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Comment by tshtf | Hacker News Reader

Last week MI5 in the UK argued against the 3-strikes filesharing laws as they would encourage private citizens to use cryptography better in their filesharing efforts.

If this treaty goes through it very well could be the harbinger of the widespread adoption of darknets, better censorship-resistant networks, and even more creative use of cryptography and networking technologies.

Rather than trying to affect legislative change (which is a viable strategy too), some may wish to consider disruptive technologies which will render treaties such as this irrelevant.

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I'm sorry, but I vehemently disagree. I depend for my livelihood on my -- aboveboard! -- Internet connection. Yet I also expect to be permitted to express a dissenting political opinion. This type of treaty gives authorities and anyone with a large legal team the instant ability not just to shut me up simply by accusing me of copyright violation - with no burden of proof - but to ruin me financially as well.

That is not democracy. Not even close.

Political dissent is not just something done by free Tibetans way off in the distance, and it's not the exclusive purview of dedicated activists who have the time to set up darknets. Political dissent is everybody feeling free enough to disagree with the powers that be. This really and truly endangers that, and it's incredibly, incredibly stupid for the American government even to consider it. That the Obama Administration is not only considering it, but actively supporting it by keeping the process secret for as long as humanly possible is profoundly disappointing.

I agree with you almost entirely, but I feel there is no dichotomy here. There is room for several strategies to approach this treaty.

There is the need for dissent within in the political sphere for this treaty, and I'm certain that many activists will take this strategy up. There's also room for technological dissent; for citizens to develop strategies and technologies to mitigate the effects if this treaty does go into effect.

We're all in the same boat.

True enough; it's just that in technical venues one always has the feeling that people still consider the political process to be irrelevant, that the Internet has stopped the business cycle and so on. And it just keeps not being true.

> That is not democracy. Not even close.

Why is that not democracy? What does democracy have to do with it? I often see the word "democracy" used as if it means "freedom".

You can't really have democracy without freedom.

Of course you can. Even mainstream commentators agree with me on this one; they have a term for it: "illiberal democracy" [1].

In any case, I would make the stronger point that you can't really have freedom with democracy.

[1] The Rise of Illiberal Democracy, Fareed Zakaria, Foreign Affairs, November/December 1997

>"What does democracy have to do with it"

democracy = everybody gets a vote. If we where a democracy, I did not get to vote, because I was not allowed to see the text of the subject to make an informed decision.

Anyway, we are not a democracy we are a republic which is evident by the fact that I did not get a vote on the issue. The elected leaders did and this is the problem with a republic over a democracy, someone is doing the voting for you and after that someone has received your vote to put them their they tend to forget about the people that got them there.

You seem to be confusing several different concepts. Most countries have representative democracy, rather than direct democracy. This is largely orthogonal to the issue of being a republic, which (in this context, and in over-simplified terms) simply means that there are certain things that even a majority vote can't achieve, as the majority is also bound by the Constitution (in an attempt to avoid the classic problem of two wolves and a sheep voting for what to have for dinner)

a constitutional republic != a republic != a democracy != representative democracy

And pairwise, too.

simply means that there are certain things that even a majority vote can't achieve, as the majority is also bound by the Constitution

Not really, even the Constitution is amendable by a super majority. You should have said a simple majority.

Well, there are plenty of aspects to the notion of the participants in a society being its owners; that's what I lump together as "democracy", which is a shorthand for what America is supposed to be about - government by, for, and of the people and all that.

Since you can't have government by, for, and of the people without freedom, and you can't be free if you don't have power over the government, I don't feel too bad about conflating the two. Do you have a counterexample? What non-democratic form of government do you consider free?

I guess, in a larger sense, I take it as given that a democratic and free society is a basic requirement for human progress. Do you think you'd get far with a startup in a less egalitarian society? You might, but the fact that your grandfather didn't know the right people's grandfathers is going to really weigh you down. It's only the basic assumption of equality of all people that make it possible for most to start anything new. And I do take it for granted that everyone here believes that starting new things is the way to go.

So, OK, we can posit an egalitarian, "free" society where only an elite have political power. I honestly don't believe that's an actual possibility - what's to stop the political elite from taxing you at 99% of your income as soon as they think your widget would be fun to have?

