By definition, this would seem to include common security technology such as firewalls, VPN, NAT and encryption. The whole purpose of some of these security measures is to “conceal the existence or place of origin or destination” of your communications.
Some argue that this is not the intent of the law; that you aren’t truly hidden when you use NAT or other technologies because your ISP still knows what public IP address the communication emanated from and who that IP address belongs to. So, they can narrow it down to the right subscriber even if they can’t identify the specific computer in the house that originated the communication.
I would agree that it is not the intent of the law to make normal security devices and techniques illegal. The very states that have implemented or are considering implementing these laws are most likely using most or all of the seemingly illegal security measures to access and protect their own networks and communications.
In fact, to interpret the law the way I have described makes vendors like Cisco and Microsoft culpable as well. My Windows XP Professional comes with a built-in firewall and if I enable Internet Connection Sharing the computer will perform NAT to allow more computers to share the one public IP address. Because these vendors “assemble, develop, manufacture, possess, deliver, offer to deliver, or advertise” devices that seem to violate this law they are just as guilty as we are for using the technology.
The problem is that the wording of the law seems too broad. They may not intend for it to mean this or that, but if the wording can be mis-construed and mis-interpreted in such a way that it can mean that, it poses a problem. It opens the door for abuse of the law and interpreting loosely when its convenient for the case at hand.
Eventually it seems like this can go down one of three paths. Either the law will be used as it was intended, the law can be abused or the law will be thrown out.
If the law is used as it was intended, the states will be able to crack down on hackers and spammers. They can catch those who forge packet and email headers to hide the true origination or destination of a communication (IP Spoofing or Email Spoofing). They can track down and prosecute those who have illegal copies of copywritten works like songs and movies as the MPAA and RIAA have so zealously done using the federal DMCA. While I abhor lobbyists and I feel that the RIAA shot themselves in the foot by having Napster shut down instead of embracing its popularity and leveraging it to market and sell their music, I am all for anything that will impede the ever-increasing flood of spam coming into my computer.
