States Threaten P2P Companies

The Importance of writes "C|Net News reports that 46 state attorneys general are warning P2P companies of dire, unnamed consequences for continuing to exist, 'At present, P2P software has too many times been hijacked by those who use it for illegal purposes to which the vast majority of our consumers do not wish to be exposed.' Read the letter here (pdf) [PDF], or the annotated text version."

Comments

This makes as much sense...

[Keltan]

...as charging gun manufacturers with murder when a gun is used to kill someone. Just because vehicles are used as "get-away cars" in bank robberies should we outlaw automobiles? How something is USED, and what something IS, are two completely different things. Guns can be used for good or evil, cars can be used for good or evil, p2p can be used for good or evil.

Re:This makes as much sense...

[DrFrob]

Guns are not designed to kill.

Then what are guns designed to do?

Would this include...

[EpsCylonB]

bittorrent ?

from the article...

Marty Lafferty, chief executive of the Distributed Computing Industry Association, another peer-to-peer group, said he has seen what appeared to be a draft of the current letter and that it contained substantial mischaracterizations of the technology and the file-swapping networks.

I don't think BT is company anyway but surely they can see that p2p apps do have some legitimate uses ?.

Corporate puppets

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

If this quote from the letter doesn't tell you state reps are being manipulated by the entertainment industry, nothing will:

"At present, P2P software has too many times been hijacked by those who use it for illegal purposes, to which the vast majority of our consumers do not wish to be exposed."

So we, the citizens, are the attorney general's office's "consumers" now?? Either it's a revealing slip of the tongue from the AGs, or more likely the letter was originally drafted by the RIAA/MPAA...

Re:Corporate puppets

[SCHecklerX]

I'm not a consumer. I'm a %$@#! citizen.

Clueless sabre-rattling

[thatguywhoiam]

Hey Attorney Generals - how about you let me decide if P2P is 'dangerous' or not?

This letter is ridiculous. They talk about things like: the way P2P allows people to raid your files when your computer is off.. It would be really funny if it wasn't coming from one of the higher US legal forces.... which makes it kind of scary.

I am especially amused by this whole tone of 'you P2P companies need to educate your users' while displaying only the most tenuous grasp of the Internet within the letter itself. They list P2P as an Internet 'alternative;. Riiiight.

Ridiculous statement

[smooth wombat]

'At present, P2P software has too many times been hijacked by those who use it for illegal purposes to which the vast majority of our consumers do not wish to be exposed.'

Replace the words 'P2P software' with any of the following (feel free to add your own) to see how ridiculous that statement is:

• cars
• baseball bats
• steak knives
• telephones
• computers
• screwdrivers
• intenet providers

Let's be honest, there are a ton of illegal goings on on the various P2P clients/networks. That doesn't mean that P2P doesn't have its legitimate uses.

It's the people they should be going after, not the service.

Huh???

[hadesan]

At present, {word} has too many times been hijacked by those who use it for illegal purposes to which the vast majority of our consumers do not wish to be exposed.'

{word} suggestions:

1. Alcohol - get people drunk to make them do stupid things
2. Drugs - the abuse of things designed to help you
3. Planes, Trains, Automobiles - can kill people as a result of items 1 and 2 or terrorism
4. Microsoft OS - used to trojan peopls machines to send SPAM to everyone
5. Islam - bastard terrorists who pervert this religion
6. Christianity - priests and children

You could go on and on. You could put any word in there and come up with soemthing that fits that statement. The method of making the producer of a product responsible for a user's action with that product is assinine.

Bullets kill people. Guns only mediate.

eDonkey

[PktLoss]

I work for MetaMachine, authors of eDonkey. I find it rather funny that we don't have a copy of this letter...

Anyone surprised that AGs are clueless about P2P?

[Ronald Dumsfeld]

You've gotta love the bit in the letter where your computer supposedly gets on the Internet and fileshares with the power off...

Furthermore, P2p file-sharing technology can allow its users to access the files of others, even when the computer is "off" if the computer itself is connected to the Internet via broadband.

Cretins.

Now, what I really want to see is the letter(s) the RIAA and MPAA sent to the AGs to prompt this action.

The crux of the problem...

[gillbates]

From the article:

We view with equal alarm reports that at least some P2P file-sharing services are adding encryption features to those services.... Encryption only reinforces the perception that P2P technology is being used primarily for illegal ends. Accordingly, we would ask you to refrain from making design changes to your software that prevent law enforcement in our States from investigating and enforcing the law.

I find the notion that encryption implies criminal activity particularly troublesome, especially considering:

1. Millions of workers every day are able to work from home thanks to VPN. Without encryption, the possibility of divulging sensitive information would keep these workers in their cubicles, rather than caring for children or staying home sick.
2. Industrial espionage is contingent on the absence of encrypted communications. On more than one occasion, the lack of encryption in communication facilities has inadvertently disclosed trade secrets. In at least one instance, the entire source tree for a popular software product was divulged.
3. Without encryption, the proceedings of supposedly "secret" court proceedings - those involving children, or sexual abuse - may be inadvertently disclosed to associates of the accused, enabling revenge on the victims.
4. Without encryption, e-commerce would cease to exist - who would send their credit card info over the internet unencrypted?
5. Without encryption, political dissidents in terrorist controlled countries could not organize a resistance movement for the sake of furthering democracy. Saddam Hussein successfully thwarted overthrow for more than 10 years partly because he effectively outlawed encryption.
6. More often than not, criminals and terrorists do not use encryption - the 9/11 hijackers didn't, nor did Timothy McVeigh.
7. A recent FBI report concluded that during the last 5 years, not one case was stymied by an inability to decrypt communications between suspects. In fact, of all federal cases, less than 4% involved the use of encryption, and even then it didn't help the suspects.

The problem with the "only criminals use encryption..." mantra is that it just isn't true. Encryption is used far more often for legal, productive activities than illegal ones.