KisMAC Developer Discontinues Project
Found on Slashdot on Saturday, 28 July 2007
Michael Rossberg lives in Germany and that country has recently passed laws that would make his participation dangerous. He urges visitors to take a copy of KisMAC and its source as long as the site is up, so that development might be continued outside the US or EU.
"There has not been a lot of time for KisMAC lately. However the motivation for this drastic step [lies] somewhere different. German laws change and are being adapted for 'better' protection against something politicians obviously do not understand. It will become illegal to develop, use or even posses KisMAC in this banana republic [i.e., Germany]."
And this makes the Internet more secure because...? Politicans are unable to realize that the Internet does not care about their local laws. Sure, some developers from Germany might stop, but the others in the world won't. Some might decide to continue via secure connections. Stopping security research is like a shot in the foot; nothing good comes from it. You cannot apply laws on the Internet; you have to learn using it and pay attention to what you do online. In theory, you could use everything for malicious purposes; but you can still buy weapons, hammers, baseball bats and so on.