U.S. Wants Large Cyberpolicing Powers

LindaAthena writes "Thus were the words from a French report on a meeting of the G8 nations and 150 representatives of companies from the communications and information technology sectors. A summit on cyber crime was held in Paris with the U.S. pushing for total police power to bypass due process and other countries' laws to catch cyber-criminals (as defined, of course, by the U.S.). Note that public images of nudity in France are rated "G" while U.S. protected "racial hatred speech" is a crime there. The article from Le Monde can be found in the original French or viewed in Babelfish. " A number of people have submitted this recently from the recent G8 meeting. The U.S. apparently pushed very hard for major cyberpolicing actions, while France was one of the few nations in the group that adopted a more intelligent long-term view.

Comments

discussed in congress -- see CSPAN

[maynard]

This was discussed last week in the technology and science subcommittee hearings on the love bug. See: CSPAN - Technology and Science, page, along with the Actual footage in Real Media (.rm) format.
The subcommittee interviewed these witnessed:

• Keith Rhodes, GAO
  
• Harris Miller, Technology Association of America
• Sandra England, McAfee, A Network Associates Company
• Peter Tippett, ICSA.net

The level of outright lying regarding the security issues of Windows and Outlook, along with standard congressional grandstanding in front of cameras was just astonishing -- with only one representative taking Sandra England (and the rest of the witnesses) to task for misrepresenting that the love bug affected all computers -- and was not just a Windows/Outlook problem. At the end of that exchange Peter Tippet finally agreed that [paraphrase] 'OK, 97% of all computers were affected' and then pointed out that the very features that Microsoft just discontinued (embedded scripting in document data) was a critical necessity. The most frightening testimony came from Peter Tippet (who appeared the most technically savvy) who would not admit that the problem was client side security in Windows/Outlook and instead recommended draconian laws to resolve the issue. From memory:

• Criminalizing the creation of all viruses or self replicating programs -- even for research purposes.
  
• Making "hacking" a federal crime with severe punishments
  
• criminalizing THE HIRING of "white hat hackers" so that anyone who has EVER been convicted of "hacking" will be permanently barred from employment in the computer industry.
  
• Of course they recommended against any corporation hiring "hacker" security firms and recommended that these organizations be criminalized.
  

In whole, the entire subcommittee hearing appeared entirely designed to further the cause of McAffee Associates and Microsoft, while recommending insane laws plainly unnecessary to further the cause of Internet security -- but they certainly do benefit the witnesses.

I was most dismayed by Peter Tippet, who really did appear to understand the technical arguments and seemed to just be lying through his teeth to our congress critters.

SHAME ON YOU PETER TIPPET!

Re:discussed in congress -- see CSPAN

[Danse]

Given the amount of false information that Congress is being fed, it seems to me that no good can come of this. This deserves major attention before our congresscritters go and do something REALLY dumb. We need to get real information to Congress and then maybe the ones who aren't doing this to further their own agenda (*cough* the distinguished gentleman from Washington *cough*) might actually have some factual information to go on. Are there any academics or industry leaders who might be willing to tell congress the truth? Should there be a letter-writing campaign? What would work best?

Re:We Rule

[Jordy]

You obviously haven't spent too much time with Cisco equipment. Cisco employs the same tactics that Microsoft does... if they can't beat a company, they buy the company. They charge an extrodinary premium (profit margins are in the 60% range last I checked) for their products.

It's my opinion that Cisco has purposely not enabled things like IP Multicast by default simply because it's not in their best interest to do so. They want people to use more bandwidth so they can sell bigger routers and switches. Frankly, if Cisco supported IPv6 by default on all their routers today, we'd be living in a much different world... but they won't, not until they are forced to.

Their support is spotty, they like making proprietary protocols which are completely duplicated by industry standards only to make integration with non-Cisco equipment a pain in the ass. Their online support is shotty. Their website is painfully slow.

The fact of the matter is, most successful entities, be it a corporation or a country, have gotten there by stepping on the little folks and forcing their will upon the public. This is the same for Microsoft, the US, Cisco, etc.

The US is however in a slightly different situation as the public has control over it, but is frankly too happy with our economy to do anything about it.

Another major problem comes from the fact that what people outside the US see and what people inside the US see is completely and utterly different. Britain for instance in my eyes has been extremely supportive of all of the US's military efforts in the last 10 years. They certainly aren't bending to our will because we have a lot of money.

Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

US of A: Policeman of the World.

[technos]

Why do we feel the need to do this 'Play policeman and walk over any nation we don't like' crap. Makes me sick sometimes. Why were the LOVEBUG arrests made? Because the Filipinos had the FBI and Big Brother Janet insisting on it. They didn't give a flying [snip] about a college student who may or may not have written a virus. We do it to Mexico too. Just because they aren't willing to arrest and prosecute their drug offenders, we decided we're going to do it for them.

