Spy Act of 2007 = "Vendors Can Spy Act" 309
strick1226 writes "Ed Foster over at InfoWorld describes the Spy Act bill (H.R. 964) as having the same relation to the prevention of spyware that the CAN SPAM Act had to the prevention of spam. It allows exceptions for companies to utilize spyware for any number of reasons; if this bill had been law when Sony distributed their rootkit, they would have had perfect cover. Most troubling is that the bill would preempt all state laws, including those more focused on the privacy of people's data, and disallow individuals from bringing suit. It is expected to pass soon with 'strong bipartisan support.'"
Legal, not moral (Score:5, Interesting)
Trumps states rights? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Since no one here uses windows (Score:3, Interesting)
A major success for Linux operating systems is because not only is Linux great (and it is.../special remark to keep the Slashdot horde from lynching me) but because Windows sucks so much. If Window was OS X all this time, I am not sure if Linux would have gained as much popularity....
wait! (Score:3, Interesting)
Soap box, check. Ballot box, check. Anyone remember what came next? Jury box? How do we get in on that? Oh well, probably won't work. Lets skip it and go straight to the ammo box.
What can we reasonably do against a government that sits there and sells our freedoms to the highest vendor? It won't be long before we're forced to pay three easy payments of $599.99 for a new TV-doo-hickie to watch us while we're watching TV. In the name of advertisement, of course, to figure out how we react to some shows.
Moral vs. Legal (Score:5, Interesting)
Moral desensitization leads to legal deregulation. With enough exposure and promotion, the public will accept the legalization of just about anything (as history has shown). It is in the interests of large businesses to protect their market and to discover new markets by having the upper hand in intelligence.
The problem has become that legitimate and morally acceptable markets are generally well serviced and difficult to break into. Companies are therefore very tempted to create new markets, or break into markets which hitherto have been illegal (usually because they are viewed as immoral or socially destructive), such as porn, prostitution, addictive substances, and now privacy invasion.
As the only way to create these kinds of markets is to change legislation, these companies are very active in infiltrating and influencing government. The US government is particularly prone to this kind of corruption.
All of this is obvious. But the techniques used are subtle. They will try to sell the idea to make it appear to be in the public interest. Who knows, maybe we can expect to see a report of a missing child found because of spyware, or some shit like that.
Re:If companies can install spyware... (Score:2, Interesting)
blame the OS (Score:4, Interesting)
This weekend, I was given a PC that needed to have viruses, spyware, malware removed... I thought it was a joke, this thing looked like a honeypot. It had every trojan known to man on it, every piece of spyware, backdoor, and virus had infected it, and no form of security (besides Service Pack 1 for XP). After 4 days straight trying to remove them (formatting not being an option, because the person was missing their OS restore cd and/or Windows XP home edition CD) I have finally gotten all of them removed... but my point, is that none of this should have ever been possible. An operating system should be designed more intelligently than those who want to exploit those same operating systems. I'm sure if they took the same amount of time they spend trying to promote new products and put it into better R&D for patching vulnerabilities, none of this would happen... but I suppose we don't know who scratches whose back in the world of Operating system / Anti-virus vendor's anymore....
Re: SEPERATION OF BUSINESS AND STATE (Score:2, Interesting)
Our democracy is lost, we no longer live in a democratic political system. Just the illusion is promoted through propoganda.
Bravo Republicans, Democrats and corporate leaders. You have won at all cost and now all is lost.
The next paradigm is already begun and will be the reclaiming and exposing of the crimes against the people of the earth and the earth itself, by selfish empire builders running the world. Shamre on you and shame on us for not seeing the fundamental problem of our time.
SimBuddha.
Re:OK, What Am I Missing? (Score:5, Interesting)
So even if you have never installed, for example, Adobe software, Adobe can monitor your computer to determine if you ever run an illegal installation of Photoshop. No sunset on the monitoring; they can continually probe your machine in suspicion of piracy. That'll degrade your bandwidth. And not just Adobe will be permitted to do it, but every software vendor out there. They don't have to be your provider, just a provider.
