NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] More SOPA insanity: "Goodlatte Amendment" is a technical joke
More SOPA insanity: "Goodlatte Amendment" is a technical joke http://j.mp/s7NcCB (This message on Google+) - - - In the flurry of recent SOPA (H.R. 3261) activity, you may not have noticed that the "Goodlatte Amendment" apparently passed 22-5 in the House Judiciary Committee. http://j.mp/u1AXBv (U.S. House [PDF]) Apparently intended to assure that SOPA-based takedowns don't affect entire sites when only part of a site is condemned as "infringing," there just one little problem -- it can't possibly work in most technical contexts! While it could be applied to the SOPA-mandated censorship of search engine results -- meaning that only specific designated URL results would be removed, not entire sites if parts of sites were not on the death list -- in the other SOPA aspects the concept is entirely nonsensical. Why? Keep in mind that SOPA primarily mandates the use of the Domain Name System (DNS) as a censorship mechanism. But DNS only operates at the domain level, not at the underlying specific URL level. You can't use DNS to block access to: http://www.house.gov/payoff-list.html but allow access to: http://www.house.gov/graft-signup-form.html You can only try to block house.gov -- the entire domain -- via DNS. Now, if SOPA were viewed as extending to *all* Web hosting providers and ISPs, URL-specific censorship would become technically possible, though even ISPs using DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) techniques could be stymied by use of encrypted connections. So either the politicos are getting extremely poor technical advice (perhaps none at all of any consequence relating to reality) or this amendment is likely a smokescreen -- an attempt to say that SOPA will be minimally invasive at the URL level, when the mandated DNS blocking can only work at the level of entire domains. But of course when dealing with putrid nightmares like SOPA, why should we expect anything to make any sense at all? --Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org Founder: - Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org - Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org - PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com Google+: http://vortex.com/g+lauren Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com _______________________________________________ nnsquad mailing list http://lists.nnsquad.org/mailman/listinfo/nnsquad