TPP could thwart computer security research and tinkering

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/10/15/trans_pacific_partnership_could_thwart_computer_security_research_and_tinkering.html

by walterbell • 11 years ago

287 72 11 years ago

slate.com

zobzu• 11 years ago

Always the same though. This one might be too big to pass right now but they'll keep trying until something passes. Then something more, then more, then more.

It always works, until people start killing each other - literally - then it resets, and the loop of history starts again.

kartan• 11 years ago

This is another step towards "the citizens are evil companies and governments are good" philosophy. There is no moral nor economic reasons to go that way (btw is the other way around). Only greed and stupidity can explain the current political trend.

gjm112• 11 years ago

Just in case anyone else mis-parses that the same way as I initially did: I take it the words in quotation marks are intended to be interpreted as "the citizens are evil; companies and governments are good" rather than "the citizens are evil companies, and governments are good" (which is more defensible syntactically but doesn't make much sense).

gjm112• 11 years ago

If whoever downvoted that would care to explain why, I'd be interested. I thought I was providing a potentially-helpful clarification of something easy to misunderstand. If in fact (e.g.) I completely misunderstood what kartan meant, or was rude in some way I still can't see, it would be good to know. Thanks!

marcosdumay• 11 years ago

Well, thanks. I couldn't parse it correctly at all until I read your post.

walterbell11• 11 years ago

The TPP vote may be delayed to reduce US election-time scrutiny. It would be better for democracy if the TPP were placed under the spotlight of US primary elections in early 2016, instead of a stealthy vote after the new president is elected in November, http://www.citizen.org/documents/tpp-vote-calendar-october-2... & http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/257065-white-hous...

“... aides in both parties believe the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement will not be brought to the floor before the 2016 elections ... Waiting until the lame-duck session could allow members to take a tough vote on the free-trade deal without electoral consequences.”

The text could be public soon, http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-trade/2015/10/pro-...

“TPP countries could release the final text of the agreement as soon as next Tuesday — the day after elections in Canada — where the trade deal has proven to be a politically charged issue ... The AFL-CIO, meanwhile, is demanding the immediate release of the Trans-Pacific Partnership text ... "Creating a level playing field for American workers includes equal access to information, and the only way to ensure that is to ensure that all Americans have equal access to the text — not in 30 days, after the public relations spin has been spun, but right now."”

mtgx• 11 years ago

No way. Obama wants to pass it so it can be part of his "legacy". If anything he wants it pass the day after the 60 days of scrutiny expire, to minimize the debate about it and leave as little time as possible for protesters/opposition to organize against it.

Also, if Bernie Sanders wins, he'll veto it. If Clinton wins, she'll "evolve" once again on the issue, and pass it. If Trump wins, despite him saying he doesn't like it he'll probably be convinced to pass it.

shmerl6• 11 years ago

Why would he want a legacy of pushing corrupted undemocratic agreements which are clearly against society? It's like having a legacy of the biggest crook.

And in general, if he is leaving, why is he pushing it so much? Those who stay in power might do it for corruption reasons (money and power they'll get from those who lobbied for this garbage). But pushing for it when leaving is simply weird.

snowwrestler2• 11 years ago

If it passes in a 2016 lame duck session, Obama will sign it. He is in office until noon, January 20th, 2017.

walterbell11• 11 years ago

There is a broad coalition of groups who are against the TPP, including labor unions who play a role in getting out the vote for the general election.

If there is a TPP vote in early 2016, before the general election, labor groups like the AFL-CIO can organize Nov 2016 election campaigns to punish/unseat members of Congress who vote for the TPP. If the TPP vote is moved to the lame duck period between Nov 2016 and Jan 2017, Congress can be re-elected before going on-record with a TPP vote that is opposed by American workers and possibly a majority of voters.

By moving the TPP vote to a lame duck session in Nov 16, the anti-TPP lobbying/campaigning power of American workers in the general election could be neutralized. Sen. Sherrod Brown from the linchpin electoral swing state of Ohio is not a TPP fan, http://www.brown.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/brown-to-...

"Access to the text has been inadequate throughout the TPP negotiations. A copy of the agreement was not readily available for Members of Congress until we demanded it. And even after the text was deposited in the secure reading rooms in the House and Senate, Members had to ask USTR for TPP annexes and other related documents to be made available. In addition, despite repeated requests, congressional staff with the necessary security clearance are still prohibited from seeing the text on their own."

twsted• 11 years ago

I liked this concise definition of TPP n the article:

"it is little more than a daisy chain of corporate favors in the guise of removing trade barriers"

ljk• 11 years ago

This reminds me of a comment another user posted

But we need to take this seriously. I don't want to live in a world where Google, Facebook, IBM, HP, Twitter, Microsoft, EMC, Cisco, Snapchat, etc., decide what content I can consume, what programs I can run, etc. And I doubt most of you do either.

Full comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10397034

seems like the trend is to make the devices we use as closed and locked up as possible...

spenvo• 11 years ago

One hypocrisy is that while the TPP aspires to more-perfect law enforcement around copyright infringement (to be a shared responsibility between member nations[1]), imperfect copyright enforcement has played a role in the success of some products of the (now incumbent) companies. Most recently, in Facebook's rise to compete against YouTube, "freebooting", a practice whereby random Pages steal YouTube content without attribution, has been a major issue that is only being addressed after critical popularity has been achieved in Facebook video numbers. [2]

[1] http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/10/09/leaked-tpp-agreemen...

[2] http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/7/9114149/facebook-freebootin...

walterbell11• 11 years ago

There's a long history of pulling up the ladder of social mobility, after you have used it to climb up, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/opinion/sunday/the-self-de...

"Venice’s elites were the chief beneficiaries. Like all open economies, theirs was turbulent. Today, we think of social mobility as a good thing. But if you are on top, mobility also means competition. In 1315, when the Venetian city-state was at the height of its economic powers, the upper class acted to lock in its privileges, putting a formal stop to social mobility with the publication of the Libro d’Oro, or Book of Gold, an official register of the nobility. If you weren’t on it, you couldn’t join the ruling oligarchy."

Many corporations did not have the opportunity to add their wishlists to TPP negotiations, e.g. to use a trade treaty to hijack law enforcement to slow business model competition and innovation in digital trade. These excluded corporations have many reasons to oppose the TPP's proposed entrenchment of their competitors.

z3t43• 11 years ago

So who would buy electronics that would destroy itself if you analyzed certain software?

ptaipale2• 11 years ago

Lots of people. Lots of people also buy electronics that have such poor-quality electrolytic capacitors that they will self-destroy in five years, even if rest of the device lasts much longer.

z3t43• 11 years ago

That's a good example. That people will buy them unknowingly. But we can avoid that by informing.

I don't think any brand willingly put bad capacitors in just so that their products can self-destroy though?

pjc502• 11 years ago

People buy iPhones despite Apple's ability to revoke any app whenever they choose.

z3t43• 11 years ago

I actually think Apple users considers that as a good thing. Self destructing computers is entirely different, unless it's a hard drive feature.

userbinator• 11 years ago

This article brings to mind a noteworthy sentence from one of my favourite short stories:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html

In 2047, Frank was in prison, not for pirate reading, but for possessing a debugger.

The more reality seems to inch toward the society of that story, the more I'm convinced that we should choose the side of freedom, even if it means giving up a little temporary security (to paraphase that famous quote.)

admax88q• 11 years ago

It's not even giving up security. All we'd be giving up is some profits.

enriquec• 11 years ago

The profits of few for the profits of many perhaps. Given that its thwarting tech, net profit is definitely not the trade-off though - personal liberty is.

hellbanner2• 11 years ago

Before software, a thing's representation and underlying mechanics were inseparable. It's weird to see producers greedy over their patterns now that it is (legally) possible to distinguish between the two..

For a while it was illegal in the US to "unlock" your phone: http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/unlocking-your-new-smart...

walterbell11• 11 years ago

It's weird to see producers greedy over their patterns now that it is (legally) possible to distinguish between the two..

Could you expand on this point? E.g. are you referring to format shifting?

wiz21c• 11 years ago

Ineterstingly all of the people who used Apple, Microsoft, Google, etc. products actually gave those companies enough power to build up such a deal... We're collectively responsible :-(

wooter• 11 years ago

None of them can enforce any of this. Its government. The institution we all have to give money to. Also, the impression the EFF articles gave was that big tech was against much of the same clauses the tech community is.

faragon• 11 years ago

In my opinion moves to global unification are unavoidable. Free trade also makes the world richer and better. Against the TPP there are justified complaints, that must be addressed (e.g. individual freedom), and others that are plain anti-capitalist propaganda.

