#internetpolicy

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Productive meetings, meaningful engagements, welcome reconnections & fantastic new connections made last week at #ICANN76 in #Cancun #Mexico. Likely to be one of the most consequential international meetings I have attended in my career. - - - - - - - - - - - - - #DigitalPolicy #ICTPolicy #InternetPolicy #InternetGovernance #DNS #DNSAbuse #WHOIS #DataPrivacy #DataProtection #dotPOST #Security #Trust https://www.instagram.com/p/CqG2z7Vo_db/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#icann76 #cancun #mexico #digitalpolicy #ictpolicy #internetpolicy #internetgovernance #dns #dnsabuse #whois #dataprivacy #dataprotection #dotpost #security #trust

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#internetpolicy #currentevents

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#internetpolicy

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Query for the High Schoolers

Are you in high school, junior high, or do you work thereabouts? Does your institution use filtering software such as NetNanny or CyberPatrol? I'm curious what your opinions are on the effectiveness of said technology.

The backstory: in my Cyberlaw class today, we discussed the legal framework for protecting children from online obscenity and indecent content, such as pornography. Back in the day, Congress tried to pass a bunch of laws restricting people from posting such content online and making it accessible to minors; these bills were mostly struck down as First Amendment violations.

A key part of the argument they made was, "Why force the websites to filter themselves when you can have parents and schools install filters that will be just as effective, if not more?" 

Here's the thing: when I was in high school and junior high, the filters were TERRIBLE. They worked very poorly: kids would get blocked from all sorts of things they should have been able to access, and vice versa.

But, that was a ZILLION YEARS AGO. Like, seriously, a decade ago. Because I am old. And technology has progressed since then.

So, my question for you, sisters, sisters' friends, teenagers, schoolteachers, and librarians, is how well does this stuff work today?

Would you categorize filtering software as, for the most part "effective" at blocking things the adults want blocked, or "not effective" at blocking the stuff the adults want blocked? (Note that this question is not whether or not it's fair that the adults block Facebook at school. This question is whether or not you're usually blocked from things adults don't want you to see, and whether or not you're rarely accidentally blocked from things it is okay for you to see.)

Have you ever been blocked from something you should have been allowed to see, such as information you were looking up for a report? What happened?

Have you ever accidentally seen something you know should have been blocked? What happened?

Do you think the filters the adults do want blocked are fair? Have you ever wanted to access something that you weren't allowed to see at school? What was it, why did the adults want to block it, and why do you think you should be allowed to see it?

#internetpolicy #longform

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#internetpolicy

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I would think that the take down of MegaUpload bolsters the Anti-SOPA activists' stance. The Feds clearly didn't need SOPA to go after piracy hosters.

Prashanth Mohan, in the comments to my previous post....

#internetpolicy

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Just sayin'. MegaUpload was bad! They profited ($175 million) by deliberately encouraging piracy on their site. They had no intention of taking down infringing content.

MegaUpload deserved to be shut down ...with due process, evidence, and a thorough legal investigation first.

It's frustrating that this happened right when national attention is on SOPA, and while the MPAA, RIAA et al. are trying to categorize anti-SOPA activists as "anti-copyright." In particular, Anonymous' anti-MegaUpload shutdown retaliation is definitely not helping the anti-SOPA case.

FOR THE RECORD, WORLD: We're not anti-copyright, we're anti-censorship and anti-break the Internet. Being anti-censorship doesn't mean being "anti-shut down companies and servers that are profiting from pirated material after a thorough and transparent legal investigation reveals them to be guilty as sin."

#internetpolicy #opinions #longform

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Hey Media Industry: Media, Globalization, The Internet... it's a Thing, Guys.

Dear Media Industry,

Great job on providing reasonably-priced easily-accessible digital content. I'm really digging this whole Netflix/Amazon Prime/Spotify media-service model. I'm a happy paid subscriber to some services, and I even click on ads for others. I feel like we're finally having a pretty good relationship here. There are still a few kinks to work out but on the whole I think we're on the right track.

Here's something you need to work out right now though: Globalization and the Internet. It's a thing. Your customers are aware of it.

So, Spotify, when you tell me that my Metric album isn't available for streaming in the US, I feel like you're taunting me.

Also, Amazon Video? Downton Abbey Season 2? Don't tell me to "look forward to it" when my UK friends have already seen it.

And, PS - confession time? I'm super tempted to access those things without paying you for them. Because I can get them now rather than later. But I'd rather pay you for them? If you'd let me?

xoxo, Justine

#internetpolicy #opinions #longform

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Improving the Internet is just one means, albeit an important one, by which to improve the human condition. It must be done with an appreciation for the civil and human rights that deserve protection — without pretending that access itself is such a right.

#internetpolicy

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Some More Food for Thought Related to SOPA

So earlier this week I posted about the Stop Online Piracy Act, on why it won't work to stop piracy (you can circumvent it in about 5 minutes), and why the technical requirements it's demanding are bad for the security of the Internet.

