Effective this past March 31, it is illegal in the state of Michigan to possess any device (defined in the law to include software “devices”) that can hide the origin or destination of a digital transmission:
This is just wrong in so many ways, but the worst of it is that such concealment is exactly what goes on in any network firewall and in the NAT services that allow you to hook a local network up to the internet through a single portal. So possession of any NAT software is now illegal in Michigan.
And, oh yes, NAT is a built-in component of Microsoft Windows 98/2000/XP, of most Linux distributions, etc. :smack:
Of course, the law above actually says you can possess that software if you don’t intend to use the offensive features. Unfortunately, a separate amendment states that simple posession of such software establishes a “rebuttable presumption” that you knowingly intended to use that software and that you, further, knowingly intended to use it to defraud.
But, not to pick unfairly on the Michigan state legislature, this site notes that similar laws are pending in quite a few states.
So, Michigan Dopers, what am I bid for this slightly used copy of Windows 3.1?
Since I’d bet that most of the state of Michigan’s government infrastructure is networked using NAT or firewall technology in (hopefully) obvious and necessary ways, it seems like a stupid move to include them in the scope of the law.
It will definitely harm government and business entities more that the private individual if used to prosecute common networking methods. Hopefully we’ll see a clarification through a judicial ruling sometime soon.
This law definitely seems aimed at “cable theft” more than anything, or possible tampering with cellular signals, or activities that attempt to make an unauthorized connection to wireless LAN’s (such as wardriving/chalking).
However, in the strictest technical sense, it does make me uneasy. Making a lot of people criminals through overbroad legislation of the penal code seems like a handy way to hold a club over everyone’s heads…
What about caller ID? If I call the phone company and ask them to block my phone number from appearing on someones caller ID, am I breaking the law? Here in MD the call would appear on caller ID as ‘Private Caller’ or ‘Unknown Caller.’
This is why it’s so goddamned frustrating to be a hacker in this world: You know that people are doing stupid things, passing stupid laws, and so on, and it’s painfully obvious how to fix it, but they don’t want to know about it. They either ignore you as a nerd, a kind of Holy Fool to be nodded at and talked down to, or class you with crackers and other criminals and actively persecute you.
Microsoft’s policy of `Don’t ask, don’t tell, and if you find anything out, we’ll sue’ regarding security is another huge obstacle.
In the several states where almost identically worded legislation is being considered, legislators have been provided with supporting documents form the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America).
So, yeah, if someone at Microsoft were to decide that this legislation could cost them $$ either in lost sales or by requiring the rewriting of existing software, we could all hope to be treated to the intriguing prospect of a lawyer/lobbyist battle between MS and the MPAA. Not likely to happen, but we could hope…
My own take on this is that it’s an example of a common way for people writing legislation to take the easy way out - by banning a tool instead of the actions that could be committed using that tool. The federal Digital Millenium Copyright Act is another example, but this kind of legislative cheap shot has a long history. Isn’t “posession of burglary tools” illegal in many jurisdictions? But most “burglary tools” would be legitimate tools if found, say, in the possession of a professional locksmith.
Often these kinds of laws are used to jack up the penalties on an already-illegal act. Burglary is illegal, but you get a longer sentence for doing it with forbidden tools.
Portions of the Michigan law contain language that indicates they were intended the same way - making it illegal to use certain technology to steal telecommunications services. Such theft would already be illegal. This just adds to the penalties. But that language is not used consistently, and is not used in the portion i cited in the original post.
