From: Lincoln Rutledge (lrutledgefairfield.lib.oh.us)
Date: Tue Apr 01 2003 - 02:31:28 CST

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Marcus Watts wrote:
> Various people wrote claiming that Michigan has a law that outlaws
> VPNs. Before people go all alarmist about this, I think they should
> go read the actual law in question here:
>
> http://www.michiganlegislature.org/mileg.asp?page=getObject&objName=mcl-750-540c-amended
>
> There's nothing in here about IPsec. There is some stupid stuff here
> about attempting to illegally decrypt stuff. Probably that's intended
> to cover cable de-scramblers. Conceivably it could cover attempts to
> break WEP - if you're going to get upset about it, at least get upset
> over the right bad part.
>
> There is stuff here about "concealing" ones origin. What exactly that
> means is up to the courts - there's no point in reading more into the
> law than that. I think the text was written to give law enforcement
> more teeth with which to pursue people such as Ralsky. VPNs and NATs
> could simply be regarded as mechanisms to handle routing issues and
> scarce IP address issues -- both legitimate and nothing to do with
> concealment at all. I don't know of anything that requires one to
> *identify* one's point of origin per se -- so address mapping in itself
> can't be an issue. It's still badly worded, and there's a chance the
> court decision could be too broadly interpreted with bad results.
>
> For those who are curious; Michigan has term limits. A lot of them
> expired last year -- so something like 2/3rds of the legislature are
> brand new at it. Michigan also has a strong telecommuniations lobby --
> so the text of this law was probably intended to favour Ameritech and
> Comcast. You can thank the Republicans for term limits.
>
> Personally, in the wake of 9/11, I'm amazed that there hasn't
> been more bad stuff passed that affects telecommunications.
>
> Very little of this (except perhaps the wep stuff) has anything to
> do with OpenBSD.
>
> -Marcus Watts
>
>

Ah, a voice of reason :) I have the same feeling about it that you do,
unlike the slashdot Chicken Littles...

The only part that gives me the creeps is that I remember last year some
Michigan detective started arresting cable modem uncappers and taking
all of their equipment as if they were drug dealers. It was chilling.
I remember because I wrote to the local newspaper. I have to admit that
I didn't follow up to hear the outcome.

So while total paranoia is probably not in order, there may be some
cause for concern.

Unfortunately I think it is another case where the commercial lobby is
squashing individual rights to squeeze those profit margins a little wider.

Working in the library world, I am constantly (sadly) barraged with info
along these lines...

--
Lincoln Rutledge
Information Technology Manager
Fairfield County District Library
www.fairfield.lib.oh.us

Open Source Automation Software - oss4lib.org

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