As has been expected, Sen. Hollings, who after 40 years of service in the Senate is still the junior Senator from South Carolina, introduced the revised SSSCA under a new title - Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act, or CBDTPA. After a quick read through it appears just as horrible as many technical people have been predicting.

Section 5 of the CBDTPA prohibits:

A manufacturer, importer, or seller of digital media devices may not--
(1) sell, or offer for sale in interstate commerce or,
(2) cause to be transported in, or in a manner affecting interstate commerce a digital media device unless the device includes and utilizes standard security technologies that adhere to the security standard adopted under Section 3.

Section 3 requires that any Standard Security System provide effective security for copyright works. and that it be a) reliable, b) renewable, c) resistant to attack, d) readily implemented, e) modular, f) applicable to multiple technology platforms, g) extensible, h) upgradable, i) not cost prohibitive.

And "digital media devices" to which is act applies are defined as any hardware or software devices that reproduces, displays, retrieves or accesses any kind of copyrighted work.  Which will soon be your dishwasher and already encompasses most new cars. Wonderful, now the MPAA is deciding how cars work.

It is pretty clear to me that this is an impossible task, so instead, the committee that is charged with making a universal DRM system will square the circle and just jam as much control into the devices as possible and hope that it is enough to prevent people from making any copies.   This tactic will clearly hurt honest people by making life much more difficult, but will do nothing to stop those that wish to continue making digital copies as it will always be possible to convert digital content to an analog signal and then back to digital content.

Anyway, this is a horrible piece of legislation and you need to contact your representatives and let them know how you feel... cause if you don't act now, your future PC will be loaded with clumsy annoying software that makes you wish you had.

There is a nice write up on Wired.

Check it out yourself

burton@pigdog.org