Brookings: CyberSecurity In the Balance - 2 New Bills

[Matt Graham]

From: Eric Shubert <ejs at shubes.net>
> I haven't read the legislation, but since windoze (xp/vista/7) runs its 
> own resolver (DNS cache), it's conceivable that this might apply to all 
> windoze hosts, depending on how the word "server" is defined.

Practically all the machines at work have extensive /etc/hosts files in case
the DNS boxes have a cow.  I wonder if a stupid legislator would consider that
a "server" in the right circumstances.  If not, I'd think a bunch of people
would start trading multi-M hosts.bz2 files and not paying as much attention
to DNS.  If so, really stupid stuff would happen, like saying, "A hosts file
with more than N entries or entries for @HOSTNAMES is totally evidence that
the possessor is attempting to subvert various laws!"  

That's pretty tinfoil-hattish.  It's also something I could see people doing
if they were completely idiotic, or thought they could get more money and
power by doing.

-- 
Matt G / Dances With Crows
The Crow202 Blog:  http://crow202.org/wordpress/
There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see