9 ms·

This is an intriguing idea. The majority of hackers hate this bill, and yet if the lobbyists and politicians pass it, they are going to need us to implement it

by pg 15y ago

This is an intriguing idea. The majority of hackers hate this bill, and yet if the lobbyists and politicians pass it, they are going to need us to implement it for them. So maybe it would be some sort of solution, in the worst case, to organize a boycott of any person or company that works on it.

maeon3 15y ago
A union of global programmers. Has a nice ring to it. Needs to have an incentive to join and keep the lobbyists out. Same problem that stackoverflow has to keep out trolls and idiots. In this case the trolls are riaa, mpaa, national interests to take over the internet and those who wish not to contribute, but to be armchair dictators of the most powerful tool ever made by mankind.
- EdSkrillex 15y ago
  A union of global "programmers/activists" already exists. It's called Anonymous. Honestly, we as programmers have to fight this evil with a greater evil -- create a new internet and/or get Anonymous intimately involved in this current affair.
zackzackzack 15y ago
It would only take a small minority of hackers to actually build it though. SOPA backers would probably put up the, upper limit, 100 million it would take to pay 10 brillant but selfish engineers to build the thing.
- eumenides1 15y ago
  you are correct so you have to low-ball your bid and say you can do it for less, say 50 million. A total steal. Then you delay. Delay delay delay. When they fire you, get your friend to promise the same thing you promised. Incompetence is not a failing, but merely a tool in need to the right time.
eli 15y ago
I don't think Raytheon or SAIC would feel very threatened by a consumer boycott.
- davidwparker 15y ago
  I'm not sure you read the article or pg's post. Consumers aren't boycotting. Programmers and those building SOPA would quit, so Raytheon and SAIC wouldn't have an employees to build it.
  - Vivtek 15y ago
    I've known lots of contractors for companies such as SAIC (I was one myself for a few years, not for SAIC, but for another much smaller company in Indianapolis) and they will have no such compunctions. Sorry, pg - I know you talk with a lot of smart people, but you don't have to be too smart to break something. You just have to be venal, and there's never a shortage of venality. This boycott is doomed to failure from the get-go.
- pg 15y ago
  Not a consumer boycott; an employee boycott. It might make a company think twice before touching this type of work if they knew it would make it impossible to hire or retain good programmers.
  - bmelton 15y ago
    A boycott might have worked in a better economy, but there are far too many unemployed workers capable of implementing SOPA restrictions that would love a job, regardless the moral implications. Also, the employees that work at SAIC/Raytheon/federal contracting are already more used to working on things that are morally questionable. Sometimes they're black-box implemented (where each party makes only a small part of it, and it is then pieced together later,) but usually it isn't.
  - _delirium 15y ago
    I like the idea, but so far the attempts to make that happen with companies that work on the Great Firewall of China have been, I think, pretty unsuccessful. Cisco's gotten some bad press at times, but programmers still go work for them.
cbs 15y ago
they are going to need us to implement it for them Its a nice idea, but that is flat-out not true.
mindstab 15y ago
Hackers hate it, but there are more programmers than "hackers". Think about middle aged family men, career men. They aren't all going to care as strongly or be able to quit. Also even if you could convince all american talent to boycott it, there's a whole world of people out there who don't care at all, and just like America has been happy to sell censorship tech to the rest of the world for years, I'm sure the rest of the world would be happy to repay :) I don't think Indian or Russian programmers are going to give a toss about it if it pays bills. Ha or you could just buy back equipment already sent to Chian and Iran. Which sort of raises the point that American talent has already built this equipment and been selling it for years now. It is way past too late for this boycott to work.
- pg 15y ago
  I'm not suggesting we could prevent e.g. Cisco from finding enough people to build this stuff. More that Cisco would steer clear of such projects if working on them would put a black mark on their corporate reputation that would make it harder for them, as a company, to hire good people.
  - zem 15y ago
    and yet the likes of the nsa, fbi, etc have never lacked for good (in the technical sense) people to write surveillance software. heck, there are some pretty sophisticated spammers out there, and the spam industry is almost universally regarded as the cesspool of the tech world. if sopa does need to get implemented, i'm sure questionable small companies across the nation would flock to bid for the job.
    - omouse 15y ago
      We might be able to enlist the technical help of spammers like that. They may not like SOPA either? I wouldn't be surprised if all technical people, regardless of what they do as their job, are against SOPA and other things like it.
      - zem 15y ago
timtadh 15y ago
Maybe a general strike would work better. Everyone should just stop writing code for their employers on Monday. EDIT: I made a submission about this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3361689 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3361689 text ''' The world depends on software. We, the world's programmers, write the software. SOPA threatens many things we believe in and care about. Letter writing and traditional means have not worked to stop SOPA. The only alternative is direct action. In the 1960's direction was sitting on buses and swimming in pools. During the industrial revolution it was strikes in front of factories and rail roads. Occupying may get a lot of news coverage but protesters can be removed by force. No one can make us write code. If we stop, no one can do it for us. I call for a General Programmer strike. We should set a day. '''
- untog 15y ago
  Good luck with that one. While the world does depend on software, it does not depend on the code you are writing today. If programmers went on strike the world would continue to turn with very, very few problems. In time, of course, things would unravel, but you'd have to be willing to sit through an incredibly long strike. Also your job would probably be outsourced within a week.
- sp332 15y ago
  Your post reminds me very strongly of this aphorism: http://www.despair.com/worth.html http://www.despair.com/worth.html "Just because you're necessary, doesn't mean you're important."
pnathan 15y ago
Very smart people have built nuclear bombs, nerve gas bombs, and weapons of plague. People with the same ethics will be hired to build censorship and be happy to take home the paycheck.
- theorique 15y ago
  I would definitely have participated in the Manhattan Project if asked - it was necessary to stop the Nazis. On the other hand, I would definitely not work on SOPA. Don't confuse what is necessary with what is merely expedient.
