SecurityFocus.com has an article explaining that new so-called “Super-DMCA” laws (more restrictive versions of the federal Digital Millenium Copyright Act) stifle the legitimate research of Ph.D. students in Computer Science. Niels Provos is a graduate student in Michigan who studies steganography (techniques for concealing messages) and HoneyPots (a technique for detecting mailicious intruders). He’s worried by Michigan’s recent passage of such a Super-DMCA law. So, in an attempt to protect himself from criminal charges he has moved all of his web pages to the Netherlands and set up a questionaire that tries to discern if you are from a country like the U.S. that would make it illegal to learn about his research. Ed Felten, a Professor at Princeton, has raised the alarm about these laws on his Freedom to Tinker blog. You can write your state representatives and support the EFF if these MPAA-written laws sound ridiculous to you. The craziest thing about the laws is that they are so vague that they could actually outlaw your running a firewall to protect yourself from intruders. Almost every company on the planet runs a firewall and in seven states they may now be breaking the law. Nutty.
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