"Surely our government isn't insane" LOL
On Mon, Oct 19, 2015 at 5:52 PM, Dave Taht <dave.t...@gmail.com> wrote: > From: > > > http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/10/15/trans_pacific_partnership_could_thwart_computer_security_research_and_tinkering.html > > "Surely our government isn't insane enough to thwart research designed > to keep us safer in the emerging “Internet of Things.” Yet tell that, > for starters, to the automobile industry, where one of the world's > largest car makers, Volkswagen, cheated on emissions testing by > tweaking its software. This crime against humanity—not an > exaggeration, given the massive contribution this may have made to > accelerating climate change—was discovered by researchers who, by good > luck, discovered that VW's cars had been spewing vastly more > pollutants than the company claimed for years. This almost certainly > would have been uncovered much earlier had the industry not relied on > the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to “protect” its software from > analysis; the DMCA made it illegal to circumvent “digital restrictions > management.” Yet the automakers continue to adamantly oppose any > exception to the DMCA. > > This TPP provision, assuming it's in the final document—won't it be > great when our government allows us to actually see it?—is just one of > the many, many terrible “intellectual property” arrangements aimed at > giving corporations greater control over their customers. When > software is part of a product, as it is in so many things today and > almost everything tomorrow, the very concept of ownership becomes an > abstraction for the alleged buyer. And when we risk harsh penalties > for even attempting to repair a device that's defective, whether > that's because of the seller's incompetence or venality, we are in a > totally untenable, and frighteningly insecure, position. > > We need to be going in precisely the opposite direction, and a > too-little-noticed proposal this week shows how it might be done. A > group of security experts looked into the absolutely horrifying, and > willful, lack of security in devices most of us use every > day—especially the Wi-Fi routers that let us share one Internet > connection among a variety of devices—and asked the Federal > Communications Commission to intervene. > > In a letter to the FCC and a press release explaining their goals, > more than 250 people, including Vint Cerf, one of the Internet's > creators, implored the agency to make these crucial devices more > secure by forcing manufacturers to be more open about how they work. > Among other things, the security experts asked the FCC to require that > device makers a) provide public access to “source code”—the > programming instructions that operate the device—so that it can be > analyzed; b) provide ongoing security updates in timely ways; and c) > be prevented from selling devices that don't comply with those and > other rules designed to ensure security. > > The FCC should make this happen yesterday. Then, regulators and > Congress should extend the compelling logic of this proposal to other > devices—notably cars and mobile phones—that are notoriously riddled > with flaws. > > Meanwhile, it's vital that Congress not agree to the TPP as it's > currently written. Thankfully, the deal is in trouble. Let's hope the > odd-couple combination of a corporate-dominated Obama administration > and a Republican-controlled Congress doesn't override common sense and > the public good." > > Scientists and Engineers have a mandate to obey physical law. Lawyers, > and lobbyists, not so much. > > Dave Täht > I just lost several years of my life to making wifi better. And the > FCC wants to mess all that up. https://www.gofundme.com/savewifi > _______________________________________________ > FCC mailing list > f...@lists.prplfoundation.org > http://lists.prplfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fcc >
_______________________________________________ openwrt-devel mailing list openwrt-devel@lists.openwrt.org https://lists.openwrt.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openwrt-devel
