Congress: P2P networks harm national security

[Old and In the Way]

By Anne Broache
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: July 24, 2007, 3:09 PM PDT

Congress: P2P networks harm national security

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."

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Love Henry, but who's advising him on this? It's not P2P networks, it's government computer security policies. This is the type of government meddling that'll turn users against Congress. Not very enlightened thinking going on here, Dems.....

http://news.com.com/2100-1029_3-6198585.html?tag=nl.e497

[Ian David]

1. I thought it was a series of tubes. n/t

[Gloria]

2. Wes Clark, now on the board of a company developing P2P monitoring,

testified and agrees with Waxman....

[DBoon]

3. When you pirate MP3s, you support communism

[Progressive Friend]

4. P2P only terrorizes the RIAA