It would be quite ironic if the ultimate legacy of SOPA is to strengthen the web by evolving the nature of DNS.
I'm reminded of the past "victories" of the copyright lobby that ended up doing more harm (from their perspective) than good: shuttering Napster (which lead to the much better decentralized systems used for piracy today) and passing of the DMCA (which actually ended up giving legal coverage to businesses that profit from infringement).
The worst part of SOPA, in my opinion, is the ability for a rightsholder to ask any ad network or payment provider to stop doing business with any website merely by claiming the site's primary function is infringement... and the liability incentives the bill creates for doing so without a trial.
We can route around DNS blocks to get to the sites, but what does that matter if the sites close themselves because their funding was cut off? A site like YouTube would not be profitable without access to US-based ad networks.
SOPA specifically (without actually naming it) calls out addons.mozilla.org for the whole mafiaafire thing -- so under SOPA, this add-on wouldn't be allowed to stay up.
"[T]his version targets software developers and distributors as well. It allows the Attorney General (doing Hollywood or trademark holders' bidding) to go after more or less anyone who provides or offers a product or service that could be used to get around DNS blacklisting orders."
SOPA has not yet passed, it is not yet the law and I hope that Mozilla leaves it up for now. The DeSOPA program is meant to discourage passage of the bill by showing congress how easily it can be circumvented, so if it is removed after passage so be it. The link is:
It's been shown in court that source code is free speech, protected by the First Amendment (cf. Bernstein v. US, Junger v. Daley). I don't want this to get to that point, but that could be a way of getting around it.
Some might argue that speech telling you how to commit a crime is not protected speech, but the Anarchist Cookbook is legal to possess as well.
Dammit Jim, I'm a hacker, not a lawyer. This is not legal advice.
China blocks sites, everyone uses a VPS. If peoples favorite sites start going down, i'm pretty sure the majority of users will start working out how to get around the block, and those that don't probably weren't as frequent users anyway.
You have to remember, for a lot of people their online experience ends at facebook, youtube and hotmail. Sites like reddit, stack overflow, digg, all have audiences that generally don't use IE and will also be able to find a way around a SOPA block. Sure, these sites will lose a lot of traffic, but SOPA will FAR from kill them.
This program is a proof of concept that SOPA will not help prevent piracy. The program, implemented as a Firefox extension, simply contacts offshore domain name resolution services to obtain the IP address for any desired website
Part of SOPA is a provision that any tools for circumventing the DNS hijacking are themselves banned. So this extension would have to be removed from the Mozilla repository. At best, it would be distributed underground, and hence would not help to preserve the freedom of the average user.
> So this extension would have to be removed from the Mozilla repository.
IM unfamiliar with the bill, but given SOPA's wording, could it be that the whole of addons.mozilla.org, or even mozilla.org end up banned?
> At best, it would be distributed underground
If it were to happen, I envision a world where Aunt Jackie will ask little nephew Steve to enable her the full internets because she can't watch some photos on Flickr anymore, just like she could not install the Flash ten years ago. Steve will simply be asked to provide a piece of software to bootstrap, which if banned from the internets, will be distributed on underground network channels then diffused on a local scale through sneakernet.
It looks awfully like the BBS and early Internet in the '90s, with those warez sources like IRC DDC bots, and a select few having access to such sources and able to distribute pirated games on high-price CD-Rs.
I choose to be an optimist, and foresee a future where every user is dragged far enough up the evolutionary ladder to be able to subvert things like this.
The average user has friends who can supply him/her with this extension. As soon as these ordinary people her about these they will as "the guy they know who is really good with computers" about that program.
Won't take very much to do it. Heck I can even write one (since all you need to do is replace the DNS server).
Yes, I agree. However at this point I am just hoping that it catches the attention of congressmen giving them another reason to rethink SOPA's feasibility before the vote
This program is a proof of concept that SOPA will not help prevent piracy. The program, implemented as a Firefox extension, simply contacts offshore domain name resolution services to obtain the IP address for any desired website
I thought a major part of SOPA will be censoring sites, not just removing them from DNS. So even if you can resolve them offshore, they are going to be censored versions of the sites you know and love.
SOPA (officially) only addresses foreign sites. So they order removal from DNS servers and interrupt advertising or other funding processes from US based companies. But the ability to change the content on a server that is hosted in another country (I believe, IANAL) is beyond their capability. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
Also, the issue between domestic and foreign sites is still a bit vague in regards to SOPA. Supporters claim it only addresses foreign sites but most opponents claim (I think) that domestic sites can also be affected.
This is an outrage. We need to pass a bill that forces ISPs to scan for this plugin and report users to the government for prosecution. The nerve of these criminals.
You can rename the extension to .zip and extract. If you have any problems, let me know via a comment or post a contact method and Ill send you the source. Its pretty simple. When on, it intercepts URLs, sends the base URL to three offshore DNS services via HTTP, makes a best effort to check that two of them are equivalent, caches the IP for the browser session, redirects to the equivalent URL using the IP, and substitutes out the domain name in the source code with the IP address for future requests. I admit that it could use some work, however, I wrote in hopes that I could help create some kind of change in the events that are about to transpire before the vote.
xpi files are "normal" renamed zip files. Try extracting the contents using your favorite unzipping application. You should then get access to the source files.
I don't see how DeSopa can work if ICE seizes domains. As soon as a US-based domain is seized, it will propagate to foreign DNS servers as well. So merely using DNS servers outside the US won't help.
DeSopa might help against local ISPs who engage in censoring certain domains on their nameservers, something the SOPA legislation might mandate, but it won't help if the domains are seized.
