[Infowarrior] - File sharing a threat to children and to national security

[Richard Forno]

Notepads, fax machines, and Post-It notes can be used to exfilitrate
information that's sensitive to national security too, but you don't see
reports talking about those threats --- or, the recognition that accidents
and lazyness in how we use/run technology cause much greater potentials for
such compromises.  *cough*  VA laptops *cough*

And of course, "protecting the children" can be used as the justification
for anything, so in general this report just sounds FUDdy to me.........rf


 File sharing a threat to children and to national security

http://www.shadowmonkey.net/articles/general/uspto-file-sharing-report.html

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.

On the national security front, the report's introduction, by Under
Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO
Jon W. Dudas, includes the following:

    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.

Is file sharing a threat to our children? Is it a threat to our national
security? Broad claims. Read the report for yourself:

    PDF version

    HTML version