Nothing.

This probably deserves a lot more thought and space than I can fit in this margin.

> "democracy", which is a shorthand for what America is supposed to be about - government by, for, and of the people and all that.

It's not at all clear that America was supposed to be about this, even if that is what they teach in schools today. However since it's not really relevant I won't argue the point further.

> Do you have a counterexample? What non-democratic form of government do you consider free?

Many monarchies and similar governments throughout history have allowed more freedom for their citizens than today's democracies. Of course, no one is completely free under any of these governments (certainly not a democratic one).

> I guess, in a larger sense, I take it as given that a democratic and free society is a basic requirement for human progress...that make it possible for most to start anything new.

You really, really shouldn't take that as a given, especially that "democratic" part. It is understandable, though, that many people believe this -- considering it's essentially what has been taught in schools for the last century or so. Do you really believe enterprise did not flourish in the West until after the rise of democracy? That is not what history shows.

> what's to stop the political elite from taxing you at 99% of your income as soon as they think your widget would be fun to have? Nothing.

Not that I want your hypothetical to come true, but it is worth considering that tax rates in monarchies were generally quite low (<10%), especially when compared to the tax rates in today's democracies. There are well-understood reasons for this if you are interested.

There are well-understood reasons for this if you are interested.

That's kind of where a link would go.

I can't tell whether you're a monarchist or a libertarian, but your overall stance appears to be out-and-out libertarianism. To which I can only say: show me one. Show me a successful stateless nation (Afghanistan is the only one that springs to mind), and I'll subscribe to your newsletter. In the meantime, I'm standing over here in the corner with Churchill. You know the quote.

The same goes for monarchy. Show me an absolute monarchy that stays a good place for more than a generation or two - long enough for the good king to die and his half-wit nephew to take over - and I might give you that one, too. In the meantime, the raging free-for-all that America started out being is a pretty good start on a system that takes the human reality, that political power does in fact and will always in fact exist, and guides society away from the feudalism that both monarchy and libertarianism necessarily approach.

Both monarchists and libertarians seem to think they'll be the ones in the 0.5% on top. The odds are against you.

I personally think America will totter back from this brink, as well, and clearly there are problems all around us. But to say that democracy itself is the root? No. You're going to have to be more eloquent.

I doubt there's an example of a monarchy anyone would seriously want to move to, but Medieval Iceland was a fine example of a funstioning anarchy: for longer than the United States has existed they had aterritorial, voluntary government by gothar (sort of kind of like chieftans, also sort of kind of like lawyers) who competed to provide people with governing services.

> I doubt there's an example of a monarchy anyone would seriously want to move to

You doubt that people wanted to move to the old European monarchies? Even if we're only talking about the present, I'm not a fan, but there are plenty of people who would love to move to the UAE.

I suppose you're right. I shouldn't have said "anyone." But I don't think there's any example of a good monarchy.

I get the impression that you've tried to pigeonhole me into a category that you're familiar with, and then responded to me based on that, instead of addressing my points directly.

> In the meantime, I'm standing over here in the corner with Churchill. You know the quote.

Yes, I know the quote, but I'm not sure you do. See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=571797

> Both monarchists and libertarians seem to think they'll be the ones in the 0.5% on top. The odds are against you.

If this is what you believe, I doubt you are familiar with much of the work of either of those groups. Who said anything about the top 0.5%? Do you really think all of the bottom 99.5% in a monarchy were like chattel slaves, but today's bottom 99.5% are free as a bird? Please consider what I wrote earlier -- even the average citizen was more free in many non-democratic countries.

"Since you can't have government by, for, and of the people without freedom"

You can if the people don't want freedom--i.e. if the majority of the people want to oppress a minority. You don't have a free society if your 80% white state votes 70-30 to segregate the blacks, for instance.

If the people can be easily convinced to limit their freedom out of fear, you can also have an unfree democracy.

"and you can't be free if you don't have power over the government"

"Do you have a counterexample? What non-democratic form of government do you consider free?"

This is actually questionable as well. Salutary neglect by a foreign imperial power successfully resulted in civil freedom in colonial America and in pre-1997 Hong Kong, for two. I suspect many of Britain's other colonies received similar treatment. The American Revolution was directly caused by a revision in Britain's policy of salutary neglect, but it's questionable 200 years later whether it really left us off any more free.

