Slashdot Mirror

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Grayshift, a company that offers to unlock modern iPhones for as little as $50 each, has caused a buzz across law enforcement agencies, with local police already putting down cash for the much sought-after tech. Now, it appears a section of the U.S. State Department has also purchased the iPhone cracking tool, judging by procurement records reviewed by Motherboard. Grayshift's iPhone product, dubbed GrayKey, can unlock devices running versions of Apple's latest mobile operating system iOS 11, according to marketing material obtained by Forbes. An online version of GrayKey which allows 300 unlocks costs $15,000 (which boils down to $50 per device), and an offline capability with unlimited uses is $30,000. According to a recent post from cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes, which obtained leaked details on GrayKey, the product itself is a small, four inch by four inch box, and two iPhones can be connected at once via lightning cables. Malwarebytes adds that the time it takes to unlock a device varies depending on the strength of the user's passcode: it may be hours or days. Notably, Grayshift includes an ex-Apple engineer on its staff, Forbes reported.

On March 6, the State Department ordered an item from Grayshift for just over $15,000, according to a purchase order listing available on the U.S. government's public federal procurement data system. The listing is sparse on details, putting the order under the generic label of "computer and computer peripheral equipment." But Motherboard confirmed that the Grayshift in the State Department listing is the same as the one selling iPhone cracking tech: the phone number of the vendor in both the purchase order and documents Motherboard previously obtained detailing a GrayKey purchase by Indiana State Police is the same. The "funding office" for the Grayshift purchase was the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, according to the procurement records. The Bureau acts as the law enforcement and security arm of the State Department, bearing "the core responsibility for providing a safe environment for the conduct of U.S. foreign policy," the State Department website reads.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: U.S. border officials have failed to cryptographically verify the passports of visitors to the U.S. for more than a decade -- because the government didn't have the proper software. The revelation comes from a letter by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO), who wrote to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CPB) acting commissioner Kevin K. McAleenan to demand answers. E-passports have an electronic chip containing cryptographic information and machine-readable text, making it easy to verify a passport's authenticity and integrity. That cryptographic information makes it almost impossible to forge a passport, and it helps to protect against identity theft. Introduced in 2007, all newly issued passports are now e-passports. Citizens of the 38 countries on the visa waiver list must have an e-passport in order to be admitted to the U.S. But according to the senators' letter, sent Thursday, border staff "lacks the technical capabilities to verify e-passport chips." Although border staff have deployed e-passport readers at most ports of entry, "CBP does not have the software necessary to authenticate the information stored on the e-passport chips." "Specifically, CBP cannot verify the digital signatures stored on the e-passport, which means that CBP is unable to determine if the data stored on the smart chips has been tampered with or forged," the letter stated. Wyden and McCaskill said in the letter that Customs and Border Protection has "been aware of this security lapse since at least 2010."

schwit1 quotes a report from Politico: Since Tuesday, foreign travelers arriving in the United States on the visa waiver program have been presented with an "optional" request to "enter information associated with your online presence," a government official confirmed Thursday. The prompt includes a drop-down menu that lists platforms including Facebook, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube, as well as a space for users to input their account names on those sites. The new policy comes as Washington tries to improve its ability to spot and deny entry to individuals who have ties to terrorist groups like the Islamic State. But the government has faced a barrage of criticism since it first floated the idea last summer. The Internet Association, which represents companies including Facebook, Google and Twitter, at the time joined with consumer advocates to argue the draft policy threatened free expression and posed new privacy and security risks to foreigners. Now that it is final, those opponents are furious the Obama administration ignored their concerns. The question itself is included in what's known as the Electronic System for Travel Authorization, a process that certain foreign travelers must complete to come to the United States. ESTA and a related paper form specifically apply to those arriving here through the visa-waiver program, which allows citizens of 38 countries to travel and stay in the United States for up to 90 days without a visa. "There are very few rules about how that information is being collected, maintained [and] disseminated to other agencies, and there are no guidelines about limiting the government's use of that information," said Michael W. Macleod-Ball, chief of staff for the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington office. "While the government certainly has a right to collect some information... It would be nice if they would focus on the privacy concerns some advocacy groups have long expressed."

