If Not SOPA, What?

I just bought a new computer and have been busy going about the business of setting it up. One of the first things I did, as most of us do, was install anti-spyware, anti-malware and anti-tracking software. There is just so much malevolence out there that without this software, your computer is like a bank vault left open all night.

My father used to say that a lock only keeps out an honest man and he was right.

Consider hackers like Anonymous who break into systems and computers to disrupt and steal data. Sometimes that data is highly sensitive, sometimes it’s financial. Sometimes, hackers break-in just to damage your system.

This is equivalent in the real world to breaking into your home or office and either stealing valuables or trashing the place. We absolutely don’t accept that in the physical world. We demand laws and enforcement of those laws to protect our property. We demand that those who are tried and found guilty be punished but online, we either ignore or actually go so far as to defend these actions by others out of some misguided sense of democracy in action.

It doesn’t stop there, of course. Anonymous for all of its recent attempts to present itself as a defender of democratic and individual rights has done more than its fair share of encouraging illegal and hate-filled behaviour while disrupting the lives of people  for no other reason than because they can and because they get a twisted kick out of it.

There are thousands of weak-minded thrill seekers all over the world, like Anonymous, sitting in their bedrooms or their basements plotting new viruses to send out into the world to do nothing more than destroy what belongs to others. This is like having a psychopath go on a rampage in your town, vandalizing and burning down buildings and smashing cars. Again, in the real world we protect ourselves as best we can with the rule of law using the police and the courts to bring those responsible to justice. |In the virtual world we merely complain about it and feed more money into the Internet security industry.

The real world is full of Bernie Madoffs, Enrons and far too many small-time fraud artists. We use the law to not only punish these offenders but to try and recover our lost money and investments. The virtual world has no end of scams. Whether it is some inheritance scam from Nigeria, mystery shopper scam, get rich quick scam or any one of a thousand others, there is no end to people online trying to scam others out of their money.

Artists  including musicians, painters, photographers, writers and others routinely have their work pirated by millions which means they lose money they earned through their creativity and to which they are rightfully entitled.

And then come the really twisted.

Consider all those sites with discounted pharmaceuticals, drugs that really aren't drugs at all but rather are useless imitations designed to scam people out of their money. It probably seems harmless when you're thinking about vitamins and even Viagra but what about those people with life-threatening illnesses like AIDS and cancer who are looking for discounted medication to try and prolong their lives?

It is illegal in most jurisdictions to council suicide and yet online, people have not only counseled it, they have gone out of their way to encourage the potential suicide while they watch online. A young girl died in Canada because of a male nurse in the State’s ongoing and persistent encouragement that she take her ownn life rather than seek counseling. In Florida, a young man was encouraged to go through with his threat of suicide by hundreds who had logged in to watch his live-stream. Nobody thought to call the police in an attempt to try and save his life. The Internet is now the primary entertainment provider for the truly diseased mind.

Others, thankful for their anonymity don’t go quite that far. Instead they surf the Internet in search of memorial sites for people who committed suicide, were murdered, killed in an accident or who died from a fatal illness. They get their kicks from logging in to these sites and leaving vile, disgusting messages designed to denigrate the deceased and hurt their family.

Social media sites like Twitter are over-run by small-minded people with even smaller vocabularies who take delight in spamming the community with profane verbal graffiti.

Pedophiles have embraced the Internet like an addict embraces their next fix. They have set up networks to share information and child porn which has created greater access and demand which only puts more children at risk, worldwide. Child-sex rings offer ‘tourist’ trips to exotic locations and access to children as young as infants.

Have an addiction? The Internet has folks only too happy to service it. Gambling. Drugs. Porn. Pick your addiction of choice, search Google or drop by a couple of chat rooms and in no time you’ll have more selection than you’ll find at an all you can eat buffet.

