1 If you oppose SOPA, then get it in gear for PROTEC

SOPA is the version of this legislation in the U.S. House. PROTECT-IP is the version in the Senate. It is just as bad and it may come up for a vote in the Senate soon. From a posting by the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

The PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) is the evil step-sister of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), the much-criticized Internet blacklist bill introduced in the House last month. They’ve got a lot in common — both bills would allow the government and private rightsholders to censor the Internet for Americans, and both bills have faced strong opposition from regular citizens, business leaders, and public interest groups.
In one way, though, PIPA is much worse: while SOPA is still in the House committee stage and has been the target of extraordinary public opposition, PIPA is already out of committee and poised for consideration of the full Senate. That means PIPA is a few dangerous steps further along in the process of becoming law. And with only a few weeks to go in this legislative session, the Senate may try to rush the bill through before the public has a chance to respond.

So now is the time to call your Senators and urge them to oppose the PROTECT-IP Act if it comes up for a vote. ( I have ) And while you’re at it, let Senator Wyden know that you want your name read aloud on the Senate floor or inserted into the Congressional Record as he vows to filibuster the act.

posted at 12:22 pm on November 29, 2011 by dltj

2 Memorising the I.P. address?

“(…) Once a domain is blocked, nobody can access it, unless they’ve memorized the I.P. address.” Well, I’m afraid that is not true – anyone who has ever configured an Apache server knows that you can support many domains on a single IP address and that both the name server and the web server need to be configured properly in order for a domain to “work” and “point at the right place”, hence quite often (if not most of the times) knowing the IP address will give you nothing. The I.P. address for alistapart.com is 216.243.171.45 – try typing that into your address bar and visiting that “website”. I’m surprised Jeffrey Zeldman has made this mistake.

posted at 01:17 pm on November 29, 2011 by the_bz

3

But let me just add that otherwise I completely agree with this article. I am flabbergasted by the stupidity of those who want to pass this legislation – don’t they realise that they’re shooting themselves in the foot? That the copyrightes content, be it a film or music, they want to protect will consequently not be promoted via the medium of internet, thus their sales will plunge? On another note, how is it possible to “sponsor” law in the US (unless I don’t understand something here)?

posted at 01:29 pm on November 29, 2011 by the_bz

4 funny thing

in spanish SOPA means soup. say no to soup! :D

seriously, when money is involved is amazing how fast borders between MY freedom and THEIR freedom appear. Internet used to be a dream world where everything was public, a huge library for everyone. Now it looks just like our world, full of boundaries, limitations, people fighting in the name of others’ freedom.

posted at 01:43 pm on November 29, 2011 by augustowloch

5 Funnier thing

In Turkish, Sopa means ‘stick’ or ‘pole’, and is also used to mean a ‘beating’ or ‘roughing up’ :D

It makes perfect sense (in turkish) to use the acronym SOPA for a law that is a stick to rough up free thought

posted at 02:16 pm on November 29, 2011 by edgerunner

6 Actually...

Well, I’m afraid that is not true – anyone who has ever configured an Apache server knows that you can support many domains on a single IP address and that both the name server and the web server need to be configured properly in order for a domain to “work” and “point at the right place”, hence quite often (if not most of the times) knowing the IP address will give you nothing. The I.P. address for alistapart.com is 216.243.171.45 – try typing that into your address bar and visiting that “website”. I’m surprised Jeffrey Zeldman has made this mistake.

Knowing the IP of a server would be enough to create a local hosts entry which would then allow the name server to function properly. So, yes, memorizing the IP address would be enough for an individual to circumvent the domain blockage.

posted at 02:30 pm on November 29, 2011 by R.A. Ray

7 Drastic Measures

While it would be rather expensive, if just Google and Facebook (let alone others) blocked their U.S. users for only a single day, there’s no way these laws would get passed. So much of our daily lives depends on these sorts of services (both directly and indirectly) that the impact of such a boycott would be huge.

The loss of 1 day’s revenue is no small thing, but I expect it has to be less than the cost of policing everything. And after such a “trial run of the future”, the outcry would serve as a mind-blowing wake-up call to lawmakers and the public alike.

posted at 02:45 pm on November 29, 2011 by cdeszaq

8

“Knowing the IP of a server would be enough to create a local hosts entry which would then allow the name server to function properly. So, yes, memorizing the IP address would be enough for an individual to circumvent the domain blockage.” Well you could send a specially devised request to the server too; my point was, a non-technical person would not be able to just use the IP address. Maybe Jeffrey considered using “advanced” methods, my bad.

posted at 04:43 pm on November 29, 2011 by the_bz

10 Both SOPA and PROTECT-IP

As dltj mentioned above, the Senate version, PROTECT-IP, is just as dangerous and may be closer to an immediate vote. http://www.americancensorship.org is putting together a call blitz this week; it’s important that we in the tech community (for both philosophical and practical reasons) get our voices heard right now.

the_bz’s point is a good one too, and oddly enough not one I’ve really heard mentioned a lot in context with this — the entertainment industry might intend to curtail certain forms of piracy, but they’d also be cutting off their own word of mouth flow. Very counterproductive. I’m so perplexed that something this poorly thought out (and with such worrisome potential for abuse) has come to this point in our government.

posted at 02:14 am on November 30, 2011 by rosalindwills