Washington Post: Senator Hatch Favors Destroying Computers
WASHINGTON POST
Hatch Takes Aim at Illegal Downloading
By TED BRIDIS
The Associated Press
Tuesday, June 17, 2003; 5:22 PM
WASHINGTON - The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Tuesday he favors developing new technology to remotely destroy the computers of people who illegally download music from the Internet.
The surprise remarks by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, during a hearing on copyright abuses represent a dramatic escalation in the frustrating battle by industry executives and lawmakers in Washington against illegal music downloads.
During a discussion on methods to frustrate computer users who illegally exchange music and movie files over the Internet, Hatch asked technology executives about ways to damage computers involved in such file trading. Legal experts have said any such attack would violate federal anti-hacking laws.
"No one is interested in destroying anyone's computer," replied Randy Saaf of MediaDefender Inc., a secretive Los Angeles company that builds technology to disrupt music downloads. One technique deliberately downloads pirated material very slowly so other users can't.
"I'm interested," Hatch interrupted. He said damaging someone's computer "may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights."
The senator acknowledged Congress would have to enact an exemption for copyright owners from liability for damaging computers. He endorsed technology that would twice warn a computer user about illegal online behavior, "then destroy their computer."
"If we can find some way to do this without destroying their machines, we'd be interested in hearing about that," Hatch said. "If that's the only way, then I'm all for destroying their machines. If you have a few hundred thousand of those, I think people would realize" the seriousness of their actions, he said.
"There's no excuse for anyone violating copyright laws," Hatch said.
Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., who has been active in copyright debates in Washington, urged Hatch to reconsider. Boucher described Hatch's role as chairman of the Judiciary Committee as "a very important position, so when Senator Hatch indicates his views with regard to a particular subject, we all take those views very seriously."
Some legal experts suggested Hatch's provocative remarks were more likely intended to compel technology and music executives to work faster toward ways to protect copyrights online than to signal forthcoming legislation.
"It's just the frustration of those who are looking at enforcing laws that are proving very hard to enforce," said Orin Kerr, a former Justice Department cybercrimes prosecutor and associate professor at George Washington University law school.
The entertainment industry has gradually escalated its fight against Internet file-traders, targeting the most egregious pirates with civil lawsuits. The Recording Industry Association of America recently won a federal court decision making it significantly easier to identify and track consumers - even those hiding behind aliases - using popular Internet file-sharing software.
Kerr predicted it was "extremely unlikely" for Congress to approve a hacking exemption for copyright owners, partly because of risks of collateral damage when innocent users might be wrongly targeted.
"It wouldn't work," Kerr said. "There's no way of limiting the damage."
Last year, Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., ignited a firestorm across the Internet over a proposal to give the entertainment industry new powers to disrupt downloads of pirated music and movies. It would have lifted civil and criminal penalties against entertainment companies for disabling, diverting or blocking the trading of pirated songs and movies on the Internet.
But Berman, ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary panel on the Internet and intellectual property, always has maintained that his proposal wouldn't permit hacker-style attacks by the industry on Internet users.
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On the Net: Sen. Hatch: http://hatch.senate.gov
# 1 Re: Washington Post: Senator Hatch Favors Destroying Computers
See http://www.ipodlounge.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2870 also.
# 2 Re: Washington Post: Senator Hatch Favors Destroying Computers
What makes that even funnier is that his webmaster uses pirated software. His Senate website also links directly to porn (www [dot] myutahsearch [dot] com). Rather funny stuff.
"Here's my question...what about all the other senators? I wonder who does his web hosting? It's on senate.gov, and while the server may be virtual, it's possible that every other sentaor has his website hosted on the same box. So, Orrin's web designer [****]s up, and every senator gets his website destroyed. Great plan, Orrin.
"I'm the sysadmin for a university research lab. We've got a few servers for home directories, and about 50 users. I can't keep track of every piece of copyrighted material somebody might copy and put on my server. So, because one user screws up and downloads 'Baby Got Back' without sending the requisite $0.45 to whatever homeless shelter Sir Mixalot hangs his hat at these days, and 50 graduate students lose their theses. GREAT PLAN ORRIN."
Nice, insightful quote from someone on Slashdot.
