It's going to get worse as HTTPS everywhere becomes the unchangable default and Google/MS/Apple eventually drop HTTP/1.1 support from their browsers. Without the ability to even make a connection to an IP, not just a domain, without the approval of a third party CA corporation the web will become very much smaller and more easily controlled.
Why does this make it worse? People who can override the DNS server their ISP advertises over DHCP can't just install an open CA, or use a browser that lets them bypass certificate verification?
Let's Encrypt is free right now, but it is still centralized. A court could order them to revoke certificates from specific websites and stop issuing new ones.
The more likely outcome wouldn't be a certificate being revoked, but a renewal of the certificate being declined. The certs are only valid for 3 months.
It seems to have a big impact that the default DNS of Cloudflare WARP, a free VPN application, is 1.1.1.1.
There seem to be countless choices of DNS services, from big names like Google DNS, NextDNS and Adguard DNS to personal hobby projects, but in reality there are surprisingly few DNS services that are reliable enough for regular use.
Not really. Verisign can censor any .com, .net, or .name domain. Since they run 1 of the 13 root servers they can technically somewhat censor any domain by MitM all top level domains.
A domain that isn't fragile enough that one company can take it down. Systems like namecoin or ens don't suffer from this problem because they are actually decentralized.
You have to host somewhere ... and that is usually owned by, you guessed it, one company. There's always a single point of failure, whether it is your power company, yourself (you will die one day, or get injured, or sick)... there are so many failure modes.
It is infinitely more likely wherever you are hosting your domain to shut you down vs. DNS.
Just want to make sure we are talking about the same thing here.
The “legal site” you are referring to was the Nazi filled one that had the stated aim of trying to dox and harass minorities and kept a running tally of how many they could get to kill themselves?
That’s the one you are more upset about getting blocked?
Nobody has to protect the rights of trying to drive people to suicide for their own amusement.
It’s good to draw lines in the sand otherwise you end up standing for nothing worth defending.
The argument was never to only defend things you agree with. That was something you just made up to reframe things so you could defend the Nazis and tell yourself you were actually just enlightened.
I like that Germany is honest. They straight up say - if you deny the Holocaust - we will put you in prison. The rules are clear. Everyone knows what to expect.
Meanwhile Americans say that they have the first amendment, freedom of speech, blah blah blah. But when you actually say what the law allows you to say then they will try to punish you anyway.
I hate this dishonesty and extra-judicial punishments. I prefer people who are honest.
I believe he passed. Absolutism in the defense of Nazis is a vice, as I see it. Cloudfare is not a government entity, concepts of governmental speech suppression do not apply to it.
You do understand that the internet crosses borders while national laws don’t right?
It’s perfectly ok in a personal and professional sense to have your own standards rather than just throwing up your hands and saying “well it’s not technically illegal… in this country”
Power and water providers could also have "their own standards" and refuse to provide service to people whose opinions they don't like.
See where this is going?
I prefer clear rules for everyone not - we have freedom of speech, but we'll find a way to punish you if you say something some rich person doesn't like.
Literally nobody is talking about that here. Once again you seem to be trying to reframe the argument into something so abstract that it no longer has any meaning.
In actuality we are talking about an incredibly specific and concrete thing here which you don't appear to be really interested in trying to defend head on for what I assume are obvious reasons.
That is the problem with just relying on these jingoistic approaches of "let the courts deal with it". There are a whole bunch of scenarios where that doesn't work. You and I both know that which means we need other options.
We can talk about where the lines should be and under what circumstances but not doing business with Nazi's who have a history of real world harm without relying on a court order to legally prevent you from taking their money is not in the same league as any of the scenarios you are describing. The argument you are making really doesn't stand up to even the lightest of scrutiny the moment you start to get into the details.
