Re: <nettime> Harassing People for Watching a Movie in a Cinema

[dan@geer.org]

With respect to the (important) story at

> http://the-gadgeteer.com/2014/01/20/amc-movie-theater-calls-fbi-to-arrest-a-google-glass-user/

Parallel #1:
In his memoir _The Railway Man_, a British POW (of the Japanese)
is relentlessly tortured because he made a crystal radio.  The 
torture was not because he was listening to the radio but because
the Camp Commandant "knew" that radios were two-way, ergo the Brit
must be exfiltrating information via the radio -- which was not the
case (and could not be).

Parallel #2:
My truck is full of burglar tools pretty much all the time by some
definition of "burglar tools:" crowbar, folding ladder, battery-powered
drill, glass cutter, putty knife, lock picks made from street sweeper
bristles, gas-powered nail gun, Clorox, borescope, &c.).  My computer
is similarly well stocked with penetration tools, many of which have
just been made illegal for me to take to another country.[*]

Other parallels no doubt can be drawn, but all security tools are
dual use.  As such, any trend away from giving judicial consideration
to mens rea only to concentrate exclusively on actus reus (for which
possession alone is sufficient proof), puts us in long-term dangerous
terrain.  DIY bio and/or drone makers may want to chime in here
with their version of this matter.

--dan


[*] http://oti.newamerica.net/blogposts/2013/international_agreement_reached_controlling_export_of_mass_and_intrusive_surveillance

Precis: Two new classes of export prohibited software:
        
Intrusion software

    "Software" specially designed or modified to avoid detection
    by 'monitoring tools', or to defeat 'protective countermeasures',
    of a computer or network capable device, and performing any of
    the following:

    a. The extraction of data or information, from a computer or
    network capable device, or the modification of system or user
    data; or

    b. The modification of the standard execution path of a program
    or process in order to allow the execution of externally provided
    instructions.
        
IP network surveillance systems

    5. A. 1. j. IP network communications surveillance systems or
    equipment, and specially designed components therefor, having
    all of the following:

    1. Performing all of the following on a carrier class IP network
    (e.g., national grade IP backbone):

    a. Analysis at the application layer (e.g., Layer 7 of Open
    Systems Interconnection (OSI) model (ISO/IEC 7498-1));

    b. Extraction of selected metadata and application content
    (e.g., voice, video, messages, attachments); and

    c. Indexing of extracted data; and

    2. Being specially designed to carry out all of the following:

    a. Execution of searches on the basis of 'hard selectors'; and

    b. Mapping of the relational network of an individual or of a
    group of people.


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