***

 

 

 

“The nightmarish SOPA hearings” (cont’d from previous post)

Petri’s main beef with the Smith Committee is they’re unembarrassed, even proud, of their appalling inability to grasp anything technically relevant to the task at hand:

If I had a dime for every time someone in the hearing markup used the phrase “I’m not a nerd” or “I’m no tech expert, but they tell me . . .,” I’d have a large number of dimes and still feel intensely worried about the future of the uncensored Internet. If this were surgery, the patient would have run out screaming a long time ago. But this is like a group of well-intentioned amateurs getting together to perform heart surgery on a patient incapable of moving. “We hear from the motion picture industry that heart surgery is what’s required,” they say cheerily. “We’re not going to cut the good valves, just the bad — neurons, or whatever you call those durn thingies.”

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“Dear Congress, It’s No Longer OK To Not Know How The Internet Works”

A piece posted on Mother Board the next day (Dec 16, when Smith adjourned the markup) continued the attack in the same vein. Author Joshua Kopstein, who describes himself as an electronic musician and computer culture journalist, wrote a kind of open letter to Congress, putting them on notice we ain’t gonna put up with their dumb asses any more (my paraphrase: Kopstein calls them “a bunch of jack-asses”… and of course I don’t have actual representation in Congress myself).

Like Petri the Post blogger, Kopstein is really pissed about the cavalier attitude of many of the Committee members to the well-being of the Internet, given how much is at stake – as this is ”legislation that seeks to fundamentally change how the internet works.” The author points to a couple of especially troubling themes in the markup debates. One has to do with security:

“When the security issue was brought up, Rep. Mel Watt of North Carolina seemed particularly comfortable about his own lack of understanding. Grinningly admitting “I’m not a nerd” before the committee, he nevertheless went on to dismiss without facts or justification the very evidence he didn’t understand and then downplay the need for a panel of experts. Rep. Maxine Waters of California followed up by saying that any discussion of security concerns is “wasting time” and that the bill should move forward without question, busted internets be damned.”

What’s astonishing here is the Committee’s outright refusal to bring in expert witnesses to provide a reality check – despite, or maybe because of, their profound lack of technical knowledge. Kopstein again:

“It’d be one thing if legitimate technical questions directed at the bill’s supporters weren’t met with either silence or veiled accusations that the other side was sympathetic to piracy. Yet here we are with a group of elected officials openly supporting a bill they can’t explain, and having the temerity to suggest there’s no need to “bring in the nerds” to suss out what’s actually on it.”

To get an idea of how monumentally irresponsible it is for the bill’s supporters to turn down help with the technicalities, here are the first seven “nerds” whose names appear on the letter of protest I noted in the previous post – the one carrying 83 engineer/inventor signatures (see the whole thing at the EFF page, here):

  • Vint Cerf, co-designer of TCP/IP, one of the “fathers of the Internet”, signing as private citizen
  • Paul Vixie, author of BIND, the most widely-used DNS server software, and President of the Internet Systems Consortium
  • Tony Li, co-author of BGP (the protocol used to arrange Internet routing); chair of the IRTF’s Routing Research Group; a Cisco Fellow; and architect for many of the systems that have actually been used to build the Internet
  • Steven Bellovin, invented the DNS cache contamination attack; co-authored the first book on Internet security; recipient of the 2007 NIST/NSA National Computer Systems Security Award and member of the DHS Science and Technology Advisory Committee
  • Jim Gettys, editor of the HTTP/1.1 protocol standards, which we use to do everything on the Web
  • Dave Kristol, co-author, RFCs 2109, 2965 (Web cookies); contributor, RFC 2616 (HTTP/1.1)
  • Steve Deering, Ph.D., invented the IP multicast feature of the Internet; lead designer of IPv6 (version 6 of the Internet Protocol).
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And now for the least surprising news of all: SOPA-loving pols get big bucks from Big Content

The word is in from the Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group, which follows the flow of money from corporate interests to politicians for sale. Guess what…

Traditional big media firms have contributed more than $5 million to the sponsors of the Stop Online Piracy Act, with California Democratic Reps. Howard Berman and Adam Schiff as the top recipients.

Chairman Smith’s enthusiasm for SOPA probably has something to do with the Foundation’s finding that Smith “has received nearly $400,000 from the TV, music and movies industry during his career, including some recent timely donations from broadcasting and television groups that are lobbying for the bill.”

Of the top four SOPA supporters who’ve received money from the “legacy media,” three are Dems – and they’ve all racked up more in donations than Chairman Smith, who ranks at #5. Here’s the breakdown, taken from the full SOPA supporter list of 25:

Mary Bono Mack is the widow of Sonny Bono and the Republican representative for the district surrounding Palm Springs. She has for years played a lead role in helping Hollywood hang on to its hard-earned money by fighting for more expansive copyright protection – the respectable side of the perpetual war between Content and Pirates. In 1998, Congress passed the Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA). The CTEA earned a pair of nicknames. It was so closely associated with The Walt Disney Company’s fight to extend copyright monopolies and eliminate competition that it was dubbed the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act.” (If I understand correctly, statutory extensions of US copyright law have allowed the Mouse to reach the ripe old age of about 80. He will be in indentured servitude to Disney until 2023, unless of course Congress obliges Disney with yet more extensions.)

The CTEA also became known as the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. That moniker was earned because of Mary Bono Mack’s dedication as one of the bill’s lead supporters. To say these copyright cowboys are in favor of strong statutory protection would be an understatement. Here’s what Bono Mack said to her colleagues in the House during debate on the CTEA (no pointer available for this):

Actually, Sonny wanted the term of copyright protection to last forever. I am informed by staff that such a change would violate the Constitution. As you know, there is also Jack Valenti’s proposal for term to last forever less one day. Perhaps the Committee may look at that next Congress.

