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Alexis Ohanian and Dan Kaminsky will address Congress on Jan 18th (forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg)
270 points by nextparadigms on Jan 9, 2012 | hide | past | favorite | 82 comments



Is anyone else irked by Forbes' need to use a "revenge of the nerds" picture there? I feel like the SOPA argument is inherently skewed for most Americans, and it is bitterly unfair.

Pro side: "we're stopping evil foreign counterfeiters, we're helping save American jobs, we're looking out for your safety."

Con side: "complicated sounding tech mumbo jumbo, this will break the internet, and some references to Libya"

Which side would you support if you didn't know any better?

SOPA affects more than just the "nerds." How can the messaging be improved? How can it be made more compelling to resonate more with laypeople?

Why aren't the "influential" people focusing on the message?


I agree. This is why I'll be dressed more like a businessman than a nerd, like the last time: https://plus.google.com/113164038788726940319/posts/ab9eFgmo...


Would you consider open-sourcing the preparation of your address? You'd still retain full control of what you actually say (how would anyone stop you?) but you could potentially have a lot of very sharp researchers/designers/copywriters (hilariously enough, I suspect pure programming skills would be the least useful here) going over every inch of it and providing statistics, infographics, drawings, suggestions, etc. Between HN and /r/SOPA, it could very well be helpful.


I tried this with a Google doc on /r/technology before my last trip to DC and it failed miserably, but I'd love to try again. http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/meg8w/im_hoping_...


I know your personal convictions in crowdsourcing this kind of stuff may be completely opposed to my recommendations... but please consider contacting specialists who you may know by their contribution to social sites instead of relying on crowdsourcing. It's my belief that the true power of online social communities rely on the kind of people that wouldn't interact with each other if it not where because of the internet.

I particularly think that for example tptacek or trotsky (the HN user, however she/he has himself called as in meatspace eludes me) would be interesting people, where I in your position, to discuss this with at least briefly. I myself have certain first hand experience with internet protocols, information security, and left leaning politics, and my arguments would look like crayon written babbling compared to what they may come up with in a discussion about SOPA.


Possible topic: bogus take-down requests from the entertainment industry. Some examples:

* Phony copyright claim suppressing a news report (about this very issue): http://boingboing.net/2011/12/15/universal-music-uses-false-...

* A blog that got seized for a year (under the current DHS program) for putting up four clips that had been given to it _by the record company_ for promotional purposes: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57339569-281/dhs-abruptly-...

There's plenty more; EFF probably has a more complete list on file someplace...


What happened with the Google doc? Did it just get inundated with memes or something?

A GDoc might not be the answer here (my mind is actually drawn to Google Wave for some reason---something with a short feedback loop), and there may be no technological answer(someone smart [who may even end up being me]: this is a pain point worth pursuing), but I do know that without a core basic skeleton and background info (if all you've got so far is a list of points you want to hit, that's the "source" of your address), there's nothing the community can do.

I'm not trying to be pushy, just realistic. Good luck!


Well, we can at least arm you with all the helpful information we can dig up. Personally, I would hammer on a few main points: SOPA is ineffective, expensive and dangerous. Build from there. Lead with your best arguments, cull the weak ones, hammer on them with the points they're least able to refute.

* Ineffective

Australia had a bill like this (which is dead... for now), but also did some trials. Read the reports to see how big a failure that was (scroll down to "Live filtering trials"):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Austral...

Even if you have full control of a network, it's not so easy to keep pirates off of it. Why else would there be pirates on the RIAA's own network?

https://torrentfreak.com/riaa-someone-else-is-pirating-throu...

And there are already countermeasures, so the law has been rendered obsolete even before being passed:

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/285170,firefox-add-on-circumve...

* Expensive

As you of all people know, these new requirements would be incredibly taxing for startups, preventing new jobs from being created. This would require every site to implement filters, slowing everything, raising costs and blocking innocent things by mistake. The CATO institute has shown, using the MPAA's own research, that it won't even save one job all told:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120104/04545217274/cato-i...

