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Or perhaps a lack of it? Megaupload is a tool, all it does is let you upload a file -- any file you want, and let others have it.

... It shouldn't be the tool makers job to police how it's used; You kill someone with a hammer, you don't prosecute Craftsman for it. You kill someone drunk driving, you don't sue Ford and Jack Daniels. You burn your lap spilling hot coffee, you don't sue McDonalds. Ok, bad example on that last one...

But most importantly, consider the precedent this sets -- ISP's are well aware what people use the Internet for, are we going to start shutting down ISP's on the same logic? The Internet is a tool, a tool that makes all of this possible... so by the same logic, next they'll shut down the Internet as a whole by going after ISP's.

Which of course is what most Governments actually want in the long run, to police thought. Being able to get independent opinions direct from the people involved and from others in the community is just another way their control is slipping... Which scares the bejeebus out of Politicians all around -- god forbid they're not allowed to tell us what to think anymore, using their petty inconsequential "issues" to distract us from how badly we're all being bent over the table and told to take it.

It's like they want a return to the old days of Ma Bell, where it was a felony to swear over the phone lines... Which became unprosecutable once Ma Bell was broken up.

It doesn't just end at ISP's -- Opera Unite? E-Mail Attachments? How about the people still running USENET servers?

I was joking the other day it would be cute to make a file transfer protocol based on e-mail relay. Each 'node' would download the file, and re-route it to the next person requesting it -- making it indistinguishable from normal e-mail traffic. That would be fun... Especially if you made the actual recipient NOT be the target e-mail address and instead be one along the route.

Edited 2012-01-20 23:55 UTC