Also "initialization" is a nebulous term. Are you sure you know how the law defines it? It could easily be phoning home with every launch, or perhaps with every forked process. A perverted vendor could treat it as initialization of any variable, constantly phoning home to make sure every thing you do does not violate their EULA.
Meanwhile, Windows Genuine Advantage has had a not insignificant number of false detections of installations as non-genuine. A little hiccup in an algorithm and they'll cripple the software. Better hope its use wasn't essential to your business. BTW, the EULA makes it clear it should never be used for any essential purpose and disclaims any liability for failure to operate.
Next, read the full text of the act for the prohibited behaviors and realize that with these exceptions it gives those entities license to do every one of them to you whenever and however often they'd like with impunity.
Did anyone expect anything else? (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, yes, it "outlaws" spyware... with a few hand picked exceptions that can be summed up with "spyware is outlawed unless some company uses it".
In fact this legalizes spyware rather than outlawing it. Until now you could at least try to get a lawsuit going and at least get a humiliating settlement (humiliating for you, not the corp using spyware against you). See the Sony rootkit trials for details.
With this in effect, the judge would have to throw it out of court even before anything starts, because it would certainly fit the "exceptions".
Re:If companies can install spyware... (Score:3, Interesting)
And to top that off, companies like MS continuously try to collect information about other products (how many times has an app crashed on Windows, and Windows asks you if you want to send a report to MS?). With the broad coverage of this law, many companies will be able to collect whatever information they want in an effort to "better support you" which could end up becoming an escalating war with each other instead.
Add to that, if you have a website of almost any sort, this is grounds to install spyware on people's machines.
From the bill:
(1) any monitoring of, or interaction with, a subscriber's Internet or other network connection or service , or a protected computer, by a telecommunications carrier, cable operator, computer hardware or software provider, or provider of information service or interactive computer service, to the extent that such monitoring or interaction is for network or computer security purposes, diagnostics, technical support, or repair, or for the detection or prevention of fraudulent activities; or
Broad interpretations can abound from this one part... a website is an information service... it is also an interactive computer service...
Your VOIP service for that matter also fits in the telecommunications carrier and network connection or provider category.
Technically this means anyone with any sort of presence on the Internet can arbitrarily install spyware on anyone else's computer that comes into use of their internet presence (eg: surfing their web page, using their ftp server, etc).
How ridiculously broad.
Re:Legal, not moral (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Legal, not moral (Score:1, Interesting)
I can be correctled if I'm wrong but this Spy Act of 2007 is a violation of Fourth Amendment against "Search and Seizure". Here is the text of the Fourth Amendment:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Re:Look! Rights go down the hole... (Score:2, Interesting)
State law will still supercede it, because: (Score:4, Interesting)
So if an existing Federal or state law specifically mentions that a provider or software vendor may never access your computer under any circumstance, then that law will supercede this bill.
Or am I missing something?
Re:Since no one here uses windows (Score:3, Interesting)
What's "vendor-tunnels?" What's "sneak and peek?" What "special privileges?"
If you're going through the effort to emphasize them, you could at least define them.
Re:So who is to blame for this bill Congress? (Score:3, Interesting)
Rick Boucher D-VA (and Slashdot darling), GK Butterfield D-NC, Lois Capps D-CA, Dianna DeGette D-CO, John Dingell D-MI, Michael Doyle D-PA, Eliot Engel D-NY, Anna Eshoo D-CA, Sam Farr D-CA, Charlie Gonzales D-TX, Bart Gordon D-TN, Gene Green D-TX, Darlene Hooley D-OR, Jay Inslee D-WA, Ed Markey D-MA, Jim Matheson D-UT, Jerry McNerney D-CA, David Price D-NC, Bobby Rush D-IL, Janice Schakowsky D-IL, Hilda Solis D-CA, Bart Stupak D-MI, Anthony Weiner D-NY
23 of 36 co-sponsors are Democrats but it is a Republican bill?