And why do we get away with it? We grease palms with easily skimmed 'Foreign Aid', sell the worst of them military weapons, and generally have a history of using the Navy SEALs to 'pick up' any world leaders we don't like. Manuel getting pissed the CIA isn't giving him his cut of the drug traffic? Let's snatch him up, play innocent, and let him hang in a US prison for crimes committed in Colombia and Panama. Nasty old dictator doesn't like having US troops on his island? Let's put some money into the rebels and let them go!!

What the hell happened to the concept of sovereignty? Gee, all these backward nations must not be able to police their 'cybercrime'. Let's walk right over them and prosecute their citizens with our laws. Oh, I forgot. They're not US citizens, so they don't get all of that nifty Constitutuinal stuff. Due process? False imprisonment? Search and seizure? Nope! Fuck them, France, Britain, Germany; They can't be trusted to prosecute their own criminals. Stupid backward Eurotrash!

Makes me sick..

What cybercrime ?

[joss]

Panic driven nonsense. ILOVEYOU is a pretty flimsy excuse to increase police powers, even by the contorted logic processes of the average politician.

What exactly is the definition of a virus anyway ? It is generally taken to be a self replicating piece of code. However, viruses often rely on a little help from naive humans. For instance ILOVEYOU required you to disable security settings on Outlook, then double click on an attatchment with a .vbs suffix. The clever part of the virus was the psychological hacking that exploited a typical human's immense curiosity to see who was sending them a message saying ILOVEYOU. If we include self replicating organisms that exploit psychological weaknesses, then does that include memes. Should we imprison everyone from Vatican city to Madison avenue ? (I've heard worse ideas...)

Suppose we restrict our attention to computer viruses. Harmful code that corrupts data, replicates itself over the network (either fully automatically or with the assistance of duped humans). How about if we add the proviso that it performs action on the host's computer that are purely for the benefit of the author of the virus, rather than for the service of the user. How about a virus that exploits humanity's addiction to pointless ritual. A really sophisticated virus would be so effective it would try to eliminate competing pieces of software from being able to operate properly even on separate computers. Kudos to Bill Gates for creating the most successful computer virus of all time.

It's a question of responsiblity. There's this notion that if you get infected with a virus, you're the victim. The way I see it, if you're infected with a virus you are to blame. If your computer is performing illegal activities then I believe you are at least partially at fault. Certainly running stupid software (Outlook) makes this more likely, but ultimately it's your responsibility to run good software, and to use it sensibly.

You own a computer which is connected to a worldwide network. In the wrong hands your computer could cause untold damage. As computers become ever more tightly integrated into the fabric of civilisation, the damage that can be caused grows. If you own a gun and leave it loaded and lying in a playground, you can blame the kid for stealing it and shooting someone, but you're also at fault for not exercising due dilligence. A malicious virus gaining control of as many computers as ILOVEYOU managed could cause more damage than a postal worker. Suppose the virus contained voice software and dialed in hoax messages to emergency services, etc etc.

If the network is to have any chance of robustness, then everybody has to take responsiblity for their part of the network. It's worse than useless to say "virus writing is illegal, so if I catch a virus I'm a victim". Unless we have some relatively harmless mechanism to continually stress test the network, we leave ourselves open to catastrophic effect.

Owners of equipment are traditionally held responsible for any damage that equipment may cause. If you leave your handbreak off and your car rolls down the hill wrecking another car, then you pay. If it turns out that you purchased a car with faulty handbrakes, then maybe you can sue the manafacturer for damages. Although, it should be within the rights of the manafacturer to sell a car "as is", ie caveat emptor.

We don't need to worry about catching the "criminals" who write viruses. Just make it clear that catching a virus is irresponsible, and comes with it's own instant punishment.

Hell no!

[PenguinX]

All people who are US Citizens should be *VERY* upset about such a thing. For one this breaks how we have been trying to conduct international affairs. We have been trying very hard to be diplomatic instead of war-torn. Wars happen because one people group pushes it's culture on another. The USA can't decide on a culture for 10 years at a time, much less the rest of the worlds. I strongly suggest that all US Citizens write the approperiate authorities and voice their opinions.

The internet has always been a medium of communication that is relatively unrestricted. France, England, India, China, Iraq, etc will *NOT* let this go through. Hell, in Canada it would be illegal to register godhatesfags.com!

We need to take a libetarian approach to the internet, leave it the hell alone.

Transcript link and choice quotes courtesy Tippett

[maynard]

Dr. Tippett is kind enough to provide us all with a complete transcript of the lies and distortions he told Congress on May 10th during the Science and Technology subcommittee hearings on the Love Bug. Here is his primary web page, and the complete transcript is available as a link right off his page.

