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.