The DMCA, or Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a law that President Clinton signed 10 years ago that pretty much says that it is illegal to produce or disseminate technology that is put in place to control access to copyrighted material.
Every three years, the office and Library of Congress ask if anyone has any suggestions for revising the DCMA. This year, the Electronic Frontier Foundation is petitioning (.pdf) for the privilege of hacking smartphones, which could allow iPhone owners, for example, to legally jailbreak their iPhones.
In case you didn’t know (or in case you thought you could do whatever you want with your iPhone since you paid for it), let me remind you that jailbreaking your iPhone is a violation of copyright laws, and even though it is extremely unlikely to happen, Apple could sue you for modifying your iPhone firmware. Like most of you, I wasn’t really aware of that until my recent issue with Apple’s lawyers…
If you feel really concerned about it, check out the petition.