The U.S. State Department is pursuing "a detailed plan for making unrestricted, unmonitored, and inexpensive electronic mass communications available to the people of North Korea." Slashdot reader Greg Jones reports: Plenty of government-designed "information" flows out of North Korea. At One Free Korea Joshua Stanton reports that the U.S. State Department just announced a new grant program for information technology solutions to punch through the wall that prevents the free flow of information into North Korea.
"Those of us who wrote and negotiated the [North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act] were equally concerned with direct engagement of the North Korean people..." Stanton writes on his blog, reporting that there's now grants available to fund multiple projects. "If you have the technical knowledge to make this a reality, or know a place online where people with those talents congregate, please share and repost this solicitation and help spread the word."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electronic Frontier Foundation: U.S. border control agents want to gather Facebook and Twitter identities from visitors from around the world. But this flawed plan would violate travelers' privacy, and would have a wide-ranging impact on freedom of expression -- all while doing little or nothing to protect Americans from terrorism. A proposal has been issued by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to collect social media handles from visitors to the United States from visa waiver countries. The Electronic Frontier Foundation opposes the proposal and has commented on it individually and as part of a larger coalition. "CBP specifically seeks 'information associated with your online presence -- Provider/Platform -- Social media identifier' in order to provider DHS 'greater clarity and visibility to possible nefarious activity and connections' for 'vetting purposes,'" reports EFF. "In our comments, we argue that would-be terrorists are unlikely to disclose social media identifiers that reveal publicly available posts expressing support for terrorism." They say this plan "would unfairly violate the privacy of innocent travelers," would cause "innocent travelers" to "engage in self-censorship, cutting back on their online activity out of fear of being wrongly judged by the U.S. government," and would lead to a "slippery slope, where CBP would require U.S. citizens and residents returning home to disclose their social media handles, or subject both foreign visitors and U.S. persons to invasive device searches at ports of entry with the intent of easily accessing any and all cloud data."

HughPickens.com writes: Located between Hawaii and Australia, the Marshall Islands are made up of 29 atolls and five islands with a population of about 70,000, all of whom live about six feet above sea level. Now Story Hinkley writes in the Christian Science Monitor that another 10,000 Marshallese have moved to Springdale, Arkansas because of climate change. Because this Pacific island nation is so small, the Marshallese population in Arkansas attribute their Springdale settlement to one man, John Moody, who moved to the US in 1979 after the first wave of flooding. Moody's family eventually moved to Springdale to live with him and work for Tyson and other poultry companies based in Arkansas, eventually causing a steady flow of extended friends and family migrating to Springdale. "Probably in 10 to 20 years from now, we're all going to move," says Roselinta Keimbar adding that she likes Arkansas because it is far away from the ocean, meaning it is safe.

For more than three decades, Marshallese have moved in the thousands to the landlocked Ozark Mountains for better education, jobs and health care, thanks to an agreement that lets them live and work in the US.. This historical connection makes it an obvious destination for those facing a new threat: global warming. Marshallese Foreign Minister Tony de Brum says even a small rise in global temperatures would spell the demise of his country. While many world leaders in Paris want to curb emissions enough to cap Earth's warming at 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius), de Brum is pushing for a target that's 25 percent lower. "The thought of evacuation is repulsive to us," says de Brum. "We think that the more reasonable thing to do is to seek to end this madness, this climate madness, where people think that smaller, vulnerable countries are expendable and therefore they can continue to do business as usual." Meanwhile residents jokingly call their new home "Springdale Atoll," and there's even a Marshallese consulate in Springdale, the only one on the mainland US. "Its not our fault that the tide is getting higher," says Carlon Zedkaia,. "Just somebody else in this world that wants to get rich."

An anonymous reader writes: Nations allied with the United States may soon be able to purchase armed, unmanned aircraft, according to an updated U.S. arms policy. Purchase requests will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, and foreign military bodies would have to agree to a set of "proper use" rules in order for the U.S. to go ahead with the sale. For example: "Armed and other advanced UAS are to be used in operations involving the use of force only when there is a lawful basis for use of force under international law, such as national self-defense." These rules have done nothing to silence critics of the plan, who point out that the U.S. has killed civilians during remote strikes without much accountability. The drones are estimated to cost $10-15 million apiece.

Jason Koebler writes: Earlier this week, the House Science Committee examined the American Space Technology for Exploring Resource Opportunities in Deep Space (ASTEROIDS) Act, a bill that would ensure that "any resources obtained in outer space from an asteroid are the property of the entity that obtained such resources."