Their numbers are overblown:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100801/17431810439.shtml

http://www.publicknowledge.org/blog/playing-numbers-why-sopa...

How much will this cost? I could make up a number. Indeed, a lot of numbers have been made up in support of SOPA already. We've already established that it will be ineffective, so the benefits are approximately zero, making it difficult to justify any cost. So rather than inventing numbers, I will point instead to what I do know, that these are the people who will be paying the price:

https://www.cdt.org/report/growing-chorus-opposition-stop-on...

* Dangerous

Whether they're trying to hijack DNS requests or web pages, censoring firewalls are bad for security, because if you control the device doing the hijacking, you can use it for whatever. Incidentally, existing products like SmartFilter already perform MITM attacks every time you try to visit an https page. In theory, the organization is supposed to add their key to everyone's computer and then they sign a bunch of fake sites with the firewall. When they don't bother doing that, you see it attempting to hack your connection all the time.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111214/18075617093/former...

Or you can refer to these:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120109/10413817347/co-cha...

http://www.publicknowledge.org/blog/managers-amendment-sopa-...

Also, it undermines our own State Department's efforts to promote freedom & democracy abroad.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120105/13282317290/us-sta...

Anyhow, I hope this is enough. Please make any use of this you can. Good luck!


Wow! Very nicely done. Thank you.


You're welcome. I've been following this news for a lot longer than most, so if there's ever anything I can help with, feel free to ask.

Ars & TorrentFreak probably have the most complete original coverage of this stuff if you're ever looking things up or want to find more meat to add to an argument.

Good luck!


Oh, and don't forget Techdirt.com -- I just need a machine to turn reality into a 10 word soundbyte....


Yeah, they're another good source. I wonder if it would be feasible for you to talk to some of their reporters who cover this beat? Some of them have talked to a lot of people and they remember a lot. One of the articles at Ars went over how Hollywood has predicted "DOOM!" for every new tech, including the copier & VCR.

The best serious scholarly legal works are by a guy named William Patry. His books _Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars_ and _How to Fix Copyright_ are the two most relevant here, though it's quite a long read given that you have like 3 days. You may or may not know that name, but he wrote a huge series on copyright law (_Patry on Copyright_) that lawyers use as a reference. He also worked for Google, though he's sick of hearing crap about that. He had exactly the same opinions about copyright law before & after being hired; namely, that they should promote progress. Congress, meanwhile, cares more about money issues, as always. Still, that's a point you probably do need to keep in mind when talking to them.

Hollywood is posting record profits, BTW. I think TF had an article about that a month or so back. Their numbers are all ass-pulls, not unlike their crazy accounting techniques. Might be worth hitting them on their lack of math, because they've screwed more than a few artists that way. Our problem isn't with the artists, it's with the industry.

Might also want to come up with some soundbites. Find some questions you're almost sure to be asked and have short, witty replies waiting for them. Bounce them off some friends/supports in private first to make sure they work, though. We'll be rooting for you.


Well, since he can do whatever he wants, why not just see if the internets can do it for him regardless?

https://www.stypi.com/niels/kn0thingComments

update after 30 minutes: 12 people have visited to stare and possibly replay my one abandoned attempt. No one has done anything. Anyone care to help?


on Bloomberg you called us [tech nerds] job creators, and said "more government isn't the solution". Please, for the love of god, run for office.


Please, for the love of god, run for office.

He could. Alexis is one of the few people I've met and within minutes thought "oh, so this is what charisma looks like" (and as pg has observed, charisma is ultimately what gets people elected).


LOL. Thanks. But I'm 100% unelectable.


Wait, on that point (less government, not running for office), you might want to hammer on why tech entrepreneurs believe that. Say something like:

"We look at a problem like piracy and we don't see the need for more government, we see the opportunity for more business. In the 90s and early 2000s, the music industry was being hammered by things like Napster. Now, they're finally starting to get past piracy. But it wasn't Government that saved them, it was iTunes. It was Spotify and rdio and a bunch of smart entrepreneurs finding better ways to get content to consumers. iTunes didn't beat Napster and its successors because of the Government, and it certainly didn't beat them because it was cheaper. It beat them because it was better.

