http://www.wired.com/2015/06/arms-control-pact-security-experts-arms/
By Kim Zetter
Security
Wired.com
June 24, 2015
SECURITY RESEARCHERS SAY a proposed set of export rules meant to restrict
the sale of surveillance software to repressive regimes are so broadly
written that they could criminalize some research and restrict legitimate
tools that professionals need to make software and computer systems more
secure.
Critics liken the software rules, put forth by the US Commerce Department,
to the Crypto Wars of the late ’90s, when export controls imposed against
strong encryption software prevented cryptographers and mathematicians
from effectively sharing their research abroad.
At issue is the so-called Wassenaar Arrangement, an international
agreement on which the proposed US rules are based. Other countries are in
the process of developing their own rules around the WA, potentially
putting researchers overseas in the same troubled boat as ones in the US.
To clarify why people are alarmed about the WA and the proposed US rules,
we’ve compiled a primer on what they are and why they could harm not only
researchers and security companies but the state of computer security
itself.
[...]
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