SOPA stopped: Chief sponsor delays action indefinitely

Immediately following Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) decision to postpone a full vote on the “PROTECT IP Act” (PIPA), which was originally scheduled for Tuesday, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), chief sponsor of the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA), has announced that he will delay further consideration of the contentious anti-piracy bill in the House “until there is wider agreement on a solution.” Earlier this week, Smith said that he would resume markup hearings on SOPA by the House Judiciary Committee, of which he is chairman, in February.
The interruption of both bills follows Wednesday’s mass online blackout held in protest of the companion anti-piracy bills.
“I have heard from the critics and I take seriously their concerns regarding proposed legislation to address the problem of online piracy,” said Smith in a statement. “It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products.”
This statement stands in stark contrast to Smith’s earlier remarks about the opposition to SOPA and PIPA, in which brushed off their warnings that the bills could put and end to the free and open Internet as we know it as illegitimate, and without merit.
“The problem of online piracy is too big to ignore,” Smith added. “American intellectual property industries provide 19 million high-paying jobs and account for more than 60 percent of U.S. exports. The theft of America’s intellectual property costs the U.S. economy more than $100 billion annually and results in the loss of thousands of American jobs. Congress cannot stand by and do nothing while American innovators and job creators are under attack.”
“The online theft of American intellectual property is no different than the theft of products from a store.  It is illegal and the law should be enforced both in the store and online,” he said.
Prior to Wednesday’s blackout, which saw more than 75,000 websites “go black” in protest, SOPA and PIPA enjoyed the support of 80 members of Congress, while just 31 members stood in opposition to these bills. By Thursday, the balance of power shifted dramatically, with only 63 members in both houses of Congress in support of SOPA/PIPA, and 122 opposed, according to ProPublica.
While the delay of SOPA and PIPA is testament to the power of the opposition movement to sway Congress, it is also obvious that the fight is far from over. Both Sen. Reid and Rep. Smith have vowed to continue the fight against piracy, and could revive these bills — or others like them — at any time.
This article was originally posted on Digital Trends
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SOPA/PIPA blackout: By the numbers
Sen. Marco Rubio drops support of PIPA, a bill he co-sponsored [Update: 2nd Sen. backs down]
January 18 SOPA/PIPA blackout: A quick guide

Newt Rejects "SOPA" Calls it Anti-Freedom !!!

Speaker Newt Gingrich opposes the current form of the House's Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) and Senate's Protect IP Act (PIPA). Combating online piracy of intellectual property and its adverse effects on jobs and free market competitiveness is without question an important objective. However, each bill allows for private rights of action to censor the Internet while opening up additional risks to national security.

Although both bills are designed to be a new enforcement mechanism to combat online infringement of content and goods, there is an abundance of current technology, security best practices, and legal maneuvers to shut down foreign rogue websites without adding another layer of regulation. Each bill requires the use of domain name system (DNS) filtering, which raises serious technical and security concerns. The DNS is a daily, reliable function for every user on the Internet that converts a website name (such as Newt.org) to an IP address (such as 64.203.96.245). Modifying this function creates an incompatibility with the DNS Security Extensions - a critical set of security updates. In layman's terms, DNS filtering would be minimally effective and would compound an already difficult cybersecurity challenge.

Speaker Gingrich is not alone in his opposition. Organizations such as Google, Twitter, Wikipedia and Reddit have voiced root concerns, as well as public protests by blacking out some services as a cause-effect example. Sandia National Laboratories and other notable cybersecurity experts, have clearly documented the overarching technical and security challenges. This includes how easily an online pirate could evade DNS filters, but more importantly how a widespread circumvention would threaten the stability of the global DNS -- effectively opening up more cyber attacks. This scenario has been used in a variety of industry and government training exercises to demonstrate the threats and vulnerabilities to America's critical infrastructures.

In its current form, SOPA and PIPA are not mature enough to successfully combat online piracy without compromising competition and security. Speaker Gingrich recommends an in-depth examination of the distinct, yet interrelated business, technical and security issues. The next step would be to isolate existing laws, regulations, guidelines and standards to ensure that non-infringing bystanders are not adversely affected. The final step would be to develop a process to accurately identify online pirates and deploy a prompt, measured response.

Rick Santorum defends SOPA and says any freedom has to be regulated. Bye Bye Rick !!!

SOPA Is a bill which will allow the U.S Government to regulate the internet and remove websites, Rick Santorum Doesn't think the internet should remain free.

