Congress: P2P networks harm national security

ZDNet ^ | July 24, 2007 | Anne Broache

[Leo Carpathian]

WASHINGTON--Politicians charged on Tuesday that peer-to-peer networks can pose a "national security threat" because they enable federal employees to share sensitive or classified documents accidentally from their computers.

At a hearing on the topic, Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said, without offering details, that he is considering new laws aimed at addressing the problem. He said he was troubled by the possibility that foreign governments, terrorists or organized crime could gain access to documents that reveal national secrets.

Also at the hearing, Mark Gorton, the chairman of Lime Wire, which makes the peer-to-peer software LimeWire, was assailed for allegedly harming national security through offering his product.

The documents at risk of exposure supposedly include classified government military orders, confidential corporate-accounting documents, localized terrorist threat assessments, as well as personal information such as federal workers' credit card numbers, bank statements, tax returns and medical records, according to recent studies by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and private researchers.

Evidence that sensitive information is accessible through peer-to-peer networks illustrates "the importance of strengthening the laws and rules protecting personal information held by federal agencies" and other organizations, said Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), the committee's ranking member, who has sponsored a bill that would impose new requirements on government agencies that discover security breaches. "We need to do this quickly."

The politicians present Tuesday generally said they believe that there are benefits to peer-to-peer technology but that it will imperil national security, intrude on personal privacy and violate copyright law, if not properly restricted. Both Waxman and Rep. Paul Hodes (D-N.H.) dubbed P2P networks ongoing national security threats.

Congressional gripes about P2P networks are hardly new, and in the past, they have reinforced concerns raised by the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America. Four years ago, the same committee held a pair of hearings that condemned pornography sharing on P2P networks and also explored leaks of sensitive information. And throughout 2004, Congress considered multiple proposals that would have restricted--or effectively banned--many popular file-swapping networks. Waxman noted that he was not seeking to ban peer-to-peer networks this time around but rather to "achieve a balance that protects sensitive government, personal and corporate information and copyright laws."

To be sure, the kind of information leaks that alarmed politicians at Tuesday's hearing are most likely already against the law or federal policy. It is illegal for government employees to leak certain types of classified documents without approval, either electronically or through traditional paper means.

Mary Koelbel Engle, the associate director for advertising practices in the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection, said her agency has found in its studies of peer-to-peer network use that risks to sensitive information "stem largely from how individuals use the technology rather than being inherent in the technology itself."

[KarlInOhio]

Hollywood and the record industry want to stop P2P for natioal securi... I can't even finish it because its so silly.

What's next, casinos arguing that banks sending money to offshore gambling websites are a threat to the nation's shipping? Wait, that's why it was already put into a port security law in the last second in 2006.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Politicians charged on Tuesday that peer-to-peer networks can pose a "national security threat" because they enable federal employees to share sensitive or classified documents accidentally from their computers.

Given this kind of mentality, it's a little amazing that the Internet and it's subsequent technologies exist at all in their present form. Maybe we're in a brief Golden Era of information exchange for individuals, a little glimpse of sunlight before all control over information is in the hands of the government and entertainment industry lawyers.

[MCH]

More idiocy. Equivalent to banning guns because “they kill people”, banning cars for the same reason, etc. It’s all in how you use the technology, not the technology itself. How about putting controls & penalties on that, huh? No, that would make too much sense. And besides, it wouldn’t involve politicians enriching themselves by taking special interest money from the same media organizations and industries who’ve tried [unsuccessfully] to go after P2P file-sharing technologies before — now for trumped up “national security” reasons. What a transparent joke.

[longtermmemmory]

anyone from california has no gravitas on this issue.

P2P attacks are just hollyweird puffery.

These are the identical arguments they used against cassette reocorders.

Perhaps they should also ban photocopiers just like the USSR.

[Vinnie]

I guess a hard drive might fit in Sandy’s pants.

Or one of Waxman's nostrils.

[sanchmo]

Here's another national security threat:

And another:

[Vinnie]

Speaking of P2P, is Lime Wire safe? Legal?

[P-40]

Just block P2P access on Government computers and leave the rest of us alone.

You'd almost think that government would have blocked this already. I sometimes forget just how slow the government can be...