Sony and Robots...shows how crazy the "anti-hacking" regime has become

[Declan McCullagh]

On Wed, Nov 07, 2001 at 12:08:44PM -0800, Tim May wrote:
> (* I wonder if anonymous remailers will someday be classed as 
> "circumvention devices"? We debated this years ago, wondering whether 
> the laws against unauthorized (!) possession of lock-picking tools and 
> "burglar tools" could be used to de facto illegalize remailers.)

Well, it would be trivial for a 'critter to write such a bill (less
trivial, though hardly impossible) to get Congress to enact it. It
could ban "electronic or computing devices that have as one of their
primary purposes the facilitation of circumvention of copyright."
Following that is a list of exceptions for general purpose PCs,
etc. Anonymous remailers would not, of course, make the list. This is
akin to the approach of Hollings' SSSCA.

Or just enact a flat ban on remailers without identity escrow.

I hosted a talk Monday with Ian Clarke, a very cypherpunkly type of 
fellow. We had a telecom lawyer show up and went through a brief 
how-to-shut-down Freenet thought experience. Especially after 
passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, it's sorta scary, at least for
nodes hosted in, shall we say, hostile territory.

-Declan