Congress's Techno-Ignorance No Longer Funny

pigrabbitbear writes "Since its introduction, the Stop Online Piracy Act (and its Senate twin PROTECT-IP) has been staunchly condemned by countless engineers, technologists and lawyers intimately familiar with the inner functioning of the internet. Completely beside the fact that these bills, as they currently stand, would stifle free speech and potentially cripple legitimate businesses by giving corporations extrajudicial censorial powers, there's an even more insidious threat: the method of DNS filtering proposed to block supposed infringing sites opens up enormous security holes that threaten the stability of the internet itself. The problem: key members of the House Judiciary Committee still don't understand how the internet works, and worse yet, it's not clear whether they even want to."

Comments

Confusing positions

[bonch]

Slashdot on net neutrality: "Why, of course! I'd love for the government to regulate internet traffic. What could possibly go wrong?"
Slashdot on SOPA: "Regulate internet traffic?! Ignorant scum! Viva la revolución!"

Splainittothem

[phrostie]

Get Al Gore to explain it to them. after all he invented it.

he could make a move and call it. SOPA, An inconvenient untruth

You reap what you sow

[SuperKendall]

SOPA and other intrusive legislation like it is merely the next logical step after you ask the government to take control of the internet with things like Network Neutrality efforts.

You all encouraged the government to intervene in the internet. Now they continue to do so and you are mad?

I would laugh expect I have to live on the same screwed-up internet you are helping to create.

I just hope you have all learned a lesson here. But sadly I am pretty sure the response to my post will indicate that is not the case and some people still really believe that you can actually separate mythical good government intervention from bad government intervention.

Sigh.

Re:They don't want to

[jo42]

Dumbtards'R'US

You misunderstand the basic concept

[SuperKendall]

NET Neutrality is about preventing ISPs from controlling your access to content.

And how does it do that - the government dictates what the ISP's can do with network traffic, how companies can interact with the internet.

Well now SOPA comes along and - dictates what must be done with some network traffic, how companies can interact with the internet (like requiring blocking of web sites the government finds to be bothersome).

Fundamentally it's all the same thing. You are just willfully blind in thinking there is a difference. You have sadly fulfilled my prophecy that some are so blind they will not see. Enjoy the internet that YOU are creating.