Re: [vox] Fwd: New Bill attempts to regulate hardware, software development

[Joel Baumert <kendMAPSer@geeksource.net>]

On Tue, Mar 26, 2002 at 06:17:58PM -0800, Jeff Newmiller wrote:
> On Tue, 26 Mar 2002, Joel Baumert wrote:
> 
> > Some large government standard for encryption of digital content
> > is probably doomed to failure.  It becomes too large a target
> > for people to screw with it and one or two weak links unravel
> > everything.  
> 
> I wish I were so optimistic.

There has to be a killer application that makes people want to
down^H^H^H^Hupgrade to the new hardware.  That means that it has
to produce better sound or video, etc.  Even with extraordinary
capabilities, acceptance would have to be phased or the content
providers will have content without a market.  I think that the
bill would be hard if not impossible to implement especially if
they allow software codecs which can easily be reverse
engineered, even if they are buried in a proprietary OS.
Someone outside the US jurisdiction with either publicly or 
anonymously release the code.

> 
> > The idea that they will be able to place some hardware in a 
> > general purpose computer that will somehow recognize that the
> > song file that I'm copying to a backup tape is being illegally
> > copied is ludicrous.  Ignoring the fair use problems, I don't
> > think that it is a tractable problem... In fact it may be 
> > undecidable.  I know we should have the halting law saying
> > that all programs be run through a program that verifies the
> > program halts...  doh... that is undecidable, but it is the 
> > law so we had better do it...
> 
> Tomatoes are legally defined as vegetables.

:-).  But changing the label of tomatoes from fruit to veggies
does not really ask people to do the impossible... If the bill
ask people to do the impossible, they will do the possible and 
fail...

> 
> http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/comm/staff/zakour/faq/faq_search.cgi (search
> for "defined").
> 
> Pi was defined as 3.2 by the Indiana state House of Representatives.
> 
> http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jlawler/aux/pi.html
> 
> The conformance of law with scientific or mathematically accepted views is
> optional.  We only hope that they do... and with appropriate messages to
> the legislators, they may yet.
[...]

Heh... I wonder if the Mars problem a couple of years back was not
a conversion problem like was said, but farming out software to a
country that apparently believes a rough estimation is good enough.

Joel
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