U.S. Congress Shelves SOPA

[iRevanchist]

I read on reddit that SOPA has NOT been shelved. I'm not gonna stand down till this thing is burned, not merely put up until we forget about it. and niether is wikipedia. #blackout

 

[ReinWeisserRitter]

This isn't the last we'll hear of it. The dicks who come up with things like this aren't easily thwarted; the fewer rights we have, the easier it is for them to be in control. Shelving this bill and its ilk is not enough.

 

[Jimbo1212]

-snip-

Lucky people do, eh?
And they say it's bad news.

But guess they're all wrong because you say so.
Also, answer the question.
What will SOPA do then?

Erm, I don't think you understood my point.
99% of people don't understand the bill, hence why so many people are misguided about it, including yourself.
if they understood it, then they would not say it is bad news.

How can I explain what SOPA would do if you don't understand it? The most simple way to put it would be to say that it would give a injunction similar to a cease-and-desist through an utterly fair trial in which (for once) money would not be the driving force, but evidence.

I'm sorry but if you truely understand what the bill is all about you would and should be able to reiterate it in more plain language for us "lesser minds". If you can't do that you do not truely understand it.

And how do you know 99% of the people to which this applies' thoughts? "Through sheer fucking luck?"

It is not my job to teach people what a bill means because they don't have the vocabulary and skills to read the bill on their own.
If you don't understand it, then you should not be arguing about it.

Have you read the internet ? Everyone who complains about this bill are all wrong, thus have not read the bill or understood it, but seeing that it is pretty clear, I will presume they have not read it.

i feel extra proud for having written a letter to my congressman a while back

Had you actually read the bill or just went on crap rumours from the internet?

i understood that SOPA would have granted the government greater legal authority on the internet which i found to be unconstitutional, so with the image of captain america in my mind, i wrote to my congressman about my concern simple as that.

but why are you questioning me here? it's a good thing i wrote. being 18 and of voting age, i'm merely using my right express my opinion in the matters of congress and have said opinion be represented by the ones who i elect to represent me in congress. you learn this stuff in 5th grade watching school house rock, come on now.

Well where does theft and loss of sales come into the constitution?

No, it is not a good thing that you wrote.
You were willing to write to someone about a bill you had not read or understood. People like yourself are the reason why arbitration and caps on compensation exist. You get on the bandwagon of a false idea made by the media and go with it and never stop to do your own unbiased research. This is why democracy does not work. You don't get a plumber to fix your car, or a doctor to sort out your tax returns, so why should people with no idea over politics get a say?

 

[Nydestroyer]

This half victory is awesome in almost every way besides one thing..all my friends I told about the bill but didn't believe me or help by signing or opposing it will just said told you it wouldn't happen but still like i care the interwebs are OK! almost >.>

 

[Jimbo1212]

Everyone who complains about this bill are all wrong

WE'RE ALL WRONG BECAUSE YOU SAY SO

Awesome argument you have there.

Well sorry for reading the bill.
Unless you read it, this is a slightly impossible task to prove. I could claim you are wrong because line 114 says so, or because in fact all your claims are simply this - made up. You claim the bill needs no evidence, it clearly states it does etc.

This is why democracy does not work. You don't get a plumber to fix your car, or a doctor to sort out your tax returns, so why should people with no idea over politics get a say?

This argument can be turned right back around and used against you.

Why did the politicians, who have little or no understanding of how the internet works, or how piracy really goes down, come up with a bill that they think will be a "silver bullet"? When it clearly won't be.

Why didn't they get some technical experts in there to draft out the thing?

And last but not least:

You pull other people up for not being experts.
So I take it you are an expert on politics, the inner workings of the internet, and the legal implications of SOPA.

Wow, you must have some serious qualifications there.

...because they would have drafted in expertise advise or just done a copy-paste job of a cease-and-desist order?
Not hard to work out. Both would work and are reasonable.

