[StBernard] SOPA: What You Should Know & Why Dyn Opposes It

[Westley Annis]

Are you familiar with the Great Firewall Of China? Sometimes referred to as
the Golden Shield project, it's a Chinese government censorship and Internet
surveillance project kicked off in 1998 and put into action in 2003. Simply
put, it enables the government to restrict what content its citizens can
read and view via IP blocking and DNS filtering. If they don't like a site
request a user makes, it won't get viewed.

Many dismiss what's happening in China and chalk to up to their communist
political system. That could never happen in a free speech-driven, rights
for all society like we have in the United States, right?

If the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) introduced this week gets enacted into
law, things could change negatively for Americans which is why Dyn opposes
the bill.

What Is SOPA?
The goal of the bill is to "expand the ability of federal law enforcement to
shut down foreign Web sites and services that use counterfeited or pirated
content created by U.S. firms." It was introduced by Texas Republican Lamar
Smith earlier this week as a companion to the Protect IP bill introduced
that would punish those web entities that host unauthorized, copyrighted
content like movies, software, songs and anything else that can be illegally
downloaded.

While online piracy is obviously bad, this is the wrong way to go about
fighting it. We understand why the groups like the Motion Picture
Association of America and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are supporting the
bill as piracy of content costs the original producers/distributors tens of
billions of dollars. They're desperate for a solution to recoup that lost
revenue. This isn't it.

Why We're Opposed To It
Web companies like Google, Yahoo and some of our fellow DNS providers like
OpenDNS have strongly come out in opposition to SOPA and for good reason.
Essentially, this bill would give the government more control into shutting
down websites they don't agree with in general. Anti-American sentiment
promoted on Twitter, Tumblr or another one of our clients that promotes free
discourse? Both the sites themselves and Dyn as their DNS provider could be
penalized for simply providing a conduit in which someone can access or
promote views the government doesn't agree with - regardless of whether the
source is based in the U.S. or not.

The Great Firewall of America? Yep, kinda feels like that. SOPA is a shot
across the bow of free speech and as one of the largest Internet IaaS
companies in the world, we cannot endorse it in any way, shape or form.

What Can You Do?
If you're against this act, we urge that you e-sign this petition to 'Stop
The E-Parasite Act'. The initial goal was to get 25,000 signatures by the
end of November and as I write this, there are more than 40,000. Clearly,
this is a movement that is gaining momentum.

You can also contact your local government officials and tell them you
oppose SOPA. The more people that are heard, the more the government will
understand that this level of control over today's Internet is unneeded and
unwanted. We don't often rally the troops for causes such as this, so
hopefully this post gets across the impact of how strongly we oppose SOPA.

http://is.gd/tZjhyo
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/stop-e-parasite-act/SWBYXX5
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Westley