The problem is, that idea doesn't really mesh at all with the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, a document that suggests space is a shared resource: "Unlike some other global commons, no agreement has been reached at to whether title to extracted space resources passes to the extracting entity," Joanne Gabrynowicz, a space law expert at the University of Mississippi said (PDF). "There is no legal clarity regarding the ownership status of the extracted resources. It is foreseeable that the entity's actions will be challenged at law and in politics."

linuxwrangler (582055) writes Job interviews missed, work and wedding plans disrupted, children unable to fly home with their adoptive parents. All this disruption is due to a outage involving the passport and visa processing database at the U.S. State Department. The problems have been ongoing since July 19 and the best estimate for repair is "soon." The system "crashed shortly after maintenance."

MarkWhittington writes: "Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL) announced on Thursday that he was introducing a bill along with Rep, Derek Kilmer (D-WA) called the American Space Technology for Exploring Resource Opportunities in Deep Space (ASTEROIDS) Act of 2014 (PDF). The act is designed to protect the private property rights for entities mining asteroids and to otherwise encourage asteroid mining. The bill is in apparent reaction to efforts by companies like Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries to locate and mine Earth approaching asteroids for their resources.

The crucial part of the short piece of legislation states that the resources mined from an asteroid would be the property of the entity undertaking the operation. This language gets around the provision of the Outer Space Treaty that says states are forbidden to establish national sovereignty over celestial bodies, which would be a prerequisite to the United States allowing a private entity to own an asteroid. It rather grants mineral rights to the asteroid, something the treaty does not mention. There is no enforcement mechanism in the event of a dispute with another country, however."

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Reuters reports that pressure on President Obama to approve the Keystone XL pipeline increased on Friday after a State Department report played down the impact it would have on climate change, irking environmentalists and delighting proponents of the project. The long-awaited environmental impact statement concludes that the Keystone XL pipeline would not substantially worsen carbon pollution, leaving an opening for Obama to approve the politically divisive project as it appears to indicate that the project could pass the criteria Obama set forth in a speech last summer when he said he would approve the 1,700-mile pipeline if it would not 'significantly exacerbate' the problem of greenhouse gas emissions. The oil industry applauded the review. 'After five years and five environmental reviews, time and time again the Department of State analysis has shown that the pipeline is safe for the environment,' says Cindy Schild, the senior manager of refining and oil sands programs at the American Petroleum Institute, which lobbies for the oil industry. Environmentalists say they are dismayed at some of the report's conclusions and disputed its objectivity, and add that the report also offers Obama reasons to reject the pipeline. The report concludes that the process used for producing the oil — by extracting what are called tar sands or oil sands from the Alberta forest — creates about 17 percent more greenhouse gas emissions than traditional oil (PDF). But the report concludes that this heavily polluting oil will still be brought to market. Energy companies are already moving the oil out of Canada by rail. 'At the end of the day, there's a consensus among most energy experts that the oil will get shipped to market no matter what,' says Robert McNally. 'It's less important than I think it was perceived to be a year ago, both politically and on oil markets.'"

theodp writes "While vacationing aboard a cruise ship in the Galapagos Islands, where the State Department warns the quality of medical facilities and services are 'generally well below U.S. standards', Gawker reports that Jeff Bezos was rescued by the Ecuadorian Navy so he could receive treatment for a kidney stone attack on New Year's Day. The Ecuadorian Navy confirmed Bezos' rescue, which involved taking Bezos by Navy helicopter from Academy Bay in Santa Cruz Island to his private jet stationed on Baltra Island."

MarkWhittington writes "Andrew Nelson, the chief operating officer of XCOR Aerospace, a company that proposes to take paying customers on suborbital jaunts on its Lynx rocketplane, posted some good news/bad news concerning some proposed rule changes from the State Department on June 3, 2013. On the good news side, the Department of State has proposed changes (PDF) that would move satellites from the Department of Defense's Munitions list, where they have been since 1999, to the Department of Commerce's commerce control list. 'This is a great step for the industry. Since the time commercial satellites were placed on the munitions list in 1999, the commercial satellite industry was almost wiped out.' On the bad news side, the State Department proposes to place commercial manned spacecraft on the DOD munitions list, making it very difficult if not impossible to fly them outside the United States. 'This is the same backward path provided to the US satellite manufacturing and launch community two decades ago that almost decimated that industry.'"

sl4shd0rk writes "At present, several non-profit U.S. bodies oversee the Internet's specifications as well as DNS. The Unitied Nations, however, has expressed an interest in transferring control of the Internet from the United States. The UN's Dr. Toure says any change to the governance of the internet must be supported by all countries. The U.S. has refused, arguing that 'existing multi-stakeholder institutions, incorporating industry and civil society' will continue to oversee the 'health and growth of the interenet and all its benefits.' According to earlier reports, the push is backed not only by Russia, but China, Brazil and India as well."

