Piracy bill could be used to attack open source projects | Hacker News Reader

Piracy bill could be used to attack open source projects

itworld.com

41 pointsjfruh7 comments

Again, please take a moment to look at 'jfruh's submission track record:

http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=jfruh

Once in a blue moon, these IT World stories are interesting, but mostly they're just bait.

I flagged.

So...you flagged the story because it comes from a site you don't like? You didn't explain why this particular article is off-topic or even low quality. And then you commented about flagging it, which is against the site guidelines. And then you insulted jfruh because he only posts articles from this particular site that you don't like, and which you admitted does have interesting and on-topic stories every so often.

Next: All snail mail will be opened, read, and unsuitable text will be tippexed out. Phone calls may be monitored and interupted if necessary.

This road leads to a bad place.

dangerous.

I'm against these regulatory bills as much as the next guy, but this particular assertion seems overblown and unlikely.

And worse, the author is remarkably uninformed about Internet basics:

Google's Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf--you know, the guy who invented the Web?

Cerf was certainly a father of the Internet, but Tim Berners-Lee "invented" the web. The web != the Internet. Jeez.

The DNS provisions could end up with people using a community DNS server if passed. And then IP addresses would be blocked?

Likewise, what requirement would DNS provides outside the USA have to cooperate with any blacklisting? I would image most would refuse, citing the additional effort required, lack of jurisdiction, and general inanity.

Thus, affected folks who are savvy enough can switch to DNS servers outside the US, which presumably also includes the group of genuine copyright infringers whom these bills are trying to target in the 1st place. Which also renders these bills ineffective at their intended purpose too?

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