ForumGarden

I just visited another internet site and discovered it has shut down for the day in protest of SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act. I'm having difficulty finding a link that gives an objective view of the situation, so you'll have to google it yourself to get information. Read a couple of sites to get a balanced view.

Here's where freedom of speech clashes with property rights. I think it's at least worth a conversation.

Wikipedia is at least displaying info on SOPA and PIPA.

Stop Online Piracy Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The bill:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:h.r.3261:

I read the SOPA bill and was puzzled by the approach. The core of the bill is aimed at taking control of DNS. This is both ineffective and too overarching, for the stated purpose of combating piracy.

One, if they shut down a domain name, a person can still access a site via IP address. Even for name-based virtual hosts, if I can edit my windows hosts file (or /etc/hosts on linux) and effectively be my own DNS server. Given that a large amount of piracy goes on with bit torrent, and p2p file share systems which most likely are completely IP based, I can't see the point of screwing with DNS at all. Unless the purpose isn't to combat piracy at all.

Second, if a large site has an offending link in the comments section, it's subject to being overtaken. That means a hacker has a completely new tool for 'denial of service' attacks. Don't just hammer a site with useless requests to take down the server, spam it with illegal content and the government will help.

If piracy is theft, there's no reason to have another law to outlaw theft. Do we need a special law to outlaw the theft of diamonds? What about a law to prohibit the theft of wrinkled dollar bills?

The U.S. has no trouble bombing countries at will, or working with other countries to shut down illegal activities. I read news stories here and there that the U.S. has raided some place in a foreign country, taken their computers, weapons, or drugs. Why do they need permission to do this now? I wonder if they were looking at other authoritarian countries that shut down the internet when people started revolting, and thought "hey that's a good idea."

This is why the NRA fights any and all gun laws. They are afraid if one law is passed and upheld many others will follow until total control is in the hands of the Government.

At least thats the way I see it.

yaaarrrgg;1381514 wrote: I read the SOPA bill and was puzzled by the approach. The core of the bill is aimed at taking control of DNS. This is both ineffective and too overarching, for the stated purpose of combating piracy.

One, if they shut down a domain name, a person can still access a site via IP address. Even for name-based virtual hosts, if I can edit my windows hosts file (or /etc/hosts on linux) and effectively be my own DNS server. Given that a large amount of piracy goes on with bit torrent, and p2p file share systems which most likely are completely IP based, I can't see the point of screwing with DNS at all. Unless the purpose isn't to combat piracy at all.



Second, if a large site has an offending link in the comments section, it's subject to being overtaken. That means a hacker has a completely new tool for 'denial of service' attacks. Don't just hammer a site with useless requests to take down the server, spam it with illegal content and the government will help.

If piracy is theft, there's no reason to have another law to outlaw theft. Do we need a special law to outlaw the theft of diamonds? What about a law to prohibit the theft of wrinkled dollar bills?

The U.S. has no trouble bombing countries at will, or working with other countries to shut down illegal activities. I read news stories here and there that the U.S. has raided some place in a foreign country, taken their computers, weapons, or drugs. Why do they need permission to do this now? I wonder if they were looking at other authoritarian countries that shut down the internet when people started revolting, and thought "hey that's a good idea."


I think you've hit it in one

In one news report there was a clip of a congressman expressing the concern that the bill was crafted without "the nerds" who understand the technology involved and anyone who didn't understand how DNS works or what it is should abstain from voting until they had advice from the technicians and people who know what they're talking about.

The film, television, and music industries are the ones pushing for this legislation. They are extremely concerned despite their continual growth in sales because they see a new media emerging and they don't know how to control it. Justin Beiber made them a fortune this year and he would have been breaking the law if SOPA existed at the time of his discovery. It's not about property rights, it's about the media moguls being afraid of a new format they can't seem to get a handle on.

Heh, the shills at Fox news can't even get the name right. They refer to SOPA as the "Stop Online Privacy Act"... though that's actually a better title:

A Q&A On Contested Internet Anti-piracy Bills | Fox News

Edit: looks like they corrected the text now.

Or how about "Screw Over People Act." Though that may be ambiguous with all the other bills passed so far.

Or perhaps "Stop unOwned Personal Association"

Stop Our People's Autonomy

Accountable;1381646 wrote: Stop Our People's Autonomy


oooooh. good one