For the Love of God Please Ban Zero Day Exploits

As the technology, build, and practicality of the hand gun changed over the past couple of hundred years, so has the increased want and demand. Of course, as more people started owning guns, the crime rate and deaths by gun shot up. Basically, it used to be every man for himself. As the government started worrying farther than just setting the rules but actually having people abide by the rules, laws and restrictions were set to try to regulate who owned guns and why they would use them. In 1934, Congress first started regulating the sale of automatic firearms. Not until four years later did the government think to make it federal law to require gun sellers to be licensed and to prohibit felons from purchasing them (Policy Issue p1). Even with rules that shops were supposed to follow, there are loopholes. The problem with some people in the U.S. is they will go buy guns because they have no criminal record, and then sell it to someone who is willing to pay them for the gun. Different laws over the years, still standing and also withdrawn, have spelled out different ideas of regulations, “The Gun Control Act of 1968 regulated imported guns, expanded gun-dealer licensing requirements, and expanded the list of persons not eligible to buy guns to include person convicted of any non-business related felony, minors, persons found to be mentally incompetent, and users of illegal drugs,” (Policy Issue p1). Gun

The majority of gun crimes are committed with handguns and assault riffles. Assault riffles should be banned from retail all together, and there should be a more detailed process when purchasing handguns. The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act requires purchasers to complete a background check and a five day waiting period before they are allowed to purchase a gun. This seems to help so that we aren’t putting guns into criminal’s hands straight from the store, but it is not an overall solution. (www.nraila.org)

0-day Vulnerabilities Exploitation – an attack that takes advantage of a vulnerability for which no patch is yet available.

It also prohibited dealers from selling handguns out of state, and out-of-state residents from buying handguns (Bender 51). These have not eliminated gun-related crime either.

But, looking at this idea from a global standpoint, one could infer that other countries that uphold a strict “zero gun tolerance policy” still have higher crime rates than that of the United States (Kates, et al., 2006). According to Kleck and Patterson (2006), a huge issue for criminals is the ability to purchase guns illegally. Even with policies in the United States requiring background checks for gun purchases, the government will not be able to limit a criminal’s ability to attain guns (Kleck, et al., 2006). In Koper and Wilson’s study (2006), evidence is found to support how law enforcement aims to proactively reduce possession of illegal firearm with tactics such as gun detection patrols, surveillance of probationers and parolees, weapon reporting hotlines, etc. But, these gun control laws show to be ineffective with over 80% of incarcerated gun offenders having possessed guns illegally prior to confinement; while, more than a third of these offenders were already on either probation or parole when arrested for a firearm crime (Koper, et al.,

As this article concludes you may ask the question: what’s the solution to this seemingly everlasting issue? And the solution’’s a bit dissapointing, dissapointing because in retrospect, there is no solution. As long as there are selfish, money crazed, organizations out there, we’ll never have the true privacy our rights give

The illegal sell of guns has a connection with the strict and less strict regulations put on guns. In Our Blind Spot about Guns, Nicholas Kristof states that it would be impossible to ban guns. Banning guns would never work because of the illegal sell of guns. The illegal sale of guns

just ignore bans. The only two things passing a law of this nature would accomplish

Federal restrictions enacted in 1934 on the ownership of fully automatic weapons (machine guns) appear to have been quite successful based on the rarity with which such guns are used in crime. The ban was lifted in 2004.

Some people believe that extremely tight gun control laws will eliminate crime, but gun control laws only prevent the 'good guys' from obtaining firearms. Criminals will always have ways of getting weapons, whether it be from the black market, cross borders, or illegal street sales. New gun control laws will not stop them. Since the shootings of Columbine High School, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook, the frequency of mass shootings has increased greatly. Gun control is not effective as it has not been shown to actually reduce the number of gun-related crimes. Instead of considering a ban of private firearm possession, and violating individual ownership rights, it may be more practical to consider the option of partially restricting firearm

Zero day exploits are one of the leading ways cyber wars are conducted. Zero day exploits are vulnerabilities in software that can be exploited to seize control of the targeted software. Zero day exploits are, more specifically, previously unknown vulnerabilities and are impossible to detect since signatures for them have not been developed. Thus these exploits will be the instrumental in future use against enemy nations or organizations for the purposes of information gathering and system compromise. The U.S government along with other nations developed zero day exploits to be utilized for attacking adversary systems. Interestingly, the systems targeted can be either military in function or can be a part of adversaries economy.

Boosted by the globalisation, the resale networks of the Internet and the lure of gain, inevitably, the laundering of such huge sums of black money can eventually generate serious conflicts between governments, dealers of all sorts, auction houses and collectors on a global level.

With tangible cash available, many underground operations are active due to the intractability of the cash being used to fund the operation. With the implementation of a smart card/chip all cash transactions can be easily recorded and traceable, making it difficult to operate unlawfully. Warwick also comments about the tangency between cash and criminal activity by stating “Most crimes are either committed to steal cash or use cash as a method of payment. Drug trafficking is conducted exclusively in cash. The bulk of tax evasion is hidden in cash transactions. Cash carried in purses and wallets continues to make everyone a potential robbery victim. Throughout history, cash, in coin or paper notes, was a problematic necessity for which there was no practical alternative. With the advent of EFT, however, the relative detriments of cash can be targeted, if not eliminated”. With a cashless society, making cash electronic has the potential of making workplaces and crime-ridden neighborhoods safer, reducing prison populations, and freeing up emergency rooms. The benefits of a cashless society outweigh the disadvantages and Warwick agrees to this as well by stating “No matter the exact format that a new electronic currency might take, it is difficult to imagine any other single innovation that has the potential of generating such profound social and economic

In practice, this is apparently focused on warrants executed, not on the criminals planning destructive acts, but upon otherwise law abiding companies, and making criminals out of them if they do not comply. Law enforcement is no longer planning direct covert action against the potential perpetrators. They are seeking to co-opt law abiding citizens, who are otherwise servicing 99% law-abiding customers, into becoming covert

Another issue brought by Bures (Ten Years of EU’s Fight against Terrorist Financing: A Critical Assessment, 2015) was the fact that the CTF and AML regulations applied in the UN were based on other nations ideas. This lead to more of a one size fits all program. While terrorism and corruption are global issues they cannot be address with a one size fits all approach. Each region has subtle nuances that lead to different forms of corruption and bribery. So, when a one-size fits all approach is implemented it becomes ineffective. One of the current EU strategies is black-listing. However, it is hard to get blacklisting right, and usually ended up being both over- and under- inclusive. This directly affects the usefulness of a program. If it is over-inclusive there ends up to be too many false positives. If it is under-inclusive then many of those who are funding terrorist or laundering money will be missed during the review. So, if the program is not able to accurately identify high risk transactions then it would no longer be adding value to any AML or CTF attempts.