I do know my politics. It is not exactly complex or difficult, and being a democracy you really should know this.
The legal implications of SOPA are few. Some big giants who have profits in the billions would lose a fraction of that and other companies would stand to save vast sums of money.
And yes, I fully understand how the internet works. Some of us have degrees after all.

 

[Jimbo1212]

I could claim you are wrong because line 114 says so, or because in fact all your claims are simply this - made up. You claim the bill needs no evidence, it clearly states it does etc.

You're saying that everyone who is against the bill hasn't actually read it.

Including Google, Wikipedia, etc.
With all their legal might, you're saying they're wrong too?

You're putting yourself on one hell of a pedestal here.

Or that Google would lose advertising revenue from these illegal websites and would have to spend money on changing their search engine. They could easily afford this, but heck, the share holders would not be happy to hear they took a drop in profits.
As for wiki...amazing how their funding campaign has magically stopped isn't it and they now hate SOPA.

But the average joe has not read the bill. They have just jumped on the bandwagon of being ill-informed and put on tin hats.

Some big giants who have profits in the billions would lose a fraction of that and other companies would stand to save vast sums of money.

If this is true, why are there so many big organisations against it?
Did they miss something that only you can see?

M O N E Y

They stand to lose revenue as pirating brings in a lot of money through adverts etc and some of those people either host adverts or host pirating eg 4chan. What would happen to /rs/? That is right, shut down.

And lets not forget, good old peer pressure. Some of those companies would not be affected, but having a mob of angry people who think SOPA is evil will not help them either.

 

[Von Strimmer]

I could claim you are wrong because line 114 says so, or because in fact all your claims are simply this - made up. You claim the bill needs no evidence, it clearly states it does etc.

You're saying that everyone who is against the bill hasn't actually read it.

Including Google, Wikipedia, etc.
With all their legal might, you're saying they're wrong too?

You're putting yourself on one hell of a pedestal here.

Some big giants who have profits in the billions would lose a fraction of that and other companies would stand to save vast sums of money.

If this is true, why are there so many big organisations against it?
Did they miss something that only you can see?

Eh just ignore him and move on.

Actually fuck that this is the internet, argument time! Why does the USA get to cockblock the internet on the rest of the world? Riddle me that one. Also why is the world known as "foreign thieves" to your Congress?

SOPA and PIPA are good motives with bad practices. Now if you will excuse me I am going to go and watch cat videos, because I still have that freedom for the moment!

Edit: Also the whole point of democracy is that the people decide! The people have decided and they dont want the law! Its as simple as that, if you like the government choosing your laws for you then move to Iran or Saudi Arabia or come here to Australia!

 

[Spectrre]

It is not my job to teach people what a bill means because they don't have the vocabulary and skills to read the bill on their own.
If you don't understand it, then you should not be arguing about it.

Have you read the internet ? Everyone who complains about this bill are all wrong, thus have not read the bill or understood it, but seeing that it is pretty clear, I will presume they have not read it.

I know it is pointless to try and argue with you but.. I'm bored and I can't think of anything better to do so;


Your eternal argumental backbone that "we should just read it" I still don't understand. How are you still clinging on to this? You claim to know exactly what everyone effected by this bill has done just because they have a different opinion than yours?

Not only do you have NO way of knowing what people know or have read you must realize at some level that among all those people there are lawyers, CEO's (of companies big and small) many of who we know for a fact they HAVE read it and probably understand it a whole lot better than you or I could. Because these people are showing their support in stopping this flawed bill.

But w/e. Go ahead and keep on ignoring whatever counter-argument thrown at you. Happy trolling.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

What really sucks is that a US Senator would throw so much money, time and effort into something that's presented as a solution to piracy, when the real goal here isn't to make Fox, Universal or EMI happy.

It's to shut down The Pirate Bay on a local basis. They finally realized that legal wrangling wouldn't work against a Swedish site based, obviously, in Sweden. As they can't just storm Stockholm and tear the tracker's very roots down (and they've tried several times, in one form or another), they're taking steps to block off access to the site on their territory.