# 3 Re: Washington Post: Senator Hatch Favors Destroying Computers
This senator Orrin is a complete moron...its ridiculous, its like saying anyone that runs a red light will get chased down by the police on the spot and get their winshields bashed it...what the hell? I bet he doesn't even know what a computer is...I hate political proposals such as these that just pure nonsense...
# 4 Re: Washington Post: Senator Hatch Favors Destroying Computers
Actually, it's more like saying that their engines will be melted down and made into a pile of slag. I could deal with my windsheild being broken because they don't cost much to replace compared to the engine. Similarly, the hard drive doesn't take much time or money to replace compared to the motherboard. Really my opinion on this issue depends a bit on what he plans to destroy. If he just wants to wipe out my data, then I'll switch to Linux or something similar and sue any company that tries to enter my system with malicious intent. If he wants to make my computer physicaly inoperable, then I'll build a hoarde of dirt cheap boxes, use them to copy MP3s (completely legal as long as you own the original and don't give them to anybody), and then sue anyone that damages one. Destruction of property laws still apply to big corporations last I heard.
I can just see him proposing that we build C4 into every simgle computer motherboard made from now on so that if the computer is used to pirate (Arrr, matey!) music, it will explode like a fragmentation grenade shooting metal shrapnel into the user's body.
# 5 Re: Washington Post: Senator Hatch Favors Destroying Computers
Originally posted by Zimmerman
<snip!>
I can just see him proposing that we build C4 into every simgle computer motherboard made from now on so that if the computer is used to pirate (Arrr, matey!) music, it will explode like a fragmentation grenade shooting metal shrapnel into the user's body.
<snip!>
OMG, ROFLMAO!! :D :D :D
c.c.r. at 2007-11-15 17:35:29 >
# 6 Re: Washington Post: Senator Hatch Favors Destroying Computers
Few questions, first, what makes this guy think that this even makes sense? There currently exists NO software that will allow a computer to be "destroyed" with the exception of a boot sector virus, which is easily over come using a bios boot disk.
Two, if it were a hardware solution, doesnt he think that as soon as its discovered by the gen pub, it would be removed? And what about the companies that sold this item, would they not get annihilated by public opinion? And what stops malfunction?
Lastly, hacking successfully is very difficult these days. Anyone running an up to date linux box could be absolutely immune, and noone would ever use the popular os' ever again...
Wait a minute!!! This guy's got something!! Hack every windows user who may/has the ability to/ has ever even thought about sharing music, so that their system gets destroyed!! Then, everyone will convert to linux, and it will once again be a happy world :)
# 7 Re: Washington Post: Senator Hatch Favors Destroying Computers
There are actually a few viruses that can overwrite your BIOS, rendering your motherboard useless. They aren't very common and they mostly affect older motherboards, but they do exist.
It is also possible for a virus to destroy a computer's FAT or whatever it uses to keep track of files. You can overdrive lots of hardware such that it will fail by altering BIOS settings, but for the most part, what he is talking about will have to be implemented in Pd, and therefore, it will be controlled by Microsoft.
Pd is intended to prevent any sort of copying (bye, bye, Fair Use), and it actually works very well. It has a secure audio path, secure threads, secure everything except hardware outside of the box. It essentially makes it impossible to play any sort of content on any non-authorized machine without ripping it by playing it on an approved box and reading the stream on a non-Pd-infected box. Therefore, Joe Sixpack who just wants to play DVDs and The Sims on his computer will be perfectly happy using a mainstream OS and the associated hardware which will allow remote destruction of his computer. When Joe's kids copy a file that is named ?School - Mr. Usher - Lecture One (1:46).MP3?, his computer will see ?Usher? and ?MP3?, destroy itself, and I can almost guarantee that his kids will take the blame.
The funny thing is that there is next to nothing preventing a virus from exploiting the self-destruct "feature" of the hardware and causing trillions in dammage overnight.
A TCPA chip will also be necessary to actually run Pd securely, but that doesn't make the TCPA by itself bad. In fact, I would pay quite a bit of money to get a TCPA motherboard along with a set of smart cards like those used by Lockheed/Martin on their laptops.
