"Coming soon to a computer near you -- Hollywood Hackers.
Watch as they rifle through your files, dismantle your network, and delete all those songs and movies you can't prove have a legal right to exist on your hard drive. Hope the special effects don't include the accidental destruction of your data when your computer becomes a stunt double in Hollywood's latest blockbuster attempt to protect its copyrighted material.
"California Congressman Howard Berman introduced his "Peer-to-Peer Piracy Prevention" Act in the House of Representatives Thursday. If the bill (PDF) passes, copyright owners could -- at least conceptually -- employ a variety of technological tools to prevent the illegal distribution of their copyrighted works over a P2P network such as Kazaa or LimeWire.
Security experts said the bill's wording is too vague and wonder exactly what sort of "technological tools" will be permitted. They also fear that approval of the bill could result in a multitude of clumsy and ill-conceived "hack" attacks that could have widespread, system-damaging effects on both file traders and those who have never downloaded a single song from a file-trading server.
Better yet it's pretty easy to obtain an ip address over the Gnutella network why not have the RIAA directly report it to the abusers ISP? Apparently this isn't good enough for the music industry so Berman's "Wild West" bill is what the music industry has in mind.
If one looked at the consequences of such a bill one might shoot it down right away, consider for a moment that you're an internet user, you're trading files on kazaa and boom you're hacked, you have no system, it's all gone. If that was me I'd be pissed off and I'd want revenge, I'd learn the dark trade of the black hat and protect myself so it never happened again. And if another attempt was made, I'd be sure to retaliate and take down what ever system, systems, network, or group of people from which the attack originated. If this bill is based it will start a small war.
Original Story from Wired.com writen by Michelle Delio
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