wdr@security.UUCP (William D. Ricker) (08/07/84)
This note is not debating the SanFran clean-up, which was apparently actually a Microwave Distribution System being tapped. This discusses collection of evidence, beyond the "His antenna points at the satellite I share". It is also applicable to Cable's with scrambled channels. notes one previous article: > Any laws that regulate receivers *unavoidably* require the >violation of privacy and protections against search and seizure. >This is because receivers are *quiet*. They emit nothing, so to >find them, you have to go looking, and tear apart peoples' houses to >find their illicit circuitry. Or else, maybe, you have to use >informers. This stinks. Better to leave recievers unregulated. and another: >Photographic and electronic evidence would seem not to >hold up in court. To pick up your local oscillator, and have >a verifiable method of determining it was your antenna, and >you happened to be watching at that time, on that date, etc., >doesn't sound to good to me. I have been informed by a usually reliable source that some 'TV Rating' services use an electronics van driving through a neighborhood to determine who is watching what on TV. I am not sure whether this is to callibrate the reliability of diary keeppers, supplement diary usage, for over-night samplings, or a separage service. This eaves-dropping is quite possible, since TV receivers are *not* all that quiet. The heterodyne tuning and amplification circuits all use oscilators, etc., and there is much energy released in directing the beam. When you turn on the TV, *you* are broadcasting, too (with rather low power & S/N, admittedly). The only question of practicallity is the cost of equipment to do it sized for mobility. Whether such data would be admissable as evidence of theft of service is quite another matter. If unauthorized reception of broadcast material is no crime, then the "evidence" is legally collected but useless. On the other hand, if unauthorized reception of broadcast material is illegal, then non-statistical use of the Van collected data should be illegal search. the ol' Chicken and the egg. But a suitably devious legislative lobbyist should be able to draft legislation to permit the search while punishing the space pirate ;-). As has been pointed out, crypto is the solution -- those who want to broadcast proprietary material had better protect it. In general commerce it is hard to claim proprietary infringement without attempting to protect the information. Harassment shouldn't count! If they want to claim they have fulfilled their duty of protecting their claimed proprietary rights, they should show use of appropriate technology. If Tug-boat owners have a duty to install up to date radios (the case law; citation fails me), then shouldn't broadcasters et all have to do likewise? -- William Ricker wdr@mitre-bedford.ARPA (MIL) wdr@security.UUCP (UUCP) decvax!genrad!security!wdr (UUCP) {allegra,ihnp4,utzoo,philabs,uw-beaver}!linus!security!wdr (UUCP) Opinions are my own and not necessarily anyone elses. Likewise the "facts".
guest@hplabs.UUCP (HP Labs Guest/guest) (08/17/84)
1) The key issue here is whether someone granted a frequency band by the
FCC, can insist upon their broadcasts being completely private such that
no one that is not authorized by them cannot monitor the transmissions. The
argument of the MDS people is that section 605 of the comm. act of 1934
says that unauthorized persons cannot receive these signals for "benefit".
Whatever this means or whatever interpretation of this statement is
taken is a matter for the courts to decide.
2) I suppose the next step is for the PBS stations to start suing people
who watch their programming without subscribing!
3) I think the electromagnetic spectrum belongs to everyone just as does
the moon and the sky. It should be monitored by the public. If someone
expects to transmit "private communications" using this media, the burden
of security should rest with them.lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (08/23/84)
Simply saying "signals must be encrypted if they are to be considered protected by law" doesn't make much sense. HOW encrypted? Short of extremely expensive systems (some now in use, but generally far too expensive for homes) nearly any system could be cracked given enough time, which would force escalation to ever more expensive and complex systems. This would all have to be paid for by the subscribers, all to protect the "idea rights" of the transmissions from a bunch of people who feel "they" are better than everyone else and don't need to pay for what everyone else pays for. However, the bottom line is much more basic. In our society, we have laws to provide certain protections and penalties. If a burglar came through your house and stole your TV and was caught carrying it off, would the case be dismissed if you had not locked your house securely? If a thief takes your car because you left the keys inside, and is caught, does he get to keep the car because you (stupidly to be sure) left your keys in there? If you're mugged on the street, is a valid defense for the mugger in court that you didn't make an adequate effort to defend yourself? OF COURSE NOT. Of course, it would have been better in all these cases if the crooks didn't have such an easy time, but that doesn't change the fact that idea, property, and personal rights are protected by law in any case. The idea rights of the programming on cable and radio transmission systems are certainly worth the same protections as we would give any more "physical" items. It is silly to say that something cannot be protected simply because "you can't touch it." --Lauren--
ka@hou3c.UUCP (Kenneth Almquist) (08/28/84)
> In our society, we have > laws to provide certain protections and penalties. If a burglar > came through your house and stole your TV and was caught carrying > it off, would the case be dismissed if you had not locked your house > securely? I don't think that this (or any of the other examples given) are very accurate analogies with the protection of transmission rights. If the burglar enters your house and carries off your TV set, he is guilty of a crime. If you mail your TV set to the burglar, the burglar is not guilty of a crime. If you can show that the burglar agreed to pay you for the TV, then you have a civil suit. If you can show that you did not intend to mail the TV to the burglar, you may be able to get your TV back. But if you intentionally mailed the TV to the burglar, knowing that the burglar had made no agree- ment to pay for it, you have almost certainly lost your TV. To develop an even closer analogy, let's consider the case where you insist on throwing a newspaper on my front lawn every morning. I may be able to sue you for littering, but I can also pick up the paper and read it if I so desire. What I most likely cannot do legally is to reproduce the paper, because the copyright on it is still valid. This is very similar to the case in which you insist on broadcasting radio waves at my front lawn. The analogy is still not perfect because it is a lot easier to stop throwing newspapers onto my front lawn than to stop throwing radio waves at it. The point is that analogy with existing law does not support your position. If broadcasters claim that they have special needs which require the government to place new restrictions on what people can do in their own homes, it is clearly incumbent upon them to show that technological alternatives cannot be found. Kenneth Almquist
lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (08/28/84)
Since the government has already seen fit to declare that transmissions can be protected by legal remedies, the issue seems somewhat academic. The old 1934 Communications Act is only the starting point for current communications law--to understand the rest you must look at a multitude of (recent) legislation and court cases. If you understand that it is illegal but feel that you want to go ahead and break the law anyway, that's one thing. But there is little supporting evidence to claim that it's NOT illegal--given the current direction of court decisions and recently enacted legislation. To the extent that encryption systems degrade the final quality of the transmitted picture (and most do, to some extent) what we're doing is forcing the paying customers to put up with inferior quality simply to try "protect" against a bunch of spoilsports who want to get something for nothing. Doesn't seem quite fair, eh? But then the freeloaders have been part of human society since the beginning of time, and that can hardly be expected to change. Why is it that I suspect that the people who rip off the pay tv operations are much the same group that go around ripping off software by copying what isn't theirs? The bottom line is that these people are living under the conception that ownership of something isn't "real" unless you can touch it and can't easily copy it. A surprisingly obsolete attitude from people who are pretty much technically advanced over the mass of the population. --Lauren--