Here are some long choice comments backing up my previous post:

Regarding ways to solve the virus problem Harris Miller astonishingly recommended:

If you want a closed system, a closed Internet where every e-mail message first goes to a central place, that someone scrubs it and makes sure there is nothing in there that is not intended for you, or makes sure that it goes through some kind of central processing system and slows the Internet down so that your messages come to you after they've been thoroughly cleaned by some third party, you can do that. You can have that kind of an Internet system.

And it's possible the Internet could be designed that way, and that's a possibility. In which case, you would have no responsibility. You would contract with this third party. And you'd say, "I don't want to get any e-mail messages until you've opened them all and you've looked at them. I realize that that means I'm going to get my e-mail messages a couple of hours later or a couple of days later, but that's the kind of e-mail system I want." You could have that kind of system, if you wanted to pay that price. What the consumers appear to want, whether it's business or individual consumers, is instant e-mail. In fact, they like this instant messaging. They want to be able to communicate the same way over the Internet they can by picking up the telephone or by having face-to-face communication. So they want things instantly, which means, unfortunately, in terms of the Internet, as I said, the openness of it also is its vulnerability, because in that Internet, there are people who are bad guys. There are people who do cyber- stalking. There are people who want to send you messages even if it's not a virus, who may want to prey on you or prey on young children.

IOW: One possible solution he recommends is to create a central authority which manages and could potentially censor ALL email on the Internet. WOW... that goes against EVERYTHING I've ever stood for as a System Administrator responsible for email traffic.

Here's another choice quote:

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE LYNN N. RIVERS (D-MI) asked this telling question to the panelists:

RIVERS: Well, thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to ask a different set of questions, because I sit here and listen to the conversation that's going on and I feel like people are dressing down the bank guards without ever looking into the fact that all the windows were unlocked in the bank building. And I think we should be looking at the fact that this virus attacked a software system that 85 percent of all e-mail handles in this -- that 85 percent of all e-mail is handled on that is essentially vulnerable to this kind of attack, it has been vulnerable to this kind of attack for some time -- it's Microsoft.

My understand is that in 1991, the Internet community set attachment standards. And at the time they recommended that there should not be any program that automatically executes attachments. Microsoft, in a desire to have some exclusivity in a proprietary way, decided to create Outlook with that ability. And in fact, we are dealing with a single software that is vulnerable to this attack, both to Melissa and to the "ILOVEYOU" virus.

And I guess I would like to talk about that. I mean, do we have a widespread problem of vulnerability across all programs and all companies? Or do we in fact have a problem with a single software: the Outlook system. And should we not be addressing our concerns to why Outlook persists in the marketplace with this kind of problem. I'd like to hear from all of you.

So at least one Congresscritter "gets" it, but the responses she received in reply should dismay anyone with a technical background:

RHODES (?): You do have a problem, and its pervasive across the infrastructure. Yes, Microsoft is an easy target because they own the market. But you have an environment where the software industry is delivering for a market.

RIVERS: My understanding, though, is the Java programs were not -- that most of the other programs were not effected by this virus. It was in fact a Microsoft-specific..

(CROSSTALK)

RHODES: ... can attack through Java as well. It's not -- it's a matter of distribution based on the application as opposed to Java itself being weak, but they have a thing called the Java development tool kit, and you can establish a thing called the sandbox, and you can set up these boundaries on it. But if you open Eudora, for example, and there's a web address inside there and you move your pointer over it, you can automatically launch to that web address. That's a very pernicious event as well. But that's not due to executable code, it's due to an automatic distribution of your pointer out over the web. So it's across the industry. It just becomes more apparent in the Silicon Forest, up in Redmond, Washington, because they own the market.

So Security problems with Windows/Outlook aren't inherent in to the design of those products, just a funtion of their popularity. Riggghhhhtttt....

Here Dr. Tippett defends the necessety of executable scripts which read the Outlook address book in order to find names of others with which to send email (typical Outlook security hole which he thinks necesssary -- at least until Microsoft changed their security tune I suppose):

WEINER: I mean, I don't think I've ever got a legitimate program that, when executed, goes into my address book, opens it up and starts sending messages to my address book.

TIPPETT: Oh, au contraire, there are many, many companies that automate address book re-forwarding of things as part of their business automation process.

And Finally, they recommend outlawing the hire of "hackers" who at one time have been convicted of malicious "hacking," thus permenantly revoking one's right to pursue employment instead of just fixing the problem client side:

GUTKNECHT: Thank you, Madam Chair.

