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[infowar.de] US Patent Office Says File Sharing Is A National Security Risk
Die sind natürlich gar nicht voreingenommen...
RB
<http://techdirt.com/articles/20070308/193358.shtml>
The entertainment industry has long tried all sorts of tactics to demonize
file sharing systems, and all too often politicians seem to accept those
claims. For a while, politicians started claiming that file sharing
networks were a threat because they exposed children to porn. This went on
long after studies showed that the risk was no different from the regular
internet. The latest, though, (submitted by John) is that the US Patent
Office (who has always been friendly with the entertainment industry due
to their similar views on intellectual property) has put out a report
claiming that file sharing networks are a threat to national security. It
discusses how these file sharing networks default to "share everything"
mode and how that's useful to identity thieves, but then notes that
government employees are using the networks and may be accidentally
sharing confidential documents.
There is some precedent for such claims. After all, Japan admitted that a
contractor with a file sharing system on his laptop had accidentally
revealed nuclear secrets a few years ago. Of course, like this report, the
Japanese government started out by blaming the software, not realizing it
wasn't the software's fault at all. Instead, it's the lax security
policies of a government that lets people with classified information on
their laptops install programs without any oversight and without any
recognition that those programs might be opening up security holes. The
fault isn't with the file sharing systems -- but with the security
policies of government agencies.
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