Comments on: Congress: P2P networks harm national security

House of Representatives panel chairman says peer-to-peer networks pose a "national security threat," new laws needed.

[cybervigilante]

It's a Nice Thought

But everyone now admits the info about Al Quada was already out there - we had dozens of different warnings, but the govt was too incompetent to bother. And these are the moron bums who are going to "regulate" the Internet - the only bastion of free speech left in our corpagovernment bought-media world.

[Phillep_H]

(gasp) Oh, NO!

You could not possibly be saying we should take members of protected minorities at their word when they say they plan to do something to the US, could you. Oh, my. Be prepared for a visit from the PC Police and a prolonged visit to a sensitivity camp.

[balonga]

pens and paper should be banned

along with photocameras, photocopiers, e-mail, current mail, etc... cause their are all media to give all or part of clasified documents to evil hands ... do you get the picture? You can not ban knives -and by the way spoons- because they may be use to commit murder although murder is a bigger crime than not allowed distribution of files. Just that easy.
This are excuses in behalf of the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America, people who seem to be neither capable of nor interested in developing a fair non intruding democratic way of preserving author rights.
Such stupid dangerous and risky laws should be stopped before they are born.
We scientists, or common people, need P2P to interchange our data and information without Big Brothers controls.

[elitecat]

Congress cannot have it both ways!

If the killings associated with handguns and assault weapons are not the responsibility of the gun manufactures, then the same rules should apply to P2P.

[scdecade]

Politicians don't follow your silly rules

So you think it's either one way or the other? Haha, according to YOU. The politicians don't give a rat's @ss about logical consistency. They just want to excercise capricous power over everyone they possibly can and then get re-elected.

[stlwest]

Complete and Utter BS - Sounds like your problem not mine

You can block access to P2P and block users from loading P2P apps. If systems are not in place to do so, then by all means pass a law restricting it from being used within the government offices. Although, if they haven't the skill to outsource a security firm to keep sensetive documents secure and to ensure employees haven't loaded P2P software then it just strengthens my belief that these gentlemen are completely and utterly useless.

Better outlaw webmail, ftp, damn it outlaw the whole freakin' internet, halaluya we are saved.

I do agree that P2P client software should never automagically share your files however and that it should require your active enablement saying share these files or directories of files I select.

But when you let a bunch of lawyers run the country what do you expect? I'm reserving my right to do whatever the **** I want as long as it doesn't adversly impact somebody else. I sure hope the congressman or his college staff doesn't have access to military plans.

[jabberwolf]

your kidding right?

So?
Those who grow marijuana = terrorists
Those those who use P2P = terrorists

Whats next?
Those who J-walk are terrorists too ?

Get off it, this is just to protect the music industry and another manner they are trying to do searches with no reasonable cause by labeling people as "terrorists" !

[DougDbug]

Congress' approval rating is 24 percent...

It's all Al Gore's fault. He never should have "taken the initiative to invent the Internet"!

This is why Congress' approval rating is 24 percent... or is it 24 people?

Yesterday Harry "Scary" Reid was bragging that they've had 100 hearings on the Iraq war, and they were going to have 100 more. Now, that's what I call progress... lots and lots of hearings...

[sismoc]

All your base are belong to us

ROFLMAO

[Impreza WRX]

You have no chance to survive make your time!

HA! HA! HA! HA!

[kaorichan2]

Line of bull

Ok So if they ban all the p2p networks they get rid of some - most mmorpgs, chat sites and other crud like that? x_x they might as well ban us from talking to people.

[hadaso]

ARPANET harmful

So the USA's department of Defense (thru ARPA) has develeped peer to peer networking (ARPAnet, TCP/IP) released it to the world, and now realizes it's harmful?

From the little I read it is not P2P networking that are might disclose sensitive information, but incompetent employees who cannot secure the documents they work with and clueless policy makers that don't do anything useful about it, and still think that giving a name and a number or something like that (SSN) can be considered sufficient information, in a world where criminals get to freely control the computers that everyone is keeping their info on!

[barewd]

Here we go again

Something new to complain about and try to direct the voter's attention away from the mess the Government is in. What was it? Last week there was problems with Talk Radio, next week we'll deal with people on cell phones.

[mustangjjz109]

yup

You hit it right on the head.

[bearded_oneder]

WMDs ?

Weapons of mass distraction?

[Phillep_H]

Cell phones

You can bet the cops here have paid attention to the troubles third world dictators are having with uppity serfs coordinating protests and passing news with cell phones and text messaging. You bet they will shut down both if anything happens.

[novelator]

Time to do more than just talk

In my opinion every member of Congress, plus the Executive and Judicial Branches are all corrupt. If we try to vote someone in to replace them, we will be forced to choose between other equally corrupt individuals offered by both parties.

We the People are fast reaching the point, if we're not there already, where we will be forced to emulate our Forefathers and, after the dust settles and the dead are buried, we will start over again, perhaps with a working model based on true democracy instead of this decaying republic that didn't work for Rome and will not work for us.

The only way to stave off the inevitable is with the institution of a binding national referendum once a year, where we decide the issues and our say is final, over and above our so-called elected representatives. Will they give it to us? What do you think?

I've seen this coming for a long, long time. And you can count me in...

M.L. Bushman
www.mlbushman.com

[bajan_ny]

!!SNEAKY GOVERNMENT TRICK!!

I can't believe this. Why are government workers allowed to load P2P software on their computers at work in the first place. This is a very sneaky way to put P2P on trial

[aintnorainbowdorothy]

P2P Dangerous?

