SSSCA = Digital Rectal Thermometer Security Act ?

[Ray Dillinger]

On Mon, 10 Sep 2001, Ian BROWN wrote:

>Titles I and II of the draft are a truly bizarre mix. I provides the horrible 
>DMCA-on-crack that has mostly been discussed so far; but II is all 
>sweetness and light on encouraging the development of security systems and 
>training of personnel, including the appropriation of $135m annually by 2006 for 
>infosec R&D and training. Trying buy off certain industry and university sectors? 
>Somehow I think several magnitudes more pork would be required ;)


You can also read title II as creating a "guild" of people who are 
allowed to know this stuff or practice it.  I don't like that idea, 
myself.  I think that any time you have a class of people who are 
the only ones allowed to make a living on certain information, you 
wind up in a situation where there is an effective prohibition on 
anyone else *knowing* the information. And, let's face it, if knowing 
how to program becomes a guilded profession, we're going to lose about 
90% of our programming talent -- 'cause the really good ones are doing 
stuff a long time before they get actually trained.  If they're not 
allowed to mess with computers when they're fifteen and manic, and if 
they're not allowed to get over, around, and all through the system 
software the way they do, they'll never develop the interest and 
become CS majors and then the really good programmers they become 
now. 

Reading title I as outlawing general-purpose computers, title II 
appears to outlaw members of the general non-guilded public knowing 
how to program them.  

				Bear




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