[Infowarrior] - P2P bill could regulate Web browsers, FTP clients

[Richard Forno]

P2P bill could regulate Web browsers, FTP clients
by Declan McCullagh

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10233419-38.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

news analysis The U.S. House of Representatives has scheduled a  
hearing Tuesday to examine a bill that would force peer-to-peer  
applications to provide specific notice to consumers that their files  
might be shared.

The hearing before a House Energy subcommittee comes about a month  
after reports that specifications about the helicopter used as Marine  
One may have been leaked through a P2P network. Meanwhile, a second  
House committee is probing whether LimeWire or another P2P application  
was responsible.

Tuesday's hearing is expected to focus on a bill introduced in March  
by Rep. Mary Bono Mack, a California Republican. The catch: while it  
appears intended to target only P2P applications, the measure sweeps  
in Web browsers, FTP applications, instant messaging utilities, and  
other common programs too.

Bono's Informed P2P User Act says that it will be "unlawful" for P2P  
software to cause files to be made available unless two rules are  
followed. First, the utility's installation process must provide  
"clear and conspicuous notice" of its features and obtain the user's  
"informed consent." Second, the program must step through that notice- 
and-consent process every time it runs.

Her bill defines P2P applications as software that lets files be  
marked for transfer, transferred, and received. (The exact wording:  
"to designate files available for transmission to another computer; to  
transmit files directly to another computer; and to request the  
transmission of files from another computer.")

Every copy of Windows, GNU/Linux, and Mac OS X sold in recent memory  
includes a command-line FTP client fitting that definition but lacking  
the proposed warning. Does that mean that Microsoft, the Free Software  
Foundation, and Apple could be fined for "unlawful" activities? If the  
definition stretches to include the rsync utility and open-source  
software too, will volunteer maintainers and foreign citizens have to  
comply?

Another example: Web browsers could also be regulated and subject to  
Federal Trade Commission enforcement action unless "informed consent"  
is obtained each time the desktop icon is double-clicked. (Every Web  
browser allows the user to "designate" files to be uploaded--ever post  
a photo?--and request that files be downloaded.)

It's true that forcing compliance--at least for those programmers who  
are paying attention to legislative proclamations from the U.S.  
Congress--shouldn't be too difficult. A few warning messages and click- 
here-to-continue dialog boxes would suffice.

Still, the argument that a particular piece of proposed legislation  
could be worse is no argument at all. What the bill's drafters may not  
appreciate is that the Internet is, by definition, a peer-to-peer  
network. Restricting its P2Pishness, for lack of a better term, is  
difficult to do with restricting Internet access completely.

The point here is not that LimeWire and its rivals are without risk;  
misconfiguration probably would expose sensitive files to the public.

It's more that software is uniquely malleable, difficult to define,  
and better overseen by West Coast coders voluntarily adding warning  
messages than East Coast lawyers making it illegal not to do so.

The U.S. Supreme Court failed to reach a consensus about regulating  
obscenity a generation ago; do we really think that computer code  
today won't be equally slippery?


Declan McCullagh, CBSNews.com's chief political correspondent,  
chronicles the intersection of politics and technology. He has covered  
politics, technology, and Washington, D.C., for more than a decade,  
which has turned him into an iconoclast and a skeptic of anyone who  
says, "We oughta have a new federal law against this." E-mail Declan.