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making it illegal for government or corporations to shut down domains without due process I think that going down the path of having the legislative branch pas

making it illegal for government or corporations to shut down domains without due process I think that going down the path of having the legislative branch pass laws to protect rights that are already clearly protected by the constitution is a really bad idea. For example, having congress protect the right of peaceful assembly seems preposterous. Doing so would imply that encroaching on the right of peaceful assembly is even an option, which, in a civilized democratic society, it isn't. The internet should be no different. As much as technies like to complain about our representatives, the reality is that they do a reasonably good job representing the overwhelming majority of the population. Most people who have families to take care of don't know or care for SOPA, and would probably support curbing piracy, hate sites, and child pornography via DNS blackouts (if they knew what DNS meant). Like it or not, they are the majority of the electorate. The proper way to ensure that the internet remains free and open is to educate the populace. Failing that, we need to put pressure on congress on bill-by-bill basis. Failing that, it's the Supreme Court's job to declare any encroachment on our rights as unconstitutional. We don't need to pass laws to protect rights that are already protected because it legitimizes encroachment on our rights in general and blurs the lines between different branches of government in ways they weren't meant to blurred. It's a slippery slope and a really bad road to go on.

baddox 15y ago
I agree that it shouldn't be necessary to pass laws affirming the Constitution, but who else is going to do it? It's up to Executive branch to enforce laws, and they're not willing. The Judicial branch can declare things unconstitutional, but they have no power to enforce. If the Legislative branch is the only one willing to at least try, they might as well. Of course, we know they're also unwilling.
baddox 15y ago
I should add that much of the Bill of Rights was protested because it was considered redundant, since everything the govermoment is allowed to do is already listed, and everything else they're not allowed to do. Of course, we've seen that even with that redundancy it's not enough.
Joakal 15y ago
To your point about increased government regulation; I had that discussion with someone before regarding keeping government out of Internet. I put it simply as: "If they won't stop outlawing/controlling parts of the Internet, then we need to fight back in outlawing anti-Internet attempts." Of course, we can educate the populace. That's why I'm trying to educate the population that there are anti-Internet attempts that affect their Internet usage. That they should demand protection from anti-Internet attempts. :D As for constitutional, the EFF and anti-SOPA groups say it violates 1st amendment. But the anti-Internet supporters counter in it's perfectly legal [0]. I don't know about you, but I'm not going to let it pass and wait around for the supreme courts to interpret it as unconstitutional. Until the populace understands the importance of Internet (beyond thinking it's just Facebook, etc), Internet Freedom bills will go a long way in stopping anti-Internet attempts by not only researching and discussing Internet Freedom but also preventing anti-Internet attempts. For the anti-Internet attempts like bills, there's a lot of Door In Face [1] that's allowing compromises leading to more Internet control. Look at the history of the anti-Internet attempts. They are relentless, demanding a mile, and getting an inch every time as 'compromise'. It should be the opposite for Internet Freedom bill attempts, otherwise we're continuing to slip down the anti-Internet road. [0] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/at-web-censorship-hearing-congress-guns-for-pro-pirate-google.ars http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/at-web-censo... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door-in-the-face_technique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door-in-the-face_technique Edit: I want to also mention that for whatever reason, USA government seems to be cracking down on Internet Freedom in the world (Ref: Spain). Internet Freedom advocates in government should counter this subterfuge.
bermanoid 15y ago
I can't help but think that the only way to avoid this sort of meddling is to make it technically impossible. To some extent, this is on us: the Internet, at its core, is just a bunch of computers that are all physically connected, with protocols for sending messages to each other. We should have, from the outset, made sure that as long as computers have a physical connection, sending data between them in a standardized way was solid and unbreakable, even with malicious actors. We should have been considering how to design this system so that even if a government that controls a large (say up to 50%) subset of the nodes tries, communications between certain nodes could never be blocked without degrading communications between all blocks and losing the entire functionality. Then we'd be justified in saying that bills like this would destroy the Internet, and nobody would ever even try to pass them. Unfortunately, as thing stand, DNS is a too-easy weak-point in the infrastructure, so unsurprisingly, repressive governments target it as a way of imposing their will on the Internet. With a single point of failure, are we really surprised that governments will pick it out and exploit it? We had many other architectural options, did we perhaps choose one that was just too trusting when put up against the shitty world that we live in? Maybe I'm just naive, perhaps I don't understand the details and subtleties and just assume that a technical solution would be easier to come up with than it really is; I'm not a crypto or networks expert, so maybe the current situation is the only viable one. I'm sure any better solution would not be simple, and I'm sure it would require a lot of research. But in any case, it doesn't exist, so we're pretty much screwed for the moment. Issues like this make me think that dark-net plans are extremely useful, but happening far too late to matter in the real world, where everyone already follows protocols that allow for network-destroying interventions...
- Kaizyn 15y ago
  When the Internet was started, the researchers had no concept of the Internet growing to become a world-wide phenomenon where bad actors wold also exist on the network. Everyone involved was basically from an academic/research background and the funding was coming from DARPA. Even now, could you imagine researchers at say Stanford and Berkeley devising research collaboration methods that assume that either organization's management/governance will interfere with or act maliciously against that collaboration effort?

