Slashdot Mirror
Lawmakers Caught Again By File-Sharing Software
An anonymous reader writes "A document, apparently a 'confidential House ethics committee report,' was recently leaked through file-sharing software to the Washington Post. According to the article, 'The committee's review of investigations became available on file-sharing networks because of a junior staff member's use of the software while working from home.' Of course, P2P software is entirely at fault for this incident. If you begin seeing more interest in DRM from Congress, you now know why."
Reader GranTuring points out that the RIAA took the opportunity to make a ridiculous statement of their own. They said, "the disclosure was evidence of a need for controls on peer-to-peer software to block the improper or illegal exchange of music."
Don't blame the person who actually leaked it, blame the damned software!
Ahh...I love politics.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
So long as two computers can communicate with each other, so you will have P2P.
Luckily, we have politicians who's only education is in English, law, history, politics, art. So it's easy to push any techno-babble on them because they are dangerously uneducated fools.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
Why should our government even have ethics documents that are confidential?
Now that the politicians know how it's happening, they'll plug this leak. Our only hope is another one opens up.
* - I think "politician" is the most derogatory name you can call someone.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
Maybe change your sig to: Error 451: Sarcasm not detected...
For months now, some RIAA-influenced Congressmen have been working on a crazily overbroad P2P regulation bill, H.R. 1319: The Informed P2P User Act. It just passed out of committee last month.
I would expect Congressmen to be falling all over each other to bring this to a vote now. After all, it's they're no longer just doing it for the RIAA/MPAA "campaign contributions." Now, it's personal.
There, fixed that for you.
Yet the lying scum want to blame anything and everything except the buffoon that screwed up.
And considering they fired the staffer responsible for the leak, how on earth can you say they're not blaming the person? I really don't understand your interpretation of the events.
Twenty years ago, they'd have been blaming the Xerox machine instead of the person that accidentally left copies at Kinkos after making unauthorized copies on an unsecured Xerox machine.
The committee released a statement explaining how the document was leaked. They didn't "blame" P2P, they simply detailed how the document got where it is. If they had said that someone smuggled the document outside in their briefcase, would you interpret it as them attacking briefcases?
If you seriously think that this was inadvertent, they you should probably read more Machiavelli
a 'confidential House ethics committee report,' was recently leaked through file-sharing software to the Washington Post.
Hi Government,
I like when the government tells me, even unintentionally, about things that it is doing to investigate allegations of wrongdoing. I would like you to do more investigations and to loop us (your employers) in on the details of the process and the outcomes. Some people will misinterpret such investigations in both directions. That is not cause to shield us from the information, it is cause to shed more daylight on the process so we, your employers, can understand what you are up to each day. This is much like my boss asking me to keep him in the loop on the projects I work on, and is commonly referred to as "accountability."
In short: More disclosures, please -- accidental, intentional, and malicious alike.
Sincerely,
Your Boss
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
That bill is there so that someone has to fry.
No longer can you say, "I didn't know it had installed itself and started downloading all the new movies in music, and then saved them to my 'Movies' folder." and have a reasonable doubt. Now you'll have to prove that the software in question didn't tell you that it was installing, and if it's true, the company will get nailed to the wall for it.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
I disagree, it is entirely possible to get malware when downloading music or movies. Use caution when retrieving torrent files from sites you do not trust. This includes indexing engines. BitTorrent is very safe when used with torrents from trustworthy sites; ubuntu.com, openoffice.org, no problem.
Don't confuse DRM with security. DRM exists for stuff that is supposed to be generally available for everyone, but has locks and restrictions on its use, even after the transaction or exchange of money. Security is for confidential stuff that is not designed to be accessed by everyone, even if they can pay. Those who use DRM may still want the public to use their stuff, but only on their terms. This is a case where those who wrote the document did not intend for it to become public at all.
Or do they all just mindlessly parrot one another
Or do they all just mindlessly parrot one another
Or do they all just mindlessly parrot one another
I don't think it's crazy to say that a piece of software that 90% of people think of as being for downloading, but that also shares your files automagically in a non-transparent way, is a bad idea. Any file-sharing should be opt-in, not automatically and quietly sharing an unspecified are of your drive.
My Photography - http://ian-x.com
The Deathlings (comic) - http://thedeathlings.com
I agree with your clarification. This isn't intended to argue against what you said about that perception, but rather to highlight where that perception comes from.
The RIAA stated that "the disclosure was evidence of a need for controls on peer-to-peer software to block the improper or illegal exchange of music".
To answer your example, let's say that there is a wealthy, politically active group with a great deal of sympathy in Washington. This group is well-known for its hatred of briefcases because it finds them to be, shall we say, economically inconvenient. If the group said that such a smuggling is evidence that we need (i.e. government) control of briefcases, it might create that impression.
That's particularly true of the RIAA's statement since the document that was leaked has nothing to do with music. They are merely demonstrating that they're desperate for any excuse to demogogue anything related to P2P software, to the point that they will obviously clutch at straws like this. If they were really interested in security, they'd ask the same question another Slashdotter has already asked: why did they allow this person to work on secure documents with an unsecured computer? Only that wouldn't represent an opportunity to raise their pet issue, hence their problem with it.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein