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July 24, 2007 3:09 PM PDT
Congress: P2P networks harm national security
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At a hearing on the topic, Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said, without offering details, that he is considering new laws aimed at addressing the problem. He said he was troubled by the possibility that foreign governments, terrorists or organized crime could gain access to documents that reveal national secrets.
Also at the hearing, Mark Gorton, the chairman of Lime Wire, which makes the peer-to-peer software LimeWire, was assailed for allegedly harming national security through offering his product.
The documents at risk of exposure supposedly include classified government military orders, confidential corporate-accounting documents, localized terrorist threat assessments, as well as personal information such as federal workers' credit card numbers, bank statements, tax returns and medical records, according to recent studies by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and private researchers.
Evidence that sensitive information is accessible through peer-to-peer networks illustrates "the importance of strengthening the laws and rules protecting personal information held by federal agencies" and other organizations, said Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), the committee's ranking member, who has sponsored a bill that would impose new requirements on government agencies that discover security breaches. "We need to do this quickly."
The politicians present Tuesday generally said they believe that there are benefits to peer-to-peer technology but that it will imperil national security, intrude on personal privacy and violate copyright law, if not properly restricted. Both Waxman and Rep. Paul Hodes (D-N.H.) dubbed P2P networks ongoing national security threats.
Congressional gripes about P2P networks are hardly new, and in the past, they have reinforced concerns raised by the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America. Four years ago, the same committee held a pair of hearings that condemned pornography sharing on P2P networks and also explored leaks of sensitive information. And throughout 2004, Congress considered multiple proposals that would have restricted--or effectively banned--many popular file-swapping networks. Waxman noted that he was not seeking to ban peer-to-peer networks this time around but rather to "achieve a balance that protects sensitive government, personal and corporate information and copyright laws."
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To be sure, the kind of information leaks that alarmed politicians at Tuesday's hearing are most likely already against the law or federal policy. It is illegal for government employees to leak certain types of classified documents without approval, either electronically or through traditional paper means.
Mary Koelbel Engle, the associate director for advertising practices in the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection, said her agency has found in its studies of peer-to-peer network use that risks to sensitive information "stem largely from how individuals use the technology rather than being inherent in the technology itself."
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computer and storing sensitive data in the shared folder......Then
whose fault is that?
data, etc., were handled, computers containing such were not
allowed onto a network at all, at least where I worked. It sounds
like that's not the case anymore.
So I will do my best to make this as simple as possible for someone like a US Senator or a congressman.
The government should not hire people that install file sharing on the same machines that they have classified information on. This would be equivalent of having someone taking home a bunch of classified documents they printed out and stuffed in a backpack with a broken zipper.
Congress, would this mean that backpacks with broken zippers are a threat to national security? I honestly think it is our hiring and electing process, but I could be wrong, of course I doubt it.
Oh, and I'm pretty sure no one has an interest in "government secrets". Most of them seem to involve people like John Lennon anyhow.
[i]Deep in NSA headquarters, it was 4am in the Mother NOC. All was quiet as data by the petabyte slipped quietly along Teh Intawebs...
Suddenly, an operative leaps from his desk and rushes to the General's desk, sweat puring from his brow and his breath coming in short pants. He wasn't tired... he was scared.
The General tried to calm him, but the operative shoved a piece of paper under the General's nose in reply.
As the Gray-haired officer began reading the missive, his eyes began to show fear. Fear he hadn't experienced since 'Nam. Fear that grabs a fistful of intestine and yanks downwards... hard.
And on the paper, there was but a simple note, with a source header that pointed to somewhere in China:"
[b]"LOLz Im in UR Intarwebz downl04d1nG y3r tR4nzf0rm3rz m00v33!"[/b]
- sheyah - what the frig ever.
Thanks Mr. Reid, for proving that the Democrat Party can be just as drop-stupid, brain-dead, and tech-ignorant as the rest of the friggin' political spectrums' respective ruling classes.
Idiot.
/P
P.S. Gas is three bucks a gallon here and it's putting people out of business. Can you fix that? Or fix my nearly worthless health insurance and our delapidated rural school system? Iraq????
Yes, P2P is one way, but there are QOS tools to disallow P2P traffic.
What is next? Going after cars because they are murder weapons?
Why didn't we ban airplanes? They are a weapon of mass destruction.
installing software on their computers without the systems
administrator's permission (which I seriously doubt they are
allowed to do in the first place). In other words some moron is
trying to use 911 as an excuse to limit piracy online.
This is nothing more than a ridiculous excuse for the power-mad (who have, quite frankly, illegally seized-control within the United States) to further tighten the screws... and, even further, bury any shred of lingering freedom.
This is about, effectively, criminalizing "unregulated" and un-controlled Internet-use. In fact, this is actually about extending absolute Government, and special-interest, CONTROL over virtually ANY private-technology.
Anyone who has actually been following such legislative-actions... so-called, "private" computer-security initiatives, such as, "Trusted Computing"... and the endless scare-tactics used by "our" Government ("The War on drugs", "The War on crime", and now, "The War on Terrorism"), to cow the citizens into giving up their most basic-rights... has known that this was coming, for years.
It is so, painfully, obvious what... and, WHO, is actually behind this... Which is why I cannot believe that ANYONE could actually still fall for these, perennial "...security", "safety", and "...terrorism", lines of COMPLETE-BS, anymore.
But, then, what do you expect in a country that compliantly-abandoned its freedom, and no longer has any semblance of a legitimate government (the Federal-Government lost ALL claims to legitimacy when they effectively, permanently suspended the U.S. Constitution, Habeas Corpus, the Rule-Of-Law, began illegally spying on Americans, ...and, especially, when the "Executive-Branch", flat-out, declared itself above the "...will of the people", and utterly beyond the reach of ANY LAW... what-so-ever... in ANY matter that it arbitrarily chooses.
Oh, but... We are at "WAR"...
Oh, and, "enemies" are just everywhere...
And, we just have to do whatever "the Government" ORDERS us to do... Dont we..?
Well...
Welcome to ABSOLUTE TYRANNY...
They need to talk to S JOBS and EMI and just maybe they have a model that actually may work!
I sickens me that either:
a. The government feels we are too incompentant to manage employees who abuse their workplace, have no work ethics, etc.
OR
b. Thinks we are stupid enough to believe this is a technology problem. Why not just take the computers away. That's the true source of the risk anyway. All it takes is an employee browsing the wrong web site on an unpatched browser and say bye-bye to anything private on your computer. Now where is P2P in that picture?
Any rep or senator from my state that speaks for or votes for any such legislation is definintly NOT getting my vote.
I wonder who's contributing to Waxman's coffers...
Did they ban NFS because of it?
- Practical solutions
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by bluemist9999
July 25, 2007 6:30 AM PDT
- If a computer contains sensitive information, the computer should NOT have peer-to-peer software installed. So, why are government employees installing such software on their work systems?
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Reply to this comment
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See all 153 Comments >>I think any system containing such sensitive information should not even be connected to the Internet.
So why is that the peer-to-peer software maker's problem?