And once again I attach myself to the comments made by my colleague from New York. I mean, fool me once shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. And it seems to me, we have been fooled. And if there is a level of frustration that you're hearing from us today, it's because we've sort of been there before. I mean -- and we count on smart people like you to help solve these problems.

Dr. Tippett, I want to congratulate you for offering at least one suggestion that this committee can seriously look at, and that is some kind of legislation which makes it very clear that trying to write these kinds of viruses is a federal offense. And we ought to be very serious about it, because this is a serious offense. This is not tipping over outhouses out in the back -- you know, the out-parts of our country. I mean, that was clearly, you know -- that happened, and it still happens I suppose in some parts of the country today.

But this is a serious matter. And I want to get to something else that I think we should consider and I want you to consider, and not necessarily right now, but give us some feedback on this. Because my sense is -- and we have this on fairly good authority, it's not official -- but there's at least one federal agency that apparently is out actually recruiting computer hackers. And they're going to build their own little team to try and build a system of former -- or supposedly reformed hackers who are going to help us become more insulated.

We have an expression here at the federal level that no good deed goes unpunished. And that happens all the time -- a tax policy, marriage penalty tax, whatever you call it.

TIPPETT: My wife's favorite statement, too.

GUTKNECHT: Yes, no good deed goes unpunished. But unfortunately, I think there is sort of a growing theory. And maybe I should ask Ms. England, do you have any former hackers on your staff?

ENGLAND: No, we don't. And we basically don't hire those people.

GUTKNECHT: Well, you basically don't, but do they get hired? And I think there is a theory among some of these guys -- guys, I say that generically -- but I think there is a theory among some of them: If I'm smart enough to beat this particular system, or if I can penetrate this particular system, or whatever, that you know, the worst that's going to happen to me is that I'm going to go to jail for a few months, and I'll probably get a six-figure consulting contract from somebody.

TIPPETT: I think that -- and have stated publicly many, many, many times -- ICSA.net believes as a generic thing that hiring hackers is a bad idea for lots of reasons. One, the reason that they are hackers in the first place -- and I mean criminal hackers or malicious hackers, or crackers, to just be clear about this. The reason that they do this in the first place is because they're not thinking straight. And you're basically hiring people who aren't thinking straight, who don't understand the larger ramifications of what they do. Furthermore, people who can break things are not the same people who can fix things.

TIPPETT: And, you know, the fact that I can shoot holes through your car doesn't mean I can make a car that you can't shoot holes through. It doesn't compute. And so it makes no sense at all to me to hire Billy the Kid to make a better bank vault. I mean, that's crazy.

But whatever reason, there's an allure of these people and many of them are good at programming, although, again, many of them have underpinnings of thought processes that you wouldn't want running your IT department. You certainly wouldn't want to give them the keys and passwords to your inner workings.

GUTKNECHT: Well, the real question for all of you, and maybe you want to answer it now, maybe you don't, maybe you can write us a letter or maybe we can talk about this the next time we're together after the next outbreak, but the question is, should we make it illegal for software companies to hire someone who has been convicted of computer hacking? And think about that, maybe you want to answer now, maybe not. But I think we need to think about that.

MILLER: Mr. Gutknecht, I think the question is being asked in too black and white a fashion. I think we'd all agree that hiring people who have perpetrated criminal activity, been investigated and/or convicted, that's a clear no-no and where companies and government should not be hiring them.

But there are a lot of these people in a gray area who are clearly -- do think differently, I would agree with Dr. Tippett, but believe that they have a mission in life, which is to help take on the big corporations and find their vulnerabilities and then turn that information over to those big corporations or over to the anti-virus companies, the companies that, for good reasons, Ms. England doesn't want to -- people Ms. England doesn't want to hire, yet they do because they like to beat the authorities, they like to beat the big companies. They're going to go find that vulnerability somehow or other and then turn that information over.

And that's -- those are people that fall into this, kind of, gray area. Now maybe you wouldn't be comfortable having that person working at the CIA or the National Security Agency or DOD, but maybe that person, in fact, is the person who goes that extra mile to find the extra vulnerability that the DOD officials themselves didn't find, or that the companies themselves didn't find. So I appreciate the fact that we'd like to think that the role is black and white; that there are black hats and white hats and that there's a clear difference, but I think the reality is that there are some people somewhere in the middle. I don't think that they are malicious in the sense that they want to do bad things. They may unintentionally do bad things, which would fall into my category of someone who should be prosecuted, but they have something to contribute to fighting crime.

GUTKNECHT: If I could just paraphrase what you said, there are people who love to do crossword puzzles, and this is the biggest, best crossword puzzle and they just want to prove that they can actually beat that crossword puzzle.

MILLER: That's right.

