Ask HN: Why Facebook or Google? Do what SOPA would do...

4 points by longlistener 14 years ago | 3 comments

From my understanding SOPA will make sites go dark by doing dns blocking. Wouldn't it make sense to convince even a small number of dns server operators to show support or solidarity?

It might be a hard sell, some dns server operators have pretty serious contracts and SLAs, but even getting a small handful of more flexible providers (Universities, non-profits, OpenDNS, maybe that one small part of Google, etc) would have a massive effect. Having them return the IP address of a single anti-SOPA site for all requests would cause huge swaths of the internet to become anti-SOPA in the eyes of the general public. Can you imagine if even one root server joined in?

There are some obvious downsides and issues, but I think those could be worked out creatively;

-- You may not want to disrupt non-http traffic (email, IM, WoW, etc), because the user would have no idea what went wrong. Not sure if theres an easy technical solution to hover this aspect.

-- The dns poisoning might last for days, so maybe that just means they are only going to do 30 minutes of true darkness in solidarity -- counting the residual dns poisoning as the day.

-- If it can be isolated to HTTP and you wanted to play nice, the single anti-SOPA site could redirect to the original site somehow (but I'm not sure how since dns is wrong).

Is this worth thinking about more or pursuing with dns experts or server operators?

SaintSal 14 years ago |

What about the potential PR backlash? The Pro-SOPA response could be that internet providers are taking matters in their own hands, disrupting their own customers service for their political gain. They'd then argue to the masses (not just the customers) that SOPA puts the government in control to prevent internet companies from working against the interest of their customers, or some such.

I think you might be onto something, but this specific suggestion leaves the anti-SOPA lobby and DNS providers open to a serious PR attack.

longlistener 14 years ago | |

Yeah, theres definitely some details to work out. I was kind of throwing it out there as a seed of an idea and hoping people would either thrash it or expand upon it until it made sense.

I was also thinking about the trust schism that could occur. Many commercial entities would lose faith in those dns providers, they would over time need to build in business resumption plans that included working around a dns block. But that would be good right? It would commoditize the ability to work around SOPA, right?

frankwong 14 years ago |

Very bad idea. The whole idea behind the anti-SOPA movement is that DNS is NOT to be messed with for anybody's gain. No matter if you stand on the side to gain or to lose.