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File Sharing — Harmful to Children and a Threat to National Security
jkrobin writes to mention that a recent report from the US Patent office calls peer-to-peer file sharing harmful to children and a threat to national security. "Interestingly, the report makes numerous references to RIAA and MPAA legal actions against file actions, as well as cites a 2005 Department of Homeland Security report that government workers had installed file-sharing programs that accessed classified information without their knowledge."
Stop the INSANITY!
This is getting just stupid.
We live in a MEDIA driven State of Fear.
oh please wont someone think of the children
It's good to know that RIAA and MPAA are willing to expend so much energy and money to educate our public officials. After all, we wouldn't want any extra freedoms to slip under the door.
So we have a GOOD reason, for once, to comment without reading the article.
we will end no whine before its time
The ordinary pencil is, in our modern America, a flagrant excess that cannot be tolerated. Pencils can be used to copy national secrets from one piece of paper to another, and leave no identifying marks of any kind on the documents that have been copied. Their sharp ends can be used to gouge; children can inflict grevious rubber burns upon one another using the rubber end. Perhaps most shocking of all, the pencil graphite is conductive and could be used in any number of explosive devices where conductive elements are required.
The Pencil manufacturing concerns of America, however, are resolved to work with the U.S. government to mitigate this crisis. Henceforth, all pencil purchases are tracked with a unique REAL ID-coordinated identifier. Authorized use of pencils will require a tiny microchip implanted under the skin of the right hand. A left-handed version of the chip is expected to be available before 2020--until then, pencil-using left-handed Americans will have to make the sacrifice of writing less legibly until the chip is available.
Wow, I'm really bored today.
So they busted out the old terrorist chesnut and "Think of the children?" All they needed was to add something about immorality (implying Christian morality), and they would have had a perfect score.
[snip]
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
It's two-- two-- two scare tactics in one!
"Oh boy! Are we going to try something dangerous?"
It sounds like the network administrators in said "governmental offices" should take the precautions neccessary to police the bandwidth. Furthermore, any environment in which said p2p applications are capable of leaking any private information need to be under closer scrutiny.
Don't blame the p2p networks for the actions and negligence of those in control of their own computer infrastructure.
A decade ago, the idea that copyright infringement could become a threat to national security would have seemed implausible. Now, it is a sad reality.Since when is copyright infringement, and not massively-propagating worms and keyloggers, the problem for national security. The latter causes FAR more breeches of personal identity information and credentials.
for sale
I'm a self-modifying sig virus
The threat to national security is not the file sharing software it's the asshats who have access to classifed documents,who are installing Kazaa on their government owned work computers. You could just as likely leave a few thumbdrives with trojans sitting around where these guys have lunch.
We are all just people.
> Wow, I'm really bored today.
;-)
If you produce that level of satire as a result, please be bored more often
Also may cause dizziness, insomnia, psoraisis, and the Creeping Crimean Crud.
The cause of the fall of the Roman Empire? File sharing.
JFK's assassins? File sharers.
Besides, file sharing isn't mentioned in the Bible, so it must be forbidden by God.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
Oh, and while we're at it, Wolf! Woooooooooooooolf!
How ya like dat?
Recently, Paper has also been called into question.
If you take a heavy-stock piece of high quality paper, fold it into quarters, grasp the edges, and slam your arm down to force air through the middle flap, you can create a sound that will stop an airport in its tracks.
The Etch-A-Sketch brand has been revived and is being offered as a paper-replacement tool, but Microsoft has expressed doubt that the One Etch-a-Sketch Per Child program will work.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
"Department of Homeland Security report that government workers had installed file-sharing programs that accessed classified information without their knowledge."
How about changing the title to: Human Stupidity-a Threat to National Security?
They say that file sharing is a "threat to our children", but did you read WHY?
So... it's file sharing's fault that the RIAA looks like profiteering litigious bastards for suing a dozen teenage kids. Somehow, file sharing made them do it
I can't believe I just read that.
gah.
I'm moving to the Czech Republic or something.
Stew
There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
So the "harmful to children" line is completely bogus. LOTS of stuff is harmful to children. That is why parents have to take some responsibility to protect their kids. ... Oh, think of the children. Yes, think just how terrible it will be to grow up under information tyranny.