Fluffeh writes "Syria's games industry now looks like just another collateral casualty of dictator Bashar Al-Assad's struggle to hold power. 'Life for Syrian game developers has never been better,' joked Falafel Games founder Radwan Kasmiya, 'You can test the action on the streets and get back to your desktop to script it on your keyboard.' Any momentum Syria may have been building as a regional game development hub slowed considerably in 2004, when then-US President George W. Bush levied economic sanctions against the country. Under the sanctions, Syria's game developers found themselves cut off from investment money they needed to grow, as well as from other relationships that were just as important as cash. 'Any [closure of opportunity] is devastating to a budding games company as global partnerships are completely hindered,' said Rawan Sha'ban of the Jordanian game development company Quirkat. 'Even at the simplest infrastructure level, game development engines [from the US] cannot be purchased in a sanctioned country.'"

Hugh Pickens writes "As millions of fans sit glued to their sets next Sunday, one part of the game they will not see is the massive deployment of federal and local law enforcement resources to achieve what is being called the most technologically secure Super Bowl in history, an event that has been officially designated as a National Security Special Event (PDF). At the top of the list are gamma-ray cargo and vehicles scanners that can reportedly see through six inches of steel to reveal the contents of large vehicles. 'We can detect people, handguns and rifles,' says Customs and Border Protection Officer Brian Bell. 'You'd be a fool to bring something into that stadium that you shouldn't. We're going to catch it. Our goal is to look at every vehicle that makes a delivery inside the stadium and inside the secure perimeter.' Next is the 51-foot Featherlite mobile command center for disaster response that will support the newly constructed $18 million Regional Operations Center (ROC) for the Marion County Department of Homeland Security that will serve as a fusion center for coordinating the various federal agencies involved in providing security for the Super Bowl. One interesting security measure are the 'Swiveloc' explosion-proof manhole covers (video) that Indianapolis has spent $150,000 installing that are locked down during the Super Bowl. In case of an underground explosion, the covers lift a couple of inches off the ground — enough to vent gas out without feeding in oxygen to make an explosion bigger — before falling back into place. Finally the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI has installed a network of cameras that will be just a click away for government officials. 'If you had the right (Internet) address, you could set up a laptop anywhere and you could watch the camera from there,' says Brigadier General Stewart Goodwin."

theodp writes "ZDNet reports that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's office issued a fact sheet during her visit to India confirming that the U.S. and India will be working together to develop an open source version of the Data.gov project, which was launched in 2009 by off-to-Harvard Federal CIO Vivek Kundra to serve as a central repository of data collected by the US government. The Hindu Business Line notes that Clinton was also pressed to exempt Indian techies in the States on H-1B or L1 visas from U.S. social security taxes, an exemption that, if granted, could reportedly result in savings of at least a billion dollars for the country's software industry."

jayminer writes "Results for the United States Diversity Visa Lottery for 2012 were declared void due to a programming glitch in the random selection algorithm. At first, the results were published as promised on May, 1st. Then, on May, 6th, the results were withdrawn with the web site claiming to experience 'technical difficulties.' Today (May, 13th), it is declared that the results are invalid due to an algorithm glitch; the computer program has been fixed and the lottery will be re-run. The final results are expected to be published July 15th."

rekrowyalp writes "From the press release: 'The United States is pleased to announce that it will host UNESCO's World Press Freedom Day event in 2011. The United States places technology and innovation at the forefront of its diplomatic and development efforts. New media has empowered citizens around the world to report on their circumstances, express opinions on world events, and exchange information in environments sometimes hostile to such exercises of individuals' right to freedom of expression. At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information.' Oh the irony."

