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.