This is an intriguing idea. The majority of hackers hate this bill, and yet if the lobbyists and politicians pass it, they are going to need us to implement it for them. So maybe it would be some sort of solution, in the worst case, to organize a boycott of any person or company that works on it.
Hackers hate it, but there are more programmers than "hackers". Think about middle aged family men, career men. They aren't all going to care as strongly or be able to quit.
Also even if you could convince all american talent to boycott it, there's a whole world of people out there who don't care at all, and just like America has been happy to sell censorship tech to the rest of the world for years, I'm sure the rest of the world would be happy to repay :)
I don't think Indian or Russian programmers are going to give a toss about it if it pays bills.
Ha or you could just buy back equipment already sent to Chian and Iran.
Which sort of raises the point that American talent has already built this equipment and been selling it for years now. It is way past too late for this boycott to work.
There will always be those who prostitute themselves out to build the software to support the bill. Some companies, those most likely to be be the victim of litigation by those in favor of the bill will have no choice but to implement the software due to the threat of litigation damages.
However, the best way to combat litigation damages would be a threat to those same companies from every network that connects to them. i.e. an internet embargo against any company that implements the filtering and changes to the DNS.
At the end of the day networks need to connect to other networks. If a company implements software that filters it, every network that doesn't have the same obligation can embargo those businesses so that those businesses have no choice but to fight the MPAA and RIAA.
Treat those that implement the technology like a cancer and "excise" them from the network.
Following the money is the only way to prevent the technological implementation of SOPA from spreading. There needs to be an equally or more costly financial threat from the anti-SOPA companies.
It doesn't even need to be at the network level. The browser level is sufficient. Chrome, Firefox and Internet explorer (built by 3 organizations that are against SOPA) could all embargo sites at the browser level in the default installations of the browsers. The majority of Internet dollars travel through the browser. The browsers could sniff for DNS systems implementing SOPA and blacklist them. If your DNS implements SOPA then you aren't part of the internet. If they want a browser that supports networks that implement SOPA, let them build it themselves and spend time and money trying to get their browser adopted.
The search engine level is another approach. Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo could reduce the search rank of every site on networks that implements SOPA.
SOPA uses legislation to break the technological contract that keeps the internet together. Break the technological contract and you should no longer part of the Internet.
Accenture will be thrilled to build The Great Firewall of America, and they're sufficiently capable of doing it, especially since they'll have an effectively unlimited budget. And sadly, there's more than one Accenture in the world.
The main enforcement mechanism is domain seizure, which already works quite well already, unfortunately. It's pretty likely that there will be a darknet DNS system or DNS alternative, but that's not a great outcome for anyone - more confusion, more malware.
'''
The world depends on software. We, the world's programmers, write the software. SOPA threatens many things we believe in and care about. Letter writing and traditional means have not worked to stop SOPA. The only alternative is direct action.
In the 1960's direction was sitting on buses and swimming in pools. During the industrial revolution it was strikes in front of factories and rail roads. Occupying may get a lot of news coverage but protesters can be removed by force. No one can make us write code. If we stop, no one can do it for us.
I call for a General Programmer strike. We should set a day.
'''
It would only take a small minority of hackers to actually build it though. SOPA backers would probably put up the, upper limit, 100 million it would take to pay 10 brillant but selfish engineers to build the thing.
It's worked before and I would use stronger words than boycott; like blockade and strike. Doing economic damage by refusing to work on it or by refusing to buy their products or anything else is a damn fine idea and it's worked in the past for various trade unions.
The only thing is that we need a support network for people who refuse to work on it. Like say an employee and Cisco wants to blow the whistle on all the invasive tech they work on or wants to stop working on SOPA-related tech. They need to be able to do that without fearing that their family will go hungry because they wont get a paycheck anymore.
Union dues and donations were used for supporting striking workers. We have things like Kickstarter, Paypal, Bitcoin, etc. I don't see why we can't pitch in and donate to support any hackers who refuse to work on SOPA-related tech.
