Someone actually won something they wanted on ebay? what?

Wired.com reports that the GAO made an undercover investigation to see if controlled defence-related items could be bought on the intertubes. They found that it was possible to buy sensitive and/or controlled items, including random parts for the retired F-14 airplane, still used by Iran, on ebay and craigslist.

Well, heck. Almost everytime I try to bid on something on ebay, I get outbid 3 minutes before the auction finishes or I end up spending WAY too much on whatever thing I'm impluse buying because I *HAD* to win that auction. (it's a guy thing, ps) This happened to me just last week in my attempt to impulse buy a random article of vintage-ish clothing.

And as for craigslist... having sold furniture on CL before, I can tell you that it's nothing short of a miracle that someone 1) responded to the ad with full sentences and complete contact details, 2) answered my response to them, either by email or phone, 3) came to look at the item for sale, 4) didn't reject it as being beneath them (like these bitchy old people who turned their nose up at my lovely Ikea bookcase that was a SONG at $20) and 5) turned over money for the furniture and took it away. It's some kind of a record-- the GAO found the only non-flakey, non-drunk, non-Nigerian/African-in-Britain-scammer selling stuff.

Another question is, however, what kind of idiot sells things he shouldn't (possibly controlled, possibly stolen) on ebay or craigslist? Ebay can be oddly prudish about random things (cornflakes that look like Jesus and/or states are forbidden) and on craigslist, for all of its sinful ad-space, one is subject to the ruthlessness of fellow CLers who can veto ads they don't like. (too pretty? too expensive? too much skin/ikea showing? buh-bye!)

This is mildly ROW-related, in that there are international compacts on export controls that countries are supposed to follow, both as exporters and importers. One such example is the Wassenaar Arrangement, dealing with conventional arms and the grey area of dual-use goods. The presence or absence of these kinds of arrangements/agreements (they were stronger during the Cold War) can mean the adherence to or deviation from the Hague regime on the methods of warfare.

Dual-use goods pose an especially difficult problem, because they're items with both military and civilian potential. For example, industrial incubators can be used to produce vaccines and medicines (hurrah) or biological agents for weapons (boo). Chemical production equipment and precursors can be used for pesticides and civilian industry.. or chemical weapons. (Iraq was notorious for exploiting this area of goods during the Iran-Iraq War, even though everyone knew what was going on...) Ditto for satellite technology (and the rockets used for launching them) and a long list of other things. (This is one of the problems with Iran's nuclear interests-- it's not quite clear if they want a whole program that's mostly dual-use for civilian electricity and research or for nuclear weapons...)

What to do about the diversion of sensitive, dual-use equipment? It's difficult, to say the least. (I was going to write my capstone paper on this but I had to jettison that idea after reading my professor's 1991 book about the same thing...) One way of looking at it is as a commons-problem: how to best police ourselves and each other for the common good. (remember the grazing of the sheeps and cowses on the common lands?)

And aren't night-vision goggles a bit unsportsman-like for hunting? I'm just saying... if you want to hunt deer at night, do it with your car like the rest of us.