[Chapter-delegates] Input Request: DNS Blocking

[Fred Baker]

I think there is a fairly important report at
     http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/08/AR2010120804038.html

It came up when the US Office of Science and Technology Policy asked a number of usual suspects, myself among them, about DNS blocking (the context being MPAA/RIAA) last October. Part of the context there was a proposed law called COICA, which was instigated by guess who and tried to achieve guess what. OSTP spoke with a set of industry people and was told that DNS Blocking was ineffective, discussed that with the folks trying to drive the solution, and essentially asked us (while OSTP was not stressed when asking the question, this is best read with a certain amount of "don't confuse me with the facts" stress in one's voice) "if that won't work, tell us what technical solution we can put in place that will have the desired effect of blocking the unlicensed transfer of copyrighted material."

We have had the same question from the UN Al Qua'da task Force, which asked for a technical way to detect that a random file transfer or IRC session between random locations in fact contained Al Qua'da propaganda or training materials and block it. The same question has been asked about child pornography, materials of a religion or anti-religious or of a politically incorrect nature (the particular variant of political incorrectness being in the eyes of the beholder, of course), dog racing in Florida, and specific applications including or analogous to BitTorrent and Skype, and so on.

The problem is of course that, even if one agrees that content control is a good thing, there is no technical solution that can prevent the exchange of content. Sorry. Can't get there from here. Many have tried, and some (think Iran and China) have even had a small degree of success. Note the "small degree". But the fact of the attempt has made the content all the more desirable, and as a result has in fact promoted the points of view that it attempted to render without voice.

It's a little like walking through a crowd of people and asking to enable conversations among all who are there while preventing anyone from saying anything on a particular topic. It doesn't work.

Oh, and then there are the comments of Larry Lessig. While I probably wouldn't say it in his words, his message is in fact correct.

On Jan 17, 2011, at 12:36 PM, Sally Wentworth wrote:

> We have noted that a number of governments are considering and/or implementing public policies to try to address illegal online sites (also known sometimes as “rogue websites” or "sites dedicated to infringing activities") that would require ISPs to block DNS resolution to sites containing illegal content.  While we recognize the need for development of public policy by governments (in consultation with all stakeholders), we believe that policies of this sort would have negative implications for the global DNS and for the implementation of DNSSEC, among other issues.
> 
> To help ISOC and its members think about and respond to these issues we are developing principles that have global applicability and also provide a baseline to respond to national policy developments.  We are specifically seeking to address the proposals to require ISPs to block DNS resolution of "illegal" sites.  Please note that this is a different discussion/context than the issues associated with Wikileaks and so we'd like to keep those threads separate here. 
> 
> 
> We are thinking of principles along the following lines:
> 
> - The Internet is a global network of networks that provides for the neutral passage of packets - requirements to adjust or prevent DNS responses would impair this neutrality.
> 
> - For the Internet to be truly global it must be consistent - in general, what an Internet user "sees" when accessing a particular domain name from one location should be the same as what is seen when accessing the same domain name from another location
> 
> - Policies should be narrowly tailored and consistent with open standards and accepted operational practices: technical “fixes” to short-circuit due process or violate fundamental and accepted procedures may harm the global Internet.
> 
> - The Internet is global. International cooperation (rather than country-by-country solutions) at the technical and policy levels is essential.
> 
> 
> I would appreciate your comments on the above points.  We would also welcome information on whether and how DNS blocking policies are being considered or implemented in your country.  Please send your feedback by Friday, 28 January 2011. 
> 
> Many thanks!
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