"The Great Firewall of America"

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by zamler

That's not what I said at all. You read what you wanted to read.

What did you say then, I will ask for the second time? If you have some other point, I would love to hear it.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by metal_geek

Why bother asking other governments to take down "Pirate" sites like wikileaks, when all you have to do is remove it from the root DNS servers.. Makes sense now why the US was so hell bent on keepin the ICANN a US operation..

Because DNS is only half of the way you can reach these sites.

If I wanted to use Pirate Bay (or any other torrent site out there) and suddenly piratebay.com didn't resolve to anything, it would stop me for maybe 10 minutes. Some other less technical people might take up to a day or a week before they found out how to access it, but it wouldn't take long if that was the only method.

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by Rathji

IANAL...

No you're not, that's JAG.

[zamler]

Originally Posted by Rathji

What did you say then, I will ask for the second time? If you have some other point, I would love to hear it.

I wrote:

...the U.S. government can decide what is a "pirate" site, which can be anything they decide to classify as such.

Clear now?

To expand on that, the RIAA can "grease the wheels" and suddenly a site gets classified as pirate and gets shut off. If you don't know anything about the RIAA (not sure how that is possible) you would know they have successfully sued people for extremely unreasonable damages relating to file sharing, in one case the RIAA claimed damages of $62,500 per song and won.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by zamler

I wrote:
Clear now?

To expand on that, the RIAA can "grease the wheels" and suddenly a site gets classified as pirate and gets shut off. If you don't know anything about the RIAA (not sure how that is possible) you would know they have successfully sued people for extremely unreasonable damages relating to file sharing, in one case the RIAA claimed damages of $62,500 per song and won.

Ok, so you are saying that a corporation could bribe a judge into making a judgement that is in their favor, and that is the entire basis for your argument that this law is bad? What about all the other laws? Are they suddenly bad because a corporate interest could bribe elected officials to get what they want?

What is the solution then? Should we abandon all law making that looks out for a corporate or property interest, just in case those interests somehow get their clutches into our judicial system?

I understand your point, I really do, but the solution to potential judges being bribed isn't to not make laws, it is to get rid of those judges.

[metal_geek]

Originally Posted by Rathji

Because DNS is only half of the way you can reach these sites.

If I wanted to use Pirate Bay (or any other torrent site out there) and suddenly piratebay.com didn't resolve to anything, it would stop me for maybe 10 minutes. Some other less technical people might take up to a day or a week before they found out how to access it, but it wouldn't take long if that was the only method.

Completely not a big deal for anyone to use IP address or more then likely Dynamic DNS type setups to get around DNS blacklisting. There in lies the problem though, it creates the need for multiple DNS type services to circumvent it and creates all kinds of potential for misdirection. DNS is a one of the cornerstones of the internet, so any manipulation there and it's gonna cause alot of problems for websites down the line..

This is no different then Packet sniffing and throtteling alread in place, just was more in your face for the average person...

[zamler]

Originally Posted by Rathji

Ok, so you are saying that a corporation could bribe a judge into making a judgement that is in their favor, and that is the entire basis for your argument that this law is bad?

You use the term bribe, which is too simplistic. Think "contributions" and the like. But that's not the point.

For some reason which escapes me, you made the leap from me stating this law is just no good, to me saying that governments don't have the right to make laws at all. Then you went on a rant about how the U.S. government has decided what is legal or not since the beginning of time.

The problem with this law and laws like it, is they are highly ambiguous, can be applied far too broadly. And they play right into the interests of groups like the RIAA, which are nothing more than extortionists.