An Open Letter From Internet Engineers to the U.S. Congress

[+Majesticmerc MVC]

Posted on the Electronic Frontier Foundation website yesterday:

We, the undersigned, have played various parts in building a network called the Internet. We wrote and debugged the software; we defined the standards and protocols that talk over that network. Many of us invented parts of it. We're just a little proud of the social and economic benefits that our project, the Internet, has brought with it.

Last year, many of us wrote to you and your colleagues to warn about the proposed "COICA" copyright and censorship legislation. Today, we are writing again to reiterate our concerns about the SOPA and PIPA derivatives of last year's bill, that are under consideration in the House and Senate. In many respects, these proposals are worse than the one we were alarmed to read last year.

If enacted, either of these bills will create an environment of tremendous fear and uncertainty for technological innovation, and seriously harm the credibility of the United States in its role as a steward of key Internet infrastructure. Regardless of recent amendments to SOPA, both bills will risk fragmenting the Internet's global domain name system (DNS) and have other capricious technical consequences. In exchange for this, such legislation would engender censorship that will simultaneously be circumvented by deliberate infringers while hampering innocent parties' right and ability to communicate and express themselves online.

All censorship schemes impact speech beyond the category they were intended to restrict, but these bills are particularly egregious in that regard because they cause entire domains to vanish from the Web, not just infringing pages or files. Worse, an incredible range of useful, law-abiding sites can be blacklisted under these proposals. In fact, it seems that this has already begun to happen under the nascent DHS/ICE seizures program.

Censorship of Internet infrastructure will inevitably cause network errors and security problems. This is true in China, Iran and other countries that censor the network today; it will be just as true of American censorship. It is also true regardless of whether censorship is implemented via the DNS, proxies, firewalls, or any other method. Types of network errors and insecurity that we wrestle with today will become more widespread, and will affect sites other than those blacklisted by the American government.

The current bills -- SOPA explicitly and PIPA implicitly -- also threaten engineers who build Internet systems or offer services that are not readily and automatically compliant with censorship actions by the U.S. government. When we designed the Internet the first time, our priorities were reliability, robustness and minimizing central points of failure or control. We are alarmed that Congress is so close to mandating censorship-compliance as a design requirement for new Internet innovations. This can only damage the security of the network, and give authoritarian governments more power over what their citizens can read and publish.

The US government has regularly claimed that it supports a free and open Internet, both domestically and abroad. We cannot have a free and open Internet unless its naming and routing systems sit above the political concerns and objectives of any one government or industry. To date, the leading role the US has played in this infrastructure has been fairly uncontroversial because America is seen as a trustworthy arbiter and a neutral bastion of free expression. If the US begins to use its central position in the network for censorship that advances its political and economic agenda, the consequences will be far-reaching and destructive.

Senators, Congressmen, we believe the Internet is too important and too valuable to be endangered in this way, and implore you to put these bills aside.

Source, including all 83 signatories: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/12/internet-inventors-warn-against-sopa-and-pipa

You know that it's bad when the legislation that is being advertised to "save the internet" is being lambasted by the people that created the thing that it's allegedly trying to save. I seriously don't see how SOPA can actually pass, and yet somehow, I'm worried. :/

[nominak]

Posted on the Electronic Frontier Foundation website yesterday:

seriously don't see how SOPA can actually pass, and yet somehow, I'm worried. :/

I do. Republicans want it to pass. They'll get probably a good chunk of democrats to vote for it, and bam.

[Rippleman]

have you read the details of the bills? in the simplest terms, a website that infringes on copyright is taken down. Who cares if it has sub pages that don't. Are you for piracy? If the master .com is a piracy site, why cry about sub pages?

[Pam14160]

As the years have gone by (65) I have seen things come to past that shouldn't have (example: The Homeland Security Bill to name one of them) ever seen the light of day. Now this stupid and thoughtless bill.

At times I really wonder why the people of the this Great Country (USA) have allowed these idiots we call Senators and Representatives to remain in office. Come people it is time for a change, and that can only be done at the ballot box. :angry:

[+Majesticmerc MVC]

have you read the details of the bills? in the simplest terms, a website that infringes on copyright is taken down. Who cares if it has sub pages that don't. Are you for piracy? If the master .com is a piracy site, why cry about sub pages?

What about Youtube? Or even Neowin? Under SOPA they both technically qualify as infringing sites, and can be legally wiped from the internet without due process.

[McCafe]

So then this bill would have Microsoft taken down since IBM same as apple? I mean its only fare that they also take down Microsoft/Apple/IBM/ and all others that have taken ideas and stuff.

