San Jose Mercury News, Calif., Dan Gillmor Column

Posted Jul 30, 2002 4:58 UTC (Tue) by rmdirms (guest, #2659) [Link]

POISON your own machine. Set up ARP cache-poisoning servers. It should be configured to attack, er, um route to a bit bucked, ONLY people not on your list of welcomed people.

Alternatively, set your machine to issue a warning to all connectors that ALL prior understandings are herenow nullified and that ANY attempts to connect to, transfer from, or scan your machine will be logged. All packets will be converted to unintelligible bytes or turned back onto the unauthorized probing source which will then be contaminated.

NO non-governmental agency should be probing your machine. If any law is passed, it will be understood to be at the behest of companies which pretty royally screw most of the artists anyway. It is TIME that with all this technology that artists get off their butts and band together to form a new venue. However, I could see the music industry gearing up for EVERY city and TicketMaster-connected venue and having the police refuse to issue performance permits for those trying to play outside the system.

THIS is why Palladium and other software are dangerous. We soo will be at the day where ALL people wishing to send e-traffic have to have a hollywood or government (hence hollywood or CIA/NSA)-approved authenticator, which itself will head your sent traffic. Such traffic will end up in a bit sniffer and and byte sniffer and checked at the content level to make sure there are no Ideas, thoughts, or other communications (seditious to hollywierd or to fhe government) and then if you are trying to sell songs, decry a dirty politician, or give clues about writing your own music and collaborating with non-music industry controllers, you get the swift boot up the butt.

People years ago told me I was crazy, thinking too hard and such. Well, now I bet some of them aren't laughing so hard about me now.

But here's the gist of it: NOBODY has any business probing your machine. If you don't offer up any ports and don't concurrently advertise that people may freely connect, then they should presume permission is DENIED. If they can TECHNICALLY connect, browse, and send to or take from your machine, your technical incompetence is NOT a permissive factor for their continued TRESPASS. However, if you HONEYPOT your computers or your network, and you warn those attempting to connect, then SCREWEM if they get malicious.

If musicians and independent film makers control their own distribution, then they might, just MIGHT have a more sympathetic listener/viewer base willing to pay them upfront. I myself can imagine myself asking reasonable enough micropayments or minimal charges that would not repel most people. Then, IIIIII get the profit, not some greedy corporation that loads itself to the gills with expensive attorneys, expensive, crafty accountants and fat execs who sit on their butts and don't really do MUCH to promote an artist. The Computer, the Internet, and the FREE WILL (with quality offerings by the creators of content or products) should be able to dictate terms, not be dictated to by the companies. I realize I am generalizing, but I think most artists are screwed because so many venues are either unionized or underhandedly connected to the music industry. Imagine why? Well, if you're a popular venue and have been told not to allow a certain group any playtime, and you give it, you can be SURE that your venue won't be booking any big name or other acts.You'd run dry, be knee-capped, or sued out of the business, only to see your venue run by some slickster who'll behead or sell his mother for a buck.

Now, the only place left for free-style/self-promoting artists is the Internet. And THAT is going to be so commercialized that maybe there'll even be "Sales and Content" laws forcing you to do business with a "Channel Partner" of the govenrment bought and subsumed by mega corporations.

Do I sound Anti-Capitalist? I am not : I am just ANTI-GREED. What the market will bear has been pushed to the LIMITS. Artist rights have been trounced, and the Enrons, Qwests and others are only the tip of the greed-berg. A whole lot of studio bottom-feeders are out there getting minimal negative light.

Regards...

David Syes

Posted Jul 30, 2002 8:39 UTC (Tue) by beejaybee (guest, #1581) [Link]

Another real problem with "legalised hacking" is that it would severely complicate attempts to trace "illegal hackers". I think it might not be a Bad Idea to promote the idea of reporting _every_ attempted intrusion to the FBI - at present, I'm reasonably happy to chase down intrusion attempts myself, but if some legal entity is involved then I'm damned if I see why I should waste my time sorting intrusion attempts into "legal" and "illegal".

If the cost to the FBI of tracing every attempted intrusion on every system worldwide was factored into the discussion of the proposed bill, I think some of the people in Congress might have second thoughts.

Problem for me is I'm not a US citizen, and not domiciled in the US. Please, those of you that are, write your Senator & House Representatives telling them that the proposed bill (and many others which have been in the news recently) is ridiculously overbearing even if it isn't anticonstitutional.

Posted Jul 30, 2002 23:04 UTC (Tue) by petegn (guest, #847) [Link]

I also am not a US citizen in fact a UK citezen but lets face it that is getting almost as bad now , The poisening idea i like that have had a few people poking about the machine recently not getting far mind ..;-).

How about code red or other similar worms as an return payload ought to make em sweat a bit ..

Pete .