Better would be some kind of P2P DNS system proposed by Peter Sunde of Pirate Bay -- a decentralized replacement for ICANN and DNS.
I love this approach!: SOPA? DeSOPA, MF! Yes, run circles around these idiots.
Tamer, you also do a great job of explaining in passionately clear, objective terms, the SOPA agenda, the weaknesses of its assuptions and it's dire consequences.
However, I strongly take issue with your own assumptions about the value of today's internet services.
So any chance of someone developing a similar addon for Chrome and IE? Not that I am suggesting I would use such a thing (lest I be marked by the lovely NSA filter that I'm sure monitors this site among others)...
Honestly, I've never really understood networking in great depth, so this may be a dumb question, but isn't bypassing SOPA as easy as specifying a new DNS server for your network connection?
[+] [-] nostromo|14 years ago|reply
I'm reminded of the past "victories" of the copyright lobby that ended up doing more harm (from their perspective) than good: shuttering Napster (which lead to the much better decentralized systems used for piracy today) and passing of the DMCA (which actually ended up giving legal coverage to businesses that profit from infringement).
[+] [-] dangrossman|14 years ago|reply
We can route around DNS blocks to get to the sites, but what does that matter if the sites close themselves because their funding was cut off? A site like YouTube would not be profitable without access to US-based ad networks.
[+] [-] delimitted|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gkoberger|14 years ago|reply
"[T]his version targets software developers and distributors as well. It allows the Attorney General (doing Hollywood or trademark holders' bidding) to go after more or less anyone who provides or offers a product or service that could be used to get around DNS blacklisting orders."
Second paragraph: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/11/hollywood-new-war-on-s...
(Disclosure: I'm a developer on addons.mozilla.org; EDIT: Changed the post to add a source)
[+] [-] delimitted|14 years ago|reply
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/desopa/
or
[add-ons mozilla base URL ] (slash) en-US (slash) firefox (slash) addon (slash) desopa (slash optional)
in case it is filtered.
Disclaimer: I developed it
[+] [-] koenigdavidmj|14 years ago|reply
Some might argue that speech telling you how to commit a crime is not protected speech, but the Anarchist Cookbook is legal to possess as well.
Dammit Jim, I'm a hacker, not a lawyer. This is not legal advice.
[+] [-] jwblackwell|14 years ago|reply
You have to remember, for a lot of people their online experience ends at facebook, youtube and hotmail. Sites like reddit, stack overflow, digg, all have audiences that generally don't use IE and will also be able to find a way around a SOPA block. Sure, these sites will lose a lot of traffic, but SOPA will FAR from kill them.
[+] [-] ojbyrne|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CWuestefeld|14 years ago|reply
Part of SOPA is a provision that any tools for circumventing the DNS hijacking are themselves banned. So this extension would have to be removed from the Mozilla repository. At best, it would be distributed underground, and hence would not help to preserve the freedom of the average user.
[+] [-] lloeki|14 years ago|reply
IM unfamiliar with the bill, but given SOPA's wording, could it be that the whole of addons.mozilla.org, or even mozilla.org end up banned?
> At best, it would be distributed underground
If it were to happen, I envision a world where Aunt Jackie will ask little nephew Steve to enable her the full internets because she can't watch some photos on Flickr anymore, just like she could not install the Flash ten years ago. Steve will simply be asked to provide a piece of software to bootstrap, which if banned from the internets, will be distributed on underground network channels then diffused on a local scale through sneakernet.
It looks awfully like the BBS and early Internet in the '90s, with those warez sources like IRC DDC bots, and a select few having access to such sources and able to distribute pirated games on high-price CD-Rs.
[+] [-] pavel_lishin|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomjen3|14 years ago|reply
Won't take very much to do it. Heck I can even write one (since all you need to do is replace the DNS server).
[+] [-] delimitted|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grecy|14 years ago|reply
I thought a major part of SOPA will be censoring sites, not just removing them from DNS. So even if you can resolve them offshore, they are going to be censored versions of the sites you know and love.
[+] [-] thebigshane|14 years ago|reply
Also, the issue between domestic and foreign sites is still a bit vague in regards to SOPA. Supporters claim it only addresses foreign sites but most opponents claim (I think) that domestic sites can also be affected.
[+] [-] vectorpush|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SquareWheel|14 years ago|reply
Then write another program to detect if the user uninstalls the first program.
[+] [-] _bbs|14 years ago|reply
I don't have much experience with FF addons, but I'd like to see exactly what's happening here.
[+] [-] delimitted|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nathanb|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arthurschreiber|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nostromo|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brettnak|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pcvarmint|14 years ago|reply
DeSopa might help against local ISPs who engage in censoring certain domains on their nameservers, something the SOPA legislation might mandate, but it won't help if the domains are seized.
Better would be some kind of P2P DNS system proposed by Peter Sunde of Pirate Bay -- a decentralized replacement for ICANN and DNS.
[+] [-] four|14 years ago|reply
Tamer, you also do a great job of explaining in passionately clear, objective terms, the SOPA agenda, the weaknesses of its assuptions and it's dire consequences.
However, I strongly take issue with your own assumptions about the value of today's internet services.
More » http://caspiandesign.com/2011/12/21/desopa-great-ff-extensio...
[+] [-] vlod|14 years ago|reply
Wondering if moving to another non US controlled TLD would work.
e.g piratebay.org would also have piratebay.ly which everyone would go to if SOPA took down their .org site
[+] [-] EwanG|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryusage|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] telemekus|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seanp2k2|14 years ago|reply