Brookings: CyberSecurity In the Balance - 2 New Bills

[Derek Trotter]

Don't think of anything as too tinfoil hattish anymore.  Not too long 
ago, we would have thought it foolish to think the government would tell 
us what kind of light bulbs we're allowed to buy.  Beginning on January 
1 it will be illegal to make or import 100 watt incandescent light 
bulbs.  It won't be too long before I'll have to shine a flashlight into 
the oven to see if the pizza is done.  I refuse to put one of those cf 
bulbs in there.  I don't want molten plastic and mercury on my tombstone.

Here's something I just thought of.  A list of prohibited websites will 
have everyone scrambling for a copy.  People who are looking to download 
pirated software will be tempted to get a copy of the blacklist so they 
can find ways to get past the blocks to get to sites.  A blacklist will 
only make them easier to find.

Did anyone who read the article that started this thread see anything 
saying either proposed law would even make an attempt to stop usenet?  
Since the laws didn't even mention it, I wonder what newsgroups are 
favored by those in congress.

On 11/17/2011 12:30 PM, Matt Graham wrote:
> From: Eric Shubert<ejs at shubes.net>
>> I haven't read the legislation, but since windoze (xp/vista/7) runs its
>> own resolver (DNS cache), it's conceivable that this might apply to all
>> windoze hosts, depending on how the word "server" is defined.
> Practically all the machines at work have extensive /etc/hosts files in case
> the DNS boxes have a cow.  I wonder if a stupid legislator would consider that
> a "server" in the right circumstances.  If not, I'd think a bunch of people
> would start trading multi-M hosts.bz2 files and not paying as much attention
> to DNS.  If so, really stupid stuff would happen, like saying, "A hosts file
> with more than N entries or entries for @HOSTNAMES is totally evidence that
> the possessor is attempting to subvert various laws!"
>
> That's pretty tinfoil-hattish.  It's also something I could see people doing
> if they were completely idiotic, or thought they could get more money and
> power by doing.
>