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<div class="dateauthor">December 15, 2011 | By <a href="https://www.eff.org/about/staff/parker-higgins">Parker Higgins</a> and <a href="https://www.eff.org/about/staff/peter-eckersley">Peter Eckersley</a> </div> </div>
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<h2 class="node-title">An Open Letter From Internet Engineers to the U.S. Congress</h2> </div>
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<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Today,
a group of 83 prominent Internet inventors and engineers sent an open
letter to members of the United States Congress, stating their
opposition to the SOPA and PIPA Internet blacklist bills that are under
consideration in the House and Senate respectively.</p>
<blockquote><p>We, the undersigned, have played various parts in
building a network called the Internet. We wrote and debugged the
software; we defined the standards and protocols that talk over that
network. Many of us invented parts of it. We're just a little proud of
the social and economic benefits that our project, the Internet, has
brought with it.</p>
<p>Last year, many of us wrote to you and your colleagues to warn about
the proposed "COICA" copyright and censorship legislation. Today, we are
writing again to reiterate our concerns about the SOPA and PIPA
derivatives of last year's bill, that are under consideration in the
House and Senate. In many respects, these proposals are worse than the
one we were alarmed to read last year.</p>
<p>If enacted, either of these bills will create an environment of
tremendous fear and uncertainty for technological innovation, and
seriously harm the credibility of the United States in its role as a
steward of key Internet infrastructure. Regardless of recent amendments
to SOPA, both bills will risk fragmenting the Internet's global domain
name system (DNS) and have other capricious technical consequences. In
exchange for this, such legislation would engender censorship that will
simultaneously be circumvented by deliberate infringers while hampering
innocent parties' right and ability to communicate and express
themselves online.</p>
<p>All censorship schemes impact speech beyond the category they were
intended to restrict, but these bills are particularly egregious in that
regard because they cause entire domains to vanish from the Web, not
just infringing pages or files. Worse, an incredible range of useful,
law-abiding sites can be blacklisted under these proposals. In fact, it
seems that this has already begun to happen under the nascent DHS/ICE
seizures program.</p>
<p>Censorship of Internet infrastructure will inevitably cause network
errors and security problems. This is true in China, Iran and other
countries that censor the network today; it will be just as true of
American censorship. It is also true regardless of whether censorship is
implemented via the DNS, proxies, firewalls, or any other method. Types
of network errors and insecurity that we wrestle with today will become
more widespread, and will affect sites other than those blacklisted by
the American government.</p>
<p>The current bills -- SOPA explicitly and PIPA implicitly -- also
threaten engineers who build Internet systems or offer services that are
not readily and automatically compliant with censorship actions by the
U.S. government. When we designed the Internet the first time, our
priorities were reliability, robustness and minimizing central points of
failure or control. We are alarmed that Congress is so close to
mandating censorship-compliance as a design requirement for new Internet
innovations. This can only damage the security of the network, and give
authoritarian governments more power over what their citizens can read
and publish.</p>
<p>The US government has regularly claimed that it supports a free and
open Internet, both domestically and abroad. We cannot have a free and
open Internet unless its naming and routing systems sit above the
political concerns and objectives of any one government or industry. To
date, the leading role the US has played in this infrastructure has been
fairly uncontroversial because America is seen as a trustworthy arbiter
and a neutral bastion of free expression. If the US begins to use its
central position in the network for censorship that advances its
