UCITA (Re: CRIME Spaf's Handouts)

From: Crispin Cowan (crispin@private)
Date: Tue Apr 09 2002 - 13:14:59 PDT

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    With a little help from my friends, we determined that the other thing I 
    promised to post was links to UCITA information.
    
        * What is UCITA and why is it a bad thing?  Gross summary: it gives
          software vendors too much power. As Spaf said, the vendor can
          disclaim all liability (which is actually current law, but this
          entrenches it), can put in back doors so that they can disable
          your copy if they don't like what you are doing with the software,
          they are not liable for any losses due to defects & abuses of the
          back door, and they can prohibit you from publishing anything
          nasty about their software.
        * Links:
              * Opposing UCITA:
                    * http://www.ucita.com/
                    * American Library Association's concerns
                      http://www.ala.org/washoff/ucita/
                    * Richard Stallman writes about UCITA for the Electronic
                      Freedom Foundation (EFF)
                      http://www.eff.org/IP/DRM/UCITA_UCC2B/20000131_fight_ucita_stallman_paper.html
    
                    * The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) opposes
                      UCITA
                      http://www.idg.net/idgns/1999/07/23/ACMFearsProposedLawReducesQuality.shtml
    
              * Supporting UCITA
                    * http://www.ucitaonline.com/
        * UCITA Across America: UCITA was attempted as Federal legislation,
          and failed. Its proponents then went to the state level, and are
          trying to pass it state-by-state, which makes organizing
          grass-roots opposition more difficult.
              * Here's a nice matrix of UCITA status across the states
                provided by the IEEE. Unfortunately, it is only current up
                to 2000
                http://www.ieeeusa.org/forum/grassroots/ucita/statematrix.html
              * Critical summary:
                    * Has passed UCITA: Maryland, Virginia, 
                    * Has passed UCITA Bomb Shelter Laws that invalidate
                      UCITA: Iowa
        * UCITA in Oregon:
              * UCITA was introduced in the Oregon Legislature by Rep. Max
                Williams <http://www.leg.state.or.us/williams/home.htm>
                (R-Tigerd). It died in committee, but from private e-mail
                with Rep. Williams, I suspect it will return in the next
                legislative session. "Bring it 'round again and again until
                it passes" is a common UCITA tactic in many states.
              * An anti-UCITA bill was introduced in Oregon by Rep. Phil
                Barnhardt <http://www.leg.state.or.us/barnhart/home.htm>
                (D-Eugene), which also died.
    
    Coming up: my represntative ( Jackie Dingfelder 
    <http://www.leg.state.or.us/dingfelder/home.htm> , D-Portland) is 
    holding a Legislative Town Hall Saturday April 20th. To include Federal 
    Congressman Earl Blumenauer <http://www.house.gov/blumenauer/> , and 
    state Rep. Jeff Merkley <http://www.leg.state.or.us/merkley/home.htm> 
    (D-East Portland). Event to take place at Parkrose High School, rooms 1, 
    2, and 3, 12003 NE Shaver Street. I plan to show up and make a nuiscance 
    of myself :) about UCITA (for the state people) and DMCA and CBDTPA 
    <http://www.digitalconsumer.org/cbdtpa/> (for Blumenauer).
    
    I'm a lot more likely to do this if I'm not the only one, so please mail 
    me if you're actually planning on attending the meeting on April 20th.
    
    Crispin
    
    -- 
    Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
    Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc. http://wirex.com
    Security Hardened Linux Distribution:       http://immunix.org
    Available for purchase: http://wirex.com/Products/Immunix/purchase.html
    



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