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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

The State Department will reportedly attempt to remove software from the list of controlled technologies [eff.org] under the Wassenaar Arrangement:

Regular readers of this blog will likely be familiar with the Wassenaar Arrangement [eff.org], a 41-nation agreement intended to regulate the export of certain "dual-use" technologies, such as guns and fissile material. In December 2013, the list of controlled technologies was amended to include surveillance systems for the first time and the participating countries have slowly been rolling out their implementations ever since. Today, news outlets in Washington DC are reporting [thehill.com] that the State Department has finally agreed to try to renegotiate the language of the Wassenaar Arrangement to eliminate the 2013 changes.

Nowhere has the implementation of the Wassenaar Arrangement's new language been more problematic than in the United States. After the Commerce Department released its proposed implementation of the Wassenaar definitions for inclusion into U.S. law (an implementation that included dangerously vague language about regulating the export of software used to create exploits), all hell broke loose. Countless security companies, as well as EFF, pointed out [eff.org] that the proposed rule would have had dire and far-reaching consequences for the infosec industry.

The Register [theregister.co.uk].

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