Because They Are Scorpions
Or this this case, legislators, they act according to their inherent nature. they propose laws, with no regard to reality or possible unintended consequences.
Declan McCullagh writing in the CNet blog, The Iconoclast, reports Senate antiphishing bill outlaws…what’s already illegal
Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson (Fla.) and Republicans Olympia Snowe (Wash.) and Ted Stevens (Alaska) introduced a bill this week called the Anti-Phishing Consumer Protection Act. It contains 31 pages of new regulations that could raise the cost of doing business for legitimate companies–but will do little to stop the malcontents behind phishing attacks.
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So let’s get this right. Those folks who, reasonably, prefer not to give their actual physical address and telephone number when registering a domain name for themselves or their family are now going to be violating federal law.
Phishing is illegal. It is theft by fraud and has been a crime since Gaelic was the predominate language in Europe. Nothing in this bill is going to, in any way, inconvenience the jerks in Brazil who are claiming to be the Internal Revenue Service, or the guys in China claiming to be the Banco di Roma. The gaps in prosecuting phishing require international treaties, not US laws. If these Senators wanted to do something useful, they could require Federal websites to have a front page link for reporting phishing involving the particular agency.
They don’t know what they are talking about; they don’t understand the issues; they don’t understand the Internet. The bit about domain registration is totally worthless as the more successful of the “phishers” use numeric IP addresses or free accounts on major hosts. There are very real reasons involving personal privacy why someone may prefer not to reveal their actual residence address when registering a domain name.
I’m not at all surprised that my clueless Senator is involved in this travesty. This is a major reason I never vote for him, even though he’s nominally a Democrat. I prefer to be attacked from the front by “enemies”, than stabbed in the back by “friends”.
5 comments
first of all look at one of the sponsors — Ted “tubes” Stevens — that says tons already!
then
If these Senators wanted to do something useful
maybe they should join the House and spend hours and hours and HOURS investigating whether baseball players use steroids, because THAT REALLY MATTERS!
The Democrats have not exactly inspired me with their performance in control of Congress. I haven’t heard so many excuses since I was an acting First Sergeant for a student squadron.
This act apparently hasn’t made an appearance on thomas.loc.gov yet. But something called CADNA (Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse, which includes such technological stellar lights as Bacardi, Hilton Hotels, Marriott, etc.) “strongly supports” the bill. Oh, yeah, the hotel industry and Tom DeLay’s favorite booze company want every domain registrant’s physical address; that’s a great reason for passing this bill.
I have registered two domain names for a long, long time. They are registered in my legitimate name and to my legitimate P.O. Box address. If I am forced to give my physical address to these yahoos (lowercase y), I shall drop both domain names forthwith, and continue my “nefarious” activities somewhere else. A friend has a domain in Christmas Island (.cx); he’s an American citizen and a Republican… obviously Christmas Island will register anybody. Are they going to make it illegal for Americans to register foreign domain suffixes? I wish them lotsa friggin’ luck!
Afterthought: I have held a P.O. Box for about 14 years now. Since shortly after 2001, in order to hold a P.O. Box, one must provide the USPS a physical address.
Why is that not sufficient? The Post Office, HPD, the Harris County Sheriff’s Department, the Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector and the Harris County Voter Registrar all have my physical address. Why should all the big corp’s in the world also have it?
I mean it. I’ll drop my domains before I give Bacardi my physical address.
You have to wonder about the wingnut reaction. They don’t mind handing out other people’s addresses, but they seem a bit reluctant about their own.
Of course, you can always do it through a third party and not violate the letter of the law, and I assume people will start doing it that way.
You just can’t get these idiots to understand that laws only affect people who obey laws, not people who break them. Phishers are already committing fraud, so a fraudulent registration is to be assumed.