Wikipedia Announces Blackout >>> Protest Of SOPA, PIPA On January 18

Wikipedia will black out the English language version of its website Wednesday to protest anti-piracy legislation under consideration in Congress, the foundation behind the popular community-based online encyclopedia said in a statement Monday night.

The website will go dark for 24 hours in an unprecedented move that brings added muscle to a growing base of critics of the legislation. Wikipedia is considered one of the Internet’s most popular websites, with millions of visitors daily.

“If passed, this legislation will harm the free and open Internet and bring about new tools for censorship of international websites inside the United States,” the Wikimedia foundation said.

The Stop Online Piracy Act in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Protect Intellectual Property Act under consideration in the Senate are designed to crack down on sales of pirated U.S. products overseas.

Supporters include the film and music industry, which often sees its products sold illegally. They say the legislation is needed to protect intellectual property and jobs.

Critics say the legislation could hurt the technology industry and infringe on free-speech rights. Among their concerns are provisions that would weaken cyber-security for companies and hinder domain access rights.

The most controversial provision is in the House bill, which would have enabled federal authorities to “blacklist” sites that are alleged to distribute pirated content. That would essentially cut off portions of the Internet to all U.S. users. But congressional leaders appear to be backing off this provision.

Tech companies such as Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter, eBay,AOL and others have spoken out against the legislation and said it threatens the industry’s livelihood. Several online communities such as Reddit, Boing Boing and others have announced plans to go dark in protest as well.

The Obama administration also raised concerns about the legislation over the weekend and said it will work with Congress on legislation to help battle piracy and counterfeiting while defending free expression, privacy, security and innovation in the Internet.

Wikipedia’s decision to go dark brings the issue into a much brighter spotlight. A group of Wikipedia users have discussed for more than a month whether it should react to the legislation.

Over the past few days, a group of more than 1,800 volunteers who work on the site and other users considered several forms of online protest, including banner ads and a global blackout of the site, the foundation said. Ultimately, the group supported the decision to black out the English version of the site.

Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia who first announced the move on his Twitter account Monday, said the bills are a threat to the free, open, and secure web.

“The whole thing is just a poorly designed mess,” Wales said in an email to The Associated Press.

Wikipedia is also requesting that readers contact members of Congressabout the bill during the blackout.

“I am personally asking everyone who cares about freedom and openness on the Internet to contact their Senators and Representative,” Wales said. “One of the things we have learned recently during the Arab spring events is that the Internet is a powerfully effective tool for the public to organize and have their voices heard.”

Story Continues →

Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)

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     ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ 

STOP SOPA & PIPA

HR3261 & S968 are

threatening CL and

the rest of your

Internet. Most of

the web sites you use

strongly oppose these

bills. Find out why, and

how you can help put

a stop to this madness

before it's too late!

     ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ 

Hackers plan space satellites to combat censorship

Computer hackers plan to take the internet beyond the reach of censors by putting their own communication satellites into orbit.

The scheme was outlined at the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin.

The project's organisers said the Hackerspace Global Grid will also involve developing a grid of ground stations to track and communicate with the satellites.

Longer term they hope to help put an amateur astronaut on the moon.

Hobbyists have already put a few small satellites into orbit - usually only for brief periods of time - but tracking the devices has proved difficult for low-budget projects.

The hacker activist Nick Farr first put out calls for people to contribute to the project in August. He said that the increasing threat of internet censorship had motivated the project.

"The first goal is an uncensorable internet in space. Let's take the internet out of the control of terrestrial entities," Mr Farr said.

He cited the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) in the United States as an example of the kind of threat facing online freedom. If passed, the act would allow for some sites to be blocked on copyright grounds.

Beyond balloons

Although space missions have been the preserve of national agencies and large companies, amateur enthusiasts have launched objects into the heavens.

High-altitude balloons have also been used to place cameras and other equipment into what is termed "near space". The balloons can linger for extended amounts of time - but are not suitable for satellites.

The amateur radio satellite Arissat-1 was deployed into low earth orbit last year via a spacewalk by two Russian cosmonauts from the International Space Station as part of an educational project.

Students and academics have also launched other objects by piggybacking official rocket launches.

However, these devices have often proved tricky to pinpoint precisely from the ground.

According to Armin Bauer, a 26-year-old enthusiast from Stuttgart who is working on the Hackerspace Global Grid, this is largely due to lack of funding.