While I would love to see this happen, it won't be very hard to convince many people, developers included, that the entire purpose is to stop knock-off handbag sites, scummy download sites, and shady online gambling operations, and I'm sure they can provide enough glaring examples of piracy that the argument will seem reasonable. Coupled with the fact that it would be somebody's job on the line, I'm afraid that the boycott would be doomed to failure, behind the aegis of corporate anonymity for any individuals involved.
Raiding the people at the company that gets the contract might be a more ethical and effective action, especially if some of those people feel stuck working there.
The company may be able to replace those workers, but churn could really hurt them.
A union of global programmers. Has a nice ring to it. Needs to have an incentive to join and keep the lobbyists out. Same problem that stackoverflow has to keep out trolls and idiots. In this case the trolls are riaa, mpaa, national interests to take over the internet and those who wish not to contribute, but to be armchair dictators of the most powerful tool ever made by mankind.
Hey Paul, I'm trying to raise a seed round for my startup. Our organization will match any offer made to any engineer to design or implement any system for censorship of the Internet, and employ that engineer building tools to resist censorship.
I figure we only need a few hundred million to get off the ground... How much can I put you down for?
This is an idiotic post. I run OpenDNS. If SOPA passes and I don't implement it, I will be sued out of existence.
The 60 jobs I provide now, and the 60 jobs I'm hiring for, will vaporize.
And there will be programmers who will do the work required to implement it.
This is not the right way to fight laws. In fact, this is one of the Brocard's -- Dura lex, sed lex -- "The law is harsh, but it is the law." In other words, you must obey the law, even if it is wrong. You must work to change the laws if they are unjust.
> In other words, you must obey the law, even if it is wrong. You must work to change the laws if they are unjust.
I appreciate your perspective, but your last paragraph is frankly absurd. Pretty much every hard-won progressive reform in America was gained through civil disobedience.
I know that you, or rather your company, would be legally obligated to comply with the law. Your employees however, are not legally obligated to continue working for you if they disagree with what their job requires them to do. Indeed, you are not required to continue operating your company if the government requires that it operate in a way you deem unethical.
I disagree: Somebody will build the thing, because there's always someone desperate enough to take the job.
However, there is a better way to accomplish the goal imho: A truly shitty implementation. Those who are already in the position to implement it would not have to quit; they would instead commit to implementing it in the least-efficient way possible.
As a nice side effect, we will open up whole new disciplines for inefficient coding, and create all sorts of employment as people need big iron to run bad code.
The implementation would have to be shitty in a very specific way in order for it to not hurt the Internet at large. If this thing does get built, all American Internet traffic will have to flow through it, so it has to be stable and fast.
Maybe we could just make it block by default the websites of all the politicians and corporations that support SOPA.
Subvert the system from within? Now that's a plan. Volunteer for the project, form a consortium to bid on the project at cost, etc. Do a thoroughly average job with lots of backdoors and subtle exploits, anonymously drip feed to the community.
This is unfortunately a very American-centric and hacker/san-fransisco-centric view.
All the tech for SOPA has been build and used for years in countries such as China and Iran. They already have their great firewalls and have had them for a long time.
What's more, a lot of the tech they used was built and sold to them by american companies. This war was lost probably 10 to 15 years ago.
All this bill is about is dog-fooding your own censorship products. ;)
This is exactly correct. It should also be pointed out that while the nerd-rage surrounding SOPA is all completely valid the same type of response was seen during the build up to the votes on the DMCA and congress had no trouble passing the DMCA. I think it's highly unlikely that SOPA or PIPA will be modified in any meaningful way and will likely be passed.
And much of that firewall technology is already built in the US. For example, if NetApp had no qualms selling (indirectly) systems to the Syria government despite US export bans, I don't think they would have any qualms about selling to the US government legally.
With this theory, if we wanted to stop wars, we could encourage arms builders to simply stop building weapons of war. Yet, there will always be some people who view opportunity over everything else, and will be more than happy to build the weapons of war, even if 99% of the population disagrees.