One world, with freedom and abundance for all.

beedogs• 11 years ago

The "abundance" in your world is limited mostly to Western nations and comes at the expense of everyone else.

pjc502• 11 years ago

Not just "Western nations", but western companies. And by western companies, I mean the Cayman-registered holding companies that record all the profit for multinationals.

And perhaps a few billionaires as well.

qb45• 11 years ago

The article surely is full of anti-corporate paranoia, but their points about security research of safety-critical systems is certainly valid and destruction of private property used for reverse engineering doesn't exactly sound like free trade. If TPP contains this kind of stuff, one may wonder if it has anything to do with trade and unification at all, unless by unification you mean "monopolization by obfuscation".

ionised2• 11 years ago

That freedom and abundance will only ever reach a small subsection of the global population.

These treaties are written by the wealthy for the wealthy. The average schmuck will be worse off.

So this TTP and TTIP can go fuck themselves.

joesmo2• 11 years ago

Whenever 'freedom' is mentioned in such a context, it obviously means the lack of freedom as in the USA Freedom Act, Freedom Fries, etc. Free trade is therefore, anything but.

nitin_flanker• 11 years ago

So, in short,we can't modify anything if this deal gets through.

tptacek6• 11 years ago

Reprising a comment from the story on the original article this editorial is based on:

The TPP is not itself a law. It's a meta-law, which commits its signatories to enact actual enforceable laws based on the framework established in the treaty.

No device can be destroyed "under the TPP". The TPP instead demands that its signatories enact laws so that they have a judicial process whose remedies can potentially include the destruction of devices. The TPP hasn't even been ratified yet, let alone enabled by law.

This seems like hair-splitting, but I don't think it is. I think the question of what impact TPP will have on security research depends entirely on what the enabling laws for the TPP look like in each country. In the US, our laws already cordon off security and interoperability research from anti-circumvention enforcement.

The TPP itself also acknowledges non-infringing use. First, note that the Vice article selectively quotes the leaked TPP text, which does not demand destruction of "anti-circumvention devices", but rather of devices engaged in prohibited activity. The TPP does not demand a prohibition on security research. Further, the TPP earlier (QQ.G.17) binds each party to balance IP law with fair use for criticism, comment, and research.

I'm not arguing that the TPP IP law is going to be a good thing for security research. It probably won't be (at least, not outside the US). But it's too early to know what it's impact is going to be, and certainly to early to say that it's going to result in the confiscation of security researcher laptops.

belorn• 11 years ago

Meta-law is what law writers use to justify writing the local law. In Sweden we saw this promoted heavily in regard to data retention, where the law makers explicitly said that we "had to do this" because the meta-law bound Sweden to implement a compatible local law. If one party blames the local law, and the other party blames the meta-law, then all we have is people pushing blame without anyone taking responsibility. A way for me then to avoid hair-splitting in this case is to blame both sides for the full legal change, as TPP will be a law in itself for all practical and political purposes if it get signed.

QQ.G.17 has no hard obligations, and is only a suggestion that nations should "endeavor to achieve an appropriate balance". That is like me suggesting that government should "endeavor to achieve a fair balanced budget". It doesn't actually say anything concrete, dictate policy, nor impact the political environment in any way at all. It's there to provide a good-feel nod, while the law makers can focus on the actual TPP obligations. EFF remarked this in their article a week ago (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/final-leaked-tpp-text-...).

tptacek6• 11 years ago

Of course it's true that there's no hard obligation to enable security research under new copyright regimes, but neither is there a hard obligation to crack down on it.

What there is in the TPP is:

* No suggestion anywhere that security research involving circumvention should be restricted or regulated in any form

* Affirmative requirements that new copyright laws make room in some form for fair use, research, and criticism.

You certainly wouldn't get that impression from breathless secondhand stories like this one.

walterbell11• 11 years ago

it's too early to know what it's impact is going to be

Consider the legal threat model:

  Team A: hundreds of industry lobbyists have years of online 
          access to TPP drafts (i.e. change history).

  Team B: government representatives have physical access,
          but only in a secure room where they can take no
          notes/phone, and cannot bring their expert staff 
          to interpret complex legal language.

  Team C: public advocates (e.g. US Copyright Office) are
          effectively excluded from the process.

