[x]Blackmoor Vituperative

Thursday, 2007-03-15

File sharing a threat to children and to national security

Filed under: Security — bblackmoor @ 11:03

In today’s Let’s Be A Little Overdramatic file, a newly released report from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office suggests that networked file and music sharing could harm children and threaten national security.

The November, 2006, report, entitled “Filesharing Programs and Technological Features to Induce Users to Share,” makes two main points across the span of its 80 pages:

  • that peer-to-peer networks could manipulate sites so children violate copyright laws more frequently than adults, exposing those children to copyright lawsuits and, in turn, make those who protect their copyrighted material appear antagonistic, and
  • file-sharing software could be to blame for government workers who expose sensitive data and jeopardize national security after downloading free music on the job

Interestingly, the report makes numerous references to RIAA and MPAA legal actions against file-sharing activity, 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.

(from Shadow Monkey, File sharing a threat to children and to national security)

Well, now, we wouldn’t want RIAA and MPAA to appear antagonistic, would we? Why, that would be like making Wilhelm Marr look antisemitic. What a gross injustice that would be.

As for the danger to national security, anyone who has ever held a security clearance (me, for example) knows who is to blame for any such security breach: the nut behind the keyboard. Or, to put it another way, what we have here is a poor workman blaming his tools. I can’t even comprehend how anyone could put classified documents on a workstation connected to the Internet, and then install file-sharing software on that workstation, without being aware of the security ramifications. The very concept just baffles me. Were the InfoSec people asleep?

Anyway, here are links to the report. I wonder how much MPAA and RIAA spent to underwrite it?

PDF version
HTML version