political and economic agenda, the consequences will be far-reaching and
destructive.</p>
<p>Senators, Congressmen, we believe the Internet is too important and
too valuable to be endangered in this way, and implore you to put these
bills aside.</p></blockquote>
<p>Signed,</p>
<ul><li><strong>Vint Cerf</strong>, co-designer of TCP/IP, one of the "fathers of the Internet", signing as private citizen</li><li><strong>Paul Vixie,</strong> author of BIND, the most widely-used DNS server software, and President of the Internet Systems Consortium</li>
<li><strong>Tony Li</strong>, co-author of BGP (the protocol used to
arrange Internet routing); chair of the IRTF's Routing Research Group; a
Cisco Fellow; and architect for many of the systems that have actually
been used to build the Internet</li><li><strong>Steven Bellovin</strong>, invented the DNS cache
contamination attack; co-authored the first book on Internet security;
recipient of the 2007 NIST/NSA National Computer Systems Security Award
and member of the DHS Science and Technology Advisory Committee</li><li><strong>Jim Gettys</strong>, editor of the HTTP/1.1 protocol standards, which we use to do everything on the Web</li><li><strong>Dave Kristol</strong>, co-author, RFCs 2109, 2965 (Web cookies); contributor, RFC 2616 (HTTP/1.1)</li>
<li><strong>Steve Deering, Ph.D.</strong>, invented the IP multicast feature of the Internet; lead designer of IPv6 (version 6 of the Internet Protocol)</li><li><strong>David Ulevitch</strong>, David Ulevitch, CEO of OpenDNS, which offers alternative DNS services for enhanced security.</li>
<li><strong>Elizabeth Feinler</strong>, director of the Network
Information Center (NIC) at SRI International, administered the Internet
Name Space from 1970 until 1989 and developed the naming conventions
for the internet top level domains (TLDs) of .mil, .gov, .com, .org,
etc. under contracts to DoD</li><li><strong>Robert W. Taylor</strong>, founded and funded the beginning
of the ARPAnet; founded and managed the Xerox PARC Computer Science Lab
which designed and built the first networked personal computer (Alto),
the Ethernet, the first internet protocol and internet, and desktop
publishing</li><li><strong>Fred Baker</strong>, former IETF chair, has written about 50 RFCs and contributed to about 150 more, regarding widely used Internet technology</li><li><strong>Dan Kaminsky</strong>, Chief Scientist, DKH</li>
<li><strong>Esther Dyson</strong>, EDventure; founding chairman, ICANN;
former chairman, EFF; active investor in many start-ups that support
commerce, news and advertising on the Internet; director, Sunlight
Foundation</li><li><strong>Walt Daniels, </strong>IBM’s contributor to MIME, the mechanism used to add attachments to emails</li><li><strong>Nathaniel Borenstein</strong>, Chief Scientist, Mimecast;
one of the two authors of the MIME protocol, and has worked on many
other software systems and protocols, mostly related to e-mail and
payments</li><li><strong>Simon Higgs</strong>, designed the role of the stealth DNS
server that protects <a href="http://a.root-servers.net">a.root-servers.net</a>; worked on all versions of Draft
Postel for creating new TLDs and addressed trademark issues with a
complimentary Internet Draft; ran the shared-TLD mailing list back in
1995 which defined the domain name registry/registrar relationship; was a
root server operator for the Open Root Server Consortium; founded
<a href="http://coupons.com">coupons.com</a> in 1994</li><li><strong>John Bartas</strong>, was the technical lead on the first
commercial IP/TCP software for IBM PCs in 1985-1987 at The Wollongong
Group. As part of that work, developed the first tunneling RFC, rfc-1088</li><li><strong>Nathan Eisenberg</strong>, Atlas Networks Senior System
Administrator; manager of 25K sq. ft. of data centers which provide
services to Starbucks, Oracle, and local state</li><li><strong>Dave Crocker</strong>, author of Internet standards
including email, DKIM anti-abuse, electronic data interchange and
facsimile, developer of CSNet and MCI national email services, former
IETF Area Director for network management, DNS and standards, recipient
of IEEE Internet Award for contributions to email, and serial
entrepreneur</li><li><strong>Craig Partridge, </strong>architect of how email is routed through the Internet; designed the world's fastest router in the mid 1990s</li><li><strong>Doug Moeller</strong>, Chief Technology Officer at Autonet Mobile</li>