  - baddox 15y ago
    People have different ideas about what is necessary. Calling the Manhattan Project "necessary" without thinking much about it is reckless. I've heard accounts from many of the scientists and workers, and many were quite horrified about the results (incidentally, against the Japanese, not Nazis). Presumably many do conclude that developing a nuclear weapon was "necessary," but not without considerably ethical debate.
    - jlind 15y ago
      It would be again much different if the Manhattan Project was something to be used against your fellow countrymen.
      - WorldGroove 15y ago
        Are you implying that the life of your countrymen is more important that the life of someone not of your country? If so, I'd say those are questionable ethics.
  - pnathan 15y ago
    A number of other weapons of great destruction have been created outside of the Manhattan Project.
jim-greer 15y ago
The main enforcement mechanism is domain seizure, which already works quite well already, unfortunately. It's pretty likely that there will be a darknet DNS system or DNS alternative, but that's not a great outcome for anyone - more confusion, more malware.
projectileboy 15y ago
Accenture will be thrilled to build The Great Firewall of America, and they're sufficiently capable of doing it, especially since they'll have an effectively unlimited budget. And sadly, there's more than one Accenture in the world.
damoncali 15y ago
It only takes one.
radicalbyte 15y ago
Actually now that you've said it, we could start a boycott right now of the companies who are supporting the bill.
- jen_h 15y ago
  Agreed - likely low effect, but we should all do this anyway if we haven't already begun (I've blackholed a few of them already in /etc/hosts just because their sites do things like auto-play video that you can't stop). Here's a list of supporters for reference: http://www.thedominoproject.com/2011/12/who-wants-to-break-the-internet.html http://www.thedominoproject.com/2011/12/who-wants-to-break-t...
  - jen_h 15y ago
    Good info here, too, on the money trail: http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-h3261/money http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-h3261/money
Cushman 15y ago
Hey Paul, I'm trying to raise a seed round for my startup. Our organization will match any offer made to any engineer to design or implement any system for censorship of the Internet, and employ that engineer building tools to resist censorship. I figure we only need a few hundred million to get off the ground... How much can I put you down for?
flatline 15y ago
While I would love to see this happen, it won't be very hard to convince many people, developers included, that the entire purpose is to stop knock-off handbag sites, scummy download sites, and shady online gambling operations, and I'm sure they can provide enough glaring examples of piracy that the argument will seem reasonable. Coupled with the fact that it would be somebody's job on the line, I'm afraid that the boycott would be doomed to failure, behind the aegis of corporate anonymity for any individuals involved.
davidu 15y ago
dura lex, sed lex.
malandrew 15y ago
There will always be those who prostitute themselves out to build the software to support the bill. Some companies, those most likely to be be the victim of litigation by those in favor of the bill will have no choice but to implement the software due to the threat of litigation damages. However, the best way to combat litigation damages would be a threat to those same companies from every network that connects to them. i.e. an internet embargo against any company that implements the filtering and changes to the DNS. At the end of the day networks need to connect to other networks. If a company implements software that filters it, every network that doesn't have the same obligation can embargo those businesses so that those businesses have no choice but to fight the MPAA and RIAA. Treat those that implement the technology like a cancer and "excise" them from the network. Following the money is the only way to prevent the technological implementation of SOPA from spreading. There needs to be an equally or more costly financial threat from the anti-SOPA companies. It doesn't even need to be at the network level. The browser level is sufficient. Chrome, Firefox and Internet explorer (built by 3 organizations that are against SOPA) could all embargo sites at the browser level in the default installations of the browsers. The majority of Internet dollars travel through the browser. The browsers could sniff for DNS systems implementing SOPA and blacklist them. If your DNS implements SOPA then you aren't part of the internet. If they want a browser that supports networks that implement SOPA, let them build it themselves and spend time and money trying to get their browser adopted. The search engine level is another approach. Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo could reduce the search rank of every site on networks that implements SOPA. SOPA uses legislation to break the technological contract that keeps the internet together. Break the technological contract and you should no longer part of the Internet.
- pavel_lishin 15y ago
  > There will always be those who prostitute themselves out to build the software to support the bill. I think I'm opposed to the term "prostitute" in this context. What if I need to keep my job to purchase medication to keep my wife and children alive, and that medication is prohibitively expensive without insurance? At that point, I wouldn't be a prostitute - arguably I would be a hostage.
  - 15y ago
danielharan 15y ago
Raiding the people at the company that gets the contract might be a more ethical and effective action, especially if some of those people feel stuck working there. The company may be able to replace those workers, but churn could really hurt them.
aschoen 15y ago
Alternatively one could boycott the entertainment companies lobbying for the bill. Which really is not much of a sacrifice.
rbanffy 15y ago
> organize a boycott of any person or company that works on it. This is dangerously like a witch hunt. This tool is theirs, not ours. But I agree we may need better tools to protect the things we hold dear.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
omouse 15y ago
It's worked before and I would use stronger words than boycott; like blockade and strike. Doing economic damage by refusing to work on it or by refusing to buy their products or anything else is a damn fine idea and it's worked in the past for various trade unions. The only thing is that we need a support network for people who refuse to work on it. Like say an employee and Cisco wants to blow the whistle on all the invasive tech they work on or wants to stop working on SOPA-related tech. They need to be able to do that without fearing that their family will go hungry because they wont get a paycheck anymore. Union dues and donations were used for supporting striking workers. We have things like Kickstarter, Paypal, Bitcoin, etc. I don't see why we can't pitch in and donate to support any hackers who refuse to work on SOPA-related tech.