P2P (Peer-to-Peer for those of you who just cannot or will not spell) is foolishly called dangerous. Of course, as pointed out in an earlier post, ARPANET is inherently dangerous inasmuch as it is also a Peer-to-Peer network. And there is a ton of classified or sensitive information available on it. Or DARPA, another government agency run by the Defense Department, that uses ARPANET. Nearly everything done and researched by DARPA is highly classified. Of course, Mr. Waxman et. al., seem to have wax in their ears. Peer-to-Peer is not dangerous. The people using computers are dangerous. Laptops are of course necessary. But downloading programs while those Laptops are not on government property is sheer lunacy. And allowing a dauughter to even use the employees government-issued computer should be a firing offense. Except that Civil Servants, seldom Civil in the sense the dictionaries of the world describe the word and the person, are never fired. They are just moved to another office, often with a raise and praise. No, it isn't Peer-to-Peer that's dangerous. Limewire isn't the only Peer-to-Peer network. YouTube is. Facebook is. Just take the Democratic debate with YouTube a major player. If that isn't Peer-to-Peer I'll kiss your butt on Main Street, no make that in front of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Politicians who complain about something of this nature need to be brought into the Twentieth Century. After all, they can't find the Twentyfirst with getting to the preceeding century first. They seem to be residing in the same century and have the same naievity of those politicians of the Nineteenth Century. I just wonder what our Founding Fathers would have to say. In the words of Benjamin Franklin, computer users "must all hang together, or we will surely hang seperately".

[Anysia]

Someone should tell them how it's done

This just goes to show that the technophobes and fossils in DC have no clue as to what P2P or torrenting files is. You can't accidentally trade classified documents. It has to be deliberately formatted and named, and then uploaded.

I wonder how many thumbscrews the RIAA and MPAA are putting to their paid for politicians to have them come out with this ridiculous statement.

[jefke_kiekeboe]

This is democracy at it's best

after all, these people were elected ...
Voting should be mandatory, just like taxes. It does away with a lot of ambiguity. At the current turnout rates, they are not really representing anyone.

[NoVista]

Why vote?

Considering that 2000 election was a fake and 2004 was stolen in Iowa and Florida, it'd only be more work fiddling voting machines etc. :-)

However ... in context of this funny P2P story:

As I recall, FBI had 17 laptops lost/stolen last year, most with classified information. Some similar number of CIA. VA had one with 150,000 confidential military files, go missing.

And don't forget government assessment of our security IT prowess: the DHS was dead last on the previous rating, and 2nd last this time around.

Btw, we have mandatory voting in Australia and still get stupid politicians. Don't voe for fools and you get fined, not much of an improvement.

[wizardb]

Typical knee jerk idiots

By their logic every time some moron crashes his car into another ford or gm should be sued instead of the driver.How about personal irresponsibility oh sorry I guess in this era of it's any bodies fault but me we can't possibly blame the user for not ready how to use it before he shares.Oh and by the way what the hell is p2p software doing on a government computer on a secure network I'm sorry but I guess US politicians are just as stupid as the one here in Canada Shakespeare had it almost right "the first thing we should do is hang all the politicians".

[D.Thornton]

You know it's funny...

You are right. P2P is not supposed to be on any government computer, NIPR, SIPR or otherwise. Private or Seaman Schmuckatelly can't install anything without Admin rights and that's not likely. What you need to notice is most of these reports are because Senator FootInMouth took his work home and worked on his personal .com computer instead or working at work on his .mil or .gov. (Remember when the VA lost all our personal data a year or two ago, the moron took the data home.) Not to mention that if you are going to work on material of any classification at home that computer is supposed to be locked down from family member use anyway. This is the problem and why they think it?s dangerous. If you?re going to bring you work home it shouldn?t be manipulated or stored on the family PC that?s just stupid. It?s not like government computers are safe by any means, but they are safer than most technically illiterate Senators and sadly government workers. What they need to do is make laws banning there illiterate butts from taking their Unclassified For Official Use Only, Confidential, Secret or Employee Vital Statistic crap home to work on their publicly accessible computer.

[dbrawders]

written to congress?

has anyone emailed waxman or any of the individuals that decided to open their uneducated mouths in this mess? griping about it in a public forum will make you feel better, but won't accomplish much..

you can't even call their agenda's "hidden" any longer it's so blatantly obvious...

[novelator]

I wrote them all right

Back when we the People were first bent over the barrel and told to drop our pants to satisfy the oil companies greed, I wrote the President and both senators from all fifty states. I got one answer from the rookie senator from Montana, who neatly sidestepped the issues of collusion and price-fixing. What they all knew, and I didn't, was that the Supreme Court would be striking down that nearly 100 year old law that makes collusion and price-fixing between business competitors a crime.

Will I write them again to protest anything? Why bother? If it's not fattening their wallets or further their careers, they don't want to hear it. They have obviously forgotten just who they are supposed to be working for.

[gefitz]

Yah, I wrote them, but...

...the "donation" required for my letter to even be considered was much smaller than that in the RPAA's letter...

[Impreza WRX]

Well...

Remember we are talking about an administration that didn't even have a computer network not too long ago!

[Michael00360]

It's the users fault

Sounds like the politicians know nothing about computer security policies. Yes it would be the software maker's fault if the software shared files that the user told the software not to share, but when that user fails to read and understand the instructions and how to use the software, it is the user's fault not the company. I think these politicians are just looking for someone to knock around. If they are that concerned about the security of the documents, why don't they set up some kind of group of people to oversee the mater and make sure everyone follows the rules?

[Dr. Iguanadon]

Ever heard of a firewall?

I know. A novel concept, really. But if the company I work for can effectively block Limewire and other such P2P apps from connecting to the internet and our domain policies can block people from installing it to begin with, I fail to see why the government can't do the same.

Given that, the blame for the leaks doesn't lie with the person who wrote the application. It lies with the IT staff at the agencies where people are allowed to install it unmonitored on sensitive computers.