"So, OK, we can posit an egalitarian, "free" society where only an elite have political power. I honestly don't believe that's an actual possibility - what's to stop the political elite from taxing you at 99% of your income as soon as they think your widget would be fun to have?"

As opposed to a democratic society where an envious populist movement taxes you at 99% of your income as soon as they think you have too much money and are becoming an elitist?

They'll just make encryption illegal. And record everything everybody does all the time. They never stop. Their objective is to take everything they can. As soon as this is passed they'll look into making even more restrictive laws. It will never stop, the only solution is to play their game and try and keep legislation from being passed, and get existing laws dismissed.

A second option is to get out of the first world. It's not so much that developing countries won't pass these laws, but rather that they'll have a somewhat tougher time enforcing them (if they even bother to try).

The only problem being that in the Third World, they won't just abrogate your Internet freedom; if they don't like what you say, they'll come and beat you with large blunt objects, or just kill you. America hasn't gone that far, and won't. It's just going to get really stupid for a while, and the folks in Washington are, as somebody once said, supposed to be smarter than me.

I'm aware. I'm thinking more along the lines of Brazil. Not first world, but it's not like we're talking about Somalia either.

Point. Actually, Brazil would be a pretty good choice.

Among the wealthy this is a very common line of thinking. Many rich people with foresight who are concerned buy land in South America and develop plans to quickly emigrate.

South America is the ideal expat location for those who can afford it.

Or maybe they'll just do what Russia and China do and ignore the fuck out of any and all copyright shit.

I wonder if learning to read simplified Chinese and joining Q-Zone would be even more effective than joining a Darknet, at least for some types of speech--and they probably don't care what you say about Western governments on there, either.

Speaking as a small provider who gets these kinds of takedown notices, America is actually pretty good when it comes to political speech. Perhaps the best in the world. if you get a takedown for political speech, nearly any small provider would be happy to fight for you, because it's wonderful publicity. (I say small provider, because in order to fight for you, someone with enough authority to do so has got to see the takedown, and decide it is bogus. At large companies, the people reading the takedown often don't have authority to decide to fight or not. the same incentive applies, though, so if someone at a large corporation with authority saw a bogus takedown for political speech, they might make the same decision a small provider would.)

I know I'd be happy to defend original political speech against a bogus takedown notice... not because I'm patriotic or altruistic, but because the publicity would be priceless. this is America, and my customers are nerds; being at the center of some scandal where the feds were trying to shut down some opposing political viewpoint would be incredible, from a self-promotion standpoint.

America becomes a bad place when you want some kind of commercial speech (or when your 'political' speech is commercial... but even then, so long as it's clear you have a valid claim and are not just copying someone else's copywritten work, it's pretty easy to find a provider willing to fight for you in order to garner the positive publicity.)

I might be willing to stand up for political speech, but I'm going to cooperate with taking down customers who want to violate trademarks to sell knock-off goods (knock-off goods are fine, just don't violate trademarks.) I'm also not going to spend a penny defending people who want to share movies or other copywritten data. Right or wrong, that's not a fight I can win here in America.

I keep telling my customers this; if you want to say something politically controversial, do so here. if you want to copy the latest movies, etc... host in eastern Europe or china, and don't involve me.

OK, this is a pretty good point. What worries me - probably groundlessly - is that iffy point where the political and the commercial overlap.

What if my political speech is about health care reform? It's not commercial, but it offends some pretty deep pockets - in that case, given enough lawyers (and there are always enough lawyers!), I worry that this kind of law could and would be used to shut me up. No burden of proof.

The DMCA has some fraud provisions that allow this kind of thing to be whacked, but I don't know the actual whack statistics.

Geeks don't like the government (right now) because there has been a successful couple of decades of anti-government propaganda. Would opposing Anthem be as good for your PR as that? I don't believe it would be. Yet Anthem is arguably a pretty dangerous actor in our current political sphere.

I agree that it is worrying. It's not a good law; the current situation is setup so that a risk averse hosting provider is likely to just take shit down when asked.