GUTKNECHT: So they are not necessarily malicious. So there are -- OK, that -- thank you.

MILLER: And I think that in my testimony, I referred to a study done by two professors at George Washington University -- two psychologists who'd done some work for the CIA, and, in fact, people who do these kind of things fall into a lot of different categories. Yes, there are malicious people. As I said before, punish them. Don't let them go with some Twinkie defense.

But there are people who are just antiestablishment, but they're not necessarily trying to create havoc in the congressional offices or bring down a bank. They just want to show that they're smarter than the programmers at Microsoft, or the programmers at Symantec, or the programmers at Oracle, or they're smarter than the DOD experts and they may have something to contribute.

I'm just disgusted by this... if you've read down this far you ought to just go and read the whole thing. Be prepared to puke... this just makes me sick.

The problem is...

[Millennium]

No one's got it right. Not one nation there has a truly intelligent view.

Look at the corporate-run United States. We have our free speech (much to the Radical Religious Right's chagrin) but no right to privacy.

Then check out Europe. Most of the nations there view privacy as a fundamental right, but can and do restrict free speech. Sure, it's against things like racism, but it's still wrong to censor anything, because the second one voice is silenced it sets a precedent by which all other voices are by definition jeopardized.

France is no more intelligent than the US in that regard. Sure, they have different views on nudity (whereas many Americans consider all nudity to be pr0n, it takes more than that to be consdered pornographic just about anywhere else). But they do ban other forms of speech. Yes, hate speech is a terrible thing. I have the distinct displeasure of living near a whole family of racists, so I know how bad it can get. But if no one has the right to censor me, then no one has the right to censor them either. And yes, it is annoying to have to put up with them (while I might not be the target of their race hate, I am still distrusted on religious grounds). But it's the only fair way.

The Declaration lists "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" as inalienable rights. Note that happiness is not a right, only the pursuit of it is. In other words, you certainly have the right to try to be happy. But if you fail, your rights haven't been violated just because you aren't happy. This is something we as Americans seem to forget often; I'm guilty of it sometimes too. But the fact is, even in a truly fair system we're all different people, so we all have to put up with crap from others at some point.

I'm sure I'll run up against the Radical Religious Right and the Terminally Insecure, I mean Politically Correct, for this. But if we're going to be fair, and the people do want fairness, then no censorship can be allowed at all. Privacy must be inviolable without a warrant issued by a court of law. Intellecctual property must be maintained, but so must fair use of that property.

And in the end, some things will result from this that people won't like. You might run across something that offends you, or -God forbid- you might have to do your job as a parent and keep your own eyes on your own kids. Law enforcement, restricted again by law to using only the means they're legally allowed to use anyway by the Constitution, probably won't be as good at catching The Bad Guy. Piracy will still take place. But it is worth it, because the alternative is worse: a Big Brother state with mandatory pay-per-use media across all channels, perpetual copyrights and patents, and no concept of fair use whatsoever.

Is this REALLY an issue?

[sredding]

According to this arcticle on Wired:
The session drew up talking points for the July summit in Okinawa of the G8 -- the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Canada, and Russia -- but did not propose a global "cyberpolice" or other new crime-fighting agencies.

It also states:

U.S. Assistant Attorney General James Robinson poured cold water on talk by French officials that Washington wanted to a global "cyberpolice" that could be a threat to civil liberties. He said U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno had never even suggested to him that she was interested in this idea and added: "That's certainly not been anything we have proposed here."

Curious... I checked other sources.

ZDNET has this to say: In his speech, Chevenement highlighted the trans-Atlantic gap by rejecting the idea of an international "cyberpolice" supported by U.S. officials eager to crack down quickly on computer crime. "Nothing could be more wrong," he declared. "Sovereign states can develop the capacity to act, first at home and then in international cooperation."

I don't think the CyberPolice issue is still on the table for the next summit in July. Of course, if everyone wants to get there panties in a wad about the U.S.'s meddlesome, high handed foriegn policies, please, don't let this stop you. Bash away.

Substitute "telephone" or "newspaper" for computer

[gelfling]

....In the argument here and what you have is pretty much the normal day to day operations of any squalid, corrupt, war-torn emerging dictatorship. We hear as much coming out of Sierra Leone or Nigeria eg. "we need to restrict the disruptive elements in our society if there is to be any hope of calling democratic elections". Oh yeah, sure, and all that mayhem, repression and killing, pay no attention to it, ahem.

Once you have the police in control of the media and/or the phones you've fallen into the abyss. Plain and simple.

