Re: EU plans decryption ban

On Mon, Mar 09, 1998 at 11:26:15PM +0000, Markus Kuhn wrote:
> After government attempts to ban unrestricted encryption, we are
> now facing a decryption ban
> 
> Industry lobbyist groups have managed to persuade the European
> Commission to introduce rather radical new legislation for protecting
> pay-TV broadcasters against unauthorized reception by consumers. Not
> only the commercial advertising and sale of pirate devices is to be
> prohibited (this has already been the case in a number of member
> countries and is perfectly acceptable), but also the private possession or
> use of clone decoders as well as any private exchange of information about
> the security properties of pay-TV encryption systems will become illegal
> and punishable under the planned EU conditional access directive. 
> 
	In the US there is not yet a ban on exchange of information
because of the potential first amendment issues, but there are (and have
been since the late 1980s)  felony level bans with $500,000 fines for
each incident  on the manufacture, assembly, modification, import,
export, sale and distribution of any device or equipment primarily of
assistance in the unauthorized decryption of satellite cable programming
or direct to home satellite.

	And unauthorized interception of radio signals including satellite
video transmissions that are scrambled or encrypted can be prosecuted
under current law as a felony.



-- 
	Dave Emery N1PRE,  die@die.com  DIE Consulting, Weston, Mass. 
PGP fingerprint = 2047/4D7B08D1 DE 6E E1 CC 1F 1D 96 E2  5D 27 BD B0 24 88 C3 18

On Mon, 9 Mar 1998, Dave Emery wrote:

> 	In the US there is not yet a ban on exchange of information
> because of the potential first amendment issues, but there are (and have
> been since the late 1980s)  felony level bans with $500,000 fines for
> each incident  on the manufacture, assembly, modification, import,
> export, sale and distribution of any device or equipment primarily of
> assistance in the unauthorized decryption of satellite cable programming
> or direct to home satellite.

There is a law in Pennsylvania that bans the distribution of "plans or
instructions" for devices or modifications of devices that can be used for
theft of services. Full text at:

http://moose.erie.net/~italo/sb0655p0687.html

Excerpt:

    10         (2)  sells, possesses, distributes, gives or otherwise
    11     transfers to another[,] or offers, promotes or advertises for
    12     sale [any instrument, apparatus, equipment or device
    13     described in paragraph (1) of this subsection,] any:
    14             (i)  unlawful telecommunication device, or plans or
    15         instructions for making or assembling the same, under
    16         circumstances evidencing an intent to use or employ such
    17         [instrument, apparatus, equipment or] unlawful
    18         telecommunication device, or to allow the same to be used
    19         or employed for a purpose described in paragraph (1) [of
    20         this subsection], or knowing or having reason to believe
    21         that the same is intended to be so used, or that the
    22         aforesaid plans or instructions are intended to be used
    23         for making or assembling such [instrument, apparatus,
    24         equipment or device.] unlawful telecommunication device;
    25         or

At the L0pht we distribute a CD that contains plenty of technical data
for modifying telecommunications equipment and for building your own from
easily obtained parts.  We do not ship our CD to Pennsylvania due to this
law since we cannot be assured that the intent of the purchaser is not to
defraud a telecommunication service provider.  Since information can be
used for good or bad we are pretty sure that some of the purchasers from
Penn will use this information illegally.  This goes against everything
the L0pht stands for but we do not have the resources to fight this in
court.


Weld Pond
weld@l0pht.com
http://www.l0pht.com/~weld