Oh, and the kicker? Author: Ed Towns D-NY
But it is a Republican bill.
You obviously looked up the bill... why lie about the sponsor and co-sponsors? Did you just assume that they were Republicans since the Democrats can do no wrong and the Republicans are evil? The fact that you were modded up here [slashdot.org] as informative is indicative of the general group think that permeates Slashdot regarding politics. Come on people, is it so hard to fact check this stuff rather than blindly accept what someone else tells you?
Re:Legal, not moral (Score:2, Interesting)
Is there really a low, middle, and high? Are you just so blind or proud to admit to being part of the low? Hell, I make nearly $65k and proudly realize that I am not so much better than those making less than half that.
The classes are low and high in this glorious 21st Century.
Re:Legal, not moral (Score:3, Interesting)
Example: Choicepoint. They make money off you without you ever doing business with anyone.
And one person's bad credit decisions can harm others. Look at how all the foreclosures are driving down the price of homes and causing homes to take longer to sell. Even if you bought your house all cash, you're affected by Joe Spendalot next door - his foreclosed home will depress your house's value when you try to sell and move.
Your myopic view is endemic of ubercapitalist and ubersocialist thinkers alike.
Re:Since no one here uses windows (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Legal, not moral (Score:5, Interesting)
But since we're talking about technology issues, isn't the perspective of a bunch of "smarter than your average bear" (yes, I cringed when I typed that, but it's true) geeks more relevant than joe six pack's?
What if this were a medical discussion board that tended to attract medical professionals, and we were here discussing a health issue? We would rant and rail at how the general population just doesn't understand nutrition guidelines and FDA rulings... "WHY? How could the voters and politicians let the FDA sit in the back pocket of big pharma by letting dicylatrithrithpalaphimides onto the market?", we'd bemoan.
So, I would argue that consumers tend to not know what they want, contrary to your conclusion #2. They're ignorant of the choices that they make every day -- especially in technology areas where (believe it or not),
For example, my Dad knows now that he didn't want to waste the time buying a new computer or having someone fix his current one. But since he was largely ignorant of how his online behaviors (not patching Windows, running IE, opening every attachment he received, etc.) would devastate his desktop, he did all the things that he shouldn't have done. Now he knows, and he knows because he got to experience the pain of computer catastrophe and I spent a lot of "I told you so" time educating him as to what he had been doing wrong.
As conceited as it sounds, maybe we should be a bit shocked at the technology decisions made by everyday consumers. Maybe it's justified for us to have an air of superiority when we're talking about them. Consumers don't know what rootkits are, despite the fact that they're affected by them. Look at all the people who fall for 419 scams. They're not falling victim to them because of a personal preference that relativistically is just as valid as my preference to NOT fall for them. They're doing it because they're woefully and pathetically ignorant suckers who have no clue what they're doing.
The shittiest part is that when those woeful, pathetic suckers walk into the voting booth or spend a buck to support companies that do evil so they can get the latest ass-reamingly bad hip hop CD, their opinions count just as much as mine do. I have to suffer with their dumb consumerist, political ideologue influenced choices.
No duty to protect citizens. (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, no, it doesn't.
They'd like you to think it does. But the state's duties are things like preserving order, providing equal justice, and having a Republican form of government.
Individuals are just cannon fodder. In the mass the state MAY try to protect them in various ways, as part of preserving order or some other compelling state interest. But they have no duty to protect any particular one of them - unless they've explicitly created an extraordinary and risk for some particular one.
Don't believe it? Try suing the cops for failing to protect you against a crook - say, one you've repeatedly complained about or one you're a witness against.
(That's why it's so hard to get witnesses, especially against possible gang members, in states that restrict personal carry of guns for self-protection.)