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Mailing Lists: openbsd.org > misc > 03 > 0310279.html (Request Expert openbsd.org Support)

Re: Michigan First With A Law That Could Outlaw VPNs

From: Nick Holland <nick(at)holland-consulting.net>
Date: Mon Mar 31 2003 - 20:29:26 EST

anonymous wrote:
>
> I care. Very much.
> And you should, too.
> It has everything to do with OpenBSD.
> Politics matters. Very much.

Talking about it here won't change much, though.

I live in Michigan. I work with some lawyers. One of them is darned good at what I do (that's scary, fortunately, law pays better than geeking, and he likes law more than geeking, so I think I'm safe 8-). He's got NAT, he understands NAT, and he likes OpenBSD. So, after reading the law and thinking people might be blowing this all out of proportion, I forwarded him a link to the actual law, and summed up a few of the fear-monger arguments for him.

His statement was that the intent of the law is not to eliminate NAT in general, and no prosecutor would use it that way, if they even understood NAT. However, if you are giving your next door neighbor Internet service, you might be in trouble if caught.

Fact is, there are a lot of stupid laws ("fortune -m law" for some poorly referenced examples) or laws which could be interepreted in abusive ways. A bit of (probably poorly researched) lore is that the average driver commits a ticketable offense every 20 seconds. If you are doing something you shouldn't be doing, you may be in even more trouble now. If you are not causing problems, there are much better things to worry about.

That is not saying this is the way things should be, but it is the way things are all over the world. Laws themselves are a realization that things are not the way they should be.

Nick. 

-- 
http://www.holland-consulting.net
Received on Mon Mar 31 20:42:15 2003
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