That's what we tech entrepreneurs strive to do: fix problems. Companies like Netflix are trying to solve movie piracy by getting consumers the content they want, how they want it. They're not there yet, but there's massive opportunity awaiting whoever finds the solution. SOPA won't get us closer to the solution; it will take us further away. It won't stop piracy, but it will stop innovation. It will bury entrepreneurs like myself under a cloud of uncertainty and legal costs.

Right now, sitting in a class at Stanford or MIT, there's a nerd who will figure out a way to solve piracy and get filthy rich and create thousands of jobs in the process. Don't stop him; get out of his way and let him do what government can't."


Awesomesauce. Thanks. Good points here that echoed stuff I've already got in this testimony but with punch.


Why? I'm confused. You'd win the internet vote in a landslide.


Teens don t vote


Awww. ;_;


That look doesn't work any better than would Mitt Romney in a hoodie.

You don't look comfortable in your own clothes.


Dude, you look like a Nerd dressed as a businessman. All good tho'.


I have to agree. He should try to smile less, and look more serious. It's serious stuff we're talking about after all. You won't see Lamar Smith look that happy.


Yes. This is not about some geeks with a minor website, it's about a multi-trillion dollar [1] industry being sabotaged by some old school media companies that can't adapt to the new world. What's more, what they want to do won't even solve their problem.

[1] Ok, I don't know how big the internet industry, but no-one else seems to know either, and worldwide it's probably in that ballpark - and most likely everyone will be affected.


This is not just about media companies. SOPA is part of a barrier to blockade anything that may violate any Intellectual Property. This includes selling pharmaceuticals from Canada, edge case property violations like a handbag that looks similar to Gucci's latest model, but doesn't use the brand name, electronics that may violate a patent in the manufacturing process but the end product is not similar to anything else on the market.

If you think its just the RIAA/MPAA pushing this agenda, look no further than the money flow and you see its the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that is the largest supporter. Downloading bittorrents is just the poster boy for this campaign.


You cannot trademark or copyright a handbag, or other fashion design, in the United States. Your edge case doesn't exist.


Not legally. But with SOPA, Gucci could certainly get a website selling such handbags shut down for a long time, with a minimum of fuss or risk.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent If SOPA goes through as some intend it, it won't matter if the "plaintiff" is correct or not about infringement of design or any other form of IP, there will be no plaintiff in the traditional sense, just a complaint and a web site that disappears.


I've heard piracy costs the world economy 18 billion jobs and $200 trillion in lost revenue, so you're probably in the right ball-park.


The usual way for calculating those numbers has faulty assumptions. It assumes that price of software pirated equals amount of revenue lost. It also assumes that if piracy were absolutely not possible, the customer would be willing and able to pay full price for the software. Both assumptions rest on shaky foundations.


The most important point is that the money people "save" by not spending it on software or music or movies, gets spent somewhere else in the economy. For the media industry to get a few billion dollars more of revenue, other industries have to get a few billion dollars less of revenue, which in turn leads to a loss of jobs.

The amount of disposable income in a country doesn't magically increase whenever some actors on the market want it to.


The issue at hand isn't businesses being sabotaged, but rather , nobody wants the world to go back to ironcurtains being drawn and government has the monopoly on truth.


I'm just curious how bankers and the like value industries. Do they value them by the total sum of all company valuations, total sum of all company revenues or total sum of all company profits? Or something entirely different? If anyone in the industry knows could you enlighten me?


Whichever gets you the figure you want at the time. There's no real standard that's followed. The figures really only matter in context anyway; they mean nothing in a vacuum.


I think governments care about the amount of tax they generate, which is mostly the salary bill and the profit.


The usage of "nerds" by several of the US Representatives bothers me a lot. It's already putting up a wall and does invoke the "revenge of the nerds" picture. My wife (who is not in tech.) even said, "at least we know where all the jocks and bullies went after graduation, they became senators and congressmen". While her statement was mainly joking, I feel she does hit on a point. That point is that they are further portraying the negativity to education that we see a lot in the US.