On the flip side, the government may see any organization to halt such as illegal (I don't know what law it would violate, but I'm sure they could find something appropriate to give the organizers a nice cell in Gitmo).
Best idea if asked, is to build it, but do it incompetently (but intentionally). Poor UI, poor filters, bad tests, etc. Obfuscate the code as much as possible. Claim that its for optimization. Write it in an esoteric language that few will be able to audit properly. Pull out every trick in the book. I suppose some could call this sabotage, but it seems one way to do it. The US Government never seems to have a problem with hiring those with a strong record of incompetence.
> Maybe some of these technologies can be bought off the shelf from, say, China or North Korea, but at the very least someone is going to have to administer the servers that make this all work.
Unfortunately much of the technology used for censorship in places like China was developed in the US. Refusing to deploy it seems to be the only option. If we already have engineers willing to build these technologies it seems very likely there are going to be engineers willing to deploy it as well.
I find it doubtful that General Dynamics or some other massive government contractor will get a contract for $x million, look at it for a minute, and turn it down because of the ethical ramifications. Not only is that not a factor, but it would mean giving business to a competing government contractor. Everything about this would be against the contractor's shareholders, so it won't happen.
Unfortunately, someone, somewhere, will be happy to take money to build it.
They're blocking DNS records and IP address? Then why don't we design and build a new system. Using the knowledge we've gained from the Internet v1 we'd be able to do a much better job with Internet v2.
We have to do a lot of work to switch over to IP6 anyhow, so why not just go the whole hog and built a new infrastructure?
I don't get this. SOPA has penalties for companies that don't comply. The rallying cry has been, "If SOPA passes, {Wikipedia|reddit|YouTube|etc} could not exist."
If their engineers don't build SOPA takedown tools and their organizations get their pants sued off for the ensuing noncompliance, it's the same outcome. The sites will cease to exist in their current form.
SOPA would have a much harder time to pass if we had some kind of Constitutional Amendment or at least some strong Human Rights regarding the Internet. Because right now it seems that when something important to the infrastructure of the Internet clashes with the ability to enforce copyright, they say that the copyright side should win. This is possible because there aren't that many defenses set-up for the Internet itself besides the 1st Amendment.
While you are at it, please talk programmers out of writing programs that send spam. Oh, and what the heck, if that works, please talk people out of being greedy in general.
Don't do that, just build better tech a little further out west. Read the declaration of independence, act accordingly.
Recall what the net was like before the masses, perhaps something truly free is worth more than whatever you're giving up by not being able to sell coupons on it. Who cares if the masses never come. They just wanted to sell their freedom for a pay cheque anyway.
I am reminded of Pigdog's 2002 open letter/rant to the Sony engineers who wrote the DRM code that would brick iMacs that played certain Celene Dion CDs.
The problem is not the engineers. If the executives of the companies are obligated by law to build this system or go out of business/be fined, they will pass that pressure down the chain.
I know this bill upsets people, but getting fired would be more upsetting to those programmers/engineers.
Interesting that many people here think that software engineers, as a population sample, have a 'moral disposition' spread fundamentally different from any other profession. I think we all know that is not the case. Some would even go as far to say that tend to be more morally ambiguous relative to everyone else, purely as a function of the type of personality the profession attracts (although it might just be a matter of perspective or priority). There's a more than enough engineers in the long tail of people financially desperate, intellectually interested or simply pro-SOPA to build it.
And then let's not forget the miserably misguided geniuses who created a airborne H1N5 virus in the name of research. Evil comes in many forms.
What would happen if all the ISP's simply switched off the internet for a day? As a protest, a strike against SOPA if you will.
Or if Google simply shut down it's service for a day? And Youtube, and Facebook et al.
It's an outlandish proposition, but not as outlandish as SOPA.
Governments need to understand that they don't control the internet. The people that do could switch off their parts of it, and in these tricky economic times, a co-ordinated strike by the major players would send a very clear message.
"Back off, or we'll grind the country to a halt and it'll cost you billions".
