Journal Entry (Module 12) CYSE 201S

What illegal things are you unwittingly doing on the internet? (clario.co)

Review what the author says and write a paragraph describing the five most serious violations and why you think those offenses are serious.

The assignment is to choose the 5 most serious offenses and describe them. I believe that the author is using “loaded language”. The article frames certain online actions as ‘violations’ and ‘offenses.’ However, legality and seriousness are subjective depending on context. Let’s explore a more nuanced approach to online behavior.

I am on a super philosophical and historic kick at the moment and the authors writeup rubs me the wrong way. I have issues with his statements and the implications of his ideas.

“The internet is a huge part of our everyday lives, so the same rules apply online as they do offline — be nice and abide by the law.”

Why do the same rules apply online that do offline? Because “it’s a huge part of our lives”? The virtual environment and the natural world have to conform to each other why exactly?

Be nice? “Be nice” is a kindergarten rule, not a legal framework.  Abide by the law? Who’s laws? The Internet is a global infinite resource. What gives one country or group of people the ability to regulate this system? Who’s to say what’s legal in one jurisdiction is not illegal in another as is often case. The effort for one group to regulate the internet is like a pool lifeguard trying to enforce pool rules on the entire ocean.

I am going to address every offense the author mentioned.

1. Using Unofficial Streaming Services

By streaming content that you accessed online that originally was behind a paywall may be a copyright violation but not against the law. What’s the authors point about the legality? Is he stating it’s against the law or grounds for lawsuit? Big difference. Copyright infringement can get you sued, but not necessarily arrested. Going to jail isn’t the same as being sued.

Using Torrenting Services

This author is off base. Torrenting isn’t illegal. It’s a file-sharing protocol that can be used to download a number of things.  The key is whether the content being downloaded is copyrighted and if permission has been granted for distribution. As discussed earlier, copyright infringement is a civil issue, not always a criminal one.

Alot of the Authors focus is on things that he sees as wrong or bad that we shouldn’t be doing such as, ripping content/audio from YouTube, Not always using our real identity online, things that boil down to copyright, and lastly “stealing other people’s internet”. The author argues that –

“In most US states, there are no laws prohibiting such behavior, but then, no laws allow it either. However, using someone else’s internet, which they solely pay for, without their permission is illegal because it’s essentially stealing.”

Are you actually kidding me? No one should take this individual seriously. “No laws allowing it either”????

This type of thinking makes my blood boil. We have individual freedom and liberty, and no one should be under the idea we need government in place to LET US do anything. The government does not give us freedoms. Governments either recognize individual freedom or they do not. Refraining from doing something you otherwise would solely because you’re unsure if there is a law that says you can is absurd. I cannot think of an ideology that makes me cringe as hard as this one.

Second, saying using someone else’s Wi-Fi is stealing.

What’s theft is how Internet companies charge us to use an infinite resource. Bandwidth is an infinite resource. You are being charged to use a resource that will never run out. Do you see how crooked that is? What if companies could come up with a way to charge you to breathe? Commodifying things and forcing people to trade their limited time in exchange for something that will never run out is evil in my book.

The author wants to regulate us and limit what citizens can do, but what about the ones watching our every move? We need to address abuses by government before lecturing citizens about online etiquette!”