<li><strong>John Todd</strong>, Lead Designer/Maintainer - Freenum Project (DNS-based, free telephony/chat pointer system), <a href="http://freenum.org/">http://freenum.org/</a></li><li><strong>Alia Atlas</strong>, designed software in a core router (Avici) and has various RFCs around resiliency, MPLS, and ICMP</li>
<li><strong>Kelly Kane</strong>, shared web hosting network operator</li><li><strong>Robert Rodgers</strong>, distinguished engineer, Juniper Networks, signing as a private citizen</li><li><strong>Anthony Lauck</strong>, helped design and standardize routing protocols and local area network protocols and served on the Internet Architecture Board</li>
<li><strong>Ramaswamy Aditya</strong>, built various networks and
web/mail content and application hosting providers including AS10368
(DNAI) which is now part of AS6079 (RCN); did network engineering and
peering for that provider; did network engineering for AS25 (UC
Berkeley); currently does network engineering for AS177-179 and others
(UMich)</li><li><strong>Blake Pfankuch</strong>, Connecting Point of Greeley, Network Engineer</li><li><strong>Jon Loeliger</strong>, has implemented OSPF, one of the main
routing protocols used to determine IP packet delivery; at other
companies, has helped design and build the actual computers used to
implement core routers or storage delivery systems; at another company,
installed network services (T-1 lines and ISP service) into Hotels and
Airports across the country</li><li><strong>Jim Deleskie, </strong>internetMCI Sr. Network Engineer, Teleglobe Principal Network Architect</li><li><strong>David Barrett</strong>, Founder and CEO, Expensify</li><li><strong>Mikki Barry</strong>, VP Engineering of InterCon Systems
Corp., creators of the first commercial applications software for the
Macintosh platform and the first commercial Internet Service Provider in
Japan</li><li><strong>Peter Rubenstein</strong>,helped to design and build the AOL backbone network, ATDN.</li><li><strong>David Farber</strong>, distinguished Professor CMU;
Principal in development of CSNET, NSFNET, NREN, GIGABIT TESTBED, and
the first operational distributed computer system; EFF board member</li><li><strong>Bradford Chatterjee</strong>, Network Engineer, helped design and operate the backbone network for a nationwide ISP serving about 450,000 users</li>
<li><strong>Gary E. Miller</strong> Network Engineer specializing in eCommerce</li><li><strong>Jon Callas</strong>, worked on a number of Internet security
standards including OpenPGP, ZRTP, DKIM, Signed Syslog, SPKI, and
others; also participated in other standards for applications and
network routing</li><li><strong>John Kemp</strong>, Principal Software Architect, Nokia;
helped build the distributed authorization protocol OAuth and its
predecessors; former member of the W3C Technical Architecture Group</li><li><strong>Christian Huitema</strong>, worked on building the Internet
in France and Europe in the 80’s, and authored many Internet standards
related to IPv6, RTP, and SIP; a former member of the Internet
Architecture Board</li><li><strong>Steve Goldstein</strong>, Program Officer for International
Networking Coordination at the National Science Foundation 1989-2003,
initiated several projects that spread Internet and advanced Internet
capabilities globally</li><li><strong>David Newman</strong>, 20 years' experience in performance testing of Internet<br>
infrastructure; author of three RFCs on measurement techniques (two on firewall performance, one on test traffic contents)</li><li><strong>Justin Krejci</strong>, helped build and run the two biggest
and most successful municipal wifi networks located in Minneapolis, MN
and Riverside, CA; building and running a new FTTH network in
Minneapolis</li><li><strong>Christopher Liljenstolpe</strong>, was the chief architect
for AS3561 (at the time about 30% of the Internet backbone by traffic),
and AS1221 (Australia's main Internet infrastructure)</li><li><strong>Joe Hamelin</strong>, co-founder of Seattle Internet Exchange (<a href="http://www.seattleix.net">http://www.seattleix.net</a>) in 1997, and former peering engineer for Amazon in 2001</li>
<li><strong>John Adams</strong>, operations engineer at Twitter, signing as a private citizen</li><li><strong>David M. Miller</strong>, CTO / Exec VP for DNS Made Easy (IP Anycast Managed Enterprise DNS provider)</li><li>
