I hate to interrrupt good technical discussion with more bad
news about legal issues, but unfortunately many of us face a new
initiative by the copyright cartel in our state legislatures (in Mass
the Great and General Court) designed to drasticly change the rules
regarding access to radio signals. And unlike federal laws which just
outlaws interception of certain signals, this initiative includes
provisions criminalizing development of software and hardware and
allowing confiscation of tools and software as well as criminal and
civil penalties for merely providing assistance to others in developing
software and hardware deemed to be illegal. And these laws ban
publication of directions and documentation for such software.
This legislation also bans anonymous communication and may
also ban some kinds of NAT firewalls and local area networks.
As I read it, if one takes a broad interpretation this law
forbids reception of ANY radio signals without the explict permission of
the sender. Obviously this impacts many heretofore legal uses of
gnu-radio technology, and if a court finds that gnu-radio is an
illegal device, developers could face serious legal problems.
Versions of this language have been introduced in a number
of different states, and passed in at least two and probably several
others.