But what I'm saying is that while there is a pretty big downside to standing up to bullshit takedown notices, there is also a pretty big upside. Would I personally take the risk? heh. well, it would depend on how strong I thought the case was. But probably; Like many entrepreneurs, I'm something of a glory hound and I have a moderate-to-high risk tolerance. My expectation would be that it wouldn't go to court. see what happened with ralph lauen and bong-boing:

http://boingboing.net/2009/10/06/the-criticism-that-r.html

On the other hand, I do get a whole lot of obviously legitimate takedown notices. I've had several cases of some company selling knock off designer stuff who not only used the trade mark without permission, but who copied the legitimate website wholesale.

I mean, I know jack about designer clothing, and I think knock-off goods are perfectly legitimate, but I think it's pretty important to protect trademarks.

> It will never stop, the only solution is to play their game and try and keep legislation from being passed, and get existing laws dismissed.

"The only solution"? Not hardly.

Lampposts, rope, politicians. Some assembly required.

have you seen modern riot control technology?

Dude, they have 50 years of tech advantage over the pitchfork wielders. We are truly fucked if the military and police do not mutiny

Have you seen what proportion of Americans own firearms?

If we are talking about treason - which hanging politicians from a lamp post would be - it won't be crowd control with tear gas and riot shields. It will be some police/military with guns vs citizens/police/military with guns.

Fortunately this law will not require that level of trouble. It is so draconian that it will not pass - so long as it is made public. The only way the government can control us is through secrecy. When something is so obviously against the public interest it won't be passed if enough people fight against it. The reason the Patriot act and others stood was because they just didn't effect enough people. If you start talking about losing your internet because your son posted a YouTube clip, voters will get mad.

You've made it clear that you haven't been acquainted with modern riot control technology.

tear gas and shields is the OLD stuff. The new stuff hasn't been widely utilized, but it IS widely in place and police and military have been trained on it.

The purpose of these non-lethal riot control methods is to destroy the power of assembly without losing the hearts and minds of the masses.

LRAD is one of the most widely known riot control technologies that is totally TV-friendly. The TV can't even tell that it is being used - in fact unless it is used on you you don't even realize it is being used.

This can be deployed from all kinds of platforms that impersonalize it.

If the public doesn't complain about waterboarding they aren't going to complain about LRAD. And yet LRAD will totally destroy a peaceful demonstration.

You're right that we should be able to get former military and police on our side, but we better hope they mutiny and are able to steal technology.

I don't think you've been acquainted with the business end of a large rifle. Shoot whatever ray you want at a large crowd of people, if it comes to treason I'll be with my brother and cousin at night in the woods with some high power rifles and shotguns. Considering both have been military trained I don't think we're too far behind the curve. I'm not the kind of person who believes in conspiracies or has a bomb shelter, but the patriot act made me think that maybe I'd use the gun in my house against the government just as easily as I would against someone breaking and entering. I'm not talking about carrying a gun to a rally, I'm talking about defending myself. Look at that nut job in Buffalo who took out a bunch of swat team members last year. He was crazy and it certainly was a terrible tragedy, but it shows that it IS possible.

Sometimes engineers forget not every problem has a technological solution. Picking the right out cropping of rocks to defend yourself from has more value than millions of dollars in tech if you can extract the right price from the people attacking you.

But if you are going down that road, it is just a matter of how many people you take out before they get you. I won't be getting that enraged about copyright law, ever. If they start infringing on my right to complain about the copyright law, then we're getting warmer but even then not so much. People over react to the problems we have today, when you start infringing on the average person's rights a lot more than this people like me who are generally calm and don't freak out about small infractions will start getting mad, and thats when it will boil over and either a political or violent adjustment to the direction of the country will happen.

There is a big difference between Al Qaeda style resistance and collective resistance. Sure, Hamas and Al Qaeda exist but... they are losing and they will inevitably lose.

They can hold out for a long time with their low tech, but they still take losses at a 50:1 ratio.

You have AR-15s but do you have UAVs? Do you have tanks? Do you even have nukes, for that matter, that ancient 60 year old tech?

You can't win as a collective which means you can't win. Unless you can deploy an army that will actually DEFEAT the opposing army you are talking about Hamas-style resistance. The Palestinians are not winning. They are conquered. It's already over. They are bad people to take advice from.

