WH Petition, please confider signing

[doc_strange]

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/unlock-public-access-research-software-safety-through-dmca-and-cfaa-reform/DHzwhzLD

Unlock public access to research on software safety through DMCA and CFAA reform

"Software now runs consumer products and critical systems that we trust with our safety and security. For example, cars, medical devices, voting machines, power grids, weapons systems, and stock markets all rely on code. While responsible companies cooperate with the technical community and the public to improve the safety of code, others do not. They instead try to prevent researchers and others from sharing safety research, threatening criminal and civil actions under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Chilling research puts us all at risk. Protect the public from unsafe code and help us to protect ourselves. Reform the DMCA and CFAA to unlock and encourage research about potentially dangerous safety and security weaknesses in software."

Comments

[docstrange.livejournal.com]

SUPAH! Legislation often passes with too much of what one special interest wants... too much for a society to actually function in a sane manner without stepping all over the new rule. These efforts to adjust should be effortless, since it's natural that our legislators won't really know the finer points of how each specific thing works socially and technically (and will rely on experts - inherently special interests even if "unbiased" - to tell them). Yet these matters take tremendous effort against whomever happens to be inadvertently benefited by the ungainly rule.