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SOPA sponsors return: "think of the children"

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Re: SOPA sponsors return: "think of the children"

#31

Post by wisty »

w1ntermute wrote: post #22
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #18

When is Lamar Smith's next election? Are there any candidates running who would say they're opposed to this nonsense? Seriously consideing putting together a PAC in New York City. Update: Ouch, this will be expensive... http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/elections.php?cycle=2...

If there's a group of people that understand technology less than Smith and care less about protecting freedom of speech on the internet than him, it would have to be the people living in Texas's 21st congressional district, which he represents. Smith's been in the House since 1987, so he won't be going away any time soon without a fight. He won his last reelection with 69% of the votes, in 2010. Even though you've g…

(a) Virtually no-one ever admits their country's system is flawed. The Brits don't realise that the House of Lords is a really crappy substitute for a senate. The Americans don't realise that proportional representation, compulsory voting, and instant runoff voting is a much better system. They say stuff like "you'll just get a candidate that nobody hates, not someone who a few extremists really love, and if voting is compulsory you'll have normal people voting", and not realise that's a good thing.

I've no idea what the Australians get wrong ... though it probably involves having too many levels of government.

Re: SOPA sponsors return: "think of the children"

#33

Post by scotth »

biafra wrote: post #30

"Each time you use a credit card, each time you read your bank statement, all of your IP information and your search history will be required by your ISP to be stored for 18 months at all times." How can my ISP store my search history? DuckDuckGo and Google offer https to do the searching. How can my ISP know where I use my credit card? Whenever I pay by credit card I use https.

Ugh...yeah. Just another case of technology confusion.

The bill's bad nonetheless, but one thing's for sure: the ISPs won't be spying on your searches or your banking.

Re: SOPA sponsors return: "think of the children"

#34

Post by esteth »

biafra wrote: post #30

"Each time you use a credit card, each time you read your bank statement, all of your IP information and your search history will be required by your ISP to be stored for 18 months at all times." How can my ISP store my search history? DuckDuckGo and Google offer https to do the searching. How can my ISP know where I use my credit card? Whenever I pay by credit card I use https.

I might be revealing my stupidity here, but surely your ISP can MITM the HTTPS handshake and decrypt all of your traffic? Unless you have a pre-arranged key that hasn't travelled through their network.

Re: SOPA sponsors return: "think of the children"

#35

Post by graphene »

wisty wrote: post #31
w1ntermute wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there's a group of people that understand technology less than Smith and care less about protecting freedom of speech on the internet than him, it would have to be the people living in Texas's 21st congressional district, which he represents. Smith's been in the House since 1987, so he won't be going away any time soon without a fight. He won his last reelection with 69% of the votes, in 2010. Even though you've g…

(a) Virtually no-one ever admits their country's system is flawed. The Brits don't realise that the House of Lords is a really crappy substitute for a senate. The Americans don't realise that proportional representation, compulsory voting, and instant runoff voting is a much better system. They say stuff like "you'll just get a candidate that nobody hates, not someone who a few extremists really love, and if voting i…

The Americans don't realise that proportional representation, compulsory voting, and instant runoff voting is a much better system

I can't comment on instant runoff voting, but my impression from following politics in Europe is that proportional representation creates a situation where all legislators toe the party line, as opposed to still having some degree of independence, as in Britain or the US. This gives an undue amount of influence to a small number of party bigwigs, and the inevitable mess results.

As for compulsory voting, at least in Belgium, it has been credited with fuelling the rise of more extreme parties, notably the anti-immigration Flemish nationalists, since people who feel disenfranchised by the whole system tend to cast a protest vote, without seriously considering the consequences. Also, the notion that you could get fined or jailed for not voting seems to me to be as illiberal an idea as ACTA or the Patriot act.

Re: SOPA sponsors return: "think of the children"

#36

Post by bytenotes »

Is it possible that a website be created that will aggregate thoughtful arguments against such legislation, attach videos, talking points, letter templates and such as well as connect local people that can practically get involved in resisting constant attacks on freedom?

Or is there such a website already?

Re: SOPA sponsors return: "think of the children"

#37

Post by ahelwer »

esteth wrote: post #34
biafra wrote: post #30

"Each time you use a credit card, each time you read your bank statement, all of your IP information and your search history will be required by your ISP to be stored for 18 months at all times." How can my ISP store my search history? DuckDuckGo and Google offer https to do the searching. How can my ISP know where I use my credit card? Whenever I pay by credit card I use https.

I might be revealing my stupidity here, but surely your ISP can MITM the HTTPS handshake and decrypt all of your traffic? Unless you have a pre-arranged key that hasn't travelled through their network.

This is the purpose of certificates.

Re: SOPA sponsors return: "think of the children"

#38

Post by vidarh »

esteth wrote: post #34
biafra wrote: post #30

"Each time you use a credit card, each time you read your bank statement, all of your IP information and your search history will be required by your ISP to be stored for 18 months at all times." How can my ISP store my search history? DuckDuckGo and Google offer https to do the searching. How can my ISP know where I use my credit card? Whenever I pay by credit card I use https.

I might be revealing my stupidity here, but surely your ISP can MITM the HTTPS handshake and decrypt all of your traffic? Unless you have a pre-arranged key that hasn't travelled through their network.

SSL is designed so that only the server with the private key for a specific certificate can complete the handshake correctly for that certificate, and the certificate is tied to the domain name.

The ISP can MITM the handshake and return a different certificate, but unless a certificate authority supported by your browser is complicit, they can't get that certificate signed for the domain you're trying to visit, and the browser will complain.

Re: SOPA sponsors return: "think of the children"

#39

Post by gergles »

esteth wrote: post #34
biafra wrote: post #30

"Each time you use a credit card, each time you read your bank statement, all of your IP information and your search history will be required by your ISP to be stored for 18 months at all times." How can my ISP store my search history? DuckDuckGo and Google offer https to do the searching. How can my ISP know where I use my credit card? Whenever I pay by credit card I use https.

I might be revealing my stupidity here, but surely your ISP can MITM the HTTPS handshake and decrypt all of your traffic? Unless you have a pre-arranged key that hasn't travelled through their network.

Your ISP won't be able to get a trusted certificate authority to issue them a cert for "*", which is what they would need to do in order to transparently MITM SSL. They could generate that cert on their own, and maybe install it into the Windows cert store with the "installation CD", but they couldn't intercept your traffic on an unadulterated system.

Re: SOPA sponsors return: "think of the children"

#40

Post by HoLyVieR »

ahelwer wrote: post #37
esteth wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might be revealing my stupidity here, but surely your ISP can MITM the HTTPS handshake and decrypt all of your traffic? Unless you have a pre-arranged key that hasn't travelled through their network.

This is the purpose of certificates.

The thing with certificate is that you have to trust that the certificate authorities won't sell (or give) fake certificate to ISP or government. If they do so, the ISP can MITM you.
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