"Professionals can track satellites from ground stations, but usually they don't have to because, if you pay a large sum [to send the satellite up on a rocket], they put it in an exact place," Mr Bauer said.

In the long run, a wider hacker aerospace project aims to put an amateur astronaut onto the moon within the next 23 years.

"It is very ambitious so we said let's try something smaller first," Mr Bauer added.

Ground network

The Berlin conference was the latest meeting held by the Chaos Computer Club, a decades-old German hacker group that has proven influential not only for those interested in exploiting or improving computer security, but also for people who enjoy tinkering with hardware and software.

When Mr Farr called for contributions to Hackerspace, Mr Bauer and others decided to concentrate on the communications infrastructure aspect of the scheme.

He and his teammates are working on their part of the project together with Constellation, an existing German aerospace research initiative that mostly consists of interlinked student projects.

In the open-source spirit of Hackerspace, Mr Bauer and some friends came up with the idea of a distributed network of low-cost ground stations that can be bought or built by individuals.

Used together in a global network, these stations would be able to pinpoint satellites at any given time, while also making it easier and more reliable for fast-moving satellites to send data back to earth.

"It's kind of a reverse GPS," Mr Bauer said.

"GPS uses satellites to calculate where we are, and this tells us where the satellites are. We would use GPS co-ordinates but also improve on them by using fixed sites in precisely-known locations."

Mr Bauer said the team would have three prototype ground stations in place in the first half of 2012, and hoped to give away some working models at the next Chaos Communication Congress in a year's time.

They would also sell the devices on a non-profit basis.

"We're aiming for 100 euros (£84) per ground station. That is the amount people tell us they would be willing to spend," Mr Bauer added.Complications

Experts say the satellite project is feasible, but could be restricted by technical limitations.

"Low earth orbit satellites such as have been launched by amateurs so far, do not stay in a single place but rather orbit, typically every 90 minutes," said Prof Alan Woodward from the computing department at the University of Surrey.

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Will Google, Amazon, and Facebook Black Out the Net ??? "The Nuclear Option."

In the growing battle for the future of the Web, some of the biggest sites online -- Google, Facebook, and other tech stalwarts -- are considering a coordinated blackout of their sites, some of the web’s most popular destinations.

No Google searches. No Facebook updates. No Tweets. No Amazon.com shopping. Nothing. 

The action would be a dramatic response to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a bill backed by the motion picture and recording industries that is intended to eliminate theft online once and for all. HR 3261 would require ISPs to block access to sites that infringe on copyrights -- but how exactly it does that has many up in arms. The creators of some of the web's biggest sites argue it could instead dramatically restrict law-abiding U.S. companies -- and reshape the web as we know it.

A blackout would be drastic. And though the details of exactly how it would work are unclear, it's already under consideration, according to Markham Erickson, the executive director of NetCoalition, a trade association that includes the likes of Google, PayPal, Yahoo, and Twitter.

“Mozilla had a blackout day and Wikipedia has talked about something similar,” Erickson told FoxNews.com, calling this kind of operation unprecedented. 

"A number of companies have had discussions about that," he said.

With the Senate debating the SOPA legislation at the end of January, it looks as if the tech industry’s top dogs are finally adding bite to their bark, something CNET called "the nuclear option."

"When the home pages of Google.com, Amazon.com, Facebook.com, and their Internet allies simultaneously turn black with anti-censorship warnings that ask users to contact politicians about a vote in the U.S. Congress the next day on SOPA,” Declan McCullagh wrote, “you’ll know they’re finally serious.”

“This type of thing doesn’t happen because companies typically don’t want to put their users in that position,” Erickson explained. “The difference is that these bills so fundamentally change the way the Internet works. People need to understand the effect this special-interest legislation will have on those who use the Internet.”

The polarizing movement has many critics but also equally strong and diverse support, including most major media companies as well as businesses like 3M, Adidas, Burberry, CVS and more. News Corp., the parent company of FoxNews.com, also supports the law.

"SOPA targets foreign websites that sell counterfeit drugs and stolen copies of Hollywood movies -- not such American Web sites as YouTube or your favorite blog," wrote Richard Bennett, senior research fellow at the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, in an editorial in the New York Post. 

The law is necessary to deal with those sites, he said.

"Internet criminals selling bogus drugs or pirated movies simply set up shop in China or a distant island republic, knowing that they won't be harassed by law enforcement regardless of how many U.S. lives or jobs they endanger."