by pg 15y ago

maeon3 15y ago

A union of global programmers. Has a nice ring to it. Needs to have an incentive to join and keep the lobbyists out. Same problem that stackoverflow has to keep out trolls and idiots. In this case the trolls are riaa, mpaa, national interests to take over the internet and those who wish not to contribute, but to be armchair dictators of the most powerful tool ever made by mankind.

EdSkrillex 15y ago
A union of global "programmers/activists" already exists. It's called Anonymous. Honestly, we as programmers have to fight this evil with a greater evil -- create a new internet and/or get Anonymous intimately involved in this current affair.

zackzackzack 15y ago

It would only take a small minority of hackers to actually build it though. SOPA backers would probably put up the, upper limit, 100 million it would take to pay 10 brillant but selfish engineers to build the thing.

eumenides1 15y ago
you are correct so you have to low-ball your bid and say you can do it for less, say 50 million. A total steal. Then you delay. Delay delay delay. When they fire you, get your friend to promise the same thing you promised. Incompetence is not a failing, but merely a tool in need to the right time.

eli 15y ago

I don't think Raytheon or SAIC would feel very threatened by a consumer boycott.

davidwparker 15y ago
I'm not sure you read the article or pg's post. Consumers aren't boycotting. Programmers and those building SOPA would quit, so Raytheon and SAIC wouldn't have an employees to build it.
- Vivtek 15y ago
  I've known lots of contractors for companies such as SAIC (I was one myself for a few years, not for SAIC, but for another much smaller company in Indianapolis) and they will have no such compunctions. Sorry, pg - I know you talk with a lot of smart people, but you don't have to be too smart to break something. You just have to be venal, and there's never a shortage of venality. This boycott is doomed to failure from the get-go.
pg 15y ago
Not a consumer boycott; an employee boycott. It might make a company think twice before touching this type of work if they knew it would make it impossible to hire or retain good programmers.
- bmelton 15y ago
  A boycott might have worked in a better economy, but there are far too many unemployed workers capable of implementing SOPA restrictions that would love a job, regardless the moral implications. Also, the employees that work at SAIC/Raytheon/federal contracting are already more used to working on things that are morally questionable. Sometimes they're black-box implemented (where each party makes only a small part of it, and it is then pieced together later,) but usually it isn't.
- _delirium 15y ago
  I like the idea, but so far the attempts to make that happen with companies that work on the Great Firewall of China have been, I think, pretty unsuccessful. Cisco's gotten some bad press at times, but programmers still go work for them.

