[ih] Fwd: [IP] EFF calls for signatures from Internet Engineers against censorship

[John Day]

A couple of comments:

1)  Blocking sites for minor infractions. (I can't confirm a single 
incident caused a site to be blocked but I doubt it was very many). 
Comcast has regularly blocked mail not for the White House domain but 
the European Commission domain and the domains of more than one EC 
member.

2)  The tendency these days to appeal to the authority of an author, 
rather than to the argument and the facts, is the anathema of 
scientific discipline.  This tendency leads to stagnation and 
demagoguery, shouting down counter arguments rather than addressing 
them.  It is seldom the case that crucial ideas come from the 
authorities and often quite the opposite.  Sometimes  even a lowly 
Swiss patent examiner.  These sorts of arguments may be the stock and 
trade of Fox News, but they have no place here.

3)  This sort of discussion is precisely why we have the system we 
started with although questionable whether it still functions that 
way.  And why it *must* resemble making sausage.

Is "a couple" limited to 2?  ;-)

At 23:29 -0700 2011/12/18, Alan Maitland wrote:
>My personal concern with the bill stems from the potential of its 
>passage breaking the DNSSEC aspect of DNS, among other issues.
>
>You might want to take a peek at:
>http://www.isc.org/community/blog/201110/protecting-intellectual-property-good-mandatory-dns-filtering-bad
>
>This blog article was written by one of the preeminent experts in 
>DNS today, who is also the Chairman and Chief Scientist at ISC (the 
>makers of [among other open source products] BIND, the most widely 
>distributed and adopted DNS software on the planet), and who also 
>remains an active force in protecting the interests of Internet 
>security and function... clearly, a highly credible source.
>
>Certainly, no concerned thinking people want to see unlawful 
>commerce or intellectual property theft.  However, just so, no 
>concerned thinking people want to see the advances in Internet 
>security become broken as a consequence of laws being enacted which 
>may be ill conceived or considered and that arguably impact only a 
>relatively small, but vocal and seemingly rather litigious part of 
>the online electronic commerce community.  Indeed, they appear a 
>part of the community, who also seem to wish to use American tax 
>payer money and resources to offset their own costs in fighting what 
>appears should be their own fight.
>
>Alan
>
>On 12/18/2011 9:55 PM, Richard Bennett wrote:
>>Yes, and just like the EFF letter that some people signed without
>>knowing what's in the SOPA bill, it's a blatant misrepresentation of the
>>bill. It says:
>>
>>"It would be ridiculous for an ISP to block the entire whitehouse.gov
>>domain on court order because a single user posted a link. "
>>
>>Yes, that would be ridiculous, but SOPA doesn't permit any domain to be
>>RPZ'ed on such a thin pretext. The domain has to be dedicated to
>>unlawful commerce, like The Pirate Bay or the sites that sell camcorder
>>grabs of newly released movies without a license.
>>
>>"It is difficult for any web administrator to know which links to
>>copyrighted material are done with permission."
>>
>>SOPA doesn't require any web administrator to know which links to
>>copyright material are by permission and which aren't. It does require
>>the operators of UGC site to know whether the site's primary purpose is
>>to sell copyrighted material without a license or not, but that's not
>>very hard.
>>
>>"This will kill the free flow of information and conversation on the
>>internet."
>>
>>If you believe that the sale of bogus drugs and unlicensed movies is the
>>essence of the "free flow of information and conversation on the
>>Internet," sign the petition. If you believe the Internet has
>>substantial legitimate uses that don't kill people or otherwise violate
>>the law, then don't.
>>
>>RB
>>
>>
>>
>>On 12/18/2011 7:37 PM, Jorge Amodio wrote:
>>>There is now a petition on the WH website asking the President to veto
>>>SOPA in the event it passes Congress approval.
>>>
>>>http://wh.gov/DfY
>>>
>>>-J
>>>
>>>On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 9:16 AM, Noel Chiappa<jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
>>>wrote:
>>>>FYI. I hope many (most?) here can sign: the attempt to interfere with
>>>>the
>>>>operation of DNS is particularly problematic, as it will 'break' DNSSEC.
>>>>
>>>>Noel