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Michigan Outlaws Firewalls |
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14/04/2003
Since March 31, most corporate networks in Michigan have been using illegal technology. No, it wasn't an early April Fools' Day joke pulled off by the Michigan Legislature.
Thanks to the movie industry's paranoia about copyright infringement - plus a clueless group of lawmakers and an inattentive IT community - amendments to a state law called Act 328 have created a mind-boggling slew of limitations on what users of technology may do with what they own.
Here's just one example: Users may not conceal the origin or destination of their communications. Consider the implications.
"If you send or receive your e-mail via an encrypted connection, you're in violation, because the 'To' and 'From' lines of the e-mails are concealed from your ISP by encryption," observed Princeton computer scientist, Ed Felten, who broke the news and is keeping close track of the situation on his Web site, www.freedom-to-tinker.com.
"Worse yet," he said, "Network Address Translation (NAT), a technology widely used for enterprise security, operates by translating the 'From' and 'To' fields of Internet packets, thereby concealing the source or destination of each packet and hence violating these bills. Most security 'firewalls' use NAT, so if you use a firewall, you're in violation."
And Michigan isn't alone in this insanity. Similar legislation had been enacted in Delaware, Illinois, Maryland and Virginia, according to the Washington Internet Daily newsletter. Measures were pending in several other states, including Massachusetts and Texas.
How could this happen? Credit - or blame - a relentless and reckless copyright cartel that holds copyright enforcement above all else.
Story continued at < a href="http://www.arnnet.com.au/nindex.php?id=528676714&eid=-100">ARNnet
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