Granted, if and when TPB is blocked off by SOPA or PIPA, they'll go after the other big-name trackers. Demonoid's likely to follow, along with pretty much every average-sized tracker they can find.

Will this stop anything? Of course not. Both of those bills are focused on Torrent trackers or storage solutions like Megaupload. Anything that starts with a Web search can be blocked by SOPA. Unfortunately for them, ED2K connections and servers still do exist, and one or two of the post-Napster Era file-sharing programs are still active (e.g. LimeWire).

These bills will screw up the 'net and block off access to Torrent trackers. That's it. Even if you somehow could excise BitTorrent technology from the Internet entirely, you'd still be left with a generous handful of alternatives.

Security risks or otherwise, copyrights or otherwise, theft or otherwise - there simply won't be any stopping piracy.

After all, the bill is designed to stop *online* piracy. What if they ended up bolstering exchanged copies based on physical media, like back in the nineties?

 

[Jimbo1212]

It is not my job to teach people what a bill means because they don't have the vocabulary and skills to read the bill on their own.
If you don't understand it, then you should not be arguing about it.

Have you read the internet ? Everyone who complains about this bill are all wrong, thus have not read the bill or understood it, but seeing that it is pretty clear, I will presume they have not read it.

I know it is pointless to try and argue with you but.. I'm bored and I can't think of anything better to do so;


Your eternal argumental backbone that "we should just read it" I still don't understand. How are you still clinging on to this? You claim to know exactly what everyone effected by this bill has done just because they have a different opinion than yours?

Not only do you have NO way of knowing what people know or have read you must realize at some level that among all those people there are lawyers, CEO's (of companies big and small) many of who we know for a fact they HAVE read it and probably understand it a whole lot better than you or I could. Because these people are showing their support in stopping this flawed bill.

But w/e. Go ahead and keep on ignoring whatever counter-argument thrown at you. Happy trolling.

I actually facepalmed when I read that.

You don't understand why you should know what you are arguing about?
Well I thought I heard everything, but this takes the prize for being absurd.

The bill is perfectly clear, and all these theories of it being evil and going to destroy the internet are shown to be wrong if you just read it. It is like people arguing that the US constitution says that you can rape babies and have to wear clown hats every 96th minute. If you just read it, you would know that is simply made up rubbish.

I know people have not read it because they still believe these fallacies being posted on the internet. Users on this forum have even posted parts of the Bill which show these fallacies to be such, YET STILL, people claim SOPA to be spawned from the devil.

Ah yes, telling people that their misinformed and unsubstantiated opinion is wrong over facts is trolling.......oh wait, it is called being right.

 

[Pearwood]

So does this mean websites can take down those annoying as hell messages that everyone needs to vote against this? I mean fair enough, if I had a vote I'd use it if only to stop Americans trying to control what I do over here but I don't so this whole thing has just been an annoyance. Even here there's black margins that send me to some website against it and it's completely wasted on any non-American.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

So does this mean websites can take down those annoying as hell messages that everyone needs to vote against this? I mean fair enough, if I had a vote I'd use it if only to stop Americans trying to control what I do over here but I don't so this whole thing has just been an annoyance. Even here there's black margins that send me to some website against it and it's completely wasted on any non-American.

I can understand your frustration but I, as a Canadian, can see why actions need to take place. I know it's bothersome if you aren't American, but SOPA and PIPA will give American industry moguls the power to come and mess around in YOUR back yard under THEIR jurisdiction.

Which is and should remain blatantly illegal. It's not even indicative of the government's true stance on the matter, it's just a textbook case of industry lobbying.

 

[Phopojijo]

-snip top-
Cybersecurity as it stands is a joke. Until everything is 4096 bit encrypted, it's like debating what's better to stop a bullet - a single leaf or a sheet of paper. Also it's hard to brute force your way through passworded systems so ultimately any security related complaints are negligible.
-snip bottom-

Yeah it is plainly obvious you have no idea what you are talking about.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/28/brazil_banker_crypto_lock_out/

This 256-bit key was uncrackable after 5 months of attempts by Brazillian authorities as well as 12 months of attempts by the FBI. He may have "only" used 256-bit AES encryption, but he used it smartly.

