No Wonder The Feds Hate Limewire; Terrorist Threat Assessment Leaked Via Limewire
from the so-that-explains-it dept
A few months back, we were a bit surprised at the misplaced anger directed by some Congressional representatives towards file sharing software provider Limewire. There were some outrageous claims about how Limewire represented a threat to national security and how it was all Limewire's fault that stupid government employees had leaked sensitive information. Of course, this was misplaced because it wasn't Limewire's fault that gov't employees were too stupid to configure the software properly. It wasn't Limewire's fault that gov't employees didn't follow rules that forbid them from installing unapproved apps on their machines -- or on transferring sensitive material to personal computers. Instead, it was all blamed on Limewire. It also wasn't entirely clear what sensitive reports had been leaked... but now we know of at least one. Apparently a national security terrorist threat assessment for the city of Chicago was recently available via Limewire. Though, again, the questions shouldn't be about Limewire, but what gov't employee would (a) have Limewire and classified info on the same computer and (b) configure Limewire to allow that classified info to be shared.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: congress, file sharing, national security, p2p
Companies: limewire
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
...Sink Ships
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Is it really the 'medium' that's used to transmit the data or the people using the 'medium' for communication.
Sounds like an excuse to track more peer to peer data to me. That may or may not be a good thing.
The problem is, all too often - government 'monitoring' isn't used for the reasons it's supposed to be used for, and winds up being used to slander political opponents, get back old enemies, or take away more rights.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Isn't it better to have everything off, or closed, by default and force the end-user to open everything up?
Let's also, however, put some blame on the network admins as well. They should be locking down the PCs much more than they have been.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Woadan the Pudding eater.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
wtf
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: wtf -- now now now, let's read.
Apparently he DID NOT do it at work. Now, let's start putting that blame on the user? Wait, we can blame ISP's for not blocking that port. Then, we can blame the internet for sharing data. THEN we can blame electricity for making it possible. Then....... We can blame bush?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I'm dizzy from the irony of this farce we accept in our life.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re #4 Woadan
You have to choose which folders to share when installing or starting up (do not recall which as it has been a long time since I used Limewire).
Most P2P programs are like that (every single one I ever used for anything was, but do not want to make a sweeping statement), where the user has to select what to share.
Do not pretend to blame others when you do not even know about the programs they are talking about.
Oh wait, maybe you would fit right in there with them since you are apt to blame those with no responsibility.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I cannot wait for 2009 to get here.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
So it seems quite obvious that besides the lack of security awareness and acceptable use training for Government drones, the Network/Security staff also qualifies as incompetent at worst or as gleefully unaware at best. In either case, the Feds need to get their own house in order before passing more narrow minded security laws.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Looks like the authorities are asking who uploaded it, not how they uploaded it.
What was the point of your article?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]