These politicians are playing dirty tricks. Their mind was made up a long time ago. They'll not be beaten by due process and fairness.
Don't bet on this. Too many people will build anything they are told to, and won't pay attention to what it means. Or at least they will be able to rationalize it. I've seen this in person with CALEA in the late 90s.
I've been following the news about SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, for the past couple of weeks. Yesterday there was an interesting development when 83 of the most prominent engineers responsible for creating the Internet signed an open letter voicing their opposition to SOPA. This in and of itself is hardly surprising. Since the law was introduced anyone with a shred of technical acumen has stated that a.) It will not work. The law will not hinder piracy. b.) It will be hugely detrimental to the normal operation of the Internet.
But, this made me think. If a law like SOPA were to be passed, how would it be implemented? How would it be enforced? I think it's safe to say that at some point somebody is going to have to write some code or possibly build some hardware. Maybe some of these technologies can be bought off the shelf from, say, China or North Korea, but at the very least someone is going to have to administer the servers that make this all work. Who's going to do that? The politicians? The lawyers? Entertainment industry executives? No. The task is going to fall to the very people who have been the most vocal opponents of the law from the start. What if they refuse?
If SOPA were to pass and your job would require you to enforce its provisions, you should quit. If you currently work in IT or software development for a company advocating for the law, for a lobbying firm that is promoting the law, for the campaign of one of the representatives sponsoring or supporting it, you should quit. The organization paying you is actively trying to use your skills make people less free. There's a perpetual shortage of talent in the industry, right? Surely, you can find another job that does not require you to be an instrument of government oppression, that does not ask you to dismantle the infrastructure you've spent your career building and maintaining. I know it may seem like a drastic measure, but freedom, as we are so often reminded, is not free. If a free Internet is important to you, you have to be willing to make sacrifices to defend it, or it will cease to exist. Be happy that you can fight for freedom on economic terms instead of having to put your life on the line.
If your current position would not be involved in complying with SOPA, but you're in charge of hiring people, you could let it be known that any experience that included building or making technology for the enforcement of SOPA would immediately disqualify an applicant from getting a job at your company. (Assuming, of course that they participated willingly, not the folks I just told to quit their jobs in the previous paragraph.) I don't think this would be unreasonable or unfair. Deliberately building something that nearly every expert in the field has condemned as a detriment to the Internet represents such a staggering lack of professional judgement that it should disqualify you from ever working again in this profession. As engineers we spend most of our education and careers focusing on what we can build, and very little time thinking about what we should built. Unlike doctors or lawyers we (mostly) do not have professional licenses or ethics boards to report to. This does not mean we cannot act unethically, or that we should not consider the social ramifications of the things we make. An engineer who would build the infrastructure to make SOPA a reality should be treated exactly like a doctor who would willingly commit malpractice. He should be blacklisted from the profession.
I know this isn't a foolproof plan. If there's enough money on the table, someone will come out of the woodwork to take the job. If the task receives enough scorn from the rest of the industry, though, you can be sure that it won't be the best and the brightest working on this. Anything that results will be that much less effective for it. Remember politicians and lawyers can bloviate and scheme all they like, but ultimately it is engineers who have to bring their plans into existence. We are the gatekeepers between dreams and reality, and when it comes to the politicians and executives, they need us far more than we need them.
Of course, there are Professional Engineer (P.E.) licenses. But for the majority of Internet related work I believe they are not required. For what it's worth, I do happen to have a PE and work in a field where it's required. It is expected and understood that you would refuse to design something for a client that would be harmful or unsafe for the people using it. Indeed, you would lose your license (and thus your livelihood) if you did so.
A lot of what SOPA is black holing US internet traffic. All it takes is one person at one service provider to do this. India and China have done this on accident before. (They create a black hole route and accidentally advertised it)
Sure there are some more specific details to make it smooth to the end user, but from a technical level it is 3 commands on a service provider router to bring down a public network.
