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Can ACTA Be Worse Than SOPA And PIPA?

Jan 23, 12 3:40 PM
ACTA Anti Counterfeit Trading Agreement- New ...

Image by mermadon 1967 via Flickr

SOPA and PIPA are retreating, but something else much worse is on the rise?  Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is something I have only heard just now by reading Forbes’ If You Thought SOPA Was Bad, Just Wait Until You Meet ACTA  article and watching YouTube’s What is ACTA? video.  The article and video have successfully convinced me ACTA might be worse than SOPA and PIPA.  Check out the videos right after the break to know more about ACTA!

You might want to check out Wikipedia’s Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement article to know more about ACTA.

Personally, I think SOPA, PIPA, and ACTA might not be effective against the things these bills want to address.  Instead, these bills might bring about inadvertent effects that would be detrimental to many constructive, current and future innovations.  Especially ACTA, because this treaty tries to address not one but many industries at the same time.  For better or worse, such a broad language of a treaty might effectively change how many industries would behave (i.e., each industry might work differently).  Of course, the Internet might be one of those industries that breaks under the pressure of ACTA.

Personal note:  Come to think of it, the Internet has been an important vehicle which helps the spreading of ideas and knowledge.  I don’t think it’s wise to stop the Internet from helping to spread ideas and knowledge.  Why?  People want to be heard, to share, and to know more.  Is it wise to go against the will of so many people?  Is it wise to stop the advancing of modern civilization?

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Third Party DNS Services’ Servers Allow People To Access Websites That Are Protesting Against SOPA/PIPA. When SOPA/PIPA Become Law, Only Malicious Third Party DNS Servers Might Be In Service!

Jan 18, 12 11:33 AM

DNS on the roadWikipedia and other popular online services are opposing and protesting against SOPA and PIPA, therefore these services might go dark (i.e., turning off their services) today.  In case you can’t use these online services today, you should think about using Google’s Public DNS or OpenDNS since these third party DNS services might have route their DNS through servers that locate outside of the United States of America, consequently allowing you to access these online services just fine even though you live within the United States of America.  For your information, I’m able to access Wikipedia’s English website just now, and this means my using of popular third party DNS services such as Google Public DNS and OpenDNS has allowed me to access these popular services just fine.

The blackout of these popular online services has exposed the useless effort of trying to block websites at DNS level.  As you can see, by using third party DNS servers, people can access the blackout websites just fine.  It’s rather pointless, and it might encourage people who have no idea of DNS to use the wrong third party DNS servers that may get them in situations where they can be infected with computer viruses, malware, and so on.  Don’t think so?  What if those third party DNS servers are intending to redirect targeted victims to the phishing websites where people will enter their confidential information such as banking credentials?  I think you know where I’m heading, and so I hope you know how important it’s for us to make sure the integrity of DNS structure within the United States of America stays innocent and harmless (i.e., does not discriminate against specific types of web traffics), otherwise people might find themselves to be victimized by computer viruses, identity theft, and more just because they try to use unknown, unpopular third party DNS services’ servers.

Even worse, I don’t think Google Public DNS and Open DNS services will be fine and dandy when SOPA and PIPA become law!  Why?  If you read Yahoo article’s Why SOPA is Dangerous, it explains that any service enables/allows people to access copyright infringed materials would be subjected to SOPA and PIPA regulations.  This means Google Public DNS and Open DNS services might have to be shut down since these popular third party DNS servers are clearly within the United States’ jurisdiction and allowing people to access all contents (i.e., even copyright infringed contents).  Since well known third party DNS servers such as the ones that belong to Google Public DNS do not have the ability to screen every web traffic (i.e., simply not cost effective), third party DNS servers simply cannot function under SOPA and PIPA.  Without having access to popular third party DNS servers, people might just have to rely on malicious third party DNS servers that locate outside of the United States.  I’m going in a loop in explaining to you over and over again on purpose, because I think SOPA and PIPA are just downright dangerous!

Some of you might argue that since the founders of SOPA and PIPA had taken out the specific bits that allow to block web traffics at DNS level, therefore we might not need to worry about SOPA and PIPA anymore.  I think you’re wrong!  Why?  Other bits within SOPA and PIPA are still gunning for shutting down websites and online services that are just simply enabling users to access infringed copyright contents.  Knowing these bits are still within SOPA and PIPA, it’s simply making sense that DNS servers that are being targeted or will be targeted by Attorney General (i.e., as how it is explained by Yahoo’s article Why SOPA is Dangerous) will have to be shut down still.  So, how can we be sure that Google Public DNS and OpenDNS will be in service in our near future?  I think we simply just don’t know!  So, the idea that DNS structure as a whole isn’t going to be regulated by SOPA and PIPA is an irony.  When SOPA and PIPA become law, the Attorney General might still have the power to shut down specific DNS servers within the United States, because the languages within SOPA and PIPA are just too broad.