If you did speak to a "security expert" about 4096-bit keys, he was probably talking about the RSA encryption algorithms that you see in 2nd year Rings and Fields math classes. I'm guessing he was an undergraduate university Math or Computer Science student?

Encryption these days is much more secure than the environment around it. (Simple choice in passwords, malware on one of the endpoints, compromised SSL certificates/MITM attacks, etc.) Essentially the worst enemy to security is complacency -- as is evident by Sony, etc.

You're not arguing with what I'm saying but a professional of the industry as I'm quoting what he said at a conference.
That encryption they are talking about is different to server security. And the expert was actually an ex-hacker hired by industry, not some schoolboy. Fact is, France will not allow higher then 256 bit encryption so they can snoop on traffic. This clearly means 256 bit is not secure.

Yeah you don't know what you're talking about so you're intentionally being vague. Did you mean SSL? Then read below, because you're wrong.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/03/researchers-reveal-likelihood-governments-fake-ssl

You know as much about security as you do about SOPA... and that is basically nothing. I deal with security -- not as a primary role in my job, but sometimes within my job; you clearly do not. The company I work for has also been subject to false (some in mistake... some allegedly fraudulent) DMCA claims. (We counter claim and the cases are always dropped... but what about with SOPA? What about companies less knowledgeable than our's? What about people afraid of wrongful lawsuit?)

So you want to talk about jobs? Talk about mine.

 

[Kuroneko97]

Lulz I have been laughing my ass of reading The Cool Kid and Jimbo1212's comments. It's like they're the same person, but they cover it up by making their Jimbo1212 account cocky and have him deny everything you say.

...Huh? Oh, right, topic. YAY!!!!!!!! In celebration, I'm going to go read copyrighted hentai on Fakku.net!

 

[Phopojijo]

-snip top-
Cybersecurity as it stands is a joke. Until everything is 4096 bit encrypted, it's like debating what's better to stop a bullet - a single leaf or a sheet of paper. Also it's hard to brute force your way through passworded systems so ultimately any security related complaints are negligible.
-snip bottom-

Yeah it is plainly obvious you have no idea what you are talking about.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/28/brazil_banker_crypto_lock_out/

This 256-bit key was uncrackable after 5 months of attempts by Brazillian authorities as well as 12 months of attempts by the FBI. He may have "only" used 256-bit AES encryption, but he used it smartly.

If you did speak to a "security expert" about 4096-bit keys, he was probably talking about the RSA encryption algorithms that you see in 2nd year Rings and Fields math classes. I'm guessing he was an undergraduate university Math or Computer Science student?

Encryption these days is much more secure than the environment around it. (Simple choice in passwords, malware on one of the endpoints, compromised SSL certificates/MITM attacks, etc.) Essentially the worst enemy to security is complacency -- as is evident by Sony, etc.

You're not arguing with what I'm saying but a professional of the industry as I'm quoting what he said at a conference.
That encryption they are talking about is different to server security. And the expert was actually an ex-hacker hired by industry, not some schoolboy. Fact is, France will not allow higher then 256 bit encryption so they can snoop on traffic. This clearly means 256 bit is not secure.

Yeah you don't know what you're talking about so you're intentionally being vague. Did you mean SSL? Then read below, because you're wrong.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/03/researchers-reveal-likelihood-governments-fake-ssl

You know as much about security as you do about SOPA... and that is basically nothing. I deal with security -- not as a primary role in my job, but sometimes within my job; you clearly do not. The company I work for has also been subject to false (some in mistake... some allegedly fraudulent) DMCA claims. (We counter claim and the cases are always dropped... but what about with SOPA? What about companies less knowledgeable than our's? What about people afraid of wrongful lawsuit?)

So you want to talk about jobs? Talk about mine.

