Registered: Jan 2002
Location: UK
Posts: 13002

quote:

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The (DMCA) Digital Millennium Copyright Act clearly isn't enough for some people. Massachusetts and Texas are - in curious formation - considering bills that will extend it to make firewalls (among other things) illegal.

The strange synchronicity is illustrated by a quick look at the draft of the Texas bill then comparing it with the Massachusetts one, which you'll find in RTF format at Ed Felten's Freedom to Tinker, here. The strikeouts indicate that both, for whatever reason, have decided not to repress video this time around.

The repression that remains is however impressive. Felten points to this wording:

(b) Offense defined.--Any person commits an offense if he knowingly:

(1) possesses, uses, manufactures, develops, assembles, distributes, transfers, imports into this state, licenses, leases, sells or offers, promotes or advertises for sale, use or distribution any communication device:

(i) for the commission of a theft of a communication service or to receive, intercept, disrupt, transmit, re-transmits, decrypt, acquire or facilitate the receipt, interception, disruption, transmission, re-transmission, decryption or acquisition of any communication service without the express consent or express authorization of the communication service provider; or

(ii) to conceal or to assist another to conceal from any communication service provider, or from any lawful authority, the existence or place of origin or destination of any communication

Over to Ed here, because he puts it so well:

"Your ISP is a communication service provider, so anything that concealed the origin or destination of any communication from your ISP would be illegal -- with no exceptions.

"If you send or receive your email via an encrypted connection, you're in violation, because the 'To' and 'From' lines of the emails are concealed from your ISP by encryption. (The encryption conceals the destinations of outgoing messages, and the sources of incoming messages.)

"Worse yet, Network Address Translation (NAT), a technology widely used for enterprise security, operates by translating the 'from' and 'to' fields of Internet packets, thereby concealing the source or destination of each packet, and hence violating these bills. Most security 'firewalls' use NAT, so if you use a firewall, you're in violation.

"If you have a home DSL router, or if you use the 'Internet Connection Sharing' feature of your favorite operating system product, you're in violation because these connection sharing technologies use NAT. Most operating system products (including every version of Windows introduced in the last five years, and virtually all versions of Linux) would also apparently be banned, because they support connection sharing via NAT."

Ed points out that this boils down to 'use a firewall, go to jail,' but we really think he's not being nearly ambitious enough here. It strikes us that, as the proud owner of Internet Connection Sharing, Bill Gates develops, distributes and licenses a communications device which is used to conceal "the existence or place of origin or destination of any communication." So we say, 'use a a firewall, go to jail, but also send Bill Gates to jail.' Ah, decisions, decisions... ®

The Register

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Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Boston
Posts: 6971

If that happens, all the more reason to never return to Massholeville. New Mexico, here I come!

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: WDM, IA
Posts: 2963

"Worse yet, Network Address Translation (NAT), a technology widely used for enterprise security, operates by translating the 'from' and 'to' fields of Internet packets, thereby concealing the source or destination of each packet, and hence violating these bills. Most security 'firewalls' use NAT, so if you use a firewall, you're in violation."

- This proves the person who wrote this piece is a complete idiot. NAT is not "widely used for enterprise security", number one. Secondly, layer 3 packet translation has NOTHING to do with "from" and "to" fields in SMTP packets. Firewalls do not NAT packets. Firewalls PAT packets.

Regardless, neither NAT nor PAT conceals the place of origin or destination of a communication. It's not like the IP headers are mystically "encrypted" or some other crap.

Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 1606

I'd always understood PAT to be a way NAT could be configured and I am unable to find anything on the internet that says that PAT is not NAT. In other words, while NAT is not necessarily PAT, PAT is NAT, at least as far as I have been able to find.

I'd certainly expect a decent firewall to be able to support static NAT, though of the ones I've seen most were configured to overload a single address. Why do you say they don't?

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Registered: Dec 2001
Location: Ducktown, GA
Posts: 1428

Yah. You can statically NAT on translating firewalls I've used, being PIX, Checkpoint, and a few other mystery products. And most of the enterprise networks I have worked on have quite a bit of NAT in the mix. For the most part, you'll be PAT for outgoing connections, one to one NAT coming in.

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Registered: Nov 2000
Location: UK
Posts: 4776

NAT and PAT are two different protocols. They just happen to exist in the same enviroment most of the time.

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: WDM, IA
Posts: 2963

NAT and PAT aren't protocols.

Registered: Apr 2003
Location:
Posts: 41

What of Cat and what of Hat?
Where sat that cat? Inside the hat?
That cat must scat! That hat is flat!
That cat's a twat, a wicked cat, inside that hat the cat has shat!
It shat and shat and shat and shat.
It's a pity.
But it's still a cunt.

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Registered: May 2002
Location:
Posts: 8820

Ugh, another fucking limey alias.

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Registered: Nov 2000
Location: UK
Posts: 4776

quote:

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Originally posted by The Wraith
NAT and PAT aren't protocols.

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Registered: Sep 2001
Location: ........
Posts: 15003

www.webopedia.com is worth bookmarking for trying to translate these type of threads.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: London
Posts: 3041

I see your layer 2 and raise you layer 3

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 1606

quote:

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Originally posted by macker
What are they then?

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: WDM, IA
Posts: 2963

Discounting any differences between routing and routed protocols...

IP is a protocol.
IPX is a protocol.
ATM is a protocol.
OSPF is a protocol.
.
.
.

NAT/PAT is the translation of information within the header of a protocol, namely IP. Hell, "translation" is part of the acronym. When you take the layer 3 information in an IP packet, modify it and place the conditions of the modifications into a stateful table, you haven't "created a protocol" - you've modified the headers in the original IP packet. This is modification. This is not the definition of a new protocol. You haven't created a NAT/IP protocol.

And you call yourself a geek.

Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Erehwon
Posts: 7538

Protocol:
In extended and general uses, any code of conventional or proper conduct; formally correct behaviour. [OED]

Any set of rules or instructions that details how to behave with certian information or data is considered a protocol. imo NAT and PAT fits this description.

Dont think so closed, abstract it out

Last edited by aminal on 04-01-2003 at 05:46 PM

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Registered: Sep 2001
Location: ........
Posts: 15003

quote:

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Originally posted by aminal
Prococol:
In extended and general uses, any code of conventional or proper conduct; formally correct behaviour. [OED]

Any set of rules or instructions that details how to behave with certian information or data is considered a protocol. imo NAT and PAT fits this description.

Dont think so closed, abstract it out

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: WDM, IA
Posts: 2963

This is why I have that moron, animal's, forum messages blocked. Relating "protocol" in the terms of operational procedures, versus technological inferences, is the root of what makes him the moron limey he is. Obviously, TCP/IP is not a "convention of proper conduct". "IP" is not an example of formally correct behavior.

Maybe you should stick to trying to remember which fork to use, dumbass.

Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Erehwon
Posts: 7538

OMFG u speling nazi !!!!!!!!1111

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