Re: Michigan First With A Law That Could Outlaw VPNs

[Michael Teter <mt_bsd_(_at_)_yahoo_(_dot_)_com>]

The real problem with laws like these is they are
overly broad.  That leaves one more open to legal
action.

Then one has to defend themselves, at some expense.

The goal should be to write laws which are effective
in stopping most criminals while generating few false
positives.

The broader the law, the more innocent people will end
up defending themselves.  Carried to the extreme,
people simply quit doing anything that could be
construed as "illegal" under the overly broad law.

MT


--- Marcus Watts <mdw_(_at_)_umich_(_dot_)_edu> 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
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