“We already knew that the law is bad news for consumers, but
what it does to computer security is a crime. …as bad as UCITA is
for consumers, another provision of the bill makes it disaster for
computer security.”
“It’s called ‘electronic self-help,’ and it allows companies to
remotely shut down software if the customer, whether an individual
or organization, has violated their point-and-click contract. To
accomplish that, software makers would install secret backdoors in
their products.”
” ‘If the vendor can shut down a customer’s system remotely,
someone else may be able to do so as well,’ warned Association
for Computing Machinery president Barbara Simons, and computer
security expert Eugene Spafford, in a recent letter to state
lawmakers. Intruders who find the back doors ‘could shut down
hospital control systems, criminal record or fingerprint search
systems, manufacturing assembly line control software, and other
systems that are important to the safety and welfare of the
public.’ “