We know that there’s been an ongoing effort by entertainment industry lobbyists to convince politicians (and others) that file sharing and P2P apps are somehow to blame for stupid government staffers accidentally leaking files via those programs. Apparently the propaganda campaign has worked in at least one area: employees of the United States Antarctic Program (USAP) were sent an alert that they need to stop using all P2P programs. The “scenarios” described in the note are the same ones that entertainment industry lobbying group Arts+Labs has been spewing for a few years now. However, rather than assume that the real lesson is that users should actually understand the software they’re using on their computer, and make sure not to use it in a dumb way (such as exposing sensitive documents), the director of IT simply told everyone that while on Antarctica, they must disable any P2P apps on their computer. Hope no one there uses Skype to keep in touch with family…

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