I totally disagree; your analysis is flawed. The reason movements like Al Qaeda will lose is because their ideology doesn't have the right support. When you try to sidestep the right to freedom this country was founded upon you are picking a fight that extends into the core of the people, including the intellectuals that made all that high tech weaponry possible. Also, our all-volunteer military is made up of our people - our brothers, cousins, sisters etc.

The intellectuals are pacified by their McMansions and $150,000 student debt.

Your brothers, cousins, and sisters don't understand what is wrong with censoring the internet. They think it's a good thing because they're afraid of pedophiles.

The whole point (as I explained) of modern non-lethal weaponry is that it can be used to enforce bad laws without causing a public uprising. Brothers, cousins, sisters, etc think waterboarding is okay because they watch too much 24. They think anyone who flees in pain due to LRAD is a pussy cause it's just like loud music.

You really think intellectuals would be content holed up in their McMansions while a struggle for liberty was raging in this country? And our family and friends which make up the military wouldn't know which side to stand on? I'm not talking about censoring some silly media, I'm talking about if it came down to the difference between liberty and tyranny, of infringing assembly and free speech.

>You really think intellectuals would be content holed up in their McMansions while a struggle for liberty was raging in this country?

WTF has been going on for the last 40 years? There has been an accelerating decline in liberty since about 1970.

Your sisters, cousins, etc have proven themselves to be easily manipulated idiots.

Intellectuals have proven themselves to be spineless lovers of comfort who will complain but never put anything tangible on the line.

I meant if a line was crossed. I don't think we've crossed any line. We've come close, but the people still hold power.

pretty much. Do you really think we'd take our cheeto-stained hands off the keyboard and start shooting at people? I know I'm not ready to get shot for some abstract idea. Sure, I'd maybe spend some time and/or money, but I don't think anyone but the crazies would start shooting.

Besides, I think that shooting back is rarely effective in modern warfare; it's all about 'hearts and minds' these days, not about who can kill more of the other dudes.

Iran seems to be demonstrating the limit of what's achievable by winning 'hearts and minds' alone.

It's pretty difficult to invade another country and win any 'hearts and minds' - I mean, no matter how shitty the previous government was, you are a foreign invader.

I think Iran (and Iran's success against the USSR) is a prime example of how 'hearts and minds' is much more important than guns and bombs in modern warfare.

It's definitely important. But the current situation in Iran suggests that Hearts and Minds alone isn't sufficient.

lol. I'm going to shut up. I re-read this and I probably make no sense as I wrote iran rather than Afghanistan.

>There is a big difference between Al Qaeda style resistance and collective resistance. Sure, Hamas and Al Qaeda exist but... they are losing and they will inevitably lose.

Isn't that what they said about the Viet Cong?

Who eventually did lose to an extent. By the '70s the war had moved into a more conventional phase with the NVA doing the majority of the fighting. When Saigon fell it was not to VC guerillas but NVA tanks.

Have you seen vietnam? They definitely didn't win anything from that war.

It sure is a hollow victory if your entire country and way of life is destroyed and all your descendants are horribly mutated, etc.

If winning means getting what Vietnam got, I'll take surrender and slavery.

What happened to land of the free, home of the brave? Are you sure you're American?

Why would he be?

I don't mean to troll, and perhaps I missed the tongue-in-cheek element, but this kind of corny quote means nothing. Canada did not fight a war for the "land of the free" and is doing quite fine in its slavery to the British crown, thank you.

>You have AR-15s but do you have UAVs? Do you have tanks? Do you even have nukes, for that matter, that ancient 60 year old tech?

You don't need any of this, In guerrilla warfare mechanized infantry (tanks) are really only good for expensive body armor and neither side could use nukes if they had them (you would just be bombing yourself). Utilizing either would cause to many civilian casualties and the nasty part of guerrilla warfare is that for each 1 killed their are 50 recruits that have seen family and friends die (hardcore). Once this happens you have one of three choices surrender, withdraw or genocide.

I feel like we're going in circles.

1. You can't win through pacifism because of modern anti-protestor technology.

2. You can't win through conventional warfare because you have no collective ability to project power except through the incumbent government.

