Overview
SC Magazine quoted Alan Cohn in an article titled “Unsuitable Addendum: Wassenaar Arrangement.” The article, published in the May issue, discusses a proposed amendment to the Wassenaar Arrangement, which recommends adding internet-based surveillance systems and “intrusion software” to the list of export controlled items. The contentious proposed regulation has even become a rallying point for some IT security companies – including Symantec, Ionic Security, FireEye, WhiteHat, Synack and Global Velocity – which came together to form the Coalition for Responsible Cybersecurity in July 2015.
Mr. Cohn says that while member-companies understand the government's desire to “keep certain types of intrusion and surveillance software out of the hands of certain governments, dissidents and [terrorist] groups…a list-based export control regime will not prove the right way to achieve this policy goal.” The language put into the Arrangement in the multinational plenary session in 2013 paints the issue with too broad a brush. In effect, the implementation of this rule in the United States would hurt white hat hackers and threat response and research players more than it would impact the bad actors, who will flout the rule anyway, Mr. Cohn adds.
The full article can be read at SC Magazine.
