PROTECT IP Act : A win for lawyers, epic fail for I.P. holders

Sen. Patrick Leahy's PROTECT IP act is an excellent example of what happens when someone (or worse, a group of someones) tries to solve a problem that they do not understand.

The private litigation aspect will create a mountain of frivolous lawsuits, keeping the lawyers happy, while real Intellectual Property protection will suffer irreparable damage, and piracy will advance to a whole new level.

The problem is that this bill, and any like it, are based on the idea that the government controls the internet. Unfortunately, it would be more true to say that the government controls the government controlled internet.

Efforts to take down offending websites have already met with new, game changing tools that allows web surfers to browse "taken down" websites as if nothing happened.

This incremental loss of official control of the WWW namespace came as a direct result of ignorantly crafted policy, and it represents an unprecedented and irreversible loss of centralized control.

This is a critical trend that we are likely to see more of, and could ultimately result in a web space that is not controllable by any central authority, and is a much more secure and efficient tool for IP infringers, while dealing a critical blow to companies operating on the "official" WWW.

Regulators and litigators would be much better off not forcing their adversaries to go underground, because once down the rabbit hole, construction will begin in earnest on the darknet, and there will be no  way to put that particular genie back in the bottle, short of shutting down the internet in its present form.

Websites promoting infringing content are just the beginning - there already exist anonymous payment systems, distributed, anonymous data stores, and more - they have just not grown much because the above ground versions worked for just about everything.

With increasing pressure to the namespace and supporting services, the corresponding underground alternatives can only grow in popularity, functionality, and efficiency, not only making cybercrime safer and less traceable, but also directly hurting legitimate services.

Unfortunately, many politicians are more interested in appeasing special interests than in learning about the subject matter that they are attempting to govern, so we will probably continue to see these counterproductive, lawyer friendly "solutions", instead of intelligent, insightful leadership and policymaking.

I guess it all boils down to the fundamental problem with confronting asymmetrical situations with a symmetrical mindset : Asymmetry.

I for one, for lack of a better idea, intend to sit back and smile while the idiocracy builds the high speed encrypted cyberpunk internet, using the talented, endless labor pool of rebellious youth and eastern European hackers.....

Lets look at something for a minute:

The War on drugs : An in demand physical substance that must be transported by actual people across actual borders, with guns and stuff. In the 40 years of the official WOD, the market has increased, drugs are stronger, cheaper, and more pure than 40 years ago, and adolescent drug use is exactly where it was in the 1970's.

In summary, in the WOD, we have spent roughly $2.5 Trillion dollars* training our adversaries and perfecting their systems, turning a persistent social problem into a persistent social problem promoted by a multi billion dollar criminal enterprise with its own armies. Yeah Team.

Now, How about a war on piracy**, or should I say a war on copies of music and movies: An in demand, costless product that can be moved invisibly , undetectably, and uninterceptably around the world in seconds, can be hidden with mathematical perfection in encrypted data streams and on free, hijacked repositories worldwide, and it moves on its own through existing transfer mechanisms, no guns required.

The only downside is that there is not very good security on the consumer side, and the distribution mechanisms are still a bit clunky - but not to worry, the US government is about to launch into a multi-billion dollar program to train the distributors, improve the quality of their software, and refine their systems.

Oh, good. Finally, my tax dollars advancing the plight of humanity - I haven't felt this good since we started hiring community college dropouts to grope 12 year olds in the airport - Bad Touch, TSA!

Did that seem cynical to you?

* (over $1T directly, not including jail time for personal possession or funds to other governments like Columbia and Mexico for their drug interdiction (distribution?) efforts)

** not a war on REAL piracy, because that wouldn't get campaign funding from special interest groups like the RIAA...

See these stories for recent tragedies in the real war on piracy:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41715530/ns/world_news-africa/t/four-american-hostages-killed-somali-pirates/

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/01/pirates-hijack-danish-yacht-with-three-teens-aboard/