While I didn't mind it so much, many of the students were more than upset and devoted a good deal of speculation towards trying to deduce exactly why the network was down. I overheard several people discussing the problem, and was doing a good job of tuning them out, when the following exchange took place.
"Dude, it's because of that internet censorship thing."
"No way, really?"
"Yeah bro, I read about it. It probably got rid of the school's network."
I was absolutely infuriated. I felt an overpowering need to cry, vomit and hit things. "But why?" you may ask. Well, dear reader whose mouth I'm putting words into, it's because I'm becoming more and more convinced that humanity as a whole is slowly but surely regressing back down the evolutionary chain. Here's what was wrong with the students hypothesis.
Problem 1: It's not about censorship.
The "internet censorship thing" in question is a reference to the recently proposed SOPA/PIPA acts, or "sopapilla" as I've come to think of them (if you've never heard of either of these bills, then you probably haven't been anywhere near an internet connection in the past month or so. Either that or you're a dismal failure when it comes to being even remotely aware of current events). Neither of these bills have anything to do with censorship at all. They are not, as most people have come to believe, an attempt to crush the creativity and innovation of the internet. Rather, they are written with the intent of putting an end to piracy, hence the names "Stop Online Piracy Act" and "Protect IP Act." Granted, they are both written with an incredibly clumsy word choice and give an inordinate amount of power to copyright holders. And yes, the majority of supporters for both bills are people who are still trying to figure out what that "newfangled intertubes thing" is. But it's not about censorship. Many people believe that the bills, if enacted, would result in the death of the internet as we know it, with rampant censorship being one of the many unfortunate byproducts.
Problem 2: Neither of these bills have been enacted yet.
The school network went down on January 18th. Several students were blaming it on the aforementioned "internet censorship thing." The issue is that neither of these bills have been passed yet. PIPA (the Senate's version of SOPA) is facing a vote on January 24th, and SOPA has been pushed back to February following the immense opposition it has faced on the internet. Some of the more astute readers will notice that both January 24th and the month of February come after January 18th. If you noticed this, give yourself a pat on the back.
Problem 3: I'm fairly certain it can't shut down a school network.
SOPA and PIPA would give copyright holders the ability to take down entire websites based on the smallest of copyright infractions. Now I'm not a technophile by a long shot, so I may be in the wrong here, but Wikipedia defines a network as "a collection of hardware components and computers interconnected by communication channels that allow sharing of resources and information." Again, some of the more astute readers will notice that a website is not the same thing as a network. As in, companies do not have the ability to remotely shut down a school network.
If my classmates are to be believed, an internet censorship thing that technically doesn't even exist as more than a grim possibility yet has gained the ability to remotely shut down an entire school network that apparently needed to be censored.
Yeah.
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