Michigan Residents: Use NAT, Go to Jail

March 29, 2003

Michigan Residents: Use NAT, Go to Jail

Ed Felten points out that the State of Michigan has made it a felony to use IP Masquerading, Firewall, or VPN software.

The punishment for hooking a NAT router to your cable modem or using a VPN to connect to the LAN at work (“conceal the existence or place of origin or destination of any telecommunications service.”)? Up to 4 years in jail and a $2000 fine.

Manufacturers of DSL Routers and authors of software with these capabilities are subject to the same penalties.

Michigan residents: you have until Monday, March 31 to comply.

Other states (including my own) are considering equally mad legislation.

Posted by distler at March 29, 2003 11:22 AM

TrackBack URL for this Entry: https://golem.ph.utexas.edu/cgi-bin/MT-3.0/dxy-tb.fcgi/129

3 Comments & 0 Trackbacks

Re: Michigan Residents: Use NAT, Go to Jail

Here’s my rant about this and a list of other actions that will now be criminalized that I posted to my blog this morning (click my name to follow the link).

Posted by: Richard Tallent on March 29, 2003 5:57 PM | Permalink | Reply to this

Re: Michigan Residents: Use NAT, Go to Jail

*sigh* … When I moved from Texas to Michigan I thought that things would generally be a little saner. Better rush to the store and stock up on routers before they’re outlawed.

Posted by: Bob McNees on March 30, 2003 12:03 PM | Permalink | Reply to this

Re: Michigan Residents: Use NAT, Go to Jail

Wow! We could have our first ex-grad student felon: Bob, “The Wire” McNees.

Posted by: Jacques Distler on March 30, 2003 2:04 PM | Permalink | Reply to this

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March 29, 2003