In this case it is "use the thing they always use".
A more scary thing would be if they start making search engines filter out sites that are and sites that link to p2p networks.
The point of this is that it makes those sites obsolete (almost).
You no longer need.torrent files, only a list of what's available. The list is much smaller than the files and can be easily passed around peer-to-peer. Just get yourself subscribed on a trusted list and the pirate bay will be stored in your own PC.
We live in a digital age. Sending files to other people seems like the single most obvious use of the Internet, but it's a strangely unsolved problem...
Yep. The barrier to entry for "dropbox" type applications is very low.
I have zero emotional investment in Dropbox. All the files in my dropbox folder are on my own hard disk. If a competitor offered me more disk space or whatever I could switch over in minutes.
Legislation doesn't have to make sense, it just has to meet payment criteria.
The people voting on this are old guys in suits, they have no idea what DNS is and have no interest in learning about it. All they know is other suits saying "it'll stop people copying our stuff!" over expensive dinners.
The other suits aren't any better; they actually believe it will stop people copying stuff.
I'm not saying the list isn't accurate... it's just that I can imagine too many plausible ways of skewing it.
eg. Book publishers might be looking at that list when they decide what books to publish each year. This creates a feedback loop where their own books push a language up the list.
The idea is to back-pedal a little bit on this bill so we heave a sigh of relief over the DNS part and don't notice what they left in.
Next time around they do DNS thing plus something far worse. We protest the "worse", they back-pedal a bit on that and DNS blocking gets passed amidst all the sighs of relief.
Rinse, repeat until they get everything they want.
Bottom line: Unless we defeat the WHOLE of this bill and get a few morons kicked out of office then we might as well just hand the keys of the Internet over to the MAFIAA. They'll get them eventually if we don't.
If all that index does is count web pages that mention a language then isn't it more likely to be a measure of how many problems people are having with a language? Languages which "just work" would get fewer hits than those which don't.
My bank has a similar ridiculous restriction. 14 characters max, limited subset of symbols allowed. Because of this, my bank password is my least secure password, while it should be one of the strongest. I find it amusing that my WoW account is much more secure than my bank (greater password freedom + authenticator)--at least from an authentication standpoint.
I find it amusing that WoW doesn't block your account if you get the password wrong three times.
Allowing unlimited retries makes WoW weaker than your bank even though they allow longer passwords.
Just think "Eyeballs on forks..." next time you believe biometrics solves anything.
People leave a whole trail of biometrics behind them as they go through life - dropped hairs full of DNA, fingerprints on drinking glasses, etc. You can steal their biometrics just by following them around.
Worse: If you steal their wallet they might notice it's missing but they won't notice you picking up a drinking glass after they leave a restaurant. You can steal their biometric identity without them ever knowing it.
If we could build a computer that was more accurate then your best friend at identifying you using multiple bio metrics ( voice, face, body, smell , DNA) would that be good enough?
Nope.
Any "something you have" system can be compromised. A secure system needs something else, eg. something you know.
To put it in your context, you might fool your best friend visually but as soon as you open your mouth and start talking he'll know you're a fake because you won't have the basic social knowledge that he shares with his real friend.
Ummm...simple answer, Microsoft/IBM/rest of world:
Start adding a "please generate a good password for me because I'm too ignorant to do it myself and I'll choose '123456' " button to your user interfaces.
Just hand the country over to the MAFIAA...it's inevitable so why struggle? Delaying it just fills up the pockets of the senators and congressmen and the country needs the money to pay for other things.
The sooner it happens, the sooner we can get everybody onto a secure connection to the MAFIAA website so they can monitor your usage and sort people into categories.
GUIs can be built to send commands to a command line.
By removing the GUI they're actually opening things up to have bigger/better GUIs than before. The difference is the GUI won't be running on your server, it can be running anywhere.
This enables servers without graphics cards - potentially a massive saving in the datacenter.
Slashdot Mirror
In this case it is "use the thing they always use".
A more scary thing would be if they start making search engines filter out sites that are and sites that link to p2p networks.
The point of this is that it makes those sites obsolete (almost).
You no longer need .torrent files, only a list of what's available. The list is much smaller than the files and can be easily passed around peer-to-peer. Just get yourself subscribed on a trusted list and the pirate bay will be stored in your own PC.
I'm finding it takes 50-90 seconds to download a .magnet vs. 2-3 seconds for a .torrent,
Um, magnet isn't a "download".
Educate yourself before proceeding.
SOPA is already useless.... all it's good for now is for political/business use - shutting down web sites you don't like, eg. competitors.
Painful? Why?
Nobody's forcing you to sit there and count the bytes as they get sent. This sort of thing is why background tasks were invented.