CWmike writes "Google's decision Tuesday to risk walking away from China (Um, the world's largest Internet market) may have come as a shock, but security experts see it as the most public admission of a top IT problem for US companies: ongoing corporate espionage originating from China. It's a problem that the US lawmakers have complained about loudly. In the corporate world, online attacks that appear to come from China have been an ongoing problem for years, but big companies haven't said much about this, eager to remain in the good graces of the world's powerhouse economy. Google, by implying that Beijing had sponsored the attack, has placed itself in the center of an international controversy, exposing what appears to be a state-sponsored corporate espionage campaign that compromised more than 30 technology, financial and media companies, most of them global Fortune 500 enterprises. The US government is taking the attack seriously. Late Tuesday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton released a statement asking the Chinese government to explain itself, saying that Google's allegations 'raise very serious concerns and questions.' She continued: 'The ability to operate with confidence in cyberspace is critical in a modern society and economy.'"

Billosaur writes "With the recent announcement of Google's X-prize for a successful private landing of a robot on the Moon, someone has asked the Explainer at Slate.com if permission is required to land something on the Moon? Turns out that while there is no authority that regulates landing objects on another world, getting there does require the permission of the national government from where the launch takes place. This is in accordance with the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, signed by 91 nations, which regulates the uses of outer space by the nations of Earth. Specifically, Article VI enjoins: 'The activities of non-governmental entities in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, shall require authorization and continuing supervision by the appropriate State Party to the Treaty.' Start your paperwork!" J adds: The relevant quote from Destination Moon is "If we ask for permission, they'll find a way to block us. So we go now, as soon as we can!"

An anonymous reader writes "The U.S. State Department, known for its recent RFID passport embarassment, seems to have developed a key tool in the Department of Homeland Security's cyber toolkit for federal agencies. There's not much out there on it other than mention of a tool called SandStorm in a recent press release from State's Bureau of Diplomatic Security. According to the site, "SandStorm simultaneously collects, correlates, and analyzes data on multiple computer systems and departs, leaving no trace of its activities. The White House is championing this cyber tool and the Department of Homeland Security has selected it as a cornerstone application for a cyber toolkit being made available to all Federal agencies." Sounds scary to me, but may be a step in the right direction."

An anonymous reader writes "The U.S. State Department, known for its recent RFID passport embarassment, seems to have developed a key tool in the Department of Homeland Security's cyber toolkit for federal agencies. There's not much out there on it other than mention of a tool called SandStorm in a recent press release from State's Bureau of Diplomatic Security. According to the site, "SandStorm simultaneously collects, correlates, and analyzes data on multiple computer systems and departs, leaving no trace of its activities. The White House is championing this cyber tool and the Department of Homeland Security has selected it as a cornerstone application for a cyber toolkit being made available to all Federal agencies." Sounds scary to me, but may be a step in the right direction."

An anonymous reader writes "The Guardian reports "America has begun preparing its next military objective - space. Documents reveal that the US Air Force has for the first time adopted a doctrine to establish 'space superiority'." If this goes ahead, it will be in violation of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty which forbids the militarization of space."

daveschroeder writes "According to this Indymedia.org article and AFP report, the request to seize Indymedia servers hosted by a U.S. company in the UK (covered in this previous slashdot story) originated from government agencies in Italy and Switzerland, not the United States. Because Indymedia's hosting company, Rackspace.com, is a U.S. company, the FBI coordinated the request and accompanied UK Metropolitan Police on the seizure under the auspices of the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), an international legal treaty, but, according to an FBI spokesman, 'It is not an FBI operation. Through [MLAT], the subpoena was on behalf of a third country.'" Read on below for more.

daveschroeder continues: "Rackspace's statement reads, 'In the present matter regarding Indymedia, Rackspace Managed Hosting, a U.S. based company with offices in London, is acting in compliance with a court order pursuant to a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), which establishes procedures for countries to assist each other in investigations such as international terrorism, kidnapping and money laundering. Rackspace responded to a Commissioner's subpoena, duly issued under Title 28, United States Code, Section 1782 in an investigation that did not arise in the United States. Rackspace is acting as a good corporate citizen and is cooperating with international law enforcement authorities. The court prohibits Rackspace from commenting further on this matter.'"