[+] [-] pg|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mindstab|14 years ago|reply
Also even if you could convince all american talent to boycott it, there's a whole world of people out there who don't care at all, and just like America has been happy to sell censorship tech to the rest of the world for years, I'm sure the rest of the world would be happy to repay :) I don't think Indian or Russian programmers are going to give a toss about it if it pays bills.
Ha or you could just buy back equipment already sent to Chian and Iran.
Which sort of raises the point that American talent has already built this equipment and been selling it for years now. It is way past too late for this boycott to work.
[+] [-] malandrew|14 years ago|reply
However, the best way to combat litigation damages would be a threat to those same companies from every network that connects to them. i.e. an internet embargo against any company that implements the filtering and changes to the DNS.
At the end of the day networks need to connect to other networks. If a company implements software that filters it, every network that doesn't have the same obligation can embargo those businesses so that those businesses have no choice but to fight the MPAA and RIAA.
Treat those that implement the technology like a cancer and "excise" them from the network.
Following the money is the only way to prevent the technological implementation of SOPA from spreading. There needs to be an equally or more costly financial threat from the anti-SOPA companies.
It doesn't even need to be at the network level. The browser level is sufficient. Chrome, Firefox and Internet explorer (built by 3 organizations that are against SOPA) could all embargo sites at the browser level in the default installations of the browsers. The majority of Internet dollars travel through the browser. The browsers could sniff for DNS systems implementing SOPA and blacklist them. If your DNS implements SOPA then you aren't part of the internet. If they want a browser that supports networks that implement SOPA, let them build it themselves and spend time and money trying to get their browser adopted.
The search engine level is another approach. Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo could reduce the search rank of every site on networks that implements SOPA.
SOPA uses legislation to break the technological contract that keeps the internet together. Break the technological contract and you should no longer part of the Internet.
[+] [-] pnathan|14 years ago|reply
People with the same ethics will be hired to build censorship and be happy to take home the paycheck.
[+] [-] projectileboy|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jim-greer|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] timtadh|14 years ago|reply
EDIT:
I made a submission about this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3361689
text
''' The world depends on software. We, the world's programmers, write the software. SOPA threatens many things we believe in and care about. Letter writing and traditional means have not worked to stop SOPA. The only alternative is direct action.
In the 1960's direction was sitting on buses and swimming in pools. During the industrial revolution it was strikes in front of factories and rail roads. Occupying may get a lot of news coverage but protesters can be removed by force. No one can make us write code. If we stop, no one can do it for us.
I call for a General Programmer strike. We should set a day. '''
[+] [-] zackzackzack|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eli|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] omouse|14 years ago|reply
The only thing is that we need a support network for people who refuse to work on it. Like say an employee and Cisco wants to blow the whistle on all the invasive tech they work on or wants to stop working on SOPA-related tech. They need to be able to do that without fearing that their family will go hungry because they wont get a paycheck anymore.
Union dues and donations were used for supporting striking workers. We have things like Kickstarter, Paypal, Bitcoin, etc. I don't see why we can't pitch in and donate to support any hackers who refuse to work on SOPA-related tech.
[+] [-] cbs|14 years ago|reply
Its a nice idea, but that is flat-out not true.
[+] [-] flatline|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aschoen|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danielharan|14 years ago|reply
The company may be able to replace those workers, but churn could really hurt them.
[+] [-] rbanffy|14 years ago|reply
This is dangerously like a witch hunt. This tool is theirs, not ours.
But I agree we may need better tools to protect the things we hold dear.
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] radicalbyte|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] damoncali|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maeon3|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidu|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Cushman|14 years ago|reply
I figure we only need a few hundred million to get off the ground... How much can I put you down for?
[+] [-] davidu|14 years ago|reply
The 60 jobs I provide now, and the 60 jobs I'm hiring for, will vaporize.
And there will be programmers who will do the work required to implement it.
This is not the right way to fight laws. In fact, this is one of the Brocard's -- Dura lex, sed lex -- "The law is harsh, but it is the law." In other words, you must obey the law, even if it is wrong. You must work to change the laws if they are unjust.