How can the messaging be improved? How can it be made more compelling to resonate more with laypeople?

Explain SOPA as (1) censorship and (2) a heavy burden on legitimate business. These are honest ways of describing it in everyday terms, and at least one of those points should resonate with almost any American, whatever their political identity.

Given the time to lay out a clearer case, explain that even if you agree with some of the intentions behind SOPA, it’s unlikely to be effective at stopping piracy. If passed, it would probably have to be at least partly rolled back.

And explain that the kind of highly creative, small-time artists whom people instinctively want to defend are, in general, hurt by draconian IP policy.

I think this is realistic and counteracts the impression that people who object to SOPA are all Professor Frink.


Censorship is the wrong approach. Our current regime is anti-civil liberty (free speech included). You need to use the right language against them.

SOPA regulations will increase the size of our government, cost millions of jobs, and billions of dollars in market value, while destroying America's technological edge. The legislation hurts small businesses(how can they have blog comments without being sued under SOPA). Also, you need to find a way to call the bill a tax increase.


SOPA 'Technology Tax' will push innovation offshore.


How can the messaging be improved? How can it be made more compelling to resonate more with laypeople?

The major social networks could protest by temporarily disabling the profiles of politicians that support SOPA. Might be a good precursor to a larger voluntary blackout.

edit: hmm, downvotes. Would anyone care to elaborate on why such a protest would be a bad idea?


Put yourself in the shoes of a politician. You're an elderly alpha male; you don't understand the internet but you feel vaguely threatened by it.

Now, the internet attacks you. You personally. It shuts down some "profile" thing your staffers set up.

How do you react?


I would start the message by stressing that the SOPA WONT stop piracy. A 13 y old kid can bypass the name-to-IP problem in just about two minutes.


While true, I'd worry that arguing this point carries the risk of shifting the discussion away from "Should the U.S. begin censoring the Internet?" to "How can the U.S. effectively censor the Internet?"


Tell them that if SOPA passes, there might very well be no more YouTube, no more Facebook, no more Tumblr.


I think that is what they want.


Tell them that if SOPA passes, socialist European countries will be more free than America.


They are already. They dont care about that.


With euro bashing in the agenda* I thought it would be a popular argument

*: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,808044,00.h...


Alexis, please consider explaining why Congress has not heard what you and the other experts are there to say. If I was to say it myself, I would say "I'm sorry for putting you in this position. You're in this position because Washington does not undertand technology. And that is because technology does not understand Washington. We need to change that."

Part of the problem is that the RIAA and MPAA have active lobbying efforts. We don't need to frame it as "buying influence," just that if one set of people are the only ones around explaining a problem and its solutions, that's all they're going to know. The technology industry needs lobbyists heading off these sorts of issues by actively explaining to Congress people the implications of doing this sort of thing.

I imagine that something they will think is, "If what these people are saying is true, and the consequences are so dire, how is it possible that I didn't hear this before?" This explanation answers that question, and, I think, makes the technical explanations and their wider implications more believable.


This is a step in the right direction, but this level of action should not stop after SOPA. The tech industry is so large and powerful in this current era that it's due time that it begin to develop a more powerful voice in Washington.

SOPA has made it this far because our congress does not have a reliable technology lobby to educate our lawmakers. SOPA would have been killed already if this lobby existed in full strength; and this industry has the funds to have actually created this presence many years ago.

We should focus on stopping SOPA, of course, but after this episode, something needs to be put in place to prevent this from happening again.


Who is large and powerful in the tech industry? Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe... they all have their own long-established lobbying efforts in place.

Unfortunately, they don't care about the internet; the net is actually disruptive of their business model, for the most part. You can look at BSA's position to see what "big money" from the tech industry really wants. For them, Google, Facebook etc, are uppity competitors, and they'd love to see them cut to size by the government.

