September 29, 2003
Raise Your Hand If You Think DoS Attacks Are Good
Some brief responses to Donna’s/Charlie Nesson’s questions:
What are the objections? The EFF raised many last year in response to the Berman bill. Read it for the specific criticisms – here’s the overall point:
“The proposed law amounts to government-sanctioned vigilantism — copyright owners are given the power to ignore the law in pursuit of those that they decide are guilty. There is no warrant requirement, no trial, no prior notice to the targets, no due process, and very little recourse for innocent bystanders caught in the cross-fire.”
Sounds a heck of a lot like the current criticisms of the DMCA subpoena provision. Both put a great deal of power, without a lot of responsibility, in the hands of anyone who holds a copyright (which means effectively everyone). These hacktivist techniques will inevitably be used against the innocent, for purposes aside from stopping copyright infringement. Perhaps your privacy is more valuable than your computer system’s resources, but I’m not sure that’s enough to allow copyright holders to be vigilantes.
I suppose these measures wouldn’t affect e2e, but they would still have grave consequences for the Internet. As the EFF’s comments note, innocent people on shared connections would be impacted, while ISPs would have to deal with this added hassle.
A broader point about harming ISPs: Put aside, for the moment, arguments about whether the DMCA safe harbors are too strong or too weak. Remember that there used to be a time when we were trying to figure out how to reduce the burdens of secondary parties. To me, that perspective still makes sense – copyright shouldn’t dominate technology creation and Internet politics, just as it shouldn’t dominate the university. So, is that point now incorrect to the extent that sanctioning DoS attacks makes sense?
[update – footnote: I don’t mean to suggest that Professor Nesson’s talking about self-help with no potential for liability for copyright holders if they mess up (the Berman bill didn’t really have that). Rather, I’m not sure liability for messing up is enough to make up for the collateral damage and the potential for harming innocents. Without any due process, I don’t trust copyright holders to police fairly. And I doubt that many people innocently caught in the crossfire will be able to fight back.]
Filed by Derek Slater at 2:54 pm under Big Ideas
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