On October 26, 2011, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) submitted a 79-page proposal that would empower the Department of Justice (DOJ) to order American ISPs to either redirect or block websites accused of copyright infringment. It would empower intellectual property owners with the ability to report payment processors for the offending site. Hailed by Hollywood, the music industry and other media giants, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) promises to be a nuclear solution to the problem of protecting intellectual property over the internet. If it is ever put to practice, it could have grave ramifications for providers of secondary and tertiary content (Wikipedia, YouTube, Google, etc.) while placing an undue burden on ISPs and DNS providers that threaten DNS security.
Have we learned from the DMCA? Instead of protecting websites from being held liable for the infringing actions of rogue users it ended up being abused by unscrupulous businesses to strongarm timid site owners and hosts into removing negative criticisms. This bill will allow the same companies to go after sites like PayPal and financially devastate blog and forum owners based on heresay. It's bad enough to be harassed by SMS.AC with baseless "intellectual rights" cease-and-desist orders when people complain about the integrity of their services. Now they would have the power to fuck with your money.
The problem with DNS redirection as an enforcement approach is that it invites workarounds that can be exploited by scammers to steal personal information or damage users' computers. Not even the proposal's provision against workarounds will be adequate because a workaround can simply come from a place other than America. It also undermines the universality of the DNS system that made the internet scalable, easy to use, and successful in the first place. Besides, such a law would interfere with the implementation of REAL security through the DNSSEC extensions as outlined in a report from Sandia Labs, a world-renowned computer lab funded by the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense.
Lastly, it creates social concerns. We know that China censors criticisms through DNS redirections and "other" techniques (cough, arrests). The vague language of the proposal could make it possible for reporters who publish the IP addresses of the sites to face liabilities for bypassing the DNS system. An industry expert once remarked that the law would effectively outlaw libraries. It would give the Americans the power to ban websites internationally, a power that even the European Parliament strongly opposes. Two years ago, the website of a Spanish business owned by a British national, but registered through an American provider was redirected by the U.S. government. This oversteps boundaries BIG time.
Do we want to go down that road? I thought this country stood for freedom. When young men and women go out to die for us, they fight for our freedom. According to the First Amendment of the Constitution, we have a freedom of speech, freedom of religion and a freedom of the press. This can not and must not be subverted by the whims of a movie studio or a whims of a diet cookie maker who wants to sanitize their public image.
Link to Proposal: http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/112%20HR%203261.pdf
Sandia Labs' Criticism: http://lofgren.house.gov/images/stories/pdf/napolitano_response_rep_lofgren_11_16_11_c.pdf