US vs. EU

[nezroy]

This will probably be yet another attempt by the US to implement International law as a fait-accompli, forcing the rest of the world to agree using political and, always more important, economic pressure. Typically this has worked well for the States, with Europe typically divided amongst themselves on petty issues and Asia staying out of everything that looks to hurt the stock-market. But with the EU chomping at the bit to test the limits of its new political and economic union, it will be interesting to see how they stand against the US's age-old bully tactics. And when was the last time you heard of Japan taking a firm stand on any issue that wasn't clear-cut economics, as far as the International arena is concerned? I'm guessing the US is in for a surprise this time, facing the most unified European front they've ever seen. And is Japan's standpoint a harbringer of things to come? I think it would be wise for the EU to catch this changing wind quickly, grabbing support where it arises. Perhaps they could change their name to the EBU (Everybody But the US) and start sending open invitations to the rest of the globe...

Textbooks

[Paul Neubauer]

"High school chemistry textbooks have the same information, maybe we should censor those too?"

This has already happened. Whether it was intended or coincidence I can't say for sure, but I have my suspicions. Probably, "But if we publish that we could be sued if some idiot ignores the warnings and..."

Find a textbook from the mid-1950s. Say, Modern Chemistry by Dulle, Brooks, & Metcalfe. Turn to the chapter on nitrates. Read. Read the warnings, too. Now go look at a recent chemistry text. Notice that something isn't there?

Warning: Off-topicness follows.

This could be from fear of litigation and such, or it could be from high schools, in the USA anyway, trying to teach chemistry by the theory, as in colleges, rather than 'descriptive chemistry' as in the 1950s. The 1950s text is a good text. Reading it one gets a 'feel' for the subject, the detailed theory can (and should) come later, to answer to nagging "but why does.." questions. I have a suspicion that the subject is considered difficult and boring today as it is first taught in a boring and difficult manner.

Re:Where is the UN?

[PigleT]

"Maybe the UN should have police powers over the internet."

Maybe not ;)

In practice, what's the difference between the UN and the US? The UN gets the flak, the US gets the credit and bosses everyone around.
OK, so China / USSR[1] have a bit of a say in the UN too... yippee.

To combine the best of both kinds of suggestion here, what I think we need is to form a totally independent Net - something where the governments keep their paws off, that regulates itself by technological means *only*. This suing-everybody mentality is blatantly immature and solves nothing. This legislating to remove freedoms thing is evil. The only times any legal body should be involved is when a net.action adversly affects the 'real world' (whatever that is ;) .

Excuse me while I invent utopia? :8)

[1] or whatever they're called today
~Tim
--
.|` Clouds cross the black moonlight,

Getting a few things straight

[vlax]

Taking a look at the responses here and in those for the article on Canadian government databases gives me a really chilling picture of how many Americans see the rest of the world. Every time issues surrounding some foreign government's legal system comes up, someone always says something along the lines of "well, their a lot more socialist than we are" as if that explains anything.

I've lived in three countries in my life, the US, Canada and France, and if Americans think Canada or France are very socialist, it's only because their conception of what socialism is is piss poor. Japan, Australia, even Chile have social policies and government controls over the economy as great or greater than either France or Canada, yet few people here seem to see them as socialist.

A better folk political theory would be that the US is has the abnormal political system, with its worship of markets and disregard for good public policy.

Canada is not the home of big brother, nor are the French lazy. France has had higher productivity, greater increases in productivity and has traditionally been wealthier than Germany or the UK, yet I don't hear much grousing about lazy Germans and Brits on this board.

Furthermore, there is the noise about those countries not valuing free speech and/or privacy. True, both Canada and France have laws forbidding certain kinds of speech in some media, which are poorly enforced and whose legal status remains hopelessly unclear. That doesn't justify those laws, but it does make them largely meaningless. The US, on the other hand, is home to the Texas Food Libel law, making it illegal to say demeaning things about vegetables. It is a place where you can use legal pressure to close websites that translate copyrighted pages into "Swedish chef" jargon. In the US, free speech is reserved for those who can afford the legal fees (note that Babelfish does basically the same thing as the "Dialectizer" yet hasn't been hassled by BofA), while in both Canada and France such harassment is rare and often very costly to the harasser.

If you want to see a country with real free speech problems, look at the UK's libel laws. Look at the "LM vs ITN" lawsuit at http://www.informinc.co.uk/ITN-vs-LM/. Yet, /.'ers seem to take a wholly different view of the UK than they do of non-anglophone countries.

As for language laws, is there anyone on /. who has the faintest idea what kinds of language laws there are in Canada or France? In Canada, there are laws that require students to attend school in the majority language of their province unless they are willing to pay for a private education. In the US, the real situation isn't any different. Quebec has a law requiring outdoor signs to be have readable French content, as do several communities in the US for English. France and Canada require that some legally manditory documents be in French. The US does the same thing implicitly and explicitly, as do most countries.