A friend of mine has been enjoying the dinner-table-politicking that everyone tells you you're supposed to avoid that you wind up doing anyway (Happy Chanukah!) and a family member of his made the statement during such an argument that filtering the Internet, in general, is a good idea. In talking about this with him, the wheels started turning in my head about what context this non-technical relative was probably missing before making that statement. I'm not going to argue with the statement that filtering the Internet is or isn't a good idea, but I want to provide a little bit more context to what that means in a technical sense and provide a reason that this is a hard decision that most non-geeks probably haven't considered.

So, for this thought experiment, let's say that the US government passes SOPA2, a bill that allows the government to filter the Internet effectively (which, as I pointed out last week, SOPA doesn't do). In this imaginary world, the US government has a full on government filtering policy, a la the Great Firewall of China or many of these countries. And, of course, our filter is only used to block things like pirated content or child pornography, but not to block things like search queries for "Tiananmen Square."

As part of SOPA2, US citizens are banned from trying to circumvent the filtering mechanisms - it only makes sense, right? Not only do we have barbed wire fences to stop people crossing borders illegally, we also tell the citizens that it's illegal to try to climb them. So the law is a combination of technical mechanism (a fence or filter) + public policy (that you're not allowed to try to get around it). [*]

Here's the wrench in that story that you might not have known about, though. For over the last ten years, the United States Navy has invested in anti-Internet filtering technology called Tor. Tor is commonly used by dissidents in some of the world's most free-speech-oppressive countries to anonymously browse the Internet and circumvent national filters. Tor volunteers give workshops to journalists and political activists heading in to wiretapping, filtering countries (think China, Iran, and some of the US's other best pals).

And here's the tough choice I think everyone should think about: Tor (and other technologies) can be used to circumvent filters in other countries, including our imaginary SOPA2 United States which only filters pirated content and child porn, but doesn't suppress free speech otherwise. The technology is agnostic to what you use it for. It gets around Internet filters, but whether you're looking for documents on the UN Declaration of Human Rights (banned in your country) or pirated media (banned in your country), the technology can't tell the difference. It will help you do either. All such technology will fundamentally suffer from this downfall.

So, you have two options on your hands:

Continue to invest in and allow Americans to build anti-circumvention technology, knowing that to do so puts tools in to the hands of thieves, child pornographers, and the like to commit theft and abuse over the Internet.

Cease to invest in anti-circumvention technology and ban American's from contributing to it, knowing that to do so removes a valuable tool from the hands of the oppressed to exercise their free speech, leaving them once again vulnerable to imprisonment, torture, etc for speaking their minds.

I'm not going to argue what you should choose, but know that you are making this choice and that there's no way around it.

[*] Word on the street right now is that SOPA (the real one, not our imaginary SOPA2) might ban Tor as well, although it's unclear.

#longform #techpolicy #internetpolicy

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Those of you moderately technical folks asking me what the deal is with SOPA, this link above is probably the thing to read.

My summary for non-technical folks (Hi, Grandma!):

The technical thing that the nerds are all up in arms about is the requested changes to the Domain Name System. The DNS is the service that takes a domain name (google.com) and turns it in to an "Internet Protocol Address" , the address of a computer that runs Google. It's like the phone book for the Internet, mapping names (google.com) to addresses (169.168.1.101).

SOPA requests changes to DNS so that you are redirected to a "Text of Notice" telling you that you tried to access bad-stuff when you try to look up the address of a website that is banned for piracy. So, SOPA wants us to change the entry in the phonebook - when I try to look up www.stolenonlinemovies.com, instead of getting the address for my pirated videos, I get the address of a page telling me "No pirated videos for you!"

What's wrong with this:

The modifications to DNS won't work to stop piracy. Any user can get around them easily by pointing their DNS lookups to a DNS resolver (a server hosting the phonebook) that resides outside of the US. I can show you how to do it in like five minutes (and by five minutes, I'm saying it takes me about 30 seconds). Once you're looking at a DNS server outside the US, that's unrestricted phonebook access for you: you can find the address of any bad stuff you want again.

The modifications to DNS are bad for Internet security. Here's the most important reason why: when you do the lookup for say, www.bankofamerica.com, you sure as heck want the address that comes back to be the real Internet Protocol address for the real Bank of America! But, sometimes in the past, badguys have been able to trick DNS in to telling you that www.bankofamerica.com goes to one of their computers. Think about how bad this is! You tell the Internet phonebook, please tell me how to get to the bank, and the Internet phonebook sends you to an address that badguys control. They set up a fake bank website, you log in and tell them your secret password for your banking... oh noes. Luckily, the nerds have been working for the last many years on building DNS such that it's impossible to lie without being caught. They're trying to fix DNS so that if you go and ask the phonebook for your bank's Internet address, your computer will very easily be able to check that the response you get back is the real Internet address registered for your banks DNS name. We're pretty excited about this - in the past couple of years, more and more servers are starting to support the new changes and we were getting pretty stoked to say, "Yay, problem solved! The Internet phone book is no longer able to lie to people!" This new security is called DNSSEC. By requiring DNS resolvers to change the phonebook entry for pirated websites, SOPA is requiring the Internet phonebook to lie to users. This means that these new security mechanisms to stop the phonebook from being able to lie - the ones that are supposed to protect us from the bad guys using the Internet phonebook to trick us in to going to fake online banking websites and the like - won't be able to be rolled out anymore.  

#internetpolicy #longform