FBI to get veto power over PC software? (copy post to Comp group)

[cyberpj]

September 27, 2005 11:37 AM PDT
FBI to get veto power over PC software?

The Federal Communications Commission thinks you have the right to use software on your computer only if the FBI approves.

No, really. In an obscure "policy" document
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-05-151A1.pdf
released around 9 p.m. ET last Friday, the FCC announced this remarkable decision.

According to the three-page document, to preserve the openness that characterizes today's Internet, "consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement." Read the last seven words again.

The FCC didn't offer much in the way of clarification. But the clearest reading of the pronouncement is that some unelected bureaucrats at the commission have decreeed that Americans don't have the right to use software such as Skype or PGPfone if it doesn't support mandatory backdoors for wiretapping. (That interpretation was confirmed by an FCC spokesman on Monday, who asked not to be identified by name. Also, the announcement came at the same time as the FCC posted its wiretapping rules for Internet telephony.)

more...
http://news.com.com/2061-10804_3-5884130.html?tag=nefd.aon

[bemildred]

1. Tough shit. This is an attempt at intimidation.

They lost on PGP, they will lose on this too.
In due course there will be peer-to-peer based VOIP
and they won't even know who to go after for providing
the "service".

[samdogmom]

2. I hope you're right. This is scary!

If the masses in our country don't wake up soon they're going to find themselves living in a place just like Russia and the Soviet "empire" when the Voice of America was their lifeline to the outside world. Only, I think we'll need the Voice of China to save us.

[cyberpj]

3. I know. But the problem is all the stuff they keep doing on the sly -

Once we know about it we can do something - but these Friday night releases and undercover moves are what's rotten.

[bemildred]

4. Well, vigilance is a good thing.

But these people are self-serving weasels, there is a
reason they do things in the dark of the night, and it
is not because they like dim light. I firmly believe
in watching these SOBs, but I do not fear them at all.

[Sgent]

5. Real smart

like Europe and Japan are going to want Cisco equipment with known backdoors for the US Government.

They lost, they cannot win.