<strong>Seth Breidbart</strong>, helped build the Pluribus IMP/TIP for the ARPANET</li><li><strong>Timothy McGinnis</strong>, co-chair of the African Network Information Center Policy Development Working Group, and active in various IETF Working Groups</li>
<li><strong>Richard Kulawiec, </strong>30 years designing/operating academic/commercial/ISP systems and networks</li><li><strong>Larry Stewart</strong>, built the Etherphone at Xerox, the
first telephone system working over a local area network; designed early
e-commerce systems for the Internet at Open Market</li><li><strong>John Pettitt</strong>, Internet commerce pioneer, online
since 1983, CEO Free Range Content Inc.; founder/CTO CyberSource &
Beyond.com; created online fraud protection software that processes over
2 billion transaction a year</li><li><strong>Brandon Ross</strong>, Chief Network Architect and CEO of Network Utility Force LLC</li><li><strong>Chris Boyd</strong>, runs a green hosting company and supports EFF-Austin as a board member</li>
<li><strong>Dr. Richard Clayton, </strong>designer of Turnpike, widely
used Windows-based Internet access suite; prominent Computer Security
researcher at Cambridge University</li><li><strong>Robert Bonomi</strong>, designed, built, and implemented, the Internet presence for a number of large corporations</li><li><strong>Owen DeLong</strong>, member of the ARIN Advisory Council
who has spent more than a decade developing better IP addressing
policies for the internet in North America and around the world</li><li><strong>Baudouin Schombe</strong>, blog design and content trainer</li><li><strong>Lyndon Nerenberg</strong>, Creator of IMAP Binary extension (RFC 3516)</li>
<li><strong>John Gilmore, </strong>co-designed BOOTP (RFC 951), which
became DHCP, the way you get an IP address when you plug into an
Ethernet or get on a WiFi access point; current EFF board member</li><li><strong>John Bond</strong>, Systems Engineer at RIPE NCC maintaining
AS25152 (<a href="http://k.root-servers.net">k.root-servers.net</a>.) and AS197000 (f.in-addr-servers.arpa.
,f.ip6-servers.arpa.); signing as a private citizen</li><li><strong>Stephen Farrell</strong>, co-author on about 15 RFCs</li><li><strong>Samuel Moats</strong>, senior systems engineer for the
Department of Defense; helps build and defend the networks that deliver
data to Defense Department users</li><li><strong>John Vittal</strong>, created the first full email client and the email standards still in use today</li><li><strong>Ryan Rawdon</strong>, built out and maintains the network
infrastructure for a rapidly growing company in our country's bustling
advertising industry; was on the technical operations team for one of
our country's largest residential ISPs</li><li><strong>Brian Haberman</strong>, has been involved in the design of IPv6, IGMP/MLD, and NTP within the IETF for nearly 15 years</li><li><strong>Eric Tykwinski</strong>, Network Engineer working for a
small ISP based in the Philadelphia region; currently maintains the
network as well as the DNS and server infrastructure</li><li><strong>Noel Chiappa</strong>, has been working on the lowest level
stuff (the IP protocol level) since 1977; name on the 'Birth of the
Internet' plaque at Stanford); actively helping to develop new
'plumbing' at that level</li><li><strong>Robert M. Hinden</strong>, worked on the gateways in the
early Internet, author of many of the core IPv6 specifications, active
in the IETF since the first IETF meeting, author of 37 RFCs, and current
Internet Society Board of Trustee member</li><li><strong>Alexander McKenzie</strong>, former member of the Network
Working Group and participated in the design of the first ARPAnet Host
protocols; was the manager of the ARPAnet Network Operation Center that
kept the network running in the early 1970s; was a charter member of the
International Network Working Group that developed the ideas used in
TCP and IP</li><li><strong>Keith Moore</strong>, was on the Internet Engineering
Steering Group from 1996-2000, as one of two Area Directors for
applications; wrote or co-wrote technical specification RFCs associated
with email, WWW, and IPv6 transition</li><li><strong>Guy Almes</strong>, led the connection of universities in
Texas to the NSFnet during the late 1980s; served as Chief Engineer of