So it's rather the internet-based industry, rather than the generic "tech world", who should improve their lobbying. FB, Google and Twitter execs should start cashing in some of those umpteen photo-ops with Obama, threatening to sponsor and enable primary challengers for everyone who will vote for bad bills. Even better, threaten to silently downrank specific politicians on their sites: "we can do censorship too, let's see how you hurt when people can't find your donation page".


I hate to break it to you, Apple, Microsoft and the rest: they're all essentially internet-based. If Apple doesn't care about the internet, they need to have a long, hard think about why people are buying their products. How many iPads are they going to sell when people can only access a crippled version of Facebook and Twitter is shut down?

The technology industry as it is today exists almost exclusively because of the ubiquity of the internet. Companies whose products stand to suffer directly from SOPA are not the only tech companies that should be worried; any company whose profits are a result of the proliferation of the internet should be scared of SOPA. That's almost every single tech company out there.


Eh, go tell the BSA... I bet Microsoft would thrive in a censored internet as much as it did in the pre-internet days.


Perhaps. But I worry those lobbying voices would only in the end represent big money, and not necessarily the small entrepreneurs and creators. I can imagine a future where a powerful tech lobby augments a bill like SOPA to benefit the existing big players, and locks other (small) competitors out.

I don't think we can fight fire with fire.

I do think that the widespread opposition to SOPA has united many. Organizations which represent our common interests and already have widespread support, need to be further supported, the EFF etc.

I would be skeptical of efforts from players to throw lots of money at a new organisation 'in Washington' in the hope that it does the work. Good and effective organizations already exist, they need your activism and they need your funding. :-)


True, but I wasn't really referring to us (small firms, freelancers, etc.) but the big companies. Its practically laughable to take out a NY times ad [0], when each of these companies (or their respective founders) could pledge a hundred grand a quarter and dramatically change the industry's presence.

This could be used against small business, but that's not really my point either. I guess my point is that if you won't "play the game," you'll always end up losing, and there's too many billions of dollars at stake to not play the game. Why should Google struggle for years in youtube-based court litigation when they could have stopped SOPA at inception?

Many industries (pharmaceuticals, energy, chemicals) understand this. They don't particularly like it, but they also understand that its in the best interest of their industry's long term growth. I think Internet powerhouses are beginning to realize this now too.

[0] http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/internet-titans-fight-sopa-...

EDIT- This is also just a thought: how many lunches, golf outings, and "beer summits" with Sen. Leahy and Rep. Lamar and their respective staff would that NY Times Ad have bought. I'm willing to wager that the RIAA and big content do.


I've been pleased with the folks at engineadvocacy.org and I'm hoping this can be a long-term solution. They're non-partisan and solely focused on lobbying on behalf of the tech entrepreneur, plain and simple.


These guys are what I've been dreaming of. Thanks! Now you should casually point Reddit their direction :)


> Opponents of the Stop Online Piracy Act, the bill that threatens to block large swathes of foreign websites for alleged copyright infringement, have complained that Congress has yet to hear their voice.

Foreign websites? This, combined with the fact that they're referred to once as 'haters' and twice as 'nerds', makes me think that Forbes is worthless at writing about anything except how rich blue-chip CEOs are.


Not defending Forbes, but the bill was amended to only apply to sites outside US jurisdiction.

"Lamar’s amendments also clarify that sites ending in .com, .org and .net are not covered by the bill. Only foreign sites fall under SOPA’s wrath."

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/12/sopa-watered-down-a...


It's not a coincidence that the amendment only exempts domains that the US can already censor via ICE. Hardly a concession at all, really.

http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/1011/101129washington.htm


So co.uk sites are a go. Please explain what gives US the right to do that? Especially without due process.


Why wouldn't they have the right? The DNS servers in question are physically in US territory. And due process is part of the bill: in the current version a domain takedown requires a court order. Weak protection to be sure, given the army of lawyers the MPAA has lined up and the tendency of some judges to rubber-stamp legitimate-seeming orders, but not strictly speaking a due-process issue.


