On Mon, 29 Jul 2002 14:25:37 -0400 (EDT), you wrote:

Congressman Wants to Let Entertainment Industry Get Into Your Computer

Rep. Howard L. Berman, D-Calif., formally proposed legislation that would give the industry unprecedented new authority to secretly hack into consumers' computers or knock them off-line entirely if they are caught downloading copyrighted material.

I've been reading things like this for a while but I wonder how practical such an attack would be. They won't be able to hack into computers with reasonable firewalls and while they might try DOS attacks, upstream connectivity suppliers might object. Under current P2P software they may be able to do a little hacking but the opposition will rewrite the software to block. DOS attacks and phony file uploads can be defeated with digital signatures and reputation systems (including third party certification). Another problem -- Napster had 55 million customers. That's a lot of people to attack. I don't think Hollywood has the troops.

I like this scenario: Adam places his copyrighted content on his web site. His friend, Eve, violates his copyright and places Adam's copyrighted content on her site. Hollywood downloads the copyright-infringing content from Eve's site. Eve confesses that Hollywood did so, in a good faith effort to repent from her copyright infringement. Now Adam hacks Hollywood, as authorized by the proposed law. Lawsuits all around.