Robin 'Roblimo' Miller (of NewsForge and sometimes Slashdot) spent five days in Saudi Arabia's capital, Riyadh, meeting with local Linux advocates and users, and wrote five articles while he was there. The article titles are Saudi Arabia: Linux advocates in white robes, Saudi Space Institute techies love their new Linux computer, Meet Saudi Arabia's most famous computer expert, Saudi open source conference opens minds, and Linux and open source opportunities in the Mideast. This is the first in-depth look ever at open source (and programming in general) in a conservative Islamic country. Roblimo concludes that under the robes, Saudi geeks are much like geeks everywhere, but from comments on the stories it looks like a lot of people don't agree.

An anonymous reader writes "According to this article at LinuxDevices.com, Vanu Technology is demonstrating what it claims represents the world's first handheld 'software radio' using an iPAQ PDA running Linux at a conference in Washington DC today. Vanu apparently has implemented the signal processing functions on the iPAQ's XScale processor, and their software uses POSIX APIs to make it platform independent. Software radios implement multiple radio standards and frequency bands in software, rather than hardware. A standard iPAQ expansion pack houses the radio transceiver."

A cheeky writer at Canada's Ottawa Citizen newspaper has written a story about the U.S. State Department's 2002 Patterns of Global Terrorism.

Merry_B.Buck writes "The B-52 Stratofortress, famous for its carpet bombing (or, as the Pentagon prefers, "long sticking") was designed in the 1940s to carry boxcar-sized atomic bombs. This Fast Company analysis describes how the US plans to keep these planes -- the youngest of which was built in 1962 -- flying until 2040. "

An anonymous reader contributes: "The State Department has issued this statement detailing the Bush Administration's approval for sharply raising technical specifications of exported computers to a group of more than 40 countries including Russia, China, India, Pakistan and Israel. The threshold for export without a license to Tier 3 countries will rise to cover computers capable of 190,000 million theoretical operations per second (MTOPs), up from 85,000 MTOPs now. The change is exptected to take take effect in January or February of 2002."

That's a large part of the intent of the Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments, tempered by other countries' desire to have their copyright and patent laws enforceable worldwide, too. Today I attended a public roundtable discussion about this treaty proposal at the U.S. Library of Congress. (more)

Representatives of "copyright holders" heavily outnumbered freedom advocates, as is typical at this kind of event, but the leadoff speaker, Michael Davis of the Progressive IP Law Association, started the session by talking about how hip-hop sampling would be killed by the Hague Convention if it is ratified in its present form, which has "fair use" provisions nearly as onerous as those contained in the DMCA.

Interestingly, Marilyn Cade of AT&T spoke out against much of the Hague Convention's intent; her company's concern, she said, is keeping global communications and ecommerce free and easy. A representative from Yahoo! was even more negative about this treaty, which would make U.S. authorities responsible for enforcing other countries' copyright and IP laws, and vice versa.

Think about this spectre, which another participant raised: a court in Moscow, Iran or China could decide something posted on a Web site based in the U.S. violated their countries' laws and, as Hague Convention signatories, demand that U.S. authorities force the Web site owner to remove the offending material. This is not a far-fetched idea; remember Yahoo! and the French government's objection to Nazi memorabilia sales?

At the other extreme, the American Society of Media Photographers loves the idea of a treaty that will help its members collect royalties from foreign media that use their images.

Not Just Speaking to the Peanut Gallery

I only counted 36 people in the audience; intellectual property issue discussions never draw mass attention. But the only audience that counted today was the U.S. Hague Convention delegation, and they were here, sitting up front, listening to every panelist's words, asking questions, and generally trying to learn what various constituencies want (and don't want) in the way of intellectual property treaties before they go off to the next negotiating session.

A Nationalized Movie Industry?

Jared Jussim of Sony Pictures talked at length about the "entrepreneurialism" of the movie business and how vigorous international copyright enforcement is needed to keep the movie business healthy. He said, "If we could have the Digital Millenium Copyright Act extended throughout the world, I would be ecstatic about it."

Jussim ranted hard about online freedom-seekers; he dumped on "professors" who "cite each others papers in a big circle" and how they are all "liars." Strong words. But that wasn't enough for the man. He directly stated that if movies or even pieces of them were distributed online or through other means not approved by the movie companies, the entire industry would eventually shut down; that "you would pay a tax" to finance government-produced movies; and that government flunkies would decide what movies got made and what you saw in theaters and on TV. Horrors!

The spectre of a government-controlled film industry obviously is enough to make any right-thinking person want to see all possible copyright protection added to every possible intellectual property treaty.