The second line is much most interesting. p2p really IS a threat to the nation state system. More generally, free information exchange will erode the power of the state significantly. Lots of people all freely sharing information will mean the whole concept of countries starts to break down. If everyone can get all the information they need from anywhere across the globe and across borders, why do we need those borders still? To protect the physical resources? Hardly. Information is the last (latest) great resource humanity has stumbled upon and now people are making Googles of money doling it out, just like the oil barons, and other folks who have controlled major resources in the past.
The really cool thing about information is that you don't loose it when you copy it, so there CAN NEVER be scarcity of information (at least long term) UNLESS the laws and the state artificially support systems to create information scarcity. WHY WOULD HUMANS CHOOSE THAT? Quite simply, they won't, when they fully understand the choice. p2p works directly against the idea that information should be artificially maintained as a scarce resource by laws, and hence, it gives the 'ole thhhhbbbtbtbtbt to the nation state and the lynch pins of it's power and ability to control the people.
Life is a such beautiful thing. It unfolds exactly as it should. This is good.
- Windows XP SP2 - $83
- Mac Tiger OSX - $129
- Half life 2 - $29.99
- 20Gb of music - ~$2000
- Getting all of the above with p2p - Free
- Murdering children and bringing to a halt the fabric of modern society - Priceless
- ?????
- Profit!
For this and everything else, there's Bittorrentfor sale
I'm a self-modifying sig virus
Which is to say that, of course, music and movies depicting or narrating gangbangers pimping hoes, killing rivals/cops/etc, and committing various other crimes are not harmful to children.
Hmmm... well at least their glass houses get a lot of light.
Wouldn't it be better to say:
"Government Employees - A Threat to Children and National Security"
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
We need to outlaw conventional paper and force the use of PDF documents everywhere.
Think of how many times you have cut your finger on the edge of rough paper. And now, can you tell me that paper is harmless to children and not a threat to national security? I don't think so.
I, for one, think this law will enable greater national security and protect the children from harm.
Software patents in and of themselves are not harmful, it is US Patent Office that is. Software merely takes a generalized machine and turns it into a specialized machine. Clearly a unique specialized machine should be patentable.
That said, the Patent Office doesn't have a clue about how to evaluate software patents. The number of obvious (vs non-obvious) inventions that make it through is just incompetence. The fact that things that have existed in the open for decades can be patented as unique wouldn't fly when it comes to mechanical patents and it shouldn't with software patents either.
The fact is, most government officials were adults and very busy before personal computers were common. Since they have been so busy with their careers they have had little time to educate themselves about technology. It isn't exactly correct to call them ignorant, because that's too respectful. More precisely, they are iggerunt.
Remember, Ted Turner, the founder of CNN, called the Time-Warner merger with AOL, "better than sex". Immediately after, the combined company lost 88 billion dollars because of the deal. Quote from the linked article: "AOL reported a loss of nearly $100bn for 2002, after a loss of $44.9bn for the final three months of the year."
Ted Turner is a smart guy, but he was iggerunt about technology.
The proper response to "Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO" Jon W. Dudas is, "Dude, you're fired."
We need to abandon earth and become a space-faring civilization - otherwise our children's children will be plagued by potential weapons (rocks) to use against one another.
I call for a disbanding of the NRA (The national rock association)
for sale
I'm a self-modifying sig virus
The "When you pirate MP3s, you're downloading COMMUNISM!" poster dates back to 2000; it only took us seven years to go from wacky parody to grim reality.
> Software merely takes a generalized machine and turns it
> into a specialized machine. Clearly a unique specialized
> machine should be patentable.
No the general purpose machine is the patentable invention. Specific information (ie: software) should be protected by copyright. Pure software is not patentable and all software is pure software.
What the propagandists are trying not to say is simply this:
"The US economy was once based on manufacturing. Our cars and buildings and aeroplanes and weapons were the best you could buy, and people bought them and America prospered. Lately people have stopped buying all those things, and we no longer manufacture anything for export but movies, music, and software.
