implemented security camera system across

The important issue now is how this category is interpreted and implemented. It is our understanding that exportnetwork camera control authorities did not want to catch security research tools and may well explicitly or implicitly exempt security products at a national level. In the UK, for example, exporters can apply for a Control List Classification enquiry to determine whether or not a product is subject to control, a process that takes into consideration the original design purpose of a product. Export licensing authorities, and particularly enforcement officers within customs, do not want to create unnecessary work for themselves if it serves no legitimate purpose. It is also important to remember that while some products may be caught under this category, it is still up to prosecutors to decide whether or not to pursue a case if there has been any infringement.

It’s still early days following the publication of the agreement, and the scope of the consideration given to security research tools remains untested. What’s important now is to establish the extent of the safeguards put in to prevent overreach; Privacy International and others will be doing a number of things before these controls are implemented:

We will pursue outreach with governments and the expert groups involved in the discussions to ascertain what thought was given to security research products throughout the process
We will consult licensing authorities to find out if they intend to control security research products within the new categories
We will campaign vigorously against the control of any such products and ensure that category 4 is implemented security camera system across member states in such a way as to not catch security products
We will initiate conversations with the security industry to ascertain their understanding of the new controls and how it affects them
We’ll keep you posted.

group 4 channel dvr deciding

Discussions between Privacy International and export 16 channel dvr control officials involved in drafting the new controls suggest that it was never the intention of these new controls to catch legitimate security research tools and that efforts have been made to prevent them from being subject to controls. On the face of it however, there are still areas to be worried about in the new agreement.

As is standard throughout the Wassenaar control list, it is not only finished items themselves that are subject to control, but also any software and technology that is used to produce or operate them. The new controls on intrusion software therefore also includes controls on:

"Technology"1 for the "development"2 of "intrusion software"
"Software" specially designed or modified for the "development" or "production" of equipment or "software" specified by 4.A. or 4.D.
"Technology" according to the General Technology Note, for the "development", "production" or "use" of equipment or "software" specified by 4.A. or 4.D.
Although unintended, these controls could also catch some legitimate security products.

There are of course exceptions; software and technology in the public domain is exempt (more on that later), as is technology 8 channel dvr for "Basic scientific research" – defined as
”Experimental or theoretical work undertaken principally to acquire new knowledge of the fundamental principles of phenomena or observable facts, not primarily directed towards a specific practical aim or objective.”

There are specific technologies that are exempted from controls as well; DRM software is unsurprisingly included in this category, as are “Hypervisors, debuggers or Software Reverse Engineering (SRE) tools”, in addition to software to “be installed by manufacturers, administrators or users, for the purposes of asset tracking or recovery.” It is unclear at this stage what conversations were had that led to expert group 4 channel dvr deciding to exclude debuggers and not explicitly security research products.

important for security researchers

after two years of campaigning, supported by the Wikileaks SpyFiles, the investigative reporting by Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal, legal efforts by FIDH, technical research surveillance system undertaken by Citizenlab, and push in the European Parliament by Dutch MEP Marietje Schaake, tangible progress is finally being made. This is the go-ahead for the participating states and countries to interpret and implement the new controls to create what we hope will become an effective mechanism to control the trade that is being used to repress and violate rights the world over.After an initial discussion with technical and government experts involved in drafting and negotiating the new controls on “intrusion software”, some of our initial questions have been clarified. To read what they had to say, go here.

One of the major dangers of imposing export controls on surveillance systems is the risk of overreach. While you want the scope of the systems being controlled and the language to be wide enough to catch 4 channel nvr the targeted product and its variants, you also need the language to be specific and detailed enough to ensure that no items get inadvertently caught at the same time.

Getting this right is acutely important for security researchers. Export controls can represent a problem for security researchers because it is often difficult to differentiate between legitimate research, products used to test defences, and activities and products that are used to actually penetrate them without consent.

Security researchers need to be able collaborate with one another, across territorial boundaries, and they also need to be able to share their work and problems. The outcome of such research should not be penalized; responsibly disclosing vulnerabilities 16 channel nvr in hardware and software for example or the tools used to discover them, should never become subject to export controls.

new addition on IP analysis systems

This set of controls is targeted at ip camera a very narrow class of products, moreso than we would have liked to have seen. In order for a product to get caught in these controls, it would need to fulfill all of the above criteria – which is no easy feat. Here are a few of the problems:

Carrying out analysis on “carrier class IP network” is aimed at targeting powerful analysis systems – specifically those that have the capacity to carry out large-scale analysis reliably. What constitutes “carrier class” will however be open to interpretation by member states, given that there are a number of definitions that could be cited by any of the competent bodies. (here and here)
“Analysis at the application layer” surveillance camera greatly restricts the scope of the control, given that many surveillance products operate at layers other than the application layer, which is usually thought to refer simply to applications such as IMAP and BitTorrent among many others.
Extraction of selected data and its indexing  means that the product needs to be actively retrieving the metadata and content from the IP traffic as well as actively storing this data.
Further, the controls call for the product to be “specially designed” to search through the captured data based on certain characteristics of an individual (such as name, political affiliation, tribe etc) and must use this data to deliver what’s known in the industry as “actionable intelligence”, meaning it has to be able to collate the captured data to identify relationships between the targeted individual or group.

A full analysis of how far this control goes to capturing some of the surveillance systems we’ve seen exported in the last few years is also underway. Additional questions need to be answered by national export control authorities on how far they will interpret this element of the control.

What does this mean?

Taken together, the new addition on IP analysis systems is extremely narrow – and as a result risks failing to adequately catch some of the systems that are of most concern. It does however, control complete system that extract data, analyse it and map it. Conversely, the new controls  security systems on intrusion software, suffer from overly broad definitions and could result in more products being caught than intended unless clarifying statements are made.