

Kaspersky Dumps Anti-Piracy Group in SOPA Protest - bane
http://torrentfreak.com/kaspersky-dumps-anti-piracy-group-in-sopa-protest-111205/

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dchest
Here's a blog post by Eugene Kaspersky:
<http://eugene.kaspersky.ru/2011/12/05/polnaya-sopa/> (in Russian). Points:

* He doesn't like the fact that SOPA doesn't defend the interests of non-US based authors, while at the same time deals with non-US infringers. That is, you can infringe the rights of non-Americans everywhere but American's interests must be obeyed everywhere.

* BSA didn't even talk with their members before stating their position.

* SOPA opens a way for lawyers to sue the hell out of every website.

* He doesn't defend pirates, but he would become one if the only way to acquire music and movies were to buy CD/DVD.

He quotes someone: "There's a movie in the torrents. If I download it, I'm a
criminal, if not -- I'm an idiot." Laws like SOPA divide the world into
criminals and idiots.

He then goes on to say that the old way of distributing things ("the age of
vinyl records") is dying and defending businesses that try to keep their
current business models ("dinosaurs with nut-sized brains") with SOPA-like
laws is akin to taxing email in favor of postal services, pricing Skype calls
at the level of long-distance phone calls, etc.

He's position is:

1\. Kill SOPA.

2\. Retire dinosaurs.

3\. Distribute content using new ways:

\- Low quality -- for free.

\- Medium quality -- cheap and fast.

\- High (professional) quality -- expensive.

Finally, he says that his antivirus is not a product, it's a service that
provides antiviral base updates, and he doesn't care how a user acquires his
software.

~~~
d0mine
btw, the title "Полная SOPA" alludes to a bad situation without a good
possible way out (~"total fuck up").

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CWuestefeld
This is good news, and I'm a Kaspersky user.

However, I'm a little dubious, given his previous comments against anonymity
on the Internet:

\- - QUOTE - -

"Everyone should and must have an identification, or internet passport," he
was quoted as saying. "The internet was designed not for public use, but for
American scientists and the US military. Then it was introduced to the public
and it was wrong...to introduce it in the same way."

Kaspersky, whose comments are raising the eyebrows of some civil liberties
advocates, went on to say such a system shouldn't be voluntary.

"I'd like to change the design of the internet by introducing regulation -
internet passports, internet police and international agreement - about
following internet standards," he continued. "And if some countries don't
agree with or don't pay attention to the agreement, just cut them off."

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/16/kaspersky_rebukes_ne...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/16/kaspersky_rebukes_net_anonymity/)

~~~
count
At what point does a privately owned network connected to other privately
owned networks become 'the Internet'?

My lack of political understanding coupled with a knowledge of how the
'Internet' actually exists and functions make it seem almost impossible for
regulation to have any effect.

~~~
dsl
Think of the internet like the roads here in the US. Once you connect up
"your" road to any of the other roads that are connected together, you can
drive pretty much anywhere that also has a road.

At its core, "The Internet" is equal parts CenturyLink, Telecom Italia,
Verizon, Sprint, TeliaSonera, NTT, Deutsche Telekom, Level 3, Tata, and AT&T.
Following my above example, all of these companies have really big freeways
that are all interconnected. If your road, or the bigger road you connected
to, connects to one of these major freeways, you can be confident that you can
reach any destination that also has a road. If Verizon were to disconnect its
freeways from Sprint, the Internet would be "broken."

~~~
count
I think you misunderstand my lack of understanding. I'm very familiar with the
Internet, peering (settlement free or otherwise), 'default free zone', etc.

What I'm asking is, given that there is NO public infrastructure (in the US at
least, again, going back to my question), at what point does a private set of
interconnected networks become 'the Internet' for regulatory and oversight
purposes?

Does a large set of MPLS tunnel over a different providers networks constitute
part of The Internet?

Does just the circuit path within the territory of the United States
constitute the 'Internet' as far as the USG is concerned? Do we need filtering
routers on every border? What happens when I peer with a different provider
over a new circuit that's not connected to the current Internet? At what scale
does that become 'the Internet Too'? I2, Lambda Rail, ESNet, etc. There are
dozens of HUGE, international, not-the-internet networks running IP with IANA
assigned address space, etc. Do these count as 'The Internet'?

When Cogent and L3 decide to have another spat and de-peer, and the world now
has two congruent but unequal routing tables, without full reachability or
visibility, which one is The Internet? Do we now have 2 Internets?

And back to the Public Infrastructure - does the US presume to provide rules
and regulations over the national infrastructure of other countries? Many
nation states have monopoly, government owned network / phone service
providers - does the US really think they can dictate what those other
countries do? And if the regulations only apply to stuff 'physically' in the
US...well, what's physically mean in a virtualized, cloudy world?

To use your analogy - I own the property and the pavement of the roads around
my house, and they are NOT public roads (ie: private development, shopping
mall, etc.). The DoT doesn't enforce any law, such as speed limit, equipment
condition, etc. on these types of setups - only on the Public Infrastructure.
The Internet is just a bunch of these private shopping malls connected to each
other - there are NO public roads (in the US at least).

------
rbanffy
My only question is how long it will take for Microsoft to follow.

~~~
sukuriant
they already did:
<http://informationweek.com/news/government/policy/232200069>

HN Thread regarding it: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3267861>

~~~
rbanffy
I believe Microsoft is still a member of the BSA.

~~~
freehunter
Yes, and the BSA opposes SOPA, as per the Information Week link

>In a blog post, Business Software Alliance (BSA) president and CEO Robert
Holleyman said that, while he believes the proposed SOPA legislation, (H.R.
3261) is well intended, it's too sweeping in its current form.

~~~
rbanffy
Yes, _now_ they oppose it. After learning we were watching and paying
attention. After an overwhelming majority of computer users and companies very
vocally opposed it.

And, IIRC, Microsoft didn't make any public statement regarding SOPA. It's
assumed they pressured the BSA's president to change the institution's
opinion.

~~~
sukuriant
Isn't that a good thing?

(disclaimer because it might matter: MS Employee)

~~~
nitrogen
It's definitely better than nothing, but a public statement would earn more
good will from the public. One possible reason _not_ to make a public
statement is if they are trying to stay on the good side of SOPA proponents,
too.

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ew6082
Good for Kapersky, but their opposition doesn't carry much weight. They have a
financial interest in continued piracy and other skullduggery leading to more
infected computers.