3. You can't win through guerilla warfare because guerillas never win wars. They just make life really suck for everyone.

... It will be some police/military with guns vs citizens/police/military with guns

I agree that it won't get to that. but if it did, barring massive police/military mutiny, who do you think is going to win that one? If both sides have guns, I'd say it will likely be the side with more training, experience, body armour, huge ammo stock piles and armoured vehicles. Unless the majority of the police/military mutiny I don't think even the US civilian population with your ridiculous amount of guns could prevail.

In equal numbers the military prevails.

I'm not worried about the police force. They have shotguns and pistols just like everybody else, and in most cases the enthusiasts have just as much skill as the police.

And the military is tiny, less than 1% of the population. About 50% of the population owns at least 1 gun, and most who own at least 1 own several. If they can barely secure Iraq, there is no way they will secure the USA.

Well, they still kill something like 10-100 enemies for every soldier felled. I'm all for preventing it from getting to that point in the first place (not that I'm implying you are).

Side note: While I agree this particular article is relevant to HN, its starting to bring out the crazy a bit. Can we have a moratorium on political articles for a day or two to cool it off?

I totally disagree with a moratorium on anything that threatens liberty in the USA, especially when resulting discourse is among intellectual minds.

Um, I meant this article is okay, but we need to restore balance to the force afterword.

Guerilla warfare?

If the population collectively goes against their government there can be no doubt as to the outcome: The politicians lose.

Swat teams are only effective against small groups and individuals - they can't kill 300 million+ people.

Please stop assuming this is just about America. One of the reasons people are so worked up about this is that the US is trying to force its idea of expression control on the rest of the world.

And what makes you think this is driven only by the US?

I guess it's the citizens owning lots of firearm part.

Perhaps the rest of the world should find out who's supporting this (shouldn't be too hard) and perform a distributed denial of service by sending spurious copyright-notice takedown demands to all the ISPs hosting all their pages; especially revenue-oriented pages.

This is not true, Guerrilla style warfare is one of the few styles of warfare where technical superiority does not equal a total advantage on the battlefield. The reasons being is that you general negate mechanized infantry and air superiority. Even the advantages of selective fire assault rifles are somewhat muted. The number one advantage in these situations is familiarity with the terrain. It was the deciding factor in the revolutionary war, Vietnam, Soviet / Afghanistan, and if something does not change US / Afghanistan. Time and time again some of the poorest nations beat the most powerful nation of that time by simply drawing them into a Guerrilla war.

You're missing the point. Guerillas don't win wars, at best they ensure that no one wins.

Tell that to Castro or Nguyen Huu Tho or Washington all of which won their struggles via guerrilla warfare. Note: I am not advocating the use of insurgency as a means of resolving political dispute, just pointing out that it does in fact win against superior numbers, resources and technology. To claim it does not ignores centuries of evidence to the contrary.

Washington won his struggles with conventional warfare combined with a shitton of direct military intervention from France. The role of guerrilla warfare in the American Revolution is popularly overstated.

If we are talking about Washington directly then yes he won his battle via conventional warfare but when we talk about the war that he symbolizes as the leader, there is little denying that guerrilla warfare is what disheartened the British troops and emboldened the militias and locals. The following article highlights how important small skirmishes and hit and run tactics where to the revolutionary war. http://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=1489

> have you seen modern riot control technology?

Yes I have. That's why I didn't mention riots. I also didn't mention massed assaults on govt installations.

There are ways to lose against a modern military. Don't use them. (BTW - If you think that tanks are decisive, you need to spend some time with Marines.)

Tell me more about the Marines.

> Tell me more about the Marines.

Don't you know anyone in the armed forces?

The US Marines (I assume that other countries have similar forces) practice killing tanks with individual weapons. I assume that it's nasty work, but their slogan is something like "Killing tanks is easy and fun."

Tanks have problems in cities and other places with limited visibility and mobility. They can get stuck.

Yes, tanks can blow holes in walls and they have machine guns. However, if they're not moving fast, doctrine says that they require infantry support. I assume that that's because of vulnerabilities.

Militaries "leak" in civil wars, so some of the smaller weapons will be available.