Internet2 in the late 1990s</li><li><strong>David Mercer</strong>, formerly of The River Internet, provided service to more of Arizona than any local or national ISP</li><li><strong>Paul Timmins</strong>, designed and runs the multi-state network of a medium sized telephone and internet company in the Midwest</li>
<li><strong>Stephen L. Casner</strong>, led the working group that designed the Real-time Transport Protocol that carries the voice signals in VoIP systems</li><li><strong>Tim Rutherford, </strong>DNS and network administrator at C4</li>
<li><strong>Mike Alexander</strong>, helped implement (on the Michigan
Terminal System at the University of Michigan) one of the first EMail
systems to be connected to the Internet (and to its predecessors such as
Bitnet, Mailnet, and UUCP); helped with the basic work to connect MTS
to the Internet; implemented various IP related drivers on early
Macintosh systems: one allowed TCP/IP connections over ISDN lines and
another made a TCP connection look like a serial port</li><li><strong>John Klensin, Ph.D.</strong>, early and ongoing role in the
design of Internet applications and coordination and administrative
policies; former IAB Chair and former AT&T Internet Architecture VP</li><li><strong>L. Jean Camp, </strong>former Senior Member of the Technical
Staff at Sandia National Laboratories, focusing on computer security;
eight years at Harvard's Kennedy School; tenured Professor at Indiana
Unviersity's School of Informatics with research addressing security in
society.</li><li><strong>Louis Pouzin</strong>, designed and implemented the first computer network using datagrams (CYCLADES), from which TCP/IP was derived</li><li><strong>Carl Page</strong>, helped found eGroups, the biggest social network<br>
of its day, 14 million users at the point of sale to Yahoo for around $430,000,000, at which point it became Yahoo Groups</li><li><strong>Phil Lapsley</strong>, co-author of the Internet Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP), RFC 977, and developer of the NNTP reference implementation</li>
<li><strong>Jack Haverty (MSEE, BSEE MIT 1970)</strong>, Principal
Investigator for several DARPA projects including the first Internet
development and operation; Corporate Network Architect for BBN; Founding
member of the IAB/ICCB; Internet Architect and Corporate Founding
Member of W3C for Oracle Corporation</li><li><strong>Glenn Ricart</strong>, Managed the original (FIX) Internet interconnection point</li><li><strong>Ben Laurie</strong>, Apache Software Foundation founder,
OpenSSL core team member, security researcher. Over half the secure
websites on the Internet are powered by his software.</li><li><strong>Chris Wellens</strong> President & CEO InterWorking Labs</li><li><strong>Chris Morrow</strong> Network Security Engineer at Google, and previously at UUNET. Involved in several IETF routing and security working groups.</li>
<li><strong>Dave Shambley</strong>, entrepreneur and IEEE member</li><li><strong>Bill Jennings</strong>, who was VP of Engineering at Cisco
for 10 years and responsible for building much of the hardware and
embedded software for Cisco's core router products and high-end Ethernet
switches</li><li><strong>Bernie Cosell</strong> coauthored the original IMP code, Terminal-IMP [TIP] and monitoring code for the NOC.</li><li><strong>Leonard Kleinrock</strong>, one of the "fathers of the
Internet", created the mathematical theory of packet networks, ran the
UCLA lab that served as the first node of the ARPANET, and supervised
the transmission of its first message.</li><li><strong>Rebecca Hargrave Malamud</strong>, helped advance many large-scale Internet projects, and have been working the web since its invention.</li></ul></div></div></div> </div>
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<h2 class="pane-title">Attached Documents</h2>
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<div class="field field-name-field-files field-type-file field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="file"><img class="file-icon" alt="" title="application/pdf" src="https://www.eff.org/modules/file/icons/application-pdf.png"> <a href="https://www.eff.org/sites/default/files/Internet-Engineers-Letter.pdf" type="application/pdf; length=92442">Internet-Engineers-Letter.pdf</a></span></div>
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