[+] [-] jberryman|14 years ago|reply
I appreciate your perspective, but your last paragraph is frankly absurd. Pretty much every hard-won progressive reform in America was gained through civil disobedience.
[+] [-] imgabe|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] civilian|14 years ago|reply
If you implement SOPA in OpenDNS a real patriot will make a truly open DNS system.
[+] [-] jpdoctor|14 years ago|reply
However, there is a better way to accomplish the goal imho: A truly shitty implementation. Those who are already in the position to implement it would not have to quit; they would instead commit to implementing it in the least-efficient way possible.
As a nice side effect, we will open up whole new disciplines for inefficient coding, and create all sorts of employment as people need big iron to run bad code.
[+] [-] redthrowaway|14 years ago|reply
Maybe we could just make it block by default the websites of all the politicians and corporations that support SOPA.
[+] [-] wanorris|14 years ago|reply
Hmm....
[+] [-] Vivtek|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] polemic|14 years ago|reply
Now that has a chance of working =D
[+] [-] mindstab|14 years ago|reply
All the tech for SOPA has been build and used for years in countries such as China and Iran. They already have their great firewalls and have had them for a long time.
What's more, a lot of the tech they used was built and sold to them by american companies. This war was lost probably 10 to 15 years ago.
All this bill is about is dog-fooding your own censorship products. ;)
[+] [-] ktsmith|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cpeterso|14 years ago|reply
NetApp faces probe into Syrian spooks' use of its storage kit: FAS racks 'used to slurp email' despite export ban http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/10/netapp_syria/
[+] [-] tibbon|14 years ago|reply
On the flip side, the government may see any organization to halt such as illegal (I don't know what law it would violate, but I'm sure they could find something appropriate to give the organizers a nice cell in Gitmo).
Best idea if asked, is to build it, but do it incompetently (but intentionally). Poor UI, poor filters, bad tests, etc. Obfuscate the code as much as possible. Claim that its for optimization. Write it in an esoteric language that few will be able to audit properly. Pull out every trick in the book. I suppose some could call this sabotage, but it seems one way to do it. The US Government never seems to have a problem with hiring those with a strong record of incompetence.
[+] [-] ktsmith|14 years ago|reply
Unfortunately much of the technology used for censorship in places like China was developed in the US. Refusing to deploy it seems to be the only option. If we already have engineers willing to build these technologies it seems very likely there are going to be engineers willing to deploy it as well.
[+] [-] markbao|14 years ago|reply
Unfortunately, someone, somewhere, will be happy to take money to build it.
[+] [-] radicalbyte|14 years ago|reply
They're blocking DNS records and IP address? Then why don't we design and build a new system. Using the knowledge we've gained from the Internet v1 we'd be able to do a much better job with Internet v2.
We have to do a lot of work to switch over to IP6 anyhow, so why not just go the whole hog and built a new infrastructure?
[+] [-] raldi|14 years ago|reply
If their engineers don't build SOPA takedown tools and their organizations get their pants sued off for the ensuing noncompliance, it's the same outcome. The sites will cease to exist in their current form.
[+] [-] kevinchen|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nextparadigms|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robbrown451|14 years ago|reply
Thanks.
[+] [-] fleitz|14 years ago|reply
Recall what the net was like before the masses, perhaps something truly free is worth more than whatever you're giving up by not being able to sell coupons on it. Who cares if the masses never come. They just wanted to sell their freedom for a pay cheque anyway.
[+] [-] cpeterso|14 years ago|reply
WARNING: STRONG LANGUAGE! ;)
"d00d, Quit being a FUCKING ASS": http://www.pigdog.org/auto/software_jihad/link/2581.html
[+] [-] toblender|14 years ago|reply
I know this bill upsets people, but getting fired would be more upsetting to those programmers/engineers.
[+] [-] polemic|14 years ago|reply
And then let's not forget the miserably misguided geniuses who created a airborne H1N5 virus in the name of research. Evil comes in many forms.
[+] [-] tomelders|14 years ago|reply
Or if Google simply shut down it's service for a day? And Youtube, and Facebook et al.
