Proposed changes to the US government's export controls on hacking tools will likely be scaled back following widespread criticism from the infosec community, a government spokesman has said.
"A second iteration of this regulation will be promulgated," a spokesman for the US Department of Commerce told Reuters, "and you can infer from that that the first one will be withdrawn." The proposed restrictions are required by the Wassenaar Arrangement, a 41-nation pact that first came into effect in 1996 and which calls for limits on trade of "dual-use goods," meaning items that have both civilian and military applications.
In 2013, the list of goods governed under the Arrangement was amended to include technologies used for testing, penetrating, and exploiting vulnerabilities in computer systems and networks. Each company participating in the Arrangement is responsible for implementing the required export controls as it sees fit, but the rules proposed by the US were more sweeping than those put forth by other countries.
Security experts have complained that the language of the new rules, which the Commerce Department has made available for public comment since May, is overly broad and could have a chilling effect on the entire information security industry.
Uhhhh... (Score:3, Touché)
Here, let me fix that for you:
It's fairly obvious there was no actual thinking to begin with, as usual. You can't redo what ain't been done.
Good luck with that.... (Score:1)
Sounds just about as do-able as enforcement of copyright.
If its a fileset on a machine, for all practical purposes, consider it public.
If anyone knows the "secret handshake" mandated by the TLA's, its his.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
How government wants to control you (Score:3, Insightful)
So how do you get Big Brother laws passed? By attempting to pass even more draconian laws first! It goes something like this.
Suppose, government wants to record all your conversations to "catch terrorists". So they,
1. propose total censorship of all communication, to fight terrorism
2. people protest
3. government says "we listen to you and agree. freedom is too important so instead, we'll just temporarily analyze keywords for later review, to catch terrorists"
4. people are so relieved and grateful that their government "cares" that government's rating go up as they pass bill to record all conversations
Same here. First, they want to pass a law to criminalize use of netcat. Then they "listen" and will scale it back to the version they wanted in the first place and everyone will be so grateful that they will forget that government just wants to control your computer.