Comment The threat of Decentralization and Anonymity to IP (Score 2, Informative) 721
Some introductory material first:
Projects like Freenet, GNUnet and IIP are creating decentralized, anonymous Peer-to-Peer networks that can strongly resist censorship by any attacker. I believe that if (when?) these kinds of secure networks replace currently popular networks (FastTrack, IRC, etc) as IP infringement tools, your job of effectively finding, stoping and prosecuting IP infringers will become much, much harder, and will require many more computer resources (perhaps impossibly many resources, both in computing time and in network bandwith).
Now my questions:
For how long do you think mass IP infringement will continue to take place in plain view, rather than on decentralized, anonymous, P2P networks?
If mass IP infringment does move to those kinds of networks, what kind of resources will your office be able to expend to attack those networks?
Would you be allowed to attack those networks at all without violating their user's First Ammendment right to anonymous speech?
What changes to IP law do you think would be needed to address decentralized anonymous networks?