Our economy has gone from world-leading to "service-based" in just a few decades, and our only hope of exporting something that people might want to buy is in movies, music and software. Unfortunately, all those things are now digital, and easily copied millions of times for free. Even more unfortunately, the more we try to protect our eroding export figures with DRM and IP enforcement, the more we realize that other countries don't have to play by the rules we make up. And it's those other countries that count most.
So it's time for education. Or perhaps Re-education. Time to teach everyone that, despite our own flagrant disregard for the Berne conventions and international IP rights from 1886 up until 1989 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_convention), it's vital that the world now all fall into the US party line on IP enforcement and DRM. And if we can't do it with WTO, IMF, WIPO, and Most Favored Nation status, we'll do it with propaganda.
File sharing kills babies! File sharing promotes pedophilia! File sharing is communist and fascist and Saddam-loving! File sharing destroys family values and promotes the gay agenda!
I've wanted to say this for a long time.
So a baby seal walks into a club...
Ignore this signature. By order.
Does it bother anyone that the lead author of this report is Thomas D. Sydnor II? Before joining the USPTO, he was an attorney at Arnold & Porter, the RIAA's main outside law firm. While at Arnold & Porter, he litigated patent and copyright cases. I have no clue whether he actually did work for the RIAA, but the contacts are interesting.
Come play Heroes of Might and Magic Mini online.
This is reminding me of what they were saying about rock'n roll and comic books in the 50's.. they had huge hearings on it, it was the bane of culture, it promoted sexual deviance, it threatened the foundations of society itself!!!!!11one!1
first, they ignore you
then, they laugh at you
then they fight you
then you win.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
But we cannot get rid of paper, for paper beats rock, and rocks are the BIGGEST concern.
Not true! You can bring a rock on an airplane, but try boarding with a pair of scissors...
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
The Patent Office is either way off its rocker and/or it is not a far stretch to understand that a company that controls your computer, the content, the OS and that of 90% of the rest of the world, would make it also a threat to National Security and the security of every other nation on the planet. Microsoft with Vista can turn off your ability to use the computer. Through tools like WGA and WGN it can monitor your computer and your use. Since there is no competition out there to give consumers and government a choice then we are all bound to something that is unprecedented in the history of the world. The OS. No other time in the history of the world has one company held such influence on the lives of virtually everyone in the world in the same way.
To say that file sharing allows for children to have access to this or that harmful content, and be subject to other bad things, and to say that files can be put at risk and therefore risk the national security, it would not be a far stretch to understand that to allow one company to essentially enter every computer (as the computer is an extension of your home/business) as they are able to enter your home and business to search, inventory, and accuse (and ultimately with Vista shut down your home/business) then that company and it's product could be considered a threat to national security. P2P is not used solely by children and since it can be useful in business and government it is a lesser threat than that posed by one company having control of the computers of the world. You have unprecedented control and access which creates a major possibility of security threats, if not primarily by Microsoft then by some enterprising vicious terrorist hoping to exploit Microsoft's buggy OSes and buggy spy tools.
You can't go from P2P and the concept of access without going to Windows and WGA/WGN. Whatever applies to the concept of access over the Internet via P2P also extends to any product that could be used to yield the same type of invasive behavior that leads to stealing trade/national secrets be it by a controlling monopoly previously convicted in numerous nations of the world or by someone attempting to exploit the fact that exploits to tools like WGA/WGN could present unprecedented access to terrorists and the governments of other rogue nations.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
national security threatens you!
-insert a witty something-
So we need to keep the rocks to defeat the scissors.
But wait, we need scissors to beat paper!
But wait, we need paper to beat rock!
Uh-oh.
America is insane. I feel ashamed to be an American.
We are so fucking powerless against these morons that use these silly trump card excuses to control us all....
Freedom is good for children!
Privacy is good for children!
Free speech is good for children!
A representative government is good for children!
Freedom of Religion is good for children!
Politicians and greed... are bad for children.
Either we kill the politicians... or we kill the children.
Take your pick.
