101–110 of 159 posts
I ask this completely seriously. What would it take to declare the domain of the internet as its own sovereign entity? The internet to me has become greater than just a communications network. It is a place where people connect/work/play. DNS is a natural resource, and should be regulated by all that is affected by it.
An army.
England, February 2014: In other news, the Internet Service Providers' Association announced today that no major English ISP now relies on Verisign, the US company formerly responsible for administering major domains such as .com and .net worldwide. This follows a ruling at the European Court last year that Verisign's actions in blocking the domain of German business Musikjetzt GmbH constituted an unlawful restraint…
I think the entire DNS system needs to be out of the hands of government bodies of any type, preferably relying on a cooperative, distributed solution, like the internet itself (theoretically) does/can.
I think it is amazing how divorced from US law the US government has become. Seizing domains without having previously gotten a conviction for a crime is against the law, and the idea that a DNS lookup is the same as "routing all traffic thru the US" is absurd as well. DNS records are cached globally.
I'm afraid that the solutions will have to be technical, and not governmental.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the point of the parent post was that ICE is only focusing on people linking to 'illegal streaming sites,' but not going after 'illegal streaming sites' themselves, which seems somewhat backwards. That would be like the "War on Drugs" focusing on arresting people that point out where you can find drug dealers, but not bothering to go after actual drug dealers.
I think the point is that they aren't just going after illegal streaming sites, but also people linking to them. To use your analogy, they're going after drug dealers and people who tell you where you can find drug dealers.
... people who get paid to direct you to the nearest drug dealer, and only to drug dealers, organized by type of drug, quality, and potentially even with a rating system.
These sites are more than just innocent passers-by. They aren't the "drug dealer," but they aren't just a dude on the street who bought drugs that one time and might know a guy. Where the line is drawn between facilitation and not facilitation, I don't know. But where some say "they're identical to Google," I personally see a very large, obvious distinction.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the point of the parent post was that ICE is only focusing on people linking to 'illegal streaming sites,' but not going after 'illegal streaming sites' themselves, which seems somewhat backwards. That would be like the "War on Drugs" focusing on arresting people that point out where you can find drug dealers, but not bothering to go after actual drug dealers.
It didn't actually say that. Where does it say streaming sites? Do you go for the seeders or do you go after the torrent search engines? One is whack a mole, one is destroy the C&C. I know which one I'd choose. It's more analogous to ignoring the street level criminals and going after the Don, who never get his hands dirty any more but is directing all those that do. Edit: I'm not arguing for or against, just want to…
> It didn't actually say that. Where does it say streaming sites?
> ICE is not focusing its efforts just on web sites that stream dodgy content
> but those that link to them
I also don't understand how you are equating this with torrent search engines. Only some of the domains seized were torrent search engines.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"The only thing the US government has ever given up is control over the registry and DNS management. Under a MoU[1] that facility was handed over to ICANN ..." That's just a bureaucratic illusion. As we can see from recent domain seizures, the feds can take over any of these domains, unilaterally, and without any notice or due process.
Assets used in the commission of a crime can be seized regardless of if you are charged or even found guilty of that crime. Cars, boats, and houses are regularly seized from suspected drug dealers. None of these people have been deprived of due process. The due process is to go to the courts to challenge it. If you don't like either of these points, you'll need to go to the courts and have the laws changed or thrown…
However, the constitution is also the law, and the fourth amendment is pretty clear on the matter. Further, other federal laws make it a crime to violate constitutional rights, due process, etc.
If the constitution is the highest law of the land, then every one of these illegal seizures is a crime. If the constitution is not the highest law of the land, then the Asset Forfieture law, which was enacted by congress that was created by the constitution, is null and void because the congress is null and void.
Further, in Mabury v. Madison the supreme court ruled that any law contrary to the constitution was null and void the moment it was enacted, not the moment it is struck down.
This means everyone participating in these thefts of property without due process are liable for their criminal acts.
Due Process requires that a conviction be obtained before seizing assets.
If you want to amend the constitution, there is a procedure for doing so. It requires more than just the congress passing a law.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's certainly interesting, but I don't think the internet could be considered its own sovereign entity. One major problem is that the "internet" is just an emergent property of lots of connected machines, and all of those machines have to physically exist somewhere within another sovereign entity.
What if the entity was a p2p program that was miraculously internationally recognized? The hard part to me convincing governments to give up power.
By this I mean that the Internet is fundamentally not as distributed as it seems. This is the flaw that most people who argue for wireless mesh networks have. The don't actually understand the technical complexity in how the Internet is run. But anyway, let's admit for the moment that the edge network is not decentralized (it is completely dependent on its ISP). Well, then the Internet is kind of decentralized, right? No. In order to cover the vast areas of land and ocean that connect the Internet we require massive fiber infrastructure development. But if that were somehow provided it would be distributed, right? No. As two Northwestern phd students and I measured in a paper in submission, more than 60% of p2p traffic passes through one of a handful of Tier 1 ISPs.
No matter how you swing it, the Internet is not really decentralized, it is balanced between a few powerful companies and governments (which thus have to operate under the law of their hosting countries). A distributed or unregulated Internet is a pipe dream.
Then .com's should be phased out. Migrate all .com to .co.us.
Suddenly I am happy only the .org was available for my new project. I am wondering though: Couldn't the US make similar claims on .org and .us (and .edu, .biz?) domains?
Yes I agree. I think this typical U.S. spoilt brat mentality. We need a new internet :).
That's why I want to see alternative DNS services (TLD) take off...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the point is that they aren't just going after illegal streaming sites, but also people linking to them. To use your analogy, they're going after drug dealers and people who tell you where you can find drug dealers.
> people who tell you where you can find drug dealers. ... people who get paid to direct you to the nearest drug dealer, and only to drug dealers, organized by type of drug, quality, and potentially even with a rating system. These sites are more than just innocent passers-by. They aren't the "drug dealer," but they aren't just a dude on the street who bought drugs that one time and might know a guy. Where the line i…
> But where some say "they're identical to Google,"
> I personally see a very large, obvious distinction.