On Wednesday 05 December 2001 6:36 pm, Thomas Adam wrote: [snip]
Personally, I think it is a load of rubbish. Open Source (thanks to Richard Stallman) has grown to immeasureable proportions, and I for one would like to see it remain that way.
Unfortunately, this is *not* aload of rubbish. The SSSCA has been around for a while and looks like it could actually become law, at least in a number of states. The bill was originally drawn up by the US equivelent of a Think Tank. Unfortunately, alot of state legislative bodies tend to take what they say as being gospal and simply get lead by the nose. Looking at the current government's track record over here, the 'if the US think it's good then it must be good' mindset means that if it gets through over there, something similar will get through over here. And don't kid yourself into thinking that laws that daft won't get through over here. Basically the a large part of the SSSCA is just the same as our disasterous RIP bill, except that they've taken it a bit further and they want to be able to spy on you electronically. Under the SSSCA the makers of OS's etc need to build in back doors so that the law enforcement services (read NSA, CIA, FBI) can secretly get into your PC.
Afterall, this is our only way bouycoting proprietry (ahem) OSes....
Regards,
Thomas Adam
===== Thomas Adam
"The Linux Weekend Mechanic" -- www.linuxgazette.com
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