IANA is only under (US-based) ICANN control because of the grudging agreement of the rest of the world. There have been arguments to remove control over the DNS root from US jurisdiction, but each time the US Government and ICANN have promised not to do something like SOPA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_zone_file#Root_server_sup...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Corporation_for_Assig...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Assigned_Numbers_Auth...


Why wouldn't they have the right? The DNS servers in question are physically in US territory.

Well in the US we have this thing called "constitutional rights" which say, among other things, that Congress shall make no law "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press".

Laws blocking results returned from a DNS server is just about the closest thing imaginable to "abridging a press" in the 21 century.


A domain takedown, sure, but not a payment-processing and ad-serving ban, which may as well be a takedown for 99+% of sites.


That actually comes far closer the censorship measures currently being considered across the middle-east, not to mention China's Great Firewall.


On a totally off-topic note: I don't know a large number of successful individuals, but I have to say that Mr Ohanian is among the most approachable, good people I've met so far.

I wish some of the "successful" individuals I know back home would learn a lesson or two from people like him...

(brace for the downvotes)


Ignore the downvotes :) thanks! I hope this is part of the reason why they've invited me back to DC.


Someone [a designer probably] needs to make one of those really nicely designed micro-sites with a really clear explaination of why SOPA is bad.

For example this is nice: http://rogerdudler.github.com/git-guide/ but what if the same effort could go into explaining SOPA to lay people (and politicians)?


What will happen if SOPA passes? I don't mean the legal consequences, but rather: will we just create a new way to exchange DNS information, such as a giant hosts file distributed over BitTorrent that contains the addresses of most popular websites? Or will the geeks shrug this one off and move on, just with half of the Internet going dark?

The way I see it, the internet has always found a way to adapt in the past, and the greater the threat, the more ingenious the solution. Currently, bunch of people on Reddit are trying to build an (IMHO) hopeless mesh network, but the real need is not there yet. What happens if SOPA goes through and we can no longer use the internet as is and the need becomes urgent?


> What will happen if SOPA passes?

I'm going to close Facebook down by regularly posting links to copyrighted files and 'letting the authorities know'.

I cant wait.

edit: What a completely ridiculous situation this is


I find it interesting that technical arguments will be heard but there will be no debate about liberty and the 1st amendment.


Is there really an obvious 1st-amendment issue here? SOPA is a censorship tool with great potential for abuse, but as written and intended it targets IP infringement, a very narrow category of speech that our society has already decided to censor. The 1st amendment will come into play when Congress wants to censor more, not merely censor better.


Prior restraint is the biggest 1st-amendment issue possible (as expressed by SCOTUS in several opinions), and shutting down sites based on a say-so and a court order that the site "looks infringing" is prior restraint.


If I'm not mistaken SOPA can take down websites that merely link to infringing sites. I believe that is very dangerous for the Internet, because it's what it's built on, and it's also very dangerous for freedom of speech. Linking is speech.


What needs to be addressed more than anything is the capricious wording of the legislation, and how it puts an extreme amount of power into a very select few individuals who remain hidden behind drawn curtain.

More than any inconvenience this provides for a company which operates on the web, this is censorship in its highest form.


While it's nice that opposition to SOPA is getting some traction, the passage of the 2012 NDAA slipped by with little fanfare. Criticism and debate of that legislation are moot now. though NDAA is not a technological issue of itself, sections 1021 and 1022 still diminish our civil liberties much more effectively.

I'm glad to see the knowledge-worker communities rallying around a topic peripheral to our basic freedoms, but I fear we've missed the boat on this one. Regrettably, pizza sauce in school lunches was not the only bit of smoke and mirrors foist upon us.


Dan needs to maintain his composure when talking about DNS.


Ask them if they've ever seen one of these:

74.125.224.49

Then tell them that if THEY have seen IP addresses, then the pirates that are trading copyright material online certainly have, and that with just an IP address, SOPA can be circumvented.


SOPA provides for DNS and IP blacklisting. In fact, there was even a failed amendment to take the IP blacklisting out.


I believe this video explains it very nicely in businessman's / lawmaker's terms: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhwuXNv8fJM




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