Michael Soliman
Michele Marits
ENG 112 – Writing Project 1A
October 25, 2014
Internet regulation
We use internet on daily basis for
different purpose such as education, shopping and reserving appointments... Internet
has become an integral part in our lives. As engineering student, one uses
internet in many things such as taking one’s online courses. As computer
electrical engineer, one downloads datasheets to view the specifications of the
electronic components, and also one uses internet for collaborating with other
programmers over the internet for software engineering. One is against internet regulation
because nowadays internet penetrates every area in our lives. In some countries
internet access is considered a human right. For example, “In June 2009, the
Constitutional Council, France's highest court, declared access to the Internet
to be a basic human right” (“Top French Court Declares Internet Access
'Basic Human Right'”). Internet regulation will limit our freedom. The
only way to protect ourselves is by education and having ethics. In addition to
a major technical reason which will make any kind of internet filtering or
censorship fail which is cryptography or data encryption.
In 2012 two bills were proposed, the
protect intellectual property act (PIPA) and the stop online piracy act (SOPA),
those bills require internet service providers (ISPs) to block websites that
are suspected in distributing copyrighted materials which would affect three-fourth
of Americans who use the internet on daily basis for different purposes.
There are two controversial points.
Some people argue that internet regulation keeps their children from viewing
adult material online. It also helps against terrorism, and it prevents hacking
their computers. It will also help in cutting the distribution of illegal
copyrighted materials like movies and songs. On the other hand some people argue
that Internet regulation would automatically mean limiting the flow of
information, as well as its exchange. It would prevent people from being
expressive and communicative. In addition, internet regulation might be used as
an excuse to practice further censorship in the name of protecting our safety.
Music and film makers want to
protect their copyrighted material. There is no technical method up till this
moment to prevent the distribution of illegal copyrighted materials.
In 2012 Hollywood supported two
bill proposals in Congress aimed at fighting the unlicensed use or reproduction
of movies, recorded music, TV shows and other copyrighted material. Such
pirating, which typically occurs on foreign-based dishonest websites, has flourished
into a global enterprise costing the entertainment industry and others billions
of dollars a year in lost revenues and royalties. (Clemmitt)
But opponents of the proposed
bills argued they were so ambiguous that they would force any website carrying
user-generated content perceived to violate copyright laws to shut down at
nearly a moment’s notice. What’s more, opponents said, the bills would efficiently
prevent search engines from connecting to those sites and allow copyright
owners to stop advertisers from doing business with them. (Clemmitt)
ISPs play very important rule in
the internet. Their biggest rule is providing internet access to customers. As a
service provider, the ISP can control everything one can do on the internet.
Because the ISP works as a data carrier, the ISP knows about all the websites
that one has visited, all the movies that one has watched, and it can track all
one’s activity on the internet. In other words the ISP knows about everything one
does on the internet, and it can control what one can do, and what one cannot
do. There is only one thing that ISPs cannot do which is controlling an
encrypted connection (Frink).
Encryption is an integral concept
in any communication process. Communication and encryption are two correlative words.
One of the earliest form of ciphering or encryption is Caesar cipher. When
Caesar wanted to send a very private mail to one of his army officials, he
encrypts it, gives it to a solider, and then the solider gives it to the army
official. The solider or the carrier of the message does not know what does it
contains, but the endpoints, the sender and the receiver, only knows how to
decipher the message.
The highest level of internet filtering
can be achieved by forcing an ISP not to bring data from certain computers and blacklisting
their IP addresses which means if one who is connected to that ISP requested
data from a certain computer that is blacklisted by the ISP, the ISP will
refuse to bring the data back. Also if the data is not encrypted, the ISP can
intercept the data and block it if it contains certain words. One can bypass
ISP filters by simply asking one’s ISP to connect one to another computer that
exist on the internet network. The other computer may be in another country
that does not block this website. One can initiate an encrypted connection with
the other computer on the internet and ask the other computer to fetch the data
for one. Since the data is encrypted, the ISP has no idea about what being
transferred or what is one doing on the internet. It is like two people are
speaking Latin in front of a person who is speaking English. The person who is
speaking English has no idea about what is being said (“Tor: Overview”).
Passing laws the supports internet regulation
might lead to invention of sophisticated software such as Freenet Project and higher
security standards that will make it harder to track criminals and terrorists.
Internet regulation does not give any
solution to the problems stated before. It will not help in cutting terrorist
attacks. Increasing our security measures will do. It’s an industry standard to
have encrypted communications between computers or peers. The free and popular
software Skype
is always using an encrypted connection between the communicating peers.
One does not need internet
regulation to protect one’s children from viewing adult material. By the help
of parental control software, one can keep one’s children from visiting
websites that contains materials for adults only.
Internet regulation does not help
against hackers. Hackers are intelligent. They are expert users of computer.
They know their victims well. One can protect oneself from hackers by
installing an antivirus software and a firewall. One must have a strong
password to keep one’s private data secure. One must not login to a website
that holds one’s personal information such as your bank account or your social
media account unless one sees the URL begins with “https://” and the browser
gives one no warnings about the site.
Passing laws that supports internet
regulation will not help in cutting the distribution of illegal materials. Most
of the traffic of illegal file sharing is decentralized and lots of foreign
peers are involved. There is no central authority or server that holds these
materials that we can shut down. Besides other countries have different laws regarding
sharing files, and they are not required to apply U.S laws. It’s very easy for
the computers inside the U.S to initiate encrypted connections to computers in
foreign countries, use them as a proxy, and download illegal materials. Any
kind of censorship will not help in this case because the endpoints, the sender
and the receiver, of the encrypted connection can only decipher and understand
the data.
One is against internet regulation
because nowadays internet penetrates every area in our lives ranging from
entertainment to research. With much progression and advancement in technology,
electronics, and computer industry, censorship is not the answer for our
problems. Internet regulation will not protect us against hackers nor
terrorists because they are expert users of computer, and they know how to
bypass any kind of censorship and cipher their communications. Instead, lawmakers
should support the FCC’s net-neutrality rules which require ISPs to treat all
data equally because an open Internet is important to societal interactions, political
discourse, innovation, commercial transactions, entrepreneurship and job
creation (Clemmitt).
Works cited
Clemmitt,
Marcia. "Internet Regulation." CQ Researcher 13 Apr.
2012: 325-48. Web. 19 Oct. 2014.
Frink, Lyle.
"What Does Your ISP Know About You." Hotspotshield. hotspotshield.com,
24 Apr. 2013. Web. 25 Oct. 2014.
"Top
French Court Declares Internet Access 'Basic Human Right'" Fox
News. FOX News Network, 12 June 2009. Web. 24 Oct. 2014.
"Tor: Overview." Tor Project.
Torproject.org, n.d. Web. 23 Oct. 2014.
Tyson,
Jeff. "How Internet Infrastructure Works." HowStuffWorks.
Howstuffworks.com, 03 Apr. 2001. Web. 25 Oct. 2014.
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