According to The Financial Times, western governments are considering the Wassenaar Arrangement as a means to apply the controls currently used for conventional armaments to cyber war technology.
By way of background information, the Wassenaar Arrangement, a product of the Cold War in 1996, sought to prevent the export of military equipment and technology that could be used to support or defeat that equipment in order to hinder the efforts of the Soviets and the Chinese.
In the cyber context, a new arrangement would potentially limit the export practices of “strong crypto,” a software tool that enables states, businesses, and private citizens to impede surveillance that is currently in place for law enforcement and national security purposes. The Times article states that, of the forty-one signatories—including U.S., Russia, Japan, France, and Germany—the UK is leading the charge against cyber proliferation.
This post by The Conversation offers an interesting viewpoint on the [un]likelihood of such negotiations being effective and it may be worth checking out if this is a topic of interest to you.
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