baddox 15y ago

I agree that it shouldn't be necessary to pass laws affirming the Constitution, but who else is going to do it? It's up to Executive branch to enforce laws, and they're not willing. The Judicial branch can declare things unconstitutional, but they have no power to enforce. If the Legislative branch is the only one willing to at least try, they might as well. Of course, we know they're also unwilling.

baddox 15y ago

I should add that much of the Bill of Rights was protested because it was considered redundant, since everything the govermoment is allowed to do is already listed, and everything else they're not allowed to do. Of course, we've seen that even with that redundancy it's not enough.

Joakal 15y ago

To your point about increased government regulation; I had that discussion with someone before regarding keeping government out of Internet. I put it simply as: "If they won't stop outlawing/controlling parts of the Internet, then we need to fight back in outlawing anti-Internet attempts." Of course, we can educate the populace. That's why I'm trying to educate the population that there are anti-Internet attempts that affect their Internet usage. That they should demand protection from anti-Internet attempts. :D As for constitutional, the EFF and anti-SOPA groups say it violates 1st amendment. But the anti-Internet supporters counter in it's perfectly legal [0]. I don't know about you, but I'm not going to let it pass and wait around for the supreme courts to interpret it as unconstitutional. Until the populace understands the importance of Internet (beyond thinking it's just Facebook, etc), Internet Freedom bills will go a long way in stopping anti-Internet attempts by not only researching and discussing Internet Freedom but also preventing anti-Internet attempts. For the anti-Internet attempts like bills, there's a lot of Door In Face [1] that's allowing compromises leading to more Internet control. Look at the history of the anti-Internet attempts. They are relentless, demanding a mile, and getting an inch every time as 'compromise'. It should be the opposite for Internet Freedom bill attempts, otherwise we're continuing to slip down the anti-Internet road. [0] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/at-web-censorship-hearing-congress-guns-for-pro-pirate-google.ars http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/at-web-censo... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door-in-the-face_technique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door-in-the-face_technique Edit: I want to also mention that for whatever reason, USA government seems to be cracking down on Internet Freedom in the world (Ref: Spain). Internet Freedom advocates in government should counter this subterfuge.

bermanoid 15y ago

I can't help but think that the only way to avoid this sort of meddling is to make it technically impossible. To some extent, this is on us: the Internet, at its core, is just a bunch of computers that are all physically connected, with protocols for sending messages to each other. We should have, from the outset, made sure that as long as computers have a physical connection, sending data between them in a standardized way was solid and unbreakable, even with malicious actors. We should have been considering how to design this system so that even if a government that controls a large (say up to 50%) subset of the nodes tries, communications between certain nodes could never be blocked without degrading communications between all blocks and losing the entire functionality. Then we'd be justified in saying that bills like this would destroy the Internet, and nobody would ever even try to pass them. Unfortunately, as thing stand, DNS is a too-easy weak-point in the infrastructure, so unsurprisingly, repressive governments target it as a way of imposing their will on the Internet. With a single point of failure, are we really surprised that governments will pick it out and exploit it? We had many other architectural options, did we perhaps choose one that was just too trusting when put up against the shitty world that we live in? Maybe I'm just naive, perhaps I don't understand the details and subtleties and just assume that a technical solution would be easier to come up with than it really is; I'm not a crypto or networks expert, so maybe the current situation is the only viable one. I'm sure any better solution would not be simple, and I'm sure it would require a lot of research. But in any case, it doesn't exist, so we're pretty much screwed for the moment. Issues like this make me think that dark-net plans are extremely useful, but happening far too late to matter in the real world, where everyone already follows protocols that allow for network-destroying interventions...

Kaizyn 15y ago
When the Internet was started, the researchers had no concept of the Internet growing to become a world-wide phenomenon where bad actors wold also exist on the network. Everyone involved was basically from an academic/research background and the funding was coming from DARPA. Even now, could you imagine researchers at say Stanford and Berkeley devising research collaboration methods that assume that either organization's management/governance will interfere with or act maliciously against that collaboration effort?