cbs 15y ago

they are going to need us to implement it for them Its a nice idea, but that is flat-out not true.

mindstab 15y ago

Hackers hate it, but there are more programmers than "hackers". Think about middle aged family men, career men. They aren't all going to care as strongly or be able to quit. Also even if you could convince all american talent to boycott it, there's a whole world of people out there who don't care at all, and just like America has been happy to sell censorship tech to the rest of the world for years, I'm sure the rest of the world would be happy to repay :) I don't think Indian or Russian programmers are going to give a toss about it if it pays bills. Ha or you could just buy back equipment already sent to Chian and Iran. Which sort of raises the point that American talent has already built this equipment and been selling it for years now. It is way past too late for this boycott to work.

pg 15y ago
I'm not suggesting we could prevent e.g. Cisco from finding enough people to build this stuff. More that Cisco would steer clear of such projects if working on them would put a black mark on their corporate reputation that would make it harder for them, as a company, to hire good people.
- zem 15y ago
  and yet the likes of the nsa, fbi, etc have never lacked for good (in the technical sense) people to write surveillance software. heck, there are some pretty sophisticated spammers out there, and the spam industry is almost universally regarded as the cesspool of the tech world. if sopa does need to get implemented, i'm sure questionable small companies across the nation would flock to bid for the job.
  - omouse 15y ago
    We might be able to enlist the technical help of spammers like that. They may not like SOPA either? I wouldn't be surprised if all technical people, regardless of what they do as their job, are against SOPA and other things like it.
    - zem 15y ago

timtadh 15y ago

Maybe a general strike would work better. Everyone should just stop writing code for their employers on Monday. EDIT: I made a submission about this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3361689 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3361689 text ''' The world depends on software. We, the world's programmers, write the software. SOPA threatens many things we believe in and care about. Letter writing and traditional means have not worked to stop SOPA. The only alternative is direct action. In the 1960's direction was sitting on buses and swimming in pools. During the industrial revolution it was strikes in front of factories and rail roads. Occupying may get a lot of news coverage but protesters can be removed by force. No one can make us write code. If we stop, no one can do it for us. I call for a General Programmer strike. We should set a day. '''

untog 15y ago
Good luck with that one. While the world does depend on software, it does not depend on the code you are writing today. If programmers went on strike the world would continue to turn with very, very few problems. In time, of course, things would unravel, but you'd have to be willing to sit through an incredibly long strike. Also your job would probably be outsourced within a week.
sp332 15y ago
Your post reminds me very strongly of this aphorism: http://www.despair.com/worth.html http://www.despair.com/worth.html "Just because you're necessary, doesn't mean you're important."

pnathan 15y ago

Very smart people have built nuclear bombs, nerve gas bombs, and weapons of plague. People with the same ethics will be hired to build censorship and be happy to take home the paycheck.

theorique 15y ago
I would definitely have participated in the Manhattan Project if asked - it was necessary to stop the Nazis. On the other hand, I would definitely not work on SOPA. Don't confuse what is necessary with what is merely expedient.
- baddox 15y ago
  People have different ideas about what is necessary. Calling the Manhattan Project "necessary" without thinking much about it is reckless. I've heard accounts from many of the scientists and workers, and many were quite horrified about the results (incidentally, against the Japanese, not Nazis). Presumably many do conclude that developing a nuclear weapon was "necessary," but not without considerably ethical debate.
  - jlind 15y ago
    It would be again much different if the Manhattan Project was something to be used against your fellow countrymen.
    - WorldGroove 15y ago
      Are you implying that the life of your countrymen is more important that the life of someone not of your country? If so, I'd say those are questionable ethics.
- pnathan 15y ago
  A number of other weapons of great destruction have been created outside of the Manhattan Project.

jim-greer 15y ago

The main enforcement mechanism is domain seizure, which already works quite well already, unfortunately. It's pretty likely that there will be a darknet DNS system or DNS alternative, but that's not a great outcome for anyone - more confusion, more malware.

