Fwd: [ NNSquad ] Belarus Is Now Home to the Internet's Most Insane Law

[Nuno Garcia]

Hi Alex.

Indeed there are too many questions in these two issues. The first one is
related to the narrow-sightnedness of law makers in these countries. Using
an analogy, data and information are a lot like water - you need to control
it (so you can use it for the right purposes), but if you lock it too
tight, it will somehow find an escape route.

I am very concerned that the example from Belarus may inspire other
countries into doing the same.

And the same reasoning is applicable to SOPA and PIPA, I think.

These schemes are all but an invitation to build an underground Internet.

Imagine you are in the US and you need to access a forbidden site. Say you
type www.pirata101.org (to use the portuguese word for pirate). Your
browser will tell you "Ops! BrowserX could not find www.pirata101.org"
because it searched the DNS tree and the answer was that this name is not
registered.

But imagine that alongside with this, your browser does also tell you
"Would you like me to try the alternative DNS database?" and answering yes,
you would end up looking the name in an completely independent DNS system.
It would not even had to have the same syntax. It could be something like
www-pirata101-org or www~pirata101~global or whatever string you fancy to
use (check http://www.dashworlds.com/).

You would use the browser as an intermediate DNS broker, placing queries
that could be answered by the software of the browser manufacturer, in the
cloud, somewhere where your lawmakers could not get their teeth at. Your
standard TCP/IP protocols would still be able to work because for these
what really matters is the IP address (IPv4 or IPv6 address) of the end
machine. And, in the event of the country firewall blocking the IP address
(like many corporate firewalls do), even then, the content could be
transmitted through changing IPs (not too hard to do in the IPv6 space) or
though a general purpose gateway somewhere in the cloud.

I tried to talk about this sometime ago - I sincerely believe that the fate
of ICANN and of the DNS structure relies in the hands of the browser
manufacturers or, in the hand of software developers who can build
extensions that circumvent or complement the current DNS query system.

For me it boils down to this: if politicians and lobbies try to control
(own) the Internet like they seem to be so eager to do, this will happen
sooner or later. Let me give you a hint: every rookie knows that if you
want to find a movie to download, Google is not the place to start looking
for it.

Now, we are on the verge of disrupting the Internet status quo. I'm not
sure if this is good or bad in itself, but, it will surely be a whole lot
different.

Getting back to Alex's question: in Africa, as well in developping
countries (I've been teaching a PhD course in Addis Ababa last year - what
an enriching experience!), using a free and coherent Internet is a powerful
tool for development (I can't even imagine what is the idea on the Belarus
politicians' heads). I remember my early college days - we used a pirate
copy of Borland's Turbo Pascal (sorry Borland, than you for that!). And I
can surely tell you that while I do not advocate for piracy at all, I share
the thoughts of a policeman who fined me 250 euros last month: "I rather
see a person in the street selling a counterfeit t-shirt, than see it rob a
person at the point of a gun". I would add, I would rather see that person
in a regular job, or in school, but helas, our world is not perfect.
Sometimes (many times) because of politicians like the ones behind Belarus
laws and SOPA or PIPA projects.

Warm regards to all, and please enjoy the New Year,

Nuno Garcia

On 3 January 2012 20:07, Alex Gakuru <gakuru at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks Nuno. Coudn't help reflect on "What does SOPA/PIPA mean for Africa?
>
> http://codepolitical.blogspot.com/2012/01/what-sopa-pipa-mean-for-africa.html
> Regards, Alex.
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 9:10 PM, Nuno Garcia <ngarcia at ngarcia.net> wrote:
>
>> Hi all.
>>
>> Geographically Belarus is part of Europe.
>>
>> And these are extremely bad news.
>>
>> BR,
>>
>> Nuno Garcia
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren at vortex.com>
>> Date: 3 January 2012 17:54
>> Subject: [ NNSquad ] Belarus Is Now Home to the Internet's Most Insane Law
>> To: nnsquad at nnsquad.org
>>
>>
>>
>> Belarus Is Now Home to the Internet's Most Insane Law
>>
>> http://j.mp/xIK0Vk  (Gizmodo)
>>
>>   "Belarus: small. Proud. Kvass-drinking. A long history of dubious human
>>    rights and piddling dictatorship. And now, bound to a law that makes
>>    it illegal to browse foreign websites."
>>
>>  - - -
>>
>> --Lauren--
>> NNSquad Moderator
>> _______________________________________________
>> nnsquad mailing list
>> http://lists.nnsquad.org/mailman/listinfo/nnsquad
>>
>>
>>
>
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