas...thats for another thread.


i think the router stuff of this particular topic is bad too...since i use one.

Monitoring a public network is one thing. In fact, I believe anyone with the technology should be allowed to sniff the network all they want - its a public network and I dont believe in forbidden knowledge. If data passes through your computer, or a system you have control over, then you can do what you want with it. If people want to communicate privatly and securely they should use a form of encryption to defeat snooping - now here is the problem. This law has a huge potential for abuse, it is essentially outlawing annonymity. It is FORCING people to stop using ANY techniques that would hide the source or destination of communication from ISPs. That is just plain and simply wrong in a so called "free country". Its saying "you can be secure, but not secure enough so we cant spy on you". Similar to the encryption fiasco you mentioned.

Yes and no. I think thats an example of potential abuse. Whilst the source and destination IP is still known, you are hiding the computer the traffic is coming from. I know it may seem ridiculous, but lawyers could argue NAT does violate this law. For home computers it probably doesnt matter much. If a crime is commited - they know a member of the household is responsible, and with a little investigation they can probably find out WHICH member to punish. But what happens if you share your internet connection with your next door neighbours? If they cant prove who commited a crime (and they cant convict both you and your neighbour), they might abuse the law and say you set up a system which masks the true source of communication. What if a company wishes to give free wireless access in their area - something that is becoming increasingly popular and promising. The law could make it illegal as they can no longer keep an eye on who is doing what. What about coorporate NATs or proxies? Connecting via a proxy could be deemed as illegal as it again masks the source/destination of your traffic. The scope for abuse is extremely high. Then I think VPNs were mentioned. If you set up a VPN link to your office, they can no longer track where you are connecting to from there - again this law could be abused.

The way I see it, this law does NOTHING except outlaw annonimity. The government cant snoop on 128 bit encrypted links easilly, so instead they make it illegal to make any connections that mask the destination address from your ISP. Its sole purpose is to make government snooping easier. And I am NOT going to act ignorant and say I dont care about the right to annonimity as im not doing anything illegal. Annonimity is a fundamental RIGHT, something I am not going to allow to be taken away from me without putting up a damn good fight.

My reflex is to say that perhaps anonymity is less the issue than the right to privacy. I guess what has pushed this thing into the light is the tremendous pressure by various industry groups whose products are being compromised by electronic theft. Add to that concerns about terrorism and the porno trade that has flourished, seemingly without moral concience.

Seems to me we've got an evolutionary problem here. The corpsorate lobbies in DC are strong, well financed and "connected". How does the private user find a voice and lobby forum other than letters to his congressman?

^ PAC

Political Action Commitee.

if this passes microsoft's security won't look so bad anymore.... everything will be so insecure i'd almost refuse to use the internet from a computer that had personal info on it

I'm a very open person, but I believe that people should have the right to say what ever the "f@ck" :D they want. Seriously though, this may hurt everyone in the long run.

###I can never understand why people just can't respect others, you don't have to like them, nor KNOW them, but at least respect them.. Gessh....###