Thanks for your write-up.

> Don't you know anyone in the armed forces?

No. I am a governmentally recognized pacifist. (That's true. You have to get that recognition if you don't want to serve in the military in Germany (and you happen to be male, healthy and educated).)

> No. [I don't know anyone in the armed forces.] I am a governmentally recognized pacifist.

Is there a connection between not knowing anyone in the armed forces and being a pacifist?

Germany is the only connection between them. Proud members of the military are not very visible in modern German society.

What does "proud" have to do with it?

Are "not military" Germans are generally hostile towards members of their military? How about "recognized pacifists"?

How about police?

I just used "pround" to differentiate from the drafted grunts. I have the impression that members of the military are viewed as slightly nutty (in Germany).

> I am a governmentally recognized pacifist.

Ah, then you're willing to lie down in front of the tanks and "not cooperate", but if that doesn't work....

Could they really do this? HTTPS is pretty much vital to a major part of the economy now. I find it hard to see how they could word anything other than a blanket encryption ban in a manner which would prevent surreptitious use of the remaining systems.

Maybe I'm an optimist, but I really feel the cat's out of the bag here - technology will always trump legislation.

One might say the same of air travel - yet a million people around the world are denied the right to fly because somebody in the government typed their name wrong on a form. Does anybody fix that? Find the person who cares. Hint: nobody cares.

This treaty will make the Internet just like today's air travel. Do you think technology will trump that?

Yes.

it would never be a blanket ban. there would be an escape valve of bureaucracy that only corporations could utilize

it has always been the case (utube takeoff, Meg Whitman & Co. would be happy to forget about the foundations of Skype [KaZaa] etc.)

...ever wondered how GOOG Books works?

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Proposed_US_ACTA_multi-lateral_int...

Agreed, Furthermore since when has your opinion been traceable to your ISP? I don't post anything (well nearly anything) on an ISP-hosted account; its on a public forum, or a cloud server etc. Encryption, proxies, public fora, technology in general will make this a futile effort to police. The genie is out of the bottle, and this rumored 'treaty' is a cry by a desperate administration that is feeling powerless. They may as well say "we'll put serial numbers on the buggy whips! We'll regulate steam engines! That'll stop em!"

ANd there will be murder in the streets, and fire will rain down, and dark times will come for all, and ... This thread is most dramatic. Where is the demand for references I have come to expect from this forum? Folks, lets stop responding to emotional venting as if its fact.

Yes, I got modded down for daring to suggest a court would decide on a balance between right to privacy and right to protect ones works.

LOL! Court of HN says NO!

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=921446

Excellent point. People have become accustomed to an unfettered flow of media and information. They're not just going to throw their hands up and go back to the pre-napster days of walled media gardens.

Excuse my (regrettable) cynicism, but people were accustomed to various other things as well and I don't recall their even bothering to throw up their hands in the post 911 Patriot Act regime when they were taken away.

The things that were taken away were not things most people think they need. Most people assume they will never be suspected of a crime, and they are usually right, so why bother getting upset about "rights"?

The internet is different. It's something people use and rely on every day. If encryption is outlawed, there are no more cell-phone networks, online banking, online shopping, credit card transactions, wifi, etc. Most people are not going to be too happy about that.

Censoring the Internet or going after file-sharers is also not going to work. IPv4's "keyspace" of unique addresses is too small; as soon as disconnections become legal, bittorrent clients will start forging the UDP source IPs. (Some ISPs have egress filtering, but does every ISP on the entire planet? If not, then anyone can make it look like you are sharing a file anytime they want.)

To make this treaty take effect in the US as written, the Constitution will have to be rewritten. Politicians are much too lazy for that, so I am not worried.

> To make this treaty take effect in the US as written, the Constitution will have to be rewritten. Politicians are much too lazy for that, so I am not worried.

Don't be so sure. It's not like they don't ignore the Constitution when they feel like it.

some may wish to consider disruptive technologies which will render treaties such as this irrelevant.

It's only irrelevant if you don't mind breaking the law. If you are trying to be a law abiding citizen the ability to avoid being caught is itself irrelevant.

And that will mean that we've got good darknets for real criminals to use, whilst people doing nothing wrong cover for them.

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