You come on to argue with me about security? That seems suspicious to say the least.
Yes I am talking about SSL as SOPA security issues is about general safety from what I gather, but this is still a rather OTT digression.
And I know nothing about SOPA why? Because you claim it? Want to back that up or just going to leave it as a hollow claim?

Yeah I was pointed to this thread by Leam (a friend of my girlfriend), so I created an account to correct you (note the 3 post count and 3 posts in this thread).

And you know little about SOPA/PIPA despite your crowing... the same sort of crowing you did about security when you were obviously way over your head. You vaguely claim to read the bill, yet you rarely ever actually state a direct problem -- exactly how you tackle the security issue.

If you're so serious, point out a *specific and detailed* issue with SOPA that has been misunderstood... and then likely someone will swing by and prove you wrong.

Until then, crowing does not equal knowledge.

Example, the issue with SOPA related to security is not with SSL or anything like that, it's with DNSSEC authentication.

Steve Gibson, GRC --> http://youtu.be/1y-YE0I0n9Y?t=15m00s

Steve: Lamar Smith, who is the Texas Republican representative who's one of the sponsors of this bill, the SOPA, Stop Online Privacy ((he meant Piracy)) Act bill, he said, "Well, you know, I'm not technical." Well, okay. And this is the problem, is that one of the many things this does is it breaks DNSSEC. That is, DNSSEC is all about preventing DNS spoofing, which is essentially what this is, is legislated, government-backed DNS spoofing. And so many of the people have been concerned because essentially it means we can't have DNS security if we're going to have a mandated, legislated, deliberate breakage of DNS.

--------------------------

So you're wrong.

 

[Grottnikk]

Even though it didn't pass and is shelved, there are a bunch of sites having a little sit-in anti-SOPA thing going now. Just tried to get into the Elder Scrolls wiki and got a "this website is blocked by SOPA" message.

It being "shelved" does not mean it is permanently dead, just significantly delayed. To next month.

Also, SOPA's companion bill in the Sanate, the Protect IP Act (PIPA) is scheduled for vote on I think the 24th.

Does the fact that it got shelved increase the chance it'll get chucked the next time? I'm Canadian, so I don't know how your guy's political situation works (or doesn't ). I'm guessing whatever made it so objectionable the first time will have to be addressed or it'll just get tanked again.

 

[MaxwellEdison]

er..You state the blackout worked, because a few days ago Obama was against it? The black out was today.

As much as a criticize the guy, let's give him credit where it's due.

 

[Marcus Kehoe]

While half way there PIPA still stands, and it must be destroyed, or reworked.

 

[Burst6]

Well that's a biased industry to sample to begin with.
Most users will not bother as most users do not use extensions and not everyone uses firefox.
What's easier - having to hop around the web for sites and so on, or Netflix? People almost always choose the easier option when they can.

I think you're grossly underestimating what people can do. Maybe you don't realize how easy it is to get past a DNS block.

With a quick google search you can find a websites IP address. Copy+paste the IP address into your address bar, and you bypassed SOPA. That's all it takes. You don't need to download the app.

If a DNS blocking law like this passes it will, at best, slow down piracy for a few months. After people learn how to bypass it, piracy will be back up to full speed.

After people learn how to get past the DNS block all you're left with is a weapon large companies could use to threaten honest websites.

 

[anthony87]

Lulz I have been laughing my ass of reading The Cool Kid and Jimbo1212's comments. It's like they're the same person, but they cover it up by making their Jimbo1212 account cocky and have him deny everything you say.

...Huh? Oh, right, topic. YAY!!!!!!!! In celebration, I'm going to go read copyrighted hentai on Fakku.net!

I'm pretty convinced that they're the same dude. I mean having the same viewpoint is one thing but the fact that they're ALWAYS in agreement, coupled with the similar sense of self-superiority and their ability to be right in everything they say, it's gotta be one person on two accounts.

That...or else I'm just quite paranoid. Which I'm not denying as a possibility.