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On 20 March 2014 19:30, Matt Lee <mattl@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > Anyway, it's trivial to route any P2P traffic over SSH -- will you > block that next? :) Never mind ssh, pretty much 100% of "illegal" file-sharing uses HTTP at least in part, which I think makes the case against blanket blocking of protocols as clear as can be. I use scare-quotes around "illegal" because legality is contingent on various factors, not all of them precise, some of them varying with time (laws coming into and going out of effect, grants of rights expiring) and space (jurisdiction, treaty signatories), and some of them difficult or impossible to know in advance (license holders' attitudes, beliefs and desires). As a matter of principle, under the rule of law, legality can only be decided post-hoc -- that is, after the event -- and by proper authority, not by you or me. Even then, this is precisely the kind of area where juridical findings may be (felt or believed to be) in conflict with the dictates of conscience and morality, sufficient to warrant civil disobedience. There is a great deal to be said on this matter, and if it's surprising to find a low level of awareness of the issues on this list, then it's also good discipline for the enlightened to make the case for freedom over and over again, however often it's required. If there's one crucial message I want to try to communicate, it's this: those who claim to need to take away your freedom to protect you and your loved ones from terrorists and paedophiles are always lying. It's pure snake oil; don't buy it. Please, please, try to remember this. They know that those panic-button words make you lose your head; that's precisely why they use them. Just ask whether they have an agenda that's different from what they claim, and the answer always leaps out at you: of course they do. There has never been, and there never will be, an example of moral-panic censorship powers not leading very quickly to overreach, abuse, manipulation, and use for other ends, not least -- inevitably and especially -- the suppression of dissent. So, to get back to the topic... fixing the centralized control of Internet domain names is a very worthy cause. Using P2P tech to do it is simply using the necessary, sufficient and optimal tool for the job. When I started the thread I assumed everyone would get that straight away. Live and learn, I guess. Anyway, what I was expecting was *technical* objections, like, that's a hell of a lot of data to replicate, and so on. I mean, it is, isn't it? I read that right, didn't I? Does massive redundancy and parallelism solve that issue? OMG, it's just occurred to me. Maybe you all just don't want freedom! Apparently it's a well-known condition in psychology, with a fancy name and everything. You *like* living in your DNS walled garden and you love, trust, admire, respect, consent and defer to your ICANN masters and their registrar gatekeepers. Perhaps what we're talking about here is nothing less than upsetting the natural order, the divinely ordained state of all things IP-resolvable as it has always been and must forever remain: unchanging, unchallenged, unquestioned. unaccountable to the likes of you and me, who do best when we simply know our place and accept it. How foolish of me! In which case maybe I shouldn't trouble you again with this stuff. -- Phil Hudson http://hudson-it.no-ip.biz @UWascalWabbit PGP/GnuPG ID: 0x887DCA63 -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq