Thread: Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA)

Dumb-ass bullshit

Let's further protect an industry(ies) that has gone out of its way to abuse their customers

Web Censorship Bill Sails Through Senate Committee | Epicenter | Wired.com

On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved a bill that would give the Attorney General the right to shut down websites with a court order if copyright infringement is deemed “central to the activity” of the site — regardless if the website has actually committed a crime.

Among the sites that could go dark if the law passes: Dropbox, RapidShare, SoundCloud, Hype Machine and any other site for which the Attorney General deems copyright infringement to be “central to the activity” of the site, according to Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group that opposes the bill. There need not even be illegal content on a site — links alone will qualify a site for digital death.

Dropbox is an awesome technology and while I can see the potential illegal use of it, this goes back to the same B$ over whether technology that allows illegal usage is synonymous with condone/supporting illegal use. Hell, let's just go back and outlaw CD/DVD/BD burners as they have the same possible illicit use as the IP based alternatives.

Fucking stupid

It also would be capable of shutting down sites like The Smoking Gun, Wikileaks and other whistleblower websites.

It is beyond lame and stupid. Not to mention totally fucking up the fundamental architecture of the Internet and probably making it less secure and stable since DNS servers would likely become more distributed and less controlled.

Originally Posted by Arreo

Not to mention totally fucking up the fundamental architecture of the Internet and probably making it less secure and stable since DNS servers would likely become more distributed and less controlled.

Well based on this little information (that was seriously under-reported) I'd say routing and DNS, globally, is pretty fucked already

Oh, no doubt about that Alundil. That hijacking of the traffic by China is a prime example of how fundimentally messed up the architecture of the internet is at this time.

As Vint Cerf, one of the founding fathers of the Internt said, "The internet is an experiment that never ended". The way DNS, IPv4 and everything works were never really designed with the scale or complexity of today's connected world in mind.

But COICA throws yet another wrench in the works by screwing with the DNS servers. Targeted site owners will simply go global and start using private and encrypted DNS servers in countries that will harbor them. And that means that the US loses what little power they do have over bits of the Internet.

The EFF explains it pretty well:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/1...-against-coica
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/09/open-letter

Originally Posted by Arreo

Targeted site owners will simply go global and start using private and encrypted DNS servers in countries that will harbor them.

Yup

Wyden Threatens To Block Online IP Bill - Tech Daily Dose

And blocked! At least for this session.

Good