Lobbyists Get Congress To Investigate P2P Software... Rather Than Bad Security And Employee Carelessness
from the well,-look-at-that dept
Just a couple weeks ago, I received a ridiculous PR pitch from the entertainment industry lobbying group Arts+Labs, suggesting that a story that "hasn't really gotten the attention it deserves" is the "threat" from P2P software being used to "expose private documents to the world." The PR guy offered to help walk me through the process of downloading Limewire and finding such "exposed documents." Of course, what the PR guy left out is the reason this story hasn't received that much attention: because it's a bogus story that's been debunked for years -- but it's a favorite of the entertainment industry and its lobbyists in trying to come up with any reason to get Congress to issue laws against file sharing software.However, it was obvious that this PR campaign was a setup: something bigger was underway... and, indeed, now we find out that these entertainment industry lobbyists have had a chance to bubble up yet again this silly idea to Congress, leading to yet another investigation of file sharing services, with a specific focus on Limewire. Of course, we did this already. Two years ago, there was a bunch of grandstanding in Congress against Limewire because some gov't officials had leaked documents possibly (though, not definitely) via Limewire. But, of course, the target was wrong. It wasn't Limewire that was the problem, it was government employees being stupid and setting up private government documents in their shared folders and poor government computer security systems that allowed this to happen. But rather than blame bad gov't computer security or clueless users, the government set upon Limewire as the problem (encouraged, of course, by the entertainment industry's lobbyists).
The PR campaign and the Congressional investigation didn't happen in the same month by accident. You can pretty much assume that the whole effort was orchestrated by these lobbyists as yet another misguided attack on file sharing software, playing up the ridiculous idea that it's the software that's responsible for people leaking documents, rather than user stupidity and bad security.
It's nice to see some in the mainstream press not fall for this bogus story. The LA Times notes how pointless this effort is, pointing out how the whole thing is misguided, and accurately noting:
Perhaps the real motive here is to find grounds to ban the software outright, which would please Hollywood but wouldn't solve the problem.Of course, not all mainstream publications bothered to figure that out. Five days after Arts+Labs pitched me on the "Limewire-is-a-security-leak-problem" story, the WSJ published exactly that story, including (of course!) a quote from Arts+Labs, and no quotes from anyone who would point out what a made up story it is, and how it's been planted by the entertainment industry in an effort to create a moral panic against P2P software. I thought the mainstream press was supposed to be where real journalists did their homework rather than just parroting the story lobbyists hand them?
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Filed Under: congress, file sharing, lobbying
Companies: arts+labs, congress, limewire
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People don't fileshare, software does.
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I find it ironic
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C'mon Mike
Hey, Mike, maybe it's their new business model. If you can't sell newspapers anymore, take payouts from mega-rich industries trying to get their message out.
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Re: C'mon Mike
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Re: C'mon Mike
Um...
That *is* their BusMod, and *has been* for, like... ever.
I mean, sure, there are some altruistic endeavors on the part of the media from time to time, but even those are simply allowed because they don't irritate the media owners. All in all, the media is pretty much a tool of the powerful, and has been for a long time.
CBMHB
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WSJ story hardly registers on the FUD-o-meter
I definitely agree with the general idea of this post, but I don't think the WSJ article is really that big a piece of FUD. It seems more to be saying "P2P could be used to share things you don't want to share if you aren't careful." I have a hard time not agreeing with that stance.
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who still uses limewire?
and how come the government doesn't have requirements for regulating outbound traffic on its firewalls?
no wonder the chinese are able to steal all of our secrets.
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Re: who still uses limewire?
As for preventing the install of software, that is easily done through technical and policy means, but thats not going to stop people in positions of power (or IT admins who traditionally can be the biggest offenders in an orginisation) from getting local admin rights to install software.
And as for the chinese comment, well, lets just say they are not using p2p in any way what so ever to steal information, they use covert channels (technical, not a CIA spy movie reference) to exfiltrate data using well designed trojans and exploits (not the general ones you can find on random hacker sites).
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Huh?
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This is great
1)Politicians get to grandstand and chest thump (a favorite in DC and state capitals everywhere).
2)Politicians get to pay back the people who pay them bribes thinly disguised as campaign contributions and speaking engagements.
3)They get to distract people from what the real problem is, because fixing the real problem might cost money that would not go to their corporate sponsors.
The rules may be changing on this a bit. The Pirate Bay decisions and related issues have apparently gotten European youth of voting age stirred up. The last election showed that young people are willing to be involved in the political process if they see issues affecting them, P2P is the kind of generational issue that could come back to bite some of the traditional politicians.
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Why single out P2P?
The thing is, I can just as easily make a similar boneheaded move with Live Messenger's shared folders, (though it only shares with people in my contact list) or even a poorly configured FTP server.
To use an analogy here, if I leave my briefcase in my car, and leave the window open, anyone can have what's in it. Is that the car manufacturer's fault? No. Should there be laws in place to prevent me from leaving my windows open? Hell no.
Man, grasping at straws, these folks are...
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Is that entrapment?
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Lobbyists as a whole..
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More than one over-simplification
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@Jerry Leichter
No, it isn't complicated at all, it's very, VERY simple. And it is EXACTLY as he makes out. Don't install file-sharing programs on computers storing sensitive data. Especially if you're a government official. Even more especially if you're clueless and don't know what you're doing, which is actually what you are implicitly stating by listing how 'complicated' the software is to secure.
And a Congressional hearing is exactly the right place... to find out what these idiots were doing installing that software on their computers in the first place. The incompetent fools should be made to answer for their idiocy.
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