SSSCA Hearing October 25th: Free Software Threatened

Warren Togami warren at togami.com
Sat Oct 20 01:17:44 PDT 2001


http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/19/1954207
SSSCA Hearing October 25th: Free Software Threatened

A story at NewsForge
http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/10/19/1546246 details the latest
on the state of Senator Fritz Hollings' proposed SSSCA
http://cryptome.org/sssca.htm, which may be the most radical attempt at
legislative oversight over electronic goods ever attempted in the U.S.
Opposition from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Free Software
Foundation, the Association of Computing Machinery and others
notwithstanding, Hollings' efforts to impede a free market in computer
hardware and software through legislative fiat has been little commented on,
in part because Hollings refuses to release
http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/09/20/2047211 much information
about it. Eben Moglen is quoted to good effect on the risk a bill
officializing and regulating all digital devices would pose to Free
software. Under the SSSCA, it would be "unlawful to manufacture, import,
offer to the public, provide or otherwise traffic in any interactive digital
device that does not include and utilize certified security technologies."
And that rules out most Free software, right from the start. (Read on for
some more information.)



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