According to a group of experts, the Protect IP Act will literally “break the Internet.”  Both Ars Technica and Mike Masnick @ Techdirt have posted excellent articles that outline the problems with this legislation, especially with regard to it requiring DNS filtering to defend copyright.  Both articles reference a recently released report by DNS experts titled “Security and Other Technical Concerns Raised by the DNS Filtering Requirements in the PROTECT IP Bill.”

If you don’t know much about DNS, I strongly recommend you read this technical whitepaper.  As a minimum, at least take a look at the Ars Technica article that provides an overview & excerpts from the white paper.

If my previous post didn’t pique your interest about this asinine piece of legislation (a.k.a. crap), then the above articles & white paper may do the trick.  As a minimum, if you read the white paper then you’ll at least gain some useful knowledge about how DNS works; DNS filtering; and even how easy it is to evade DNS filtering should the PROTECT IP Act be enacted.

Since it appears as though the United States is about to join the ranks of other great “censorship” countries such as China, Iran, Burma & Republic of Azerbaijan (just to name a few), I find it fitting that the U.S. State Department funded a recent report which reviews censorship circumvention tools.  The report is titled “Leaping Over the Firewall: A Review of Censorship Circumvention Tools“ and was directed at internet users in the above four countries, whose implementation of internet censorship poses a large & growing challenge to online freedom of expression.  Uh…  gee, uh…  it’s kinda looking like maybe “us” citizens of the US of A may need our own suite of censorship circumvention tools in the not so distant future, eh?

Don’t forget… the above articles only discuss the DNS Filtering portion of the PROTECT IP Act.  This legislation also envisions implementing link criminalization and government mandated censorship of search engine results (e.g. targeting Google and others).  Lauren Weinstein posted an excellent article yesterday titled “Why Search Matters – and Fighting Internet Censorship with Technology.”  It’s not only an excellent read, but scary!

All for now…

I’ve been having trouble lately finding time to write, what with work; raising seven baby dairy goats (Oberhasli) in the house; an ailing 92 yr mother; and my son graduating from college.

Anywho’s… in case you didn’t notice, the Senate Judiciary Committee just passed the Protect IP Act (known as PIPA) last week.  Luckily, Senator Ron Wyden (Oregon) has placed a hold on the legislation just as he did on it’s predecessor, COICA (Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act).  Protect IP is the wayward son of COICA and will be even more damaging to the Internet as we know it.  Since I still don’t have enuf time to write my own opinion of this ridiculous piece of legislation, I’m going to point you to some excellent articles/essays on just how dangerous the Protect IP Act is.

Larry Downes wrote the following two articles:

• Leahy’s Protect IP bill even worse than COICA, CNET News, 12 May 2011
• Leahy’s Protect IP Act: Why Internet content wars will never end, Forbes, 16 May 2011

Be sure to read the next to last section of the Forbes article titled “What are we fighting for?“

Lauren Weinstein has written extensively on both Protect IP & COICA.  Here are his latest articles/essays:

• Blinded by the Light: The Internet Enemy Within, 31 May 2011
• Why PROTECT IP Web Censorship Will Fail – But Lead to Much Worse, 26 May 2011
• “Let Them Eat Bits”: How We Can Save Freedom On the Internet, 24 May 2011
• Why the Internet is the Most Important Thing in the World, 21 May 2011
• Knowledge as Sacrilege: The Criminalizing of Links and Search Engines, 15 May 2011
• “Free Speech Be Damned!”: Congressional Bill Would Censor Search Engines, 11 May 2011

Mother Board article:

• New U.S. Censorship Bill Is A Copyright Troll’s Best Friend, 13 May 2011

Business Insider article:

• Protect IP (FKA COICA), 19 May 2011

And finally, I’ll close with a couple columns on TorrentFreak by Rick Falkvinge:

• It Is Everyone’s Duty To Defy Unjust Laws, 29 May 2011
• Monopoly Lawyers Shouldn’t Write Monopoly Laws, 17 April 2011

If you have not yet emailed, called or written your representatives to oppose this nasty piece of legislation, then now is the time!

Latah’s…