[h2o-discuss] is it a full moon yet?

[Eric Eldred <eldred@mediaone.net>]

John Wilbanks wrote:
> 
> Between this, the cybersquatting bill, and the passage of UCITA, it's
> not been a good week for the end-users...any thoughts on the
> adminstration proposal to sniff out the bad guys by listening to
> everyone?

Consider the difficulty of
distinguishing a back-door attack on a network or
software from time bombs in the code--by 1) a
terrorist organization blackmailing for a ransom;
2) a software vendor that feels the consumer is not
complying with the shrinkwrap license and thus
exercises its rights under UCITA to destroy the
software (and the business using it)--unless the
purchaser pays a ransom--er, extortionate demand
for money--er, legitimate request for continuing
payment.

Looking back at Reagan's Star Wars plan (and I have
had the pleasure of listening to Dr Edward Teller
explaining it) I wonder how many people realized
that it was not first intended to defend the general
populace and the cities (and certainly never in Hawaii
nor Alaska) but rather only some missile sites on
the Great Plains and maybe an area of the District
of Columbia.  Likewise, just who is this FBI plan
supposed to be protecting?  Certainly not the general
populace.

Again, consider how First Amendment rights of us users
of cable modems are being protected now.  The @Home
network says that any customers running web (or any
MP3) servers must shut them down because they
"interfere" with the bandwidth of other users (who
by contract are entitled to consume ads and television
only, not produce any free discussion of their own).
Will this new packet sniffing project be useful in
the government and corporations' attempts to suppress
any free speech it can't make money from?

And for more of this private censorship, see the
current dispute over whether cable modem companies
ought to be regulated in order to require free access
by other ISPs (who did not pay for all the fiberoptic
cable to begin with) but not by customers:
http://www.pcworld.com/pcwtoday/article/0,1510,12034,00.html

However, I am not hopeful that the general population
of American citizens is awake to the dangers.  I
predict instead that the network of CCTV surveillance
now in British cities will spread to the U.S., for
similar illogical reasons.  Isn't technology great?
Soon we will be able to look out at the new moon
and see a giant Coke sign there, illuminated by
proud U.S. laser technology (a spinoff of the Star
Wars project).  After all, isn't the moon U.S. 
property--the U.S. flag was the only one planted
there by humans 20 years ago?


--paraphrased:
Reagan: there is obviously something wrong with our educational
system.
Gore Vidal:  there obviously must be, the graduates elected you!

-- 
"Eric"    Eric Eldred      Eldritch Press
mailto:EricEldred@usa.net  http://eldred.ne.mediaone.net/
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`