Reply To: SOPA, PIPA, Mega, and JoCo
I agree with Skyen (hi by the way) suspect even quantum encryption will not prove to be ultimately secure. How many times have other things come along? MD5 anyone?
The simple fact is the pirates are the young who learn on the technology that businesses are not going to be using for years because they don’t want to invest capital in new IT when they have desks full of perfectly good 386s.
It strikes me as amazing that the US wants to bring in legislation that to an outsider appears to contravene the constitution (I stand to be corrected), that threatens free speech globally and ultimately will not work.
There is a test case in the UK at the moment where one of our big ISP’s is being sued for not using technology which blocks nasty sites to stop FTPs (soz too many acronyms there). The main site it was aimed at has already come out and said we are circulating get arounds now. What chance does the ISP have?
I also find it hugely amusing that the bill if passed would make the Government project of setting up outlets for dissidents and free speech in other countries illegal if they went down the DNS(? not sure if I got that one right) route. A project that costs millions of dollars a year.
By far and away the funniest thing, but be First of Mayed if I can find it again, was an article wherein the author had after visiting the website of a politician who back SOPA, tracked down the artist who created the image that was used on the background of said site and asked him if permission had been requested.
Guess what the answer was.
Our blessed JoCo has plenty to lose, more than most of the rest of us here I would say, through pirating downloading and all else but despite this has figured out how to make money whilst giving his stuff away, as you all know. That simple fact says everything about SOPA to me. It is the last act of a dying industry. The trouble is if you start looking into it, I bet that industry greases a lot of the revolving doors in the political systems of the globe…
I walk a fine line on this one as I am selling tshirts on Cafepress at the moment that are mostly fan based and nerd based. I’ve already had to stand and argue my corner over heavy handed IP infringement policy (which I won by the way) but this legislation could mean the end of a lot of sites like that.
If anyone wants the link to my shop to have a look ping me wherever you can on here and I’ll send it you. I don’t know what the policy is on self advertising so am avoiding it.
Any hoo the argument is one that I think is going to rage for some time.