Congress wants to destroy the Internet

[Kuja]

How likely is this POS to pass anyways?

For what it's worth, I believe Obama has threatened to veto the bill should it make it through Congress. It's unlikely to pass with a sufficient majority so such a veto would almost certainly stick.

[Darksider]

How likely is this POS to pass anyways?

For what it's worth, I believe Obama has threatened to veto the bill should it make it through Congress. It's unlikely to pass with a sufficient majority so such a veto would almost certainly stick.

That would actually require Obama to stand up to his corporate masters, and any criticism he may get from the right. Still, the whole thing is fairly unknown outside internet/technology circles. The bill's obscurity may allow Obama to demonstrate some semblance of a spine.

[cosmicalstorm]

I thought Google, Facebook, Amazon etc. wielded a lot more cash these days? I could have seen this cruising through ten years ago, but today, why haven't they paid their own lobbying? Provided this would really hurt them.

[Simon_Jester]

What they don't have are professional associations with large, well-budgeted, coordinated lobbyist teams on call.

The MPAA can basically call up several dozen people to 'brief' every congressman in Washington on why SOPA and IP Protect are the greatest things since the invention of fire and the wheel. They can do it fast, they can do it over and over, and they can exploit networks of relationships they've spent decades building in Washington.

The technology sector doesn't have anything like that, so far as I know. Just having money and being willing to throw it around doesn't confer the full advantages of having a professional corps of talented lobbyists.

[Number Theoretic]

The technology sector may not have a vast lobbying network like the content mafia, but what they do have is some economic power: They provide jobs and (maybe?) pay taxes, so chances are higher that somebody listens to them than to some ordinary citizens. I sincerly hope that they find some leverage to stop this madness. And if not, well, as Skoga said: the internet will become more diverse and less dependent on infrastructure located in America.

Even easier: specify a DNS server outside the US or a private one. On the technical side, this is not even close to what countries like China or Iran do to censor the internet. This is more of a "the government can order telephone book printers to leave your number out in subsequent print runs" - nobody can actually stop you from calling the number. (yet) That's why this is going to be just as ineffective as it was in all the other countries that startet DNS censorship: Australia, Denmark...

A proxy server has also crossed my mind but then i thought "better safe than sorry, perhaps they ramp up the blocking technology to Great Firewall levels and then a proxy might not be enough".

As has been mentioned, what makes SOPA especially bad are the other unchecked legal powers it would grant.

This consequence is especially chilling. It would give the content mafia even more power to bully innocent citizens with pointless lawsuits that lead to finanically ruins of said citizens.

[Lost Soal]

I've been somewhat following news on this bill through That Guy With The Glasses. They are, unsurprisingly, entirely opposed to this as they feel it can and will be used to override fair use and will see all their work blocked. As such a bunch of them went down to DC to speak to their representatives, or rather their staff, and express their opposition.
Lindsey Ellis's video on their journey

Also, this is McCain's stock response letter in regards to SOPA/Protect IP.

Dear Mr. Antwiler:

Thank you for contacting me regarding Internet anti-piracy legislation, specifically the PROTECT IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). I appreciate hearing your views about these important pieces of legislation.

As you know, online piracy is a major issue facing the American economy as more and more digital creations, such as music, movies, software, and books, are moved online. The Internet, which has delivered so many benefits to our economy, has unfortunately also allowed bad actors to steal and sell these stolen works. It is estimated that our economy loses more than $58 billion annually as a result of online piracy. As part of an effort to fight back against these losses, Congress has introduced two bills, the PROTECT IP Act in the Senate and SOPA in the House of Representatives, respectively.
These bills are designed to help the government more effectively utilize legal tools that are already at our disposal to fight against online piracy and protect American intellectual property. If enacted, the legislation would allow the Department of Justice to notify a website owner that the government intends to pursue a court order for alleged illegal activities. Next, the court would have to determine whether the website has a significant use other than the selling of counterfeited goods. These basic protections are designed to provide due process protections to ensure legitimate websites are not at risk for inadvertent violations.

The PROTECT IP Act was passed out of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary and SOPA has been referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary on October 26, 2011. Please rest assured that should these bills come to the Senate floor, I will keep your views in mind. Thank you again for sharing your thoughts on this important topic. Please feel free to contact me regarding this issue, or any other in the future.

Sincerely,
John McCain
United States Senator

It should also be noted that the bill isn't limited to those hosting content but any website which links to copyrighted content can be blocked. So all those links to sfdebris reviews could see this site targeted.