When I say DNS servers get shutdown, it might mean certain affected websites might not be accessible within the United States.  It’s all depending on how the Attorney General wants to make things happen under the contexts of SOPA and PIPA.  For all we know, the Attorney General can just shut down the DNS servers that allow Internet users within the United States to access certain copyright infringed websites.  When DNS servers get shutdown, not only infringed copyright websites but all websites that are relying on the same out of service DNS servers will be unreachable.  To put this in another way, it doesn’t matter which website, because all websites and online services accept all web traffics, and Internet users who rely on out of service DNS servers might have to rely on malicious third party DNS servers.  In the case where specific websites are being blocked by DNS servers and not the DNS servers are being shutdown, Internet users can still access such websites with relying on malicious third party DNS servers.  Of course, not all third party DNS servers are malicious, but I think the probability of having people who don’t know much about DNS using malicious third party DNS servers is high!  End rant!

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Some Hackers Boldly Plan To Launch Their Own Satellites Into Space To Combat Future Internet Censorships

Dec 31, 11 6:43 PM
Internets = srs.biz. Parody motivator.

Image via Wikipedia

HowStuffWorks pointed out that the Internet became a reality was due to space race.  It was the Russians who launched Sputnik into space which prompted the Americans to form Advanced Research Projects Agency in 1958. ARPA was then formed ARPANET.  HowStuffWorks claimed without ARPANET, the Internet wouldn’t look and behave as how it’s today.  If the facts are true as how HowStuffWorks described in its article How did the Internet start? — we can somewhat come to a conclusion that the Internet was intentionally wired the way it had been wired.  This knowledge gives rise to some of us today that we could have also wired the Internet differently if we wanted to, right?  Perhaps, we might never know if the wiring of the Internet was different would be a bad thing, or it might be something even better than what we have now (i.e., today Internet).

Recently, SOPA creates worries for geeks and technical folks out there.  They fear the current Internet might become something much worse if SOPA gets pass soon.  SOPA was a reason why I’d mentioned in my other SOPA articles that smart and technical knowhow folks might create their own Internets if they so wish to not be affected by a post SOPA Internet era.  Today, I stumbled onto the article Hackers Said to be Planning to Launch Own Satellites to Combat Censorship, and I wasn’t surprised to see somebody else was already had a plan for the idea of creating a new Internet.  Since we know Internet was started by a satellite, therefore these hackers might be on the right track.  Perhaps, these hackers might even come up with new ways to create newer version of Internets without requiring of satellites.  You never know!  It does feel like once a hornet nest is poked, there isn’t a going back.

I sure hope the folks who support SOPA by now know that besides the integrity of the Internet structures, there is also the belief in the spirit of the Internet.  The spirit of the Internet is embodied by countless Internet users, and the majority of them believe the Internet should not be a draconian reality (relatively speaking a reality of a digital world of course).  Of course, it’s understandable stealing is bad.  So, I’m not arguing that downloading contents without permissions is bad, but I’m arguing that the approach to stomp out piracy should not be draconic and vague.  When a blanket approach such as SOPA is to be passed as a way to stop online piracy, it isn’t requiring a rocket scientist to figure out that any party with more money, influences, and power might be able to force another party to go out of business even though such a party might not violate the rules and regulations that govern by SOPA.

I think if the governments of the world are naively rolling out more vague/blanket rules and regulations to regulate the current Internet, they might find themselves not only have to regulate one Internet but many more Internets.  Also, they might have to find new rules and regulations to explain to their dear citizens why they have to even create new rules and regulations to regulate the particular Internets.  Will they come out a law that ban people from forming their own Internets?  I wonder how people will react to such a law.  I’m also curious, if there are more than one Internets, would it be a bad thing or a good thing for e-commerce?

Sources:  http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/basics/internet-start.htm,
http://www.pcworld.com/article/247147/hackers_said_to_be_
planning_to_launch_own_satellites_to_combat_censorship.html#tk.rss_news

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