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?

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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