[Alyeska]

What really irritates me is how short sighted people are. The politicians are pushing this because Big Content has convinced them it is necessary to stop pirate websites. This is pretty much aimed at places like Pirate Bay or streaming sites. The politicians honestly do not see this being used against small time websites or even things like SFDebris or That Guy With Glasses. That is not the intent of the law.

When it comes to the law, intent has almost no meaning. If the technical wording of the law allows for it, it will happen. The law will be used to crush individuals and forcefully destroy Fair Use. Worse, the provisions of the law allow for copyright trolls to cause mass damage. Even the threat of a copyright violation can force things to be taken down with zero proof.

Right now the DMCA has been used by people to take down things they do not own or are fair use. SOPA will make it even worse. Guilty until proven innocent. And even when you get proven innocent, the payment companies and ISPs are encouraged to continue treating you as guilty.

[TronPaul]

The rest of the world really needs to put their pants on and compete with America's root DNS servers. Official non-commercial DNS servers with good oversight in countries outside of America would lessen the power of America's control over the internet. Most if not all of the DNS alternatives update based on the DNS root servers in America. These root servers put almost all control over the internet in America's hands, obviously we haven't shown that we deserve it.

[Sriad]

A proxy server has also crossed my mind but then i thought "better safe than sorry, perhaps they ramp up the blocking technology to Great Firewall levels and then a proxy might not be enough".

As long as encrypted traffic is allowed to enter and leave the USA international proxies will be a viable way to access any content that exists on the internet(s).

The problem is, though, that
1: 99% of internet users aren't savvy enough to do so, and
2: among those that are, many have a (not ENTIRELY unjustified) perception that the "deep web" is for exchanging child pornography and drugs.

...and of course 3: the more secure they are, the slower they are.

[Skgoa]

You don't even need any specially sanctioned "encrypted" web traffic. DNS, SMTP or even packets posing as ordinary HTTP can and have been used to tunnel. And if push comes to shove, the idea of using email spam to hide communication has been posited at a hacker conference two (or was it three?) years ago. And that's not even counting hiding files inside other files. The "high-end" of defeating internet censorship has been covered. Or as they say: "the internet views censorship as network malfunction and routes around it."
But your assertion are very true, which is why it is important publicize ways of getting around this half-assed attempt at censorship easily.

[TronPaul]

A proxy server has also crossed my mind but then i thought "better safe than sorry, perhaps they ramp up the blocking technology to Great Firewall levels and then a proxy might not be enough".

As long as encrypted traffic is allowed to enter and leave the USA international proxies will be a viable way to access any content that exists on the internet(s).

The problem is, though, that
1: 99% of internet users aren't savvy enough to do so, and
2: among those that are, many have a (not ENTIRELY unjustified) perception that the "deep web" is for exchanging child pornography and drugs.

...and of course 3: the more secure they are, the slower they are.

Encryption is not the main issue with the way US Govt has been blocking websites. DNS seizures disassociate a domain name (ie stardestroyer.net) from the IP address that it originally associated to and associates it with a new IP address, usually a takedown notice page (sample page image). Since the US has control of the DNS root servers, which most DNS servers update from, at some point a takedown on the root servers will propagate to normal DNS servers (ISP, commercial DNS, etc). What the internet needs is an alternative domain name lookup scheme either by having alternate root servers not controlled by the US or a new take on domain name lookup.

"the internet views censorship as network malfunction and routes around it" may be true for IP address blocks, but DNS is not yet robust enough to prevent seizures from affecting service.

[Eulogy]

Assuming that either bill passes (hopefully neither won't) how could Mike Wong get around the blacklisting and harrassment?

[Simon_Jester]

Uneducated guess:

The easiest thing might be to block linking to external sites at all. A big text forum isn't going to be targeted by music and movie companies because it personally hosts copyrighted content; it would be targeted because it links to others who do.

[Skgoa]

"the internet views censorship as network malfunction and routes around it" may be true for IP address blocks, but DNS is not yet robust enough to prevent seizures from affecting service.

Actually, when the same stupid DNS poisioning scheme was used as a one-off election campaign issue here in Germany (although they passed it, it wasn't enforced and is now dead), people started looking into this. It's actually not difficult at all to keep a list of censored domains up to date. And since everyone and their dog can have their own DNS server and nobody forces you to incorporate changes immediately, they can't actually force you to censor any entry. It would mean you would have less automation and more redundancy.

