Do _you_ know about UCITA?

[happyhamster]

Well, you should, because it already passed in Virginia, with other states to follow, and soon may govern your use of software.

In short, The Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA) aims to regulate electronic commerce and use of software in general. The bad part is, it heavily favors software vendors' rights at the expense of consumer's. It has many parts that sound outright ridiculous to those familiar with computers. For example, it completely prohibits ANY "unauthorized" benchmarking(stupid? they thought no), any reverse engeneering(got data in that broken database? too bad, you can't even try to restore'em), and transfer of ownership(don't need that Word any more? put it in closet, but dare not sell it to your neighbor). One of the most disturbing parts allows vendors to ""electronically reposess their property" by remotely acceessing your computer without permission and disabling it without any court order, just at their sole discretion.

I'm not going to rant any more, I'll just provide some links for you to read more, if interested.

"What is UCITA?" http://archive.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?/features/990531ucita1.htm

"List of the top dozen issues opponents of UCITA are concerned about" http://archive.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?/features/990531ucita3.htm

"Virginia House passes UCITA bill" http://www.infoworld.com/articles/ec/xml/00/02/14/000214ecucita.xml

"States Weigh New Rules for E-Commerce" http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/2000-02/13/090r-021300-idx.html

Oops, didn't notice the other ucita thread... sorry...

[This message has been edited by happyhamster (edited 02-15-2000).]

[Dominus]

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

This is important people.

Read and be enlightened on how your world will change.

Because if the US does something, then my native Canada will have to as well just to stay in the loop.



[This message has been edited by Dominus (edited 02-15-2000).]

[Vincent22]

Make some noise now and be effective.
Let's not take this lying down or fear a label of a reactionary.

Even as I type this post, double-click.(probably a cover for Echelon), is bombarding my ports. What do I do? I send their cookies back to them with a note saying "this user most probably will expire before this cookie... so I am bequeathing it to its rightful owner". I'll bet hey just hate that http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif
Fight back

[socalgal]

Thank You, HappyHampster! This needs to get out again.

Yes, Dominus, we were fired up then. But we need to spearhead a renewed attack on this, or life as we know it will change, and not for the better.

Funny (not) that Gail Hillebrand never replied to any of my subsequent emails after the first, which I posted in one of those threads Dominus provided above.

I urge everyone to read - carefully - happyhamster's and Dominus' links. This law will affect everyone of us here.

I also urge that letters and emails, and lots of them, be written to the Attorney General of your state. If we don't stop UCITA...

Vincent22 - Have you tried disabling cookies in your browser?

[This message has been edited by socalgal (edited 02-15-2000).]

[Chef Mark]

No need to be sorry HappyHamster, this is a very important issue that deserves tremendous publicity to motivate those that would not ordinarily participate in dialogue with their elected (or appointed) representatives. The software industry is pushing this through with millions and millions of $ of campaign support at the federal and state level. Without grassroots level outcry from groups such as the members of SysOpt.com this will become a steamroller that no one will be able to stop.

As SoCalGal posted, she sent emails that were never answered. Well if enough of us continue to pursue this and email our representatives then maybe they will start to take notice that there are people opposed to UCITA.

What is needed is a draft of a letter that can be easily edited to add your own personal information which can then be sent on to the appropriate parties. Just need to stop reading and responding to boards long enough to write it myself <G>.

[Chef Mark]

My apologies to the group. This really is a serious issue that deserves a response from us. My wife would throttle me if she found out that I volunteered to start another letter writing campaign. This last one I started lasted almost 10 months before our state attorney general bothered to reply to our requests for assistance.

I don't have the time to coordinate a campaign of this nature, but would be willing to play a supporting role if someone wants to take the lead. We could probably accomplish a considerable amount with only 4 or 5 members working in concert with one another.

Any opinions?

[Dominus]

Here's some stuff on UCITA I posted back in the days when I was a Junior.

Part 1 (http://www.sysopt.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/001217.html)

Part 2 (http://www.sysopt.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/001240.html)

It's good reading, but many people didn't think it would come to pass back then.

Will you be eating your hats with, or without mustard?

~EDIT: tweaked my UBB-fu

[This message has been edited by Dominus (edited 02-15-2000).]

[UncaDanno]

Anybody want a look at the "software repossession" that Dominus referred to?

From what I've been reading about Quickbooks, it is set up to repossess itself! Unless you connect to their website periodically and "download the latest tax factors", QB will disable itself.

Problem is, a lot of people report tons of OUTGOING traffic during the download. And the makers of QB refuse to tell what they are uploading. "That's proprietary information."

[Dominus]

Another recent UCITA stoty from Slashdot.org (http://www.slashdot.org).

http://slashdot.org/features/00/02/17/0038235.shtml

Please don't allow this threadto die that easily. Without your support and involvement, the battle against UCITA will be lost, and more of your precious few freedoms will be lost!

If you tolerate this, then your children will be next!

[CMonster]

Well I for one am XCITA bout UCITA, I think it's great! - now all the people who have been looking down the nose at software piracy will finally see the realization of their dream - that all those software companies will finally be paid for their incredible, outstanding, priceless contribution to our society... er ahh cough! hack.. uhemm! hooccck..tooey!

Now the line will be drawn, the sides will clearly polarize - this may give birth to a revival of that rebel spirit - liberty!!

Long Live the underground! er ah minus all that -porn...

Long live Linux!

[cyphen]

they are naive if they think this will stop software piracy. Software crackers will simply disable this portion of the software as well. The people who suffer are the honest people. Dishonest companies will legally be allowed to indiscriminately access your computer? Sorry, I'm not for that. Talk about a security breach!! Imagine just the simplest of annoyances: they download your email list and sell it, so all of a sudden you and your friends get loads of junk email. Or they snoop through your personal documents, look at your personal financial records.

Maybe we should email software companies that are signing on to the whole thing and let them know that there's no way we're gonna buy software that gives them ANY access to our personal computers. That's like letting the government put a camera in your house and watch you 24/7. I'll pass, thank you very much.

[Chef Mark]

One more recent article on UCITA:

http://www.computerworld.com/home/print.nsf/CWFlash/000217ED52

As a famous person once said, "Give me liberty or give me Linux."

~edit - need to go back to typing class.

[This message has been edited by Chef Mark (edited 02-17-2000).]

[U-96]

more to the point, if a friendly hacker can disable the self-destruct feature, there's sure as hell a good chance that a criminal one will work out how to activate it...


run portscan -x -f +killWin2000.exe


imagine trying it with a range of IPs...
oops there goes the OS of all cable AOL users. Maybe it's not such a bad thing after all... http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

U-96

PS Anyone have the feeling this code is ALREADY in Win2000, in anticipation of UCITA being passed?


[This message has been edited by U-96 (edited 02-17-2000).]

[CMonster]

Yes! I believe that Win2K and Win Millenium already have these back doors.