But opposition to the legislation has grown substantially louder in recent weeks as the vote looms.

On November 15, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, eBay, Mozilla, Yahoo, AOL, and LinkedIn wrote a letter to Washington warning of SOPA's dangers. "We are concerned that these measures pose a serious risk to our industry's continued track record of innovation and job-creation, as well as to our Nation's cybersecurity," the letter argued

Google co-founder Sergey Brin himself has loudly denounced the bill. “While I support their goal of reducing copyright infringement (which I don't believe these acts would accomplish), I am shocked that our lawmakers would contemplate such measures that would put us on a par with the most oppressive nations in the world,” Brin wrote on Google+ social networking site earlier this month.

Others have taken a more proactive approach, voting with their dollars against those who support the bill. GoDaddy.com, one of the largest domain registrars on the Internet, stands to potentially lose thousands of customers on Thursday, Dec. 29, or “Dump GoDaddy Day,” the culmination of an ongoing boycott of the company.

Microblogging site Tumblr generated 87,834 calls to Congress with its own anti-SOPA campaign -- a total of 1,293 total hours spent talking to representatives.

Hollywood and the recording industry have maintained the bill's necessity in the name of piracy. "Rogue Web sites that steal America's innovative and creative products attract more than 53 billion visits a year and threaten more than 19 million American jobs," the U.S. Chambers of Commerce wrote in a letter to the editor of The New York Times.

But Erickson believes this is “just the tip of the iceberg in terms of response.” 

“People take the Internet very personally," Erickson told FoxNews.com. “It’s a very important part of their lives."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/12/30/will-google-amazon-and-facebook-blackout-net/#ixzz1i3CizEJM

Censoring Clicks or Saving the Web ??? SOPA Hearing May Shape Net's Future

An open letter to Washington signed by the creators of some of the web's biggest sites argues that a new bill could dramatically restrict law-abiding U.S. Internet and technology companies -- and reshape the web as we know it. 

The House Judiciary Committee met Thursday to decide the next steps for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which has been the center of controversy among technologists and privacy advocates for months. If the bill passes, popular sites such as YouTube, Wikipedia and even Google would be held responsible for content users post to their sites. They argue that the U.S. government could reshape the Internet, thanks to vague language and imprecise wording.

"We are concerned that these measures pose a serious risk to our industry's continued track record of innovation and job-creation, as well as to our Nation's cybersecurity," the letter argues. It was co-signed by the creators of more than a dozen blue-chip websites including PayPal, Yahoo, Google and more and developers as AOL, eBay, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Mozilla, Twitter, Yahoo and Zynga.

"We cannot support these bills as written and ask that you consider more targeted ways to combat foreign 'rogue' websites dedicated to copyright infringement and trademark counterfeiting, while preserving the innovation and dynamism that has made the Internet such an important driver of economic growth and job creation."

Google co-founder Sergey Brin himself has loudly denounced the bill, Tweeting his continued opposition to SOPA Thursday morning.

“While I support their goal of reducing copyright infringement (which I don't believe these acts would accomplish), I am shocked that our lawmakers would contemplate such measures that would put us on a par with the most oppressive nations in the world,” Brin wrote on Google+ social networking site on Thursday.

Others argue the bill is an essential stopgap measure to at last end years of Internet theft.

"As of this morning, typing 'download movies for free' into Google will take you to sites like PirateBay that offer free copies of infringing films and TV shows,” said Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tex) during the bill's opening debate on Thursday.

“The problem of rogue websites is real, immediate and increasing. It harms companies across the spectrum. And its scope is staggering,” Smith said.

According to the Chairman, nearly one quarter of global Internet traffic is infringing, resulting in loses of hundreds of billions of dollars each year.

Other sites argue for action, not words. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales is threatening to shut down the English version of the popular site in protest of the bill.

Americans for Limited Government urged members of the House Judiciary Committee to reject HR 3261, warning the legislation would "take the mind of throwing the book at alleged offenders, shutting down their websites, cutting off their revenue streams, locking them up and asking questions later."

Bill Wilson, president of the group, wrote a letter to Chairman Smith that warned, "It is un-American to set up a situation where people are guilty until proven innocent."

Watch the hearing live at www.keepthewebopen.com.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/12/15/censoring-your-clicks-saving-web-sopa-hearing-may-shape-nets-future/#ixzz1ghBQNoTv