[NTLUG:Discuss] YIKES! Texas bill could render firewalls/rou ters illegal...

[jeremyb@univista.com]

 It appears that this bill could also make VPN connections illegal too....

-----Original Message-----
From: Kelledin
To: discuss at ntlug.org
Sent: 3/28/03 3:55 PM
Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] YIKES!  Texas bill could render firewalls/routers
illegal...

http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlo/78R/billtext/SB01116I.HTM

Some more information here:

http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/archives/000336.html

Aside from the privacy concerns involved, the most dangerous 
change is to 'SECTION 6.  Sections 31.14(a)(1)(A)':

    "A person commits an offense if the person intentionally or
    knowingly manufactures, assembles, imports into the state, 
    exports out of the state, distributes, advertises, sells, or 
    leases, or offers for sale or lease...a communication device 
    with an intent to...conceal from a communication service 
    provider, or from any lawful authority, the existence or 
    place of origin or destination of any communication"

Which, of course, is what firewalls and routers do; they conceal 
their end of NAT'ed communications from _everybody_.  Whoever 
proposed this bill doesn't seem to realize that there are 
perfectly legitimate uses for such a setup, and that the ability 
to run NAT is critical to the 'net--without it, we'd run out of 
available IPs very, very fast.

This is perhaps a bit off-topic, but I'd wager that many of us 
are running a Linux-based firewalling NAT box or a router.  That 
could suddenly become illegal if this bill was allowed to pass.

Alaska, Florida, Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, South 
Carolina, and Tennessee are also in danger of having similar 
restrictions imposed.

--
Kelledin
"If a server crashes in a server farm and no one pings it, does 
it still cost four figures to fix?"

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