A number of states are considering bills that apparently are intended to extend the national Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Freedom To Tinker provides a lot of concise info. Their original description from 3/26 is already out of date, but it’s the best I’ve seen. The MPAA is pushing it. It has already passed in Michigan.

It’s best if you read about it there, but here are a couple of examples:

• Most security “firewalls” use NAT, so if you use a firewall (and you should be), 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 for the same reason.
• Most operating system products would also apparently be banned, because they support connection sharing via NAT.

Another example of the government trying to legislate what it doesn’t understand.