After a heads up from Martin McKeay:
If this legislature does pass and VEIL does become mandatory, I’m willing to bet that it’ll be broken within a couple of months. All that will really be accomplished is that the pirates will be put off for a few months and consumers will be pissed for years to come.
and Dennis McDonald:
Notwithstanding the naiveté of trying to forestall what is done by dedicated digital pirates, the secret VEIL technology that proposed legislation references appears designed to restrict how consumers use digital media by forcibly reducing the quality of what is displayed on increasingly popular high definition home display systems.
I sat down (for 45 mins) and read Kathryn Cramer‘s immense deciphering of what VEIL might one day mean for all of us.
Now, just to make it crystal, in keeping with transparency, I am not normally in line with the bulk of those women bloggers that make up BlogSheroes, but I have to say this VEIL secrecy confuses me to the point of anger!
After some discussion, the company helpfully explained that I could get the spec, if I first signed their license agreement. The agreement requires me (a) to pay them $10,000, and (b) to promise not to talk to anybody about what is in the spec. In other words, I can know the contents of the bill Congress is debating, but only if I pay $10k to a private party, and only if I promise not to tell anybody what is in the bill or engage in public debate about it. (orig. source)
This leads me to these questions, which I have no way to answer:
- Could there, potentially, be any VALID reason to keep this technology under wraps?
– National Security (and if that’s the case, why insist it’s only for piracy or toys..? you can’t have it both ways!)
- What is the LOGICAL reason to keep this technology under wraps?
– Is it the company, the senators or the administration (that I supported) that want this to be Top Secret?
I’m left with this ridiculousness:
Chairman Sensenbrenner stated,”This legislation is designed to secure analog content from theft that has been made easier as a result of the transition to digital technologies.
This bill will help ensure that technology keeps pace with content delivery.
Hardly… This bill will ensure that content delivery slows down to the pace of this idiotic legislation.
Now, correct me if I am wrong (please). I admit to being only a pseudo-geek, meaning I speek geek, but only half-understand what I am saying.
Could there be a legitimate reason here?