projectileboy 15y ago

Accenture will be thrilled to build The Great Firewall of America, and they're sufficiently capable of doing it, especially since they'll have an effectively unlimited budget. And sadly, there's more than one Accenture in the world.

damoncali 15y ago

It only takes one.

radicalbyte 15y ago

Actually now that you've said it, we could start a boycott right now of the companies who are supporting the bill.

jen_h 15y ago
Agreed - likely low effect, but we should all do this anyway if we haven't already begun (I've blackholed a few of them already in /etc/hosts just because their sites do things like auto-play video that you can't stop). Here's a list of supporters for reference: http://www.thedominoproject.com/2011/12/who-wants-to-break-the-internet.html http://www.thedominoproject.com/2011/12/who-wants-to-break-t...
- jen_h 15y ago
  Good info here, too, on the money trail: http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-h3261/money http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-h3261/money

Cushman 15y ago

Hey Paul, I'm trying to raise a seed round for my startup. Our organization will match any offer made to any engineer to design or implement any system for censorship of the Internet, and employ that engineer building tools to resist censorship. I figure we only need a few hundred million to get off the ground... How much can I put you down for?

flatline 15y ago

While I would love to see this happen, it won't be very hard to convince many people, developers included, that the entire purpose is to stop knock-off handbag sites, scummy download sites, and shady online gambling operations, and I'm sure they can provide enough glaring examples of piracy that the argument will seem reasonable. Coupled with the fact that it would be somebody's job on the line, I'm afraid that the boycott would be doomed to failure, behind the aegis of corporate anonymity for any individuals involved.

davidu 15y ago

dura lex, sed lex.

malandrew 15y ago

There will always be those who prostitute themselves out to build the software to support the bill. Some companies, those most likely to be be the victim of litigation by those in favor of the bill will have no choice but to implement the software due to the threat of litigation damages. However, the best way to combat litigation damages would be a threat to those same companies from every network that connects to them. i.e. an internet embargo against any company that implements the filtering and changes to the DNS. At the end of the day networks need to connect to other networks. If a company implements software that filters it, every network that doesn't have the same obligation can embargo those businesses so that those businesses have no choice but to fight the MPAA and RIAA. Treat those that implement the technology like a cancer and "excise" them from the network. Following the money is the only way to prevent the technological implementation of SOPA from spreading. There needs to be an equally or more costly financial threat from the anti-SOPA companies. It doesn't even need to be at the network level. The browser level is sufficient. Chrome, Firefox and Internet explorer (built by 3 organizations that are against SOPA) could all embargo sites at the browser level in the default installations of the browsers. The majority of Internet dollars travel through the browser. The browsers could sniff for DNS systems implementing SOPA and blacklist them. If your DNS implements SOPA then you aren't part of the internet. If they want a browser that supports networks that implement SOPA, let them build it themselves and spend time and money trying to get their browser adopted. The search engine level is another approach. Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo could reduce the search rank of every site on networks that implements SOPA. SOPA uses legislation to break the technological contract that keeps the internet together. Break the technological contract and you should no longer part of the Internet.

pavel_lishin 15y ago
> There will always be those who prostitute themselves out to build the software to support the bill. I think I'm opposed to the term "prostitute" in this context. What if I need to keep my job to purchase medication to keep my wife and children alive, and that medication is prohibitively expensive without insurance? At that point, I wouldn't be a prostitute - arguably I would be a hostage.
- 15y ago

danielharan 15y ago

Raiding the people at the company that gets the contract might be a more ethical and effective action, especially if some of those people feel stuck working there. The company may be able to replace those workers, but churn could really hurt them.

aschoen 15y ago

Alternatively one could boycott the entertainment companies lobbying for the bill. Which really is not much of a sacrifice.

rbanffy 15y ago

> organize a boycott of any person or company that works on it. This is dangerously like a witch hunt. This tool is theirs, not ours. But I agree we may need better tools to protect the things we hold dear.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

omouse 15y ago

It's worked before and I would use stronger words than boycott; like blockade and strike. Doing economic damage by refusing to work on it or by refusing to buy their products or anything else is a damn fine idea and it's worked in the past for various trade unions. The only thing is that we need a support network for people who refuse to work on it. Like say an employee and Cisco wants to blow the whistle on all the invasive tech they work on or wants to stop working on SOPA-related tech. They need to be able to do that without fearing that their family will go hungry because they wont get a paycheck anymore. Union dues and donations were used for supporting striking workers. We have things like Kickstarter, Paypal, Bitcoin, etc. I don't see why we can't pitch in and donate to support any hackers who refuse to work on SOPA-related tech.