back to article Microsoft ain't happy with Russia-led UN cybercrime treaty

A controversial United Nations proposal has a new foe, Microsoft, which has joined the growing number of organizations warning delegates that the draft version of the UN cybercrime treaty only succeeds in justifying state surveillance — not stopping criminals, as originally intended. Amy Hogan-Burney, associate general counsel …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So one or more company(ies) get founded, dedicated to cyber security research. Anyone with an interest in performing cyber security research activities registers with said compan(ies) and becomes a casual employee and receives a token $1.00, recognising them as an employee and in no way a spurious enthusiast.

    1. doublelayer Silver badge

      Nothing in the proposal, at least as I understand it, says that a company can exempt its employees from provisions by saying that they're really researchers. Not that this would be an acceptable solution to the problem anyway. Security research is a very broad thing, and a lot of activities can be included. None of them should be forbidden so that dictatorships can have more surveillance powers. Changing "forbidden" to "license required" doesn't change the situation.

  2. Tron Silver badge

    Ethical hackers are a myth.

    Two years and Russian government e-mails haven't been exposed to the world.

    There are no ethical hackers.

    Besides, the West are as happy as China to turn the internet into a universal surveillance system for governments to spy on, monitor and control their citizens. Look at the UK bill going through now. Digital dictatorship incoming.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Ethical hackers are a myth.

      > Two years and Russian government e-mails haven't been exposed to the world.

      > There are no ethical hackers

      What precisely do you think ethical hackers are?

      Some kind of vigilante force?

      1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Re: Ethical hackers are a myth.

        Tron and, at current count, nine upvoters have not a clue about the current state of the IT security business. It's no wonder the industry is such a mess.

  3. Mishak Silver badge

    UK government will love this

    Fits in perfectly with the moronic proposals in their "online safety" bill.

    1. Denarius
      Meh

      Re: UK government will love this

      also Oz with their "Anti " Misinformation law going thru the collection of bought and stupids that make up majority of Oz manglement layers

  4. Erik Beall

    Bad in so many ways

    Russia and China are likely to only use the parts they want out of this as a weapon against citizens they don't like and other countries they want leverage against, and will either ignore or obfuscate other countries using the treaty to hinder what most evidence indicates is state sponsored hacking. And Russia and China will no doubt instruct their groups to improve their misattribution skills. This treaty is a terrible idea and will have unintended consequences, including spurious assertions used solely to bully others. A little like a cross-borders DMCA.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    MORE MISDIRECTION........

    Quote: "...fear the treaty will encourage legalized surveillance across borders and criminalize online speech..."

    (1) Edward Snowden, 2013

    (2) Five Eyes

    .....so tell me something new.....the UN negotiation might be new.......but THE BEHAVIOUR has been going on for quite a while!!

    .....and then there's the joke in the quote: yup.... "legalized"!!!!

    MORE MISDIRECTION!

  6. MOH

    "The UN proposal has been under debate for over two years. "

    And Microsoft publicly weighed in on Tuesday?

    Surely their delay is more of a story?

    1. stiine Silver badge

      Probably because it will remove the 'if you ask you must pay' clause in the current U.S. laws.

    2. Strahd Ivarius Silver badge
      Coat

      They opened the link to the UN web site where the proposal was posted using Internet Explorer...

    3. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      More like

      It's taken this long for people to take it seriously, perhaps.

      C.

    4. doublelayer Silver badge

      Maybe, just maybe, they're commenting now because things have been changing and because it hasn't been killed yet? If they update the text, it would make sense to comment on what parts have changed and, especially for this thing, what parts have not.

    5. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Where does it say that they haven't commented on earlier versions?

  7. elsergiovolador Silver badge

    Peak clown UN

    You can't treat seriously an organisation that is lead by terrorists.

    UN should be disbanded just like useless League of Nations.

    Of course the corrupt and useless UN officials don't have guts and moral compass to do it.

  8. Zippy´s Sausage Factory
    Unhappy

    Making penetration testing and so on illegal feels to me like it might be a key part of Russia and China's goals. I mean, I can imagine they'd love to be able to extradite and imprison the employees of Western firms who take down their lucrative scam and ransomware outfits.

  9. Tron Silver badge

    The UN is transitioning...

    ...into the Magisterium from His Dark Materials.

  10. that one in the corner Silver badge

    she wrote in a LinkedIn post

    LinkedIn, famously THE portal for addressing UN delegates.

    What is wrong with this picture?

    1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: she wrote in a LinkedIn post

      Because the presence of a LinkedIn post proves no one from Microsoft tried to comment on the draft treaty through any other channels?

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