Tag Archives: sopa

Web Giants Fight CISPA, Push Back Against Resurrection Of Cybersecurity Bill

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Looks like there is no stopping these internet security bills. I still see no reason to have them. The FBI/CIA can already spy on us all they want to. These bills are not going to help anyone from what I see.

“Thousands of websites, including Craigslist and Reddit, demonstrated their opposition this week to a controversial cybersecurity bill, arguing the measure fails to protect the privacy of Internet users.

But as Internet activists wage an online battle against the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, the bill’s chances of passing Congress the second time around remain uncertain, and some experts question whether CISPA goes far enough to protect the country from a potentially crippling cyberattack.

The websites opposing the bill broadcast an “action tool” on their sites Tuesday that allows users to send an automated message to their representatives in Congress. “CISPA is Back. This bill sacrifices privacy without improving security. We deserve both,” the message says. Craigslist featured a link on its site that said: “Pro Privacy? Oppose CISPA.”

The effort is being promoted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Internet Defense League, an organization of Internet activists who led an online outcry last year that led to the defeat of anti-piracy legislation known as SOPA. The organizers said more than 30,000 websites participated Tuesday in the online protest.”

Continue the article discussing this new bill

What is SOPA?

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What is SOPA?

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), otherwise known as H.R. 3261, was started by Lamar Smith (R-TX) and other representatives (bipartisan group with their company sponsors) to the house of representatives (more info on SOPA at Google).

Here are the dangerous parts to this bill (from Mashable):

– Any site accused of supporting copyright violations can be shut down – felony to post copywritten material (without a trial)

– Attorney general has a right to take action against these sites (again without a trial)

– Once accused to copyright violations, no company is allowed to do business with this company and their site needs to be shut down

What does this do? This gives companies and the government the right to stop and shut down an internet site without due process, no court or trial involved, just being accused. So if you post something on Facebook, like a picture that is copyright protected, Facebook could be shut down. That is the extent of this law, and there are lawyers that can help with this, although if you have other issues like immigration problems, lawyers from sites as nationalpardon.org can help with this.

Many from the silicon valley are protesting SOPA, today January 18th 2012. These sites are going dark. Here is a small list of companies doing it (many more are as well and the list can found at the bottom of this post):

  • Google
  • Tor Project
  • iSchool at Syracuse University
  • Oreilly.com
  • Wikipedia
  • Reddit
  • Mozilla
  • WordPress.org
  • Minecraft

If you go to wikipedia today this is the message you will find:

“Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge – For over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history, history is shared by people travelling and sharing these knowledge across borders but immigration laws prevent this right now, so there are legal resources to work on this now a days, click site to learn more about this. Right now, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia.”

FYI – my site could be shut down after my post today because much of my information was paraphrased and/or taken from other internet sites…even though I am citing them here:

Websites going dark

Why sopa is dangerous

What is SOPA

Well stopping privacy doesn’t sound too bad?

No it doesn’t, however, given my example above, sites like facebook and youtube could be shut down because you or I post a picture or video that is copyright protected. Under current law, the Digital Millennium Act, when copyright material is found on a site, the site owner is notified they have a copyright protected image posted on their site and they have to remove it immediately. Well that sounds reasonable, right? I mean we need to protect copyright, but SOPA takes it a step too far.