Sunday, October 3, 2010
COICA Bill Postponed; It?s Time To Discuss Alternatives To Traditional DNS
COICA, the bill that made waves last week as an affront to free speech and due process rights, was recently postponed, to the net's great relief. While it seems to have been the kind of inflammatory election-year FUD bill we see very often in this country, it brought up several issues that are worth taking action on. The bill is ostensibly to "combat online infringement, and for other purposes," but broadly speaking, it would grant "root access" to one of the fundamental technologies running the web: DNS. Here's the question: if such an important technology could come so easily within a breath of being in the clutches of politicians and lobbyists, why do we rely so much upon it?