As a non-American on /., it genuinely pisses me off to see a bunch of yahoos who've never lived abroad and who get their news from CNN tell me that country X is full of lazy bumpkins and country Y is in economic ruin when they don't know the first thing about those places. Try getting your views of the world from somewhere outside of bars for once.

Translation from French native speaker

[El Cabri]

Actually I find the article rather uninteresting,
but anyway here is a "human" translation
(sorry for the bad english)

G8 : States and corporations go for hunting 'cyberpirates'

--abstract--

Jean-Pierre Chevenement (France's interior minister) rules out the
creation, as the American suggest, of a world computer police that
could have tracked suspects beyond borders. Governments want to
convince corporations to invest in their own security.

How can an international 'Penal Code' can be established to fight all
forms of intrusions on computer networks ? This is one of the main
objectives of the most industrialized countries, confronted to an
upsurge of 'cybercriminality', this new kind of delinquency, sometimes
even terrorism, that threatens the interests of consummers, but also
corporations and states. Website cracking, destructive messages
transmissions like in the ILOVEYOU case, broadcasting of pedophilia on
the Internet : the cybercriminality exists in various kinds, their
common point being their ability to ignore borders so they can escape
any control. 'Net heavens', comparable to 'Tax heavens', might
proliferate, especially in Asia.

Since Monday the 15th, security in cyberspace is the theme of a three
day meeting of the G8 (most industrialized countries) in
Paris. Diplomats, magistrates, policemens, as well as members of
organizationss in charge of protecting private life have been invited
to chat with representatives of 150 of the most important companies if
the IT and communication sector.

" Points of Contacts "

This cinference is part of the process that was started in the Lyon
summit in 1996, when the G8 countries have adopted "points of contact"
to share their informations over cybercrime. The Paris meeting should
pave the way for actions of head of states and governments who will
meet in Okinawa, Japan, in July.

For once, Europeans are less favorable to State intervention than
Americans. In their analysis of the new criminality related to
computer networks, the US favor a very repressive approach. The
Europeans don't want any 'cyberpolice' to have the right to violate
the private life a anyone in the name of the interests of the
states. "They tell that the Internet is a territory with no right,
that necessitates because of its own nature, a specific juridicial
regime or a cyberpolice that would go beyond the states frame and
their sovereignity. This is not true. The States keep the ability, and
the responsibility, to act on their own." declared JP Chevenement,
introducing the debates. The French stance is widely shared by
Europeans and Japanese.

The Americans were first favoring an all-repressive
system. Washington wanted
a system where the intelligence services of the whole
world could bypass judiciary institutions to track the criminals
faster. The US consider cybercriminality to be a national defense
priority issue. But their interest is mainly economics : they don't
want to slow the rise of electronic commerce, that is supposed to fuel
the american and world economic growth.

Confronted to European reluctance to engage in this crusade, the
Americans have moderated their stance ("put water in their wine" ;) ).
"The American discourse has changed" says the French
delegation. Beyond the different initial positions, the G8 countries
now make a unanimous constatation that anonimity and
private life of everyone must be respected, but should not be a screen
behind which anything could be done.

"States Sovereignity"

Thus, the delegations try to harmonize the definition of 'cybercrime'
and to degine the procedures for an efficient cooperation within the
states' sovereignity. As an example, the notion of "incitation to
racial hatred" does not exist in the US. And nothing prevents US based
neonazi websites to broadcast their propaganda to Europe.

The G8 States have coordinated their opinions but they still need to
convince corporations to take their part of the responsibility. This
is the main goal of the G8 meeting in Paris, that gathers for the
first times the governments and the private sector. "The industrials
want anything and the contrary", says a member of the French
delegation. They want a maximum security for a minimum of cost. One of
the main difficulties met by the states is to convince ISPs to keep
during several months the date that they have, to allow the
preservation of elements of proof. Regulatory will on one side,
libertary aspirations of the "net economy" on the other : the conflict
that looms is far from being resolved.

Translation

[saridder]

G8: States and large companies leave to hunting the cyberpirates

Jean-Pierre Chevènement excluded creation, as suggested it the Americans, from a world data-processing font which could have continued the suspects beyond the national borders. The governments want to convince the companies to invest in their security
Updated Tuesday May 16 2000

Lucas Delattre

HOW TO ESTABLISH a " penal code " international for better fighting against all the forms of piracy on the data-processing networks? Such is one of the first objectives of the most industrialized countries, which are confronted with a rise to power of the " cybercriminality ", this new form of delinquency, or sometimes even of terrorism, which is caught with the interests users of them, but also of the companies and States. Attacks of sites, transmission of destroying messages such as ILOVEYOU, diffusion of contents with character pédophile on the Net: the forms of the cybercriminality are very varied and have as a common point their capacity to be unaware of the borders for better escaping any control. Comparable with the tax havens, of the " paradises of the Net " are likely to multiply, in particular in Asia.