Just think about how ballistic some politicians would go if a simple demonstration were shown to them about the sites you can find with Google by searching for the words "tits" or "wide snatch". They'd be pushing for the internet to be closed down immediately if not sooner. I predict just such a demonstration will be forthcoming in the very near future. Just as soon as there's some new US scandal they want to divert attention away from. It will be the mother of all diversions and has the potential to really crimp the usefulness of the internet in the US.
Okay okay if I'm reading this correctly, file sharing is a threat to national security because it's getting installed on government computers that hold sensitive information ? Does that mean that photocopiers, faxes, mailing envelopes and even cameras are all threats to national security because they have the potential to be misused by dumb government employees ?
#1 - File sharing is only as dangerous as the person running the software. If the user's a twit, don't blame the software, just replace them with a better user.
#2 - File sharing's risk can be controlled at the firewall, either keep an eye on it or shut it out completely. We're talking about offices here, places that have no legitimate reason to be using Limewire et al. in the first place.
#3 - Gov't employees have always had ways to leak information. Sometimes they toss stuff in the garbage without properly shredding confidential documents. Sometimes they get their notebook stolen. Sometimes they leave their passwords written on post-it notes stuck to their monitor. And sometimes they're just would-be spies taking bribes.
#4 - The more stuff gets legislated "out of existence", the more ways people will find to get around the law. They shut down Napster, so people started using decentralized networks. They could try to shut down P2P, we'll find a sneakier way to do it (already happening with encrypted VPN tunnels). How's the saying go ? If [thing] is outlawed, only outlaws will do [thing].
#5 - This is our goddamned government. This ain't a dictatorship or monarchy, it's a democracy. If these officials aren't acting in accordance with the people's needs, we need to fire the bastards!
-Billco, Fnarg.com
The spread of information by means of communication is a threat to national security.
Its raining men!
RIAA: Ban filesharing! a file-sharing client was used to obtain cassified info from the dept. of National Security!
Gov't: Say, weren't you guys the ones who were hacking kazaa clients to illegally obtain evidence from users?
RIAA: Errr....
One of these days, I'm going to cut you into little pieces.
Reminds me of when my brother got busted with pot. He lost his car and about $3k in fines and court costs. My parents blamed pot. Although pot didn't do that to him the government did. Pot only ever got us high.
Funny thing. A friend of mine smoked some pot and totaled his car. The police issued lots of fines but missed his stash. He did not blame the cops, government or pot. He blamed those damn bats that ran him off the road.
He first saw those bats on a Madonna video, which he watched on Youtube and then shared by accident with Communist China. Arguably, the bats, and P2P by extension, are both a menace to corporate profits and a national security risk. They sure did him harm.
I don't even want to mention the spiders he's talked about.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
File sharing isn't a threat to national security, stupid government employees that install file sharing programs on work computers and then make the shared folder one that contains important documents are a threat to national security.
Should we just go ahead and abolish the free interchange of ideas while we're at it, so we can stop the sharing of such harmful ideas as "I think we should go home and beat our children" or "I think we should get together and resist our Tyrannical Opressors (TM)" and then just silently curse this minority that 'ruined free speech' for the rest of us?
Or should we recognize that govenment regulation of the exchange of information or ideas which, (although not being a lawyer) I could have SWORN was for forbidden by the first amendment, is the action of the corrupting influence of large amounts of what was originally, (ironically) OUR money which we gave to the RIAA/MPAA etc., when we purchased music and movies "legitimately" in the first place?
RIAA and MPAA are like DRUG ADDICTS, we gave them the drug, cash, we want to stop supplying them, but they are strung out and need more of the drug. Always they need more, and I think, if they could, they would be willing to kill (you or me) to get it. However, killing is generally still illegal, so they can't.
Seeing them pull the strings of our lawmakers telling us ultimately, that it is illegal for us to talk to one another is disenhartening to say the least.
~Hal
Who is the author of the report? by Jon W. Dudas,
Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States
Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property? What does that involve? Duh! Helping ones greedy friends in the MAFIAA fight their War on Freedom. Pretty obvious Mr. Dudas!
assignment != equality != identity
People smoking pot don't have to motivation to kill anybody. Or believe somebody's religion, or believe what a TV ad tells them or, really, much of anything else anybody in power has to say. That's probably what scares those people the most.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.