It's an outlandish proposition, but not as outlandish as SOPA.
Governments need to understand that they don't control the internet. The people that do could switch off their parts of it, and in these tricky economic times, a co-ordinated strike by the major players would send a very clear message.
"Back off, or we'll grind the country to a halt and it'll cost you billions".
These politicians are playing dirty tricks. Their mind was made up a long time ago. They'll not be beaten by due process and fairness.
[+] [-] johngalt|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] incomethax|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ktsmith|14 years ago|reply
---------------------
I've been following the news about SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, for the past couple of weeks. Yesterday there was an interesting development when 83 of the most prominent engineers responsible for creating the Internet signed an open letter voicing their opposition to SOPA. This in and of itself is hardly surprising. Since the law was introduced anyone with a shred of technical acumen has stated that a.) It will not work. The law will not hinder piracy. b.) It will be hugely detrimental to the normal operation of the Internet.
But, this made me think. If a law like SOPA were to be passed, how would it be implemented? How would it be enforced? I think it's safe to say that at some point somebody is going to have to write some code or possibly build some hardware. Maybe some of these technologies can be bought off the shelf from, say, China or North Korea, but at the very least someone is going to have to administer the servers that make this all work. Who's going to do that? The politicians? The lawyers? Entertainment industry executives? No. The task is going to fall to the very people who have been the most vocal opponents of the law from the start. What if they refuse?
If SOPA were to pass and your job would require you to enforce its provisions, you should quit. If you currently work in IT or software development for a company advocating for the law, for a lobbying firm that is promoting the law, for the campaign of one of the representatives sponsoring or supporting it, you should quit. The organization paying you is actively trying to use your skills make people less free. There's a perpetual shortage of talent in the industry, right? Surely, you can find another job that does not require you to be an instrument of government oppression, that does not ask you to dismantle the infrastructure you've spent your career building and maintaining. I know it may seem like a drastic measure, but freedom, as we are so often reminded, is not free. If a free Internet is important to you, you have to be willing to make sacrifices to defend it, or it will cease to exist. Be happy that you can fight for freedom on economic terms instead of having to put your life on the line. If your current position would not be involved in complying with SOPA, but you're in charge of hiring people, you could let it be known that any experience that included building or making technology for the enforcement of SOPA would immediately disqualify an applicant from getting a job at your company. (Assuming, of course that they participated willingly, not the folks I just told to quit their jobs in the previous paragraph.) I don't think this would be unreasonable or unfair. Deliberately building something that nearly every expert in the field has condemned as a detriment to the Internet represents such a staggering lack of professional judgement that it should disqualify you from ever working again in this profession. As engineers we spend most of our education and careers focusing on what we can build, and very little time thinking about what we should built. Unlike doctors or lawyers we (mostly) do not have professional licenses or ethics boards to report to. This does not mean we cannot act unethically, or that we should not consider the social ramifications of the things we make. An engineer who would build the infrastructure to make SOPA a reality should be treated exactly like a doctor who would willingly commit malpractice. He should be blacklisted from the profession.
I know this isn't a foolproof plan. If there's enough money on the table, someone will come out of the woodwork to take the job. If the task receives enough scorn from the rest of the industry, though, you can be sure that it won't be the best and the brightest working on this. Anything that results will be that much less effective for it. Remember politicians and lawyers can bloviate and scheme all they like, but ultimately it is engineers who have to bring their plans into existence. We are the gatekeepers between dreams and reality, and when it comes to the politicians and executives, they need us far more than we need them.
Of course, there are Professional Engineer (P.E.) licenses. But for the majority of Internet related work I believe they are not required. For what it's worth, I do happen to have a PE and work in a field where it's required. It is expected and understood that you would refuse to design something for a client that would be harmful or unsafe for the people using it. Indeed, you would lose your license (and thus your livelihood) if you did so.
[+] [-] trout|14 years ago|reply
Sure there are some more specific details to make it smooth to the end user, but from a technical level it is 3 commands on a service provider router to bring down a public network.