With this legal threat model, there is reason to be cautious of charitable interpretations of proposed laws which emerge from the TPP's imbalanced development process, as we try to interpret the text without the benefit of draft comments or git/change history.

tptacek6• 11 years ago

I'm not sure why we need to discuss the process, since the actual wording of the TPP's copyright section is right there for us to analyze.

PythonicAlpha• 11 years ago

The main reason: With all these treaties, the world is going to be gradually reshaped into a world optimized for corporation profits. In such a world, humanity and personal rights (of the less than billionaires) are of no value (your value to society is calculated by your bank account and potential to "invest"). Instead of human rights, the "right for profit" for the corporations is established (nothing else are those courts of arbitration, that shall be established for example with TTIP).

When you want to see the end-result: Just watch the classic "Blade Runner" (and open your eyes between the action sequences).

thomasrossi• 11 years ago

The proposed approach is allarming in a way, but if you see it in a unit test way, it is ok as long as there are sanctions on the provider when a client realize (using input and output) that the software is not running as advertised

tetrep• 11 years ago

even if it means giving up a little temporary security

While I appreciate your attempt to tie in the quote, in this context it's actually greatly improving security. In the short term, yes, attackers will be able to exploit things, but in the long run, you actually have people discovering and reporting security issues so they won't be exploited. I think software security as a whole as benefited greatly from the openness of the community (this is most easily seen with respect to cryptography) and it would be a shame if laws pushed parts of it underground.

igorgue• 11 years ago

Seriously TPP is everything this year even a video game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TPP

AC__• 11 years ago

Festering piles of globalist shit, such as this, don't just disappear. Everyone deluding themselves into believing TPP isn't going to withstand the "scrutiny"(I think we can all agree I'm using this term VERY loosely) of partner nation's respective legislative bodies needs to take an HONEST look at geopolitical history. They didn't negotiate this deal for 5 years, cloaked in secrecy, to let a little thing like feigned democracy stop it. The era of (somewhat)open access to information and free speech that we've enjoyed in North America seems to be drawing to a close.

I realise this is a very cynical comment, but I honestly don't believe even a sufficiently motivated populace would have any recourse at this point.

walterbell11• 11 years ago

Narratives of doom can lead to paralysis. Better to remember that the past is reversible by action, as described in this review of Public Citizen's yeoman effort to raise TPP awareness and decipher the implications of draft texts, http://www.hightowerlowdown.org/stopTPP#.VhmJ-sT3arV

"Enlisting a core band of labor, environmental, and community allies, the dozen trade-watching stalwarts at Public Citizen divided into five teams and went after the Brobdingnagians of global corporate power ... it's important to spread the story of the progressive coalition's successful confrontation with the Global Goliath. Its methods and achievements give us a new template for organizing (and winning) future populist challenges to the corporate order. And the breadth, depth, and intensity of this effort show what it will take to forge a real populist movement--multifaceted and with the long-term capacity to pursue our country's deep democratic principles. We can get there if we build on what we learn--and keep pushing."

Do you remember Jon Oliver's video on tobacco lobbyists suing Australia for plain-paper packaging, https://youtube.com/watch?v=6UsHHOCH4q8? That ISDS video got so much attention that the TPP excludes the entire tobacco industry from suing government with lawsuits like http://isdscorporateattacks.org.

To slow/stop the TPP, public interest stakeholders need to lobby corporations to take a stand and declare their position on freedom of speech, freedom to tinker, freedom to compete against all business models. Wikipedia can go dark for one day a week, to raise awareness of the TPP. If the TPP passes, it will be easier to censor future online protest and raising of awareness on any issue. If the Web as we know it is about to change, now is exactly the time to use the Web in its own self-defence.

tacotuesday2• 11 years ago

The POTUS already took sides and handed Apple a "get out of jail free" card in Apple vs Samsung.

http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2013-10-08/did-obama-ju...

Does this agreement do anything to address the double standard? Is a local dictator still allowed to overrule whatever findings a court makes?

I really don't see how this chapter will be enforceable. If it isn't enforceable, it's hardly free trade. We just enter an era where tariffs are now decided by a court and approved or denied by local government. Much more uncertain and potentially much more expensive that way. "Oh, you sold a bunch of phones? Well, now you owe us a billion dollars. Didn't plan for that? Sorry, take it up with a judge."

loaaa• 11 years ago

maybe the best solutions for computer security or network security is to make everything public

nothing to hide, nothing to lose

TPP could thwart computer security research and tinkering

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