Crackdown on peer-to-peer file-sharing following Obama ‘safe-house’ leak — Safe house? For what? I thought there were underground bunkers in Colorado.
The US is pondering a crackdown on peer-to-peer file sharing programs after details of a Secret Service safe-house location for President Barack Obama and his family were found being traded on LimeWire.
A senior US lawmaker has said that it may be time for the Government to regulate companies that provide online file-sharing services after several people managed to access confidential information.
I smell some funding by people against file-sharing
Security 101, it’s always better to find a leak than not to. The internet has actually made the spooks job easier, not harder.
I smell those RIAA appointees to the justice department behind this. The congressman in the article is just a tool, literally and figuratively.
The internet is designed to allow users to share information. P2P is just one way of doing this. Are these people really that stupid? They need to crack down on their own IT security and scapegoating the public.
er STOP scapegoating the public, I mean…
It was Joe Biden.
maybe the government should stop using windows and get a more secure operating system like something linux based.. and do the taxpayer a favor and save them some money to boot…. something needed in these lead financial times
#7 – pokemon1571
Perhaps not so far-fetched… Joe Biden is Hollywood’s boy in the White House…
Funny, nobody seemed to have a problem when the location of the secret bunker in the Virginia mountains was leaked during the Bush admin.
It was apparently in the public interest for that info to be published by every major news org. Why is it a problem now?
This is like blaming my mail man for him delivering top secret documents.
Thing is the nature of Limewire is you have to acctually search for something that is somewhat specific. People only search for things that they know already exist in the first place, like music, movies, software, and pr0n. I guess you could search “top secret US government documents” on limewire, I suppose.
Who acctually KNEW there’s are top secret government stuff on gnutila ANYWAY?
People are so short sighted and ignorant about P2P; they keep blaming software when it’s just one if hundreds of clients used on the gnutila network. Suing the makers of Limewire is pointless, not like they put those documents up online.
At least with Bit Torrent, you can see a list of new torrents being announced on torrent websites, labeled as “top secret US government documents” or something. But gnutila network dosen’t work like that.
Uh.. cool. The citizens can keep track of the government now by doing searches on P2P sites.
It is a good thing something like this didn’t happen during the sneakernet days. Dress codes would be a bit different at NSA.
Better shut down the cell phone industry too. They could be used to transmit data.
Looks like Obama has no intention of winning the White House again.
Sure go after the file sharers. True leakers of secret information use the national media.
Joe? Tell us more about your secret bunker…
What they need to do is fire some of their IT people and hire somebody with a clue.
I have to agree, this doesn’t pass the smell test.
It’s a lot easier to find a new safe house than to go after p2p
I don’t think the russians are counting on limewire to get government secrets.
From the article:
[House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman] “Mr [Edolphus] Towns, a New York Democrat, said he planned to introduce legislation that would ban unsecure, open network, peer-to-peer software from all government and contractor computers and networks.”
It’s insane that this wasn’t done 20 years ago.
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# 13 Grandpa said, in part:
“Looks like Obama has no intention of winning the White House again.”
This story is about hearings before a Congressional committee, not the administration.
They need to Crackdown those who leak the “CONFIDENTIAL” data, not the file sharing ! file sharing can’t be ended !!!
Best of all, only posted on this blog – yes, why do I have to read this here? – where is the MAINSTREAM MEDIA???!!
God damn it! P2P they want to go after. Trading music files, they want to put an end to. But when it comes to something serious, that can effect everyone, such as identity theft. That, they balk at stopping. There’s this Caller ID spoofing site, that let’s pranksters call in false reports to police, using other people’s caller IDs. But any legislation to “put a stop to it” has failed. Apparently, Telemarketers need to use it to get around call blocking. Meanwhile, innocent people get blamed for making false reports to police. And it’s making a joke of the whole 911 system. Yeah, that crap the stupid US government protects, in case its a profit making tool. Regardless of how much it cost taxpayers, in false police calls. But they’re all fired up to come down on the music and movie file sharers. Cause damn it, that costing some private industry a lot of dough, in sales they imagine they’ve lost. Particularly since said industries back these US government cronies of theirs. We only elect them. The corporations feed them!