[Glassed Silver]

What about Youtube? Or even Neowin? Under SOPA they both technically qualify as infringing sites, and can be legally wiped from the internet without due process.

Yupp.

3..2..1...

Quick, share contact details with your fellow Neowin users you value so you can stay in touch! (Y)

</exaggeration for the sake of satire>

So then this bill would have Microsoft taken down since IBM same as apple? I mean its only fare that they also take down Microsoft/Apple/IBM/ and all others that have taken ideas and stuff.

I guess it's almost safe to say that 99% of the web would be affected.

I'd ADORE to see government sites taken down and all that jazz, hurt those who have the ignorance and idiocy to support this OUTRAGEOUS bill.

Really, make them SEE what this bill destroys.

Haha! (Y) :devil:

Sorry... Freedom fighters and intolerant people make me go off and ragey...

Glassed Silver:mac

[Sranshaft]

have you read the details of the bills? in the simplest terms, a website that infringes on copyright is taken down. Who cares if it has sub pages that don't. Are you for piracy? If the master .com is a piracy site, why cry about sub pages?

It's not that the website is taken down. The US doesn't have the legal power to force a website down overseas. What the bill is proposing is that the DNS that controls the automatic redirection of a user typing in say, youtube.com and getting the IP address - the 199.191.91.919 number - to that website, be changed or dummy entries add that would prevent the user in the US from accessing that site. It's exactly the same technique in place with China's Great Firewall. This is the major concern people have about this bill.

If you had any doubt SOPA wouldn't pass just yesterday they voted against the amendment to the bill that would take out the part about DNS changes. Against! saying that is wasn't a concern.

[HardyRexion]

Forgive my ignorance, But wouldn't it be quite simple to circumvent these DNS redirects via overseas proxy?

[Glassed Silver]

Forgive my ignorance, But wouldn't it be quite simple to circumvent these DNS redirects via overseas proxy?

1) Use a proxy outside the USA/one that's using option 3)

2) Use a VPN outside the USA/one that's using option 3)

3) Use another DNS server

Then again, this is from the surfer's point of view a viable option, seeing how many people wouldn't get the memo or have the skill to use the most feasible option 3), many website owners would stay pi**ed.

Glassed Silver:mac

[Sranshaft]

Forgive my ignorance, But wouldn't it be quite simple to circumvent these DNS redirects via overseas proxy?

Yes, as GS said, using a VPN to connect to an IP outside of the US would become the only solution. I believe the bill would extend to all DNS servers so Google, OpenDNS, etc would all be affected. VPNs would then come under fire and we'd see those companies that provide them soon dwindle. Things to look forward to when this bill passes.

[CrimsonBetrayal]

I fear for the internet as a whole with this SOPA junk. It won't only affect the US, if it passes, it will set a precedent, and every other world power will follow. Before we know it, we'll only know/see what they want us to, thus creating their utopian society...

Sorry... off on a rant, but you get my point...

[Sranshaft]

I fear for the internet as a whole with this SOPA junk. It won't only affect the US, if it passes, it will set a precedent, and every other world power will follow. Before we know it, we'll only know/see what they want us to, thus creating their utopian society...

Sorry... off on a rant, but you get my point...

Totally agree. It's already happening around the world - China, Syria, Iran - but with the US passing this kind of law, you better believe those in Europe will be all over this.

[Glassed Silver]

If this ever reached EU stage, I'd officially pledge for Germany to leave that union.

At least in its current form.

Power where none is needed on super-national level.

Too little power where it's needed due to responsibilities being expected. (EFSF)

Glassed Silver:mac

[remixedcat]

it's not about lost sales over piracy... it's about control and eliminating thier big media competition... they fear us... they want to control us and force thier crap that's not even worth torrenting down our throats and we ain't havin any of it.

boycott and blackout.

[Glassed Silver]

it's not about lost sales over piracy... it's about control and eliminating thier big media competition... they fear us... they want to control us and force thier crap that's not even worth torrenting down our throats and we ain't havin any of it.

boycott and blackout.

Although I'm not the biggest fan of conspiracy theories, they make it damn hard to make you believe something else. :p

Glassed Silver:mac

[remixedcat]

mabye if they would adapt to the new way instead of clinging to their dying business model this stuff wouldn't even be an issue.

mabye if they would embrace fandom and stuff like that instead of being *******s about it then we'd all be better off.

hasbro and the MLP creators embrace it and the community is healthy and happy.

and some of those fan works actually boost sales and stuff. it makes more people aware of the content and the studios should be thankful of the free promotion!!!!! ****es me off when an amv is deleted off youtube. i never heard of some of the music artists or the anime that's in them without it!!!!