A Reflection on SOPA/PIPA Protest Day (Jan. 18, 2012)

Here's a prediction:

At some point in the next five years, the internet will declare war on some other entity, such as a country. 

Yes, I realize that “the internet” does not have a unified political will. But I am considering Marshall McLuhan's statement “The medium is the message.” There are going to be differences in emphasis between various online power groups, but they will all understand that their existence can be threatened by the old guard with their old-style politics.

They're already threatened by people with big money — that's what SOPA/PIPA is all about, isn't it? And with Wikipedia's black-out protest, and the associated copy-cat protests, they're striking back. It's a minor thing this time, but ... next time?

I predict that SOPA/PIPA will get passed within 4 years, in some diluted form, probably with different names, because the power of money is, well, powerful!  And then the rascally tech-heads out there will find work-arounds, such as underground, possibly distributed, DNS servers. If things get really bad, some hackers will set up a parallel internet, using packet radio perhaps.

It's just the old “copy protection wars” writ large, isn't it? Somebody makes a lock, then somebody figures out how to pick that lock.

Let's see how good I am at being a clairvoyant prophet. I'd rather be wrong, this time. But we'll see.