As the United States government is trying to pass the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), which would permit government officials to set up a procedure to ban the Domain Name System of any website they believe to be engaging in activities related to piracy, another nation is finding that DNS blacklisting may not work so well after all.
Thailand has been using its own website blacklist now for over two years. Although they enacted their system to block political dissent rather than to stifle piracy, the issues that they’ve experienced would likely be similar to what the United States would encounter if COICA was ultimately passed into law.
"The blacklists grow with many, many websites to become a burden on ISPs. Blacklisting doesn't work," Thongchai Sangsiri, director of computer forensics for Thailand's Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT), told the Asia-Pacific Telecommunity cybersecurity forum last week.
In an interview with ZDNet Australia, Sangsiri said that the practice of DNS blacklisting has been good for the government’s image in Thailand because the public thinks that leaders are doing positive things. However, in addition to having manageability issues with the list, there are also technical issues such as content blocking limitations and the fact that the techniques used are easily circumvented.
And the problems that Thailand has experienced with their internet content filtering system don’t even take into account issues of constitutional rights that could be violated under the proposed legislation in the US.
Fortunately for US citizens, there is one US senator who has decided to stand up in opposition of COICA. Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden placed a hold on the pending legislation late in the game during last week’s committee hearings. "Deploying this statute to combat online copyright infringement seems almost like using a bunker-busting cluster bomb, when what you need is a precision-guided missile," Wyden said.
With all of these reasons why COICA wouldn’t be a good measure for the United States to use as a tool to deter piracy, one would hope that more than a single politician throughout the ranks would be opposed to the act. Let’s hope that more of them come to their senses.