Apparently this is not a parody.

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Why Canadians should be worried about SOPA and its spillover 

This is not the place to rehearse all the arguments about why the Harper government’s Copyright Modernization Act (Bill C-11) is less than perfect. Over the past several weeks, Michael Geist has provided an exceptionally detailed guide to the bill’s flaws on his blog, especially those surrounding the digital lock provisions. Back in October, Michael wrote a post that throws light on one of the concerns I have about SOPA – not just the bill itself, but also the reckless political behavior that has been part and parcel of the congressional debates over “piracy.”

In Michael’s October 1 post, entitled Why Canada’s New Copyright Bill Remains Flawed, he describes the American influence over the handling of digital locks – hence his nickname for the provisions, the “Reduce U.S. Pressure Copyright Act”…

The U.S. pressure on Canada is not a secret, with criticism of past bills and regular demands for action on copyright in return for progress on other border and trade issues. As previously reported, Prime Minister Stephen Harper personally promised U.S. President George W. Bush in 2008 that Canada would pass copyright reforms. Former Industry Minister Maxime Bernier raised the possibility of leaking an advance copy of the copyright bill to the U.S., and former Industry Minister Tony Clement’s copyright policy adviser encouraged the U.S. to pressure Canada by elevating us on their piracy watch list.

Whether SOPA passes or not, the behavior of the Tories in regard to copyright legislation shows there’s nothing they won’t do to make Washington happy. Yes please, elevate us on your piracy watch list - politics doesn’t get much scummier than that. (Clement may or may not have helped shape the final version of the Special 301 Report for 2011, which placed the following countries on the Priority Watch List: Algeria, Argentina, Canada, Chile, China, India, Israel, Indonesia, Pakistan, Russia, Thailand and Venezuela.)

Just like the House Judiciary Committee in its reaction to harms to the Internet, Harper and his lead ministers seem oblivious to the counter-arguments of the dozens of technical experts who have weighed in on the harms likely to ensue from the digital locks lockdown. On top of which, they seem more than prepared to cave to both special interests and political expediency. The stubbornness of this government in the digital realm is outweighed only by their mendacious insistence that all is well on the Canadian Internet. I can hardly bring myself to say it yet again… but as you’ll have heard ad nauseam in this blog, Ottawa’s insistence that high-speed Internet is “available” to almost every single household in Canada is a know-nothing’s political slogan as meaningless as what SOPA’s supporters in Congress say about the bill’s real costs and benefits to the public at large. (see Canadian boy makes good, above.)

The Tory mandarins speak (sputter) on IPv6

For those of you tired of my flogging the residential broadband “availability” example, let me resurrect another gem that shows how little the Harper gang knows or cares about the real-world, technical future of the Internet.

Back in February (2011), I published a commentary in the telecom journal Telemanagement entitled: Is there an IPv6 crisis?  The answer depends on whom you ask; but the consensus (based on my research among specialized blogs and an interview with the CTO of Bluecat Networks) was that Canada is way behind the rest of the world, including its main trafing partners. The big punchline came after I made an official inquiry at Treasury Board Secretariat as to the current state of Canada’s public policy on the critical transition from IPv4 to IPv6 (official in the sense of through the media spokesperson; critical in the sense of very important for trade and economic growth). Here’s some setup from that piece (shortened considerably):

Does Canada have a plan?

As I write this, I’m waiting to hear back from the Treasury Board Secretariat in Ottawa. I’ve asked whether or not they have a public-facing policy (or any policy) on the deployment of IPv6 across the networks and websites operated by the federal government.

My inquiry arose after I was unable to find any trace of information about IPv6 on either the Treasury Board or Industry Canada websites. I’m the first to admit that not finding something after a search on the Web may not prove much. On the other hand, I’ve long had issues with the unwillingness or inability of Industry Canada staff to provide even a bare minimum of information online about critical technologies like broadband, whether program-related or of an educational kind. [...]

The current government in Ottawa has made quite a fuss over the last year about why Canada needs to be innovative and competitive in the digital era. This sentiment was spelled out in the digital economy initiative launched last spring. At its core is the perceived need for widespread adoption of ICTs by Canadian businesses, particularly of the small and medium variety. A good argument can be made that IPv6 is the platform upon which most emerging ICTs will depend over the next decade. Does the Harper government agree or not? Was all the brash talk about world-class ICTs just hot air? [...]

Well, you might venture that the brash talk was being kept afloat by something warm and gaseous. Unless you call this 48-word response, more than two business days in the making, an actual strategy:

At press time Telemanagement received the following answer from the Treasury Board Secretariat in response to the question: What is the Government of Canada’s strategy for upgrading to Internet Protocol Version 6?

“The Government of Canada is aware of the technical requirements and the service improvements IPv6 will provide, and will be following a similar direction as other countries for its migration.

“The Treasury Board Secretariat is working with departments to define a path and timelines for migrating to IPv6.”

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This is the kind of response that smells like it was made up on the spot, without any actual referents for “service improvements,” “direction,” “other countries,” “path” or “timelines.” It doesn’t make a person feel super-confident about our Internet future.

I’ll be looking in 2012 at whether Ottawa’s digital divide is showing any signs of improvement – whether the politicians and policymakers with an influence on our online life understand the fundamentals of what they’re dealing with.

Don’t let SOPA happen here.

D.E.