DRACONIAN copyright laws in the US have fuelled the development of computer networks that aid and abet terrorists, a conference on homeland security will be told next week.
Computer scientist Adam Young will tell the Conference on Advanced Technologies for Homeland Security in Storrs, Connecticut, that the US鈥檚 Digital Millennium Copyright Act has led to the development of advanced file-sharing networks that help terrorists share information in a way that cannot be traced.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has used the act, which outlaws the circumvention of copy protection measures, to sue hundreds of people for distributing music files on the net. This has forced thousands of file sharers to join underground 鈥渕ixmaster鈥� networks in which files are encrypted, chopped into pieces and distributed around members鈥� computers. No one in such a network knows what is stored on their computer: the distributed chunks of data are only reassembled and unscrambled when they are retrieved.
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So instead of contacting each other by phone or email, terrorist cells can exchange messages in these untraceable files, says Young, a research scientist with software firm Cigital Labs in Dulles, Virginia. 鈥淚nfrastructure for terror cells is being built.鈥�
Reacting to Young鈥檚 claim, RIAA counters that it is the proceeds from piracy that are known to fund terrorism. 鈥淪o let鈥檚 keep in mind what鈥檚 a real, identified issue and what is abstract conjecture,鈥� says a spokesman.