Even legitimate sites are not above tracking your Internet usage, packaging it up and then selling it to others who then use it to to make a buck or two. Where do you think most of the adware and spybots come from? If you spend any time online and belong to a social media site or two, your privacy is merely an illusion. The anti-tracking software I installed earlier today has already blocked more than 1000 attempts to track my Internet use and access my information. Without any doubt even more trackers got by my software.

It’s like having people you don’t know follow you around all day watching you, jotting down everything you say, you buy and you do and then selling it to other companies. It’s all so convenient. You don’t even have to belong to most sites. Just drop by for a short visit and they will take care of the rest.

Yes, there is software that prevents some of this but there is no software that prevents it all and especially not the sick, twisted and illegal behaviour of too many out there. In the real world, we have laws to protect us and to provide us with recourse when a crime happens. The Internet is simply anarchy and an unlimited playground for the morally bankrupt and dishonest....although some have confused that for democracy.

Recently, the United States government started to work on anti-piracy legislation to try and get some sense of order and protection on the Internet. The response online was the predictable knee-jerk reaction by those who don't think beyond their own self-indulgence.

Cries of outrage over the audacity of the government to even consider interfering with the Internet were over the top. Labels of censorship, oppression and tyranny started popping up all over social media and many of the big Internet players led the charge. Of course, for many of them, it was less about censorship than it was about income. It's an easy mistake to make when your business model is based on there being no laws or regulation.

Sites like Wikipedia and Twitter shut down for a day in protest. Go Daddy which offered tepid support of SOPA was almost put out of business by those outraged that Go Daddy had dared to voice a contrary opinion to the rest of the online community. So much for democracy.

But here’s the thing.

While I think SOPA is a flawed bill and needs serious rethinking, I believe we need some kind of enforceable regulation for the Internet to protect the innocent and the not so innocent from those who seek to rob and harm others.

Why should we have to armour our computers to protect our personal information like the military protects the gold in Fort Knox? Theft is theft whether it happens online or in the physical world. Child abuse in the form of kiddie porn spills over into the real world and viscious, threatening behavior is the same wherever it happens. We’re working overtime in North America to reduce schoolyard bullying even as we defend against regulation on the Internet where far more bullying takes place.

The Internet is a great place full of information, interesting things to do and places to go. It is how many of us now connect with each other and I use the Internet every day. But it is also too much like Dodge City before Wyatt Earp showed up and I believe it needs a little 'Wyatt Earping' to try and put some sense of civilized order to it.

Perhaps I'm an idiot but I fail to see why we should even consider accepting, let alone condone in many cases, online behaviour that we would not for a moment consider acceptable in the real world. 

The Internet has opened up an entirely new spectrum of information, entertainment and connection. Thanks to the anonymity and collective mindset it affords, it has also brought freedom to those who have no sense of responsibility, morality or respect for their societies or the rights, feelings or well-being of others. It is an attitude that is spilling over into the real world where an unwarranted sense of entitlement is on the increase.

To those who oppose any kind of online regulation, what do you propose to protect yourself and others? What are your solutions to child porn rings and suicide clubs? What do you propose to protect the privacy of individuals, not from government, but from Internet corporations who look on you and your personal information as nothing more than a commodity to tracked, captured and sold? How do you  propose to protect your family, your neighbours and your society from those who lack the morality, the values or the decency to act responsibly and honestly? How do you propose to defend society from those who see the Internet as an opportunity to destroy, to steal and to indulge every whim they may have no matter how perverse?

It seems to me that rather than give in to yet another simple-minded reaction against the idea, we would be better to ask ourselves, "If not SOPA, what?" and then get busy making the 'what' happen.

Here's a free app to block sites from tracking you online.  http://www.abine.com/

Links to just a couple of the millions of articles available on this topic. Do your own research and draw your own conclusions

An Overview of SOPA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act

Why you don't get a cut of the billions mad by social media websites when theyt go pubic
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/your+content/6141515/story.html

Anonymous
http://www.religiousfreedomwatch.org/intolerance-hate/anonymous/

Encouraging suicide
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100526/1822349594.shtml

A quick look at some recent online scams
http://www.hotscams.com/

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