We live in a digital age. Sending files to other people seems like the single most obvious use of the Internet, but it's a strangely unsolved problem...
Obligatory XKCD: https://www.xkcd.com/949/
Yep. The barrier to entry for "dropbox" type applications is very low.
I have zero emotional investment in Dropbox. All the files in my dropbox folder are on my own hard disk. If a competitor offered me more disk space or whatever I could switch over in minutes.
Thing is ... all that will have happened without piracy being affected. At all. It will continue as normal.
In Spanish it's "soup" and "sunflower seed"
SOPA is a very silly piece of legislation
Legislation doesn't have to make sense, it just has to meet payment criteria.
The people voting on this are old guys in suits, they have no idea what DNS is and have no interest in learning about it. All they know is other suits saying "it'll stop people copying our stuff!" over expensive dinners.
The other suits aren't any better; they actually believe it will stop people copying stuff.
It won't.
I'm not saying the list isn't accurate ... it's just that I can imagine too many plausible ways of skewing it.
eg. Book publishers might be looking at that list when they decide what books to publish each year. This creates a feedback loop where their own books push a language up the list.
The idea is to back-pedal a little bit on this bill so we heave a sigh of relief over the DNS part and don't notice what they left in.
Next time around they do DNS thing plus something far worse. We protest the "worse", they back-pedal a bit on that and DNS blocking gets passed amidst all the sighs of relief.
Rinse, repeat until they get everything they want.
Bottom line: Unless we defeat the WHOLE of this bill and get a few morons kicked out of office then we might as well just hand the keys of the Internet over to the MAFIAA. They'll get them eventually if we don't.
If all that index does is count web pages that mention a language then isn't it more likely to be a measure of how many problems people are having with a language? Languages which "just work" would get fewer hits than those which don't.
Publishing a comic isn't going to make people choose better passwords.
People have had well over a decade years to learn about choosing passwords but they're as ignorant as ever.
The only way forward is to take the choice out of their hands. Use the XKCD method if you want, just don't let the users do it themselves.
Thing is...the thing that makes the HUD also has a camera as part of it's system. The camera will record what you were doing.
Even better: Have a checkbox to turn on password hiding if you want it.
Systems that limit the password to, say, 13 characters bug the crap out of me, because I often chose passwords that are longer.
Real security would come from making brute force impossible.
eg. Make you wait half an hour if you get it wrong three times.
Systems like that are way more secure than systems that allow really long passwords.
My bank has a similar ridiculous restriction. 14 characters max, limited subset of symbols allowed. Because of this, my bank password is my least secure password, while it should be one of the strongest. I find it amusing that my WoW account is much more secure than my bank (greater password freedom + authenticator)--at least from an authentication standpoint.
I find it amusing that WoW doesn't block your account if you get the password wrong three times.
Allowing unlimited retries makes WoW weaker than your bank even though they allow longer passwords.
Yeah, that'll be easy to remember.
Try following the XKCD link above before posting any more 'wisdom' on passwords...
Just think "Eyeballs on forks..." next time you believe biometrics solves anything.
People leave a whole trail of biometrics behind them as they go through life - dropped hairs full of DNA, fingerprints on drinking glasses, etc. You can steal their biometrics just by following them around.
Worse: If you steal their wallet they might notice it's missing but they won't notice you picking up a drinking glass after they leave a restaurant. You can steal their biometric identity without them ever knowing it.
If we could build a computer that was more accurate then your best friend at identifying you using multiple bio metrics ( voice, face, body, smell , DNA) would that be good enough?
Nope.
Any "something you have" system can be compromised. A secure system needs something else, eg. something you know.
To put it in your context, you might fool your best friend visually but as soon as you open your mouth and start talking he'll know you're a fake because you won't have the basic social knowledge that he shares with his real friend.
You could train the local crows to do it for you...
Like this guy
You DO know how the TSA recruits people, right...? They put adverts on pizza delivery boxes
You couldn't make this shit up it you if you hired a whole team of comedy writers...
Ummm...simple answer, Microsoft/IBM/rest of world:
Start adding a "please generate a good password for me because I'm too ignorant to do it myself and I'll choose '123456' " button to your user interfaces.
Just hand the country over to the MAFIAA...it's inevitable so why struggle? Delaying it just fills up the pockets of the senators and congressmen and the country needs the money to pay for other things.
The sooner it happens, the sooner we can get everybody onto a secure connection to the MAFIAA website so they can monitor your usage and sort people into categories.
GUIs can be built to send commands to a command line.
By removing the GUI they're actually opening things up to have bigger/better GUIs than before. The difference is the GUI won't be running on your server, it can be running anywhere.
This enables servers without graphics cards - potentially a massive saving in the datacenter.