"Hacking successfully is very difficult these days"? I hack all the time. I assume that you mean cracking. Well, tell that to Slammer. It was a 384 BYTE (IIRC) virus that brought the Internet to its knees less than half an hour after it was first detected.
# 8 Re: Washington Post: Senator Hatch Favors Destroying Computers
Zimmerman, there are bios viruses, but most every motherboard these days have fail safes, and there are plenty of repair programs to fix the bios without it hurting anything on your computer. I know that many manufacturers these days make overdriving the chips and stuff impossible through the bios.
What i mean by actual hacking is getting into individual computers. Yes, the Slammer virus earlier this year was not really hacking, just a virus. Secured computers are almost impossible to get into, and in fact, the government (or any controlling body) would just make themselves targets by attempting to hack others.
What i meant by "Hacking Successfully is very difficult these days" includes both the newest firewalls, as well as tracking software. It is 95% impossible to take control of a persons computer without them finding out everything they want about your computer. Earlier this year, my father's company found a hacker that was getting in daily to steal info off their servers, so, they waited till he got into the server (basically giving a free line both ways), and formated his HD(through boot.ini mods). They also reported him to the police using both info they found, as well as ip addy's. This guy had been hacking for years, and was caught easily.
If by "hacking all the time" you mean that you program, get with reality, the public refers to cracking these days as hacking, so I call it that as not to confuse people.
# 9 Re: Washington Post: Senator Hatch Favors Destroying Computers
My motherboard was manufactured about two years ago, and if I wanted to, I could drive my processor at a high enough voltage to physically burn it using nothing but settings in my BIOS. I can do the same with my RAM. I haven't yet found a way to ruin my AGP card or slot or any of my PCI cards or slots, but I can destroy several of the on-board peripherals if I'm careless while changing settings. And no, I'm not going to prove it because I really don't feel like damaging my computer.
Viruses are essentially an automated form of cracking. All that they do is crack into someone's system and do something once inside. I've heard of viruses that can toast your FAT, remove critical files, send files to the originator, open remote exploits to allow the computer to be used in DDoS attacks, or even patch the hole that they came in through. Tell me how that isn't cracking? Is it because they usually use just one exploit? There are quite a few viruses that I've heard about that use more than one just in case your system is patched.
Even the newest firewalls don't defend you if you aren't careful. Avoiding crackers requires picking secure software to put on the network, and that secure software is not Windows. Most crackers would avoid an OpenBSD (only one remote hole in the default install in over six years) box running the most secure version of Apache with several firewalls (both hardware and software) and a ton of IP rules, but if you enable even one service with a hole in it, they can exploit it. There is no real way to secure a web server without making it very hard to use for anything else.
Perhaps that cracker was just lazy or inept. I know several people who could crack into almost any non-governmental system and not leave a trace unless a sysadmin caught them in the act, and a bit of Social Engineering can prevent that little problem.
By hacking all the time, I mean all sorts of things. Programming is one of them, but hacking can mean quite a bit more than that. A good hack is almost anything that is particularly ingenious or clever, even some things that have nothing to do with computers can be considered hacks.
I use hacking and cracking the way I do because those are the correct definitions.
Anyway, back on topic, if various hardware "features" such as chips that would allow remote destruction of the computer became mandatory on all motherboards sold in the US after, say, January 12th, 2004, then the government (or more accurately, copyright holders) would he able to access your computer and delete files on it without any sort of restriction whatsoever. I don't see how the public could do anything about it, either. Joe Sixpack probably wouldn't care because he has "nothing to hide". I would care because I don't like the thought of a Thought Police on my computer monitoring anything I do on it. I really don't see how they could legally do anything, but the law has never stopped the RIAA before. They can't tell remotely if I have a license for whatever they find, so they might decide that my perfectly legal copy of Mathematica was pirated (Arrr, matey!) and destroy my computer because of it.
If this became reality, I wonder how long it would take for someone to find an exploit and destroy millions of computers with a virus that does nothing other than name a file in a hidden directory "Rush - Tom Sawyer.mp3" or some other random artist/song combination and alert the owner. Sure someone would figure it out eventually, but it wouldn't exactly be possible to report it because your computer would be useless, so there would be no way to analyze the virus or even prove that it exists as long as it didn't do anything else that would reveal it.
Wow, that was a long post.