Faced with this potential evil, it is obvious that the ACLU and all those professors who yammer on about fair use, freedom of speech, constitutionality and similar silliness must be ignored.

Media Attention

The Washington Post showed up. A cameraman from TechTV shot a few moments worth of tape, without sound. One of the local tech newsletters sent a reporter. And me. These were all the "known" journalists I spotted, but others were taking notes, so who can say? Perhaps one of the quiet people in the front row was a secret representative of the Today Show, but somehow I doubt it.

The Hague Convention could make major changes in the way intellectual property and copyright laws are handled on an international scale, but "the public" probably won't hear about any of this -- and won't care if they do -- unless there is some sort of corporate aggression under the Hague Convention that affects as many people as the RIAA's anti-Napster actions. Then you'll see the big-time pundits weigh in. But at this point in the game, they are nowhere to be found.

Enter RMS, Stage Right

Richard M. Stallman, representing the League for Programming Freedom, was scheduled to take part in the afternoon session but he showed up shortly before lunch and was immediately buttonholed by the Washington Post reporter. He spent the lunch break charming a member of the trade delegation, who said she was surprised that she had not heard "strongly" before about any of the intellectual freedom concerns brought up today by Stallman and other panel members. And listen to Stallman she did, with total concentration, while eating a sandwich and drinking a soda on the front lawn of the Library of Congress's Adams Building.

Stallman was not alone in speaking about the rights of intellectual property creators and users. Laurie Racine, of the Red Hat-sponsored Center for the Public Domain, did a turn, as did representatives of the Trial Lawyers of America, a blacksuited young attorney from the MPAA, Jamie Love from the Consumer Project on Technology, people from BMI, ASCAP,AAP, and other "interested parties."

Love brought up a hypothetical situation: Cuba copyrighting the "cuban beat" and demanding 5% royalties from all American music performers who use it -- and under the terms of the proposed Hague treaty, having the legal right to force U.S. officials to help them collect.

But proceedings like this one are basically dominated by lawyers. "What if?" questions get asked and debated. Ties between copyright laws and other cross-border civil and criminal situations get discussed in detail so excruciating that it could make non-smokers want to take up the habit just to have an excuse to slip outside for a few minutes now and then.

Not Just the U.S.

Even if the U.S. delegation to the Hague Convention come down totally on the side of the angels, they will still be just one of many delegations, and other countries may have other ideas. A number of people here today have talked about how, when it comes to copyrights and patents, the U.S. is one of the most restrictive nations around, so American copyright holders probably have more to fear on that front from the rest of the world than the rest of the world has to fear from us.

Where ordinary Americans may lose out is on freedom of speech issues. Many countries have far more restrictive policies on libel and on what citizens may or may not say about touchy subjects like politics or religion, especially if those opinions are published on the Internet.

RMS vs. Sony

Imagine Stallman being accused of "not speaking for the public" on copyright matters by Sony's Jussim -- who also managed to get in a plug for movies being a great entertainment value compared to live theater or professional sports. Imagine Stallman calmly -- aside from a gleam in his eyes -- reminding the poor flak that more money goes to promote movies than to make them, so that more money in the studios' pockets wouldn't necessarily lead to better movies.

This was the first moment of passion in over an hour. Sadly, it only lasted a moment. Then it was back to drone, drone, drone.

"The ISP Community" and "The Content Community" were phrases that got thrown a lot. In the legal sense, we heard, the question of whether "publication" takes place on a server or on the client where it is displayed hasn't been settled yet.

And so on.

Toward the end of the day Jamie Love said, "There hasn't been a single American newspaper article about this treaty, and here you are getting ready to create the Magna Carta of cyberspace."

Love didn't blame the people on the U.S. delegation for working in comparative secret. "I've called reporter after reporter [about this] and their eyes glaze over," he said.

So Slashdot was there. And if you want to read the text of this treaty, it's online here.

And if you are a U.S. citizen who wants to get in touch with the people representing you at the next Hague Convention meeting (in June), three good people to contact are:

Jennifer Lucas at USPTO (jennifer.lucas@uspto.gov)

Jeffrey D. Kovar at U.S. Dept. of State (kovarj@ms.state.gov)

Maneesha Mithal at the Federal Trade Commission (mmithal@ftc.gov)