FTC To Take a Second Look at P2P

BlueMerle writes to mention that the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has asked the FTC to take another look into the world of peer-to-peer file sharing. This time around however the inquiry has nothing to do with copyright. "But a USPTO report earlier this year stirred up the issue again by claiming that P2P installs could adversely affect national security when they made confidential government information available. This has already happened several times, as the Oversight Committee learned in July when it held hearings on the USPTO report and its findings. At that hearing, representatives were also shown real-time P2P search data. While most of the searches were for porn, movies, and music, the committee noted a surprisingly number of searches for private financial information."

I may not be a bureaucrat ...

[Arabani]

But wouldn't the real solution be to train government employees in the arcane art of not installing P2P applications on government computers in the first place? Or does that just make too much sense to be effective?

Why is P2P always to blame?

[MoonFog]

But a USPTO report earlier this year stirred up the issue again by claiming that P2P installs could adversely affect national security when they made confidential government information available.

How is this even remotely related to any P2P protocol? That's an issue no matter what protocol used. Hell, in Norway there have been lots of screaming because some soldiers have put information and pictures that were confidential in one way or the other up on Facebook. Making confidential information available is a breach of security no matter what protocol you use to distribute it. Perhaps things get distributed more with P2P, but you still have to look for information and download before (while) you distribute it yourself.

Great!

[LordPhantom]

Brilliant! Bribery didn't work, so let's make it about national security. Why, precisely, is this any more dangerous than "ssh encrypted file transfers" (aka sftp), or this newfangled thing called FedEx and "paper"? Sure, because it's an information-sharing protocol you can (drum roll) share information. That, in of itself is not a heinous thing.

Re:I may not be a bureaucrat ...

[MoonFog]

And teach them that, even at home, sharing the entire "My Documents" folder when you keep your private and work related stuff there is a bad idea. I mean, most P2P programs I know of don't just make your entire harddrive available, you actually have to put these documents up for grabs.

A surprising number of searches?

[Romicron]

I love it when qualitiative terms are applied to quantitative data. Out of 100% of searches made, there'll be A% for porn, B% for music, C% for movies... and D% for "sensitive financial information?" What was that number? "A surprising amount." (Skimmed the article too). What number were you expecting? 0%? 0.001%? 1%? I'd like to know a) exactly what the numbers are, b) what constitutes a search for "sensitive financial information". Searching for a credit report on someone is a lot different than searching for how much money some celebrity makes.

What is P2P?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't the entire Internet a P2P network?

I have to ask this...

[Storlek]

Why are classified documents even on a computer that's connected to the internet in the first place? The government has their own separate [wikipedia.org] networks [wikipedia.org] for that stuff.

Chasing the wrong goat

[Camael]

From the original article:

The committee has a bee in its collective bonnet about the issue of data security, and believes that P2P users across the country are inadvertently leaking private information and financial records into the tubes. Such information could be used for identity theft (and also has national security implications in some cases), and the Oversight Committee wants the FTC to do something.

So why is the committee going after the medium (p2p) instead of the users leaking the secrets? Going by their logic, other methods of communication like email, msn, icq, snail mail etc. are also potentially capable of leaking national secrets. Isn't it simpler, cheaper and more importantly, less inconvenient to the general public to just issue a directive to all government officials not to use any p2p at their work computers or at all?

Re:I may not be a bureaucrat ...

[speaker of the truth]

You think you're joking but how is needing a permit to protest much different?

Re:Just ignore the rabid crowds.

[speaker of the truth]

Newsflash: Nazis used trains and trucks to transport jews to their death. I haven't heard of a nationwide ban on trains or trucks. I don't believe people would support such a ban either.

Just because the Nazis used something doesn't mean its evil.

Re:I may not be a bureaucrat ...

[speaker of the truth]

There are alternatives to what are commonly known as PCs. One alternative is to have a dumb terminal (I'm sure they've got a much more flashier name these days, but they're the same thing). You can't install your own software on those.