[TronPaul]

Actually, when the same stupid DNS poisioning scheme was used as a one-off election campaign issue here in Germany (although they passed it, it wasn't enforced and is now dead), people started looking into this. It's actually not difficult at all to keep a list of censored domains up to date. And since everyone and their dog can have their own DNS server and nobody forces you to incorporate changes immediately, they can't actually force you to censor any entry. It would mean you would have less automation and more redundancy.

Yes but that redundancy isn't built in to the system like with lower level protocols (IP, TCP/UDP, etc). It would be nice if it was automatic, but you still have to set up your own DNS server and write rules for updating. Maybe someone should set up something similar to a version control system for DNS (like git) where you could look at revision history and rollback the changes that were censorship. Something like that couldn't be fully automated though, but it would help with seeing incremental changes.

[ComradeClaus]

i first saw this issue on colbert then later read more at ED

ED also had a list of supporters & opposers.

it said microsoft was anti-sofa while apple was pro-sofa.

i hope more people hear of this.

write to your local newspaper, call your tv & radio station. the more people are enlightened to it, the more will oppose it.

[Skgoa]

Actually, when the same stupid DNS poisioning scheme was used as a one-off election campaign issue here in Germany (although they passed it, it wasn't enforced and is now dead), people started looking into this. It's actually not difficult at all to keep a list of censored domains up to date. And since everyone and their dog can have their own DNS server and nobody forces you to incorporate changes immediately, they can't actually force you to censor any entry. It would mean you would have less automation and more redundancy.

Yes but that redundancy isn't built in to the system like with lower level protocols (IP, TCP/UDP, etc). It would be nice if it was automatic, but you still have to set up your own DNS server and write rules for updating. Maybe someone should set up something similar to a version control system for DNS (like git) where you could look at revision history and rollback the changes that were censorship. Something like that couldn't be fully automated though, but it would help with seeing incremental changes.

There's an app addon for that. It's called MAFIAAsomethingsomething and notifies you when the DNS record you are getting has been flagged as censored by the community. And really, there is nothing stopping you from backing your DNS records up regularly. DNS servers don't do it ATM precisely because we like changes to propagate fast. But there is no inherent reason why you would what to set your server up this way. I can set up a DNS server and start serving .net, .com, etc., records and nobody can stop me. People would simply have to specify my server for DNS look-ups. We aren't doing that ATM because we like our WWW to work the way we are used to. But if the root servers become unreliable, you can bet that there will be services offering uncensored DNS.

[TronPaul]

Dan Bull - SOPA Cabana

Enjoy.

[someone_else]

While I'm against this on principle, I share skgoa view about fucking with DNS.

I'd just like to add that even if they pull up uncensored DNS for anyone that can read a simple how-to, the vast majoprity of the people will be too damn ignorant (or maybe stupid) to unlink themselves from the poisoned ones unless it somehow becomes a new standard (i.e. DNS in the US get flagged as "crap" and DNS in say France become the new standard DNS). Or changing how internet works, a little.

And I'd like to add that most really safe ways to connect around like Tor have a very dim view on p2p, mainly because it generates too much traffic for them to handle.

And last, bittorrent clients add your IP into each packet, so even ultrasafe nets are completely pointless.

[Skgoa]

Some big picture from Cory Doctorow. Recorded earlier today at the 28th ChaosCommunicationCongress in Berlin.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I called my congressman, let him know if he votes for SOPA I'll be voting AGAINST him.

[LaCroix]

I called my congressman, let him know if he votes for SOPA I'll be voting AGAINST him.

And this is the only way to make your voice be heard. Reasoning has never ever changed a politician's opinion, but if he gets a couple thousand letters vowing to vote against him, and to make all your friends and relatives do the same, might miraculously sway his opinion on many things.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I figured he was worth contacting since as of yet he hasn't gone 'on the record' about SOPA one way or the other, I also let him know that I'm not an angry teen, but a taxpayer in his late 20's and a teacher. If youtube and internet content gets locked down, my ability to create lectures for my students that they'll actually pay attention to goes down the tubes.

[UnderAGreySky]

A continuously updated list on the companies that support SOPA explicitly or implicitly. The list makes for depressing reading, but they are already getting feedback from organisations affirming their objection or disavowing support to the bill. Example:

Update 4: The Redwing Shoe Company has emailed, informing us that it “does not support SOPA as it is currently drafted.” Redwing is one of the 402 companies that signed the GIPC letter mentioned above, which does not specifically name any legislation.. We have removed their name from the list below.

[Grumman]

A continuously updated list on the companies that support SOPA explicitly or implicitly.

Xerox Corporation

I just found that one funny.