cNet reports that a new P2P bill would regulate web browsers and FTP clients, by forcing them to obtain “informed consent” every time a user transmits or attempts to transmit data. Is this the slippery-slope to regulating/destroying teh interwebs?   I think this is how it begins.

The proposed legislation essentially criminalizes software applications that work (defined as: doing what the user requests of it) unless said application obtains informed consent.

Imagine a pop-up every time you upload a picture to facebook, or a video to youtube, or send a set of vacation photos via gmail: Are you sure you want to transmit these files? This is not a feature, it’s a bug.  And this bill would force developers to insert this bug into just about every application you regularly use.

According to the bill, P2P applications are defined thusly:

software that lets files be marked for transfer, transferred, and received. (The exact wording: ‘to designate files available for transmission to another computer; to transmit files directly to another computer; and to request the transmission of files from another computer.’)

…Web browsers could also be regulated and subject to Federal Trade Commission enforcement action unless “informed consent” is obtained each time the desktop icon is double-clicked.

Or for more emphasis, “[e]very copy of Windows, GNU/Linux, and Mac OS X sold in recent memory” because they include “a command-line FTP client fitting that definition,” and every web browser, which allows users to upload files to teh interwebs.

And your iPhone probably isn’t exempt, either.

Setting aside malware which by definition does things without the user’s consent, nobody accidentally uses P2P software. Nobody accidentally uses a command-line FTP client, and nobody accidentally posts pictures or distributes files among their friends or an online network. The very act of using the software/application constitutes, in my opinion, a sufficient level of consent. To think that every time we ask to transmit data through the series of tubes, we need to be reminded that in-fact we are attempting to transmit data through the series of tubes, is the absolute zenith of paternalistic ridiculousity.

I am reasonably certain that this bill/law, by itself, is pretty much pointless. For starters, not everyone is as retarded as our Legislators would have us believe. This piece of legislation assumes that knowledgeable people using open-source browsers and applications won’t be able to override* such craptastic “features.”

They will. And they’ll distribute these rogue software patches to everyone who grows tired of clicking “OK” whenever they try to upload a picture.

Unfortunately, this fact doesn’t assuage my fears that this law is merely a minor annoyance which can ultimately be overridden.  It’s more like the tip of the proverbial iceberg, it’s the backdoor breach of what’s largely an unregulated arena that works pretty damn well, nearly all of the time.  It is the first step towards wholesale regulation of software applications and teh interwebs, which provides the necessary smokescreen for suppression of free speech.

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* I taught myself VBA for Windows with nothing but Google and a handful of scripts that someone else had created. I could probably do the same with an open-source web browser or FTP client. I just haven’t needed to. If this bill becomes law, I will figure out how to disable it, or I’ll just bootstrap off someone else who figured it out before I did.