For Monday May 15, the security in the cyberspace has been the subject of a three days meeting of the countries most industrialized (G8) in Paris. Diplomats, magistrates, police officers, as of the members of the institutions charged to take care of the protection of the private life were invited to dialogue with the representatives of the 150 companies among most significant of the sector of communication and information technologies.

" POINTS OF CONTACTS "

This conference falls under a process which began at the Summit of Lyon in 1996, date on which the countries of G8 in particular adopted " points of contact " to exchange their information on the cybercrime. The meeting of Paris should release from the tracks of action for the heads of State and government of the countries of G8 which must be found in node with Okinawa, in Japan, in July.

For once, Europeans show themselves more " liberal " that the Americans. In their analysis of the new criminality related to the data-processing networks, the United States is in favour of a very repressive approach. Europeans, them, do not intend to give to unspecified " a cyberpolice " the right to violate the private life of each one in the name of defense of the interests of the States " Internet would be a space without right or the cyberspace, from its nature even, would require a specific legal status or a cyberpolice which would exceed the framework of the States and their sovereign competences. Nothing is inaccurate any more. The States preserve the responsibility, and the capacity to act ", declared the Minister of Interior Department French Jean-Pierre Chevènement, which introduced the debates. The French position is largely shared by Europeans and the Japanese.

The Americans, at the beginning, were in favour of a all-repressive system. It acted, with the eyes of Washington, to establish a system making it possible the services of information of the whole world to short-circuit the legal institutions to go up as fast as possible to the criminals. The United States considers that the cybercriminality is a stake of national defense of first command but their interest is also economic: they do not want to handicap the rise to power of the electronic trade, called to draw to the top the American and world growth.

In front of the European reserves to launch out in this crusade, the Americans put water in their wine " the American speech changed ", indicates one in the French delegation. Beyond the starting divergences, the countries of G8 make the unanimous report today that the respect of the anonymity and the private life of each one must be respected, but that it should not be a folding screen to do anything.

SOVEREIGNTY OF THE STATES

One thus seeks to harmonize the definition of the cybercrime and to define procedures of effective co-operation within the framework of the sovereignty of the States. Example: the concept of " incentive to racial hatred " does not exist in the United States. However nothing prevents the sites néo-Nazis based on the other side of the Atlantic to diffuse their propaganda in Europe via the Net...

The States of G8 granted their violins but it remains to them to convince the companies to take their share of responsibility. Such is the principal object of the meeting of G8 in Paris, which gathers for the first time the States and the private sector " the industrialists want all and their opposite ", known as a member of the French delegation. In other words the companies want at the same time a maximum of security and a minimum of overcosts. One of the principal difficulties encountered by the States is to convince the Internet operators to preserve during several months the data they have, to allow the safeguarding of the elements of proof. Will of regulation of the States on a side, libertarian aspirations of the " Net economy " of the other: the conflict which takes shape is far from being solved. *** TRANSLATION ENDS HERE ***

Where is the UN?

[rigau]

Maybe the UN should have police powers over the internet. So internet crimes thet become international matters fall under the jurisdiction of some UN task force. That way it no one country is infringing over another country's jurisdiction. I know the US uses their muscle to force things in the UN but it seems a little bit better to have to at least do this more subtly through the UN than doing it outright as simply the US.

Any censorship is bad

[FascDot Killed My Pr]

Unless France's view was "ban all censorship, period" it isn't all that much more intelligent.

The Internet is not like television. The Internet is an enormous, distributed library. If we conduct periodic purges of the library based on the whims of the moment ("nudity is bad, now it's good; racism is good, now it's bad; cold fusion is a myth, cold fusion works great, no wait--it's a myth after all") we'll end eventually losing all the contents.

Q: So what about things like Napster and FreeNet? "How are artists supposed to make money?"

A: However they want. But technical progress will not and can not stop because of some individual's (or individuals') need for economic support.

Q: What about porn? My children will be scarred if they see a breast.

A: So keep them away from porn sites. Only YOU know what your policy is, so only YOU can enforce it. In any case, it's not my job to raise your children.

Q: What about bomb-making information? Oklahoma City/Columbine, blah blah blah.

A: There are so many answers to this I don't even know where to start. How about: "The same bomb-creating information that blew up an empty school last week can destroy an invading force next week." Or maybe: "High school chemistry textbooks have the same information, maybe we should censor those too?"

The only solution that works for all problems is education. Education requires information. Therefore censorship makes solving problems harder.
--
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