https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/desopa/
http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-57359004-285/how-to-bypass-sopa-blocking-to-reach-sites-directly/
I woke up this morning to some news coverage on the television being watched by S.O. So the Kiwis have rolled over without so much as a bad word and given up Kim Dotcom to almost certain extradition. Looks like he will getting an unwelcome trip to the land of the free and home of the brave in order to answer charges. Various news articles suppose that there is a store of porn, kiddie porn, illegally uploaded movies, music, and other subversive items on at least one leased server in Virginia. Some of the media are reporting that the founder of Megaupload can face around twenty years in a fed pen for violation of U.S. copyright laws. Anyone scared yet?
I don't give a rat's ass about how much money Kim Dotcom has made, what kind of salary he draws, what cars he drives, the art hanging in his hallway, or what he eats for breakfast. The man had an idea and it was a success. Love or hate the man and his vision, the fact remains that Megaupload was wildly popular and made money. That some percentage of folks used his site to share movies or vids or music does not concern me. Big Hollywood-- along with its' cast of rich performers-- is in no danger of starvation. What is frightening to me is that the country I live in can reach across the miles to touch at least four people living in other places that have different copyright laws. That's OVERREACH as far as I'm concerned. Whether or not this particular raid was planned on the heels of Black Out Day and just before January 24th in order to demonstrate how "bad the pirate companies are, boys and girls" is up for speculation. I can only hope that this bit of heavy-handed showery on the part of the good ol' FBI backfires for the supporters of SOPA and PIPA.
Already, talented folks are fiddling with ways to circumvent the D.N.S. blocking of any sites that may materialize if these draconian laws pass. I encourage folks to download their own copies of one or more anti-SOPA tools now and save them in a secure location for use if needed. There are two urls below my Fungus Among Us picture that I've included which you can copy into your web browser and visit if you so desire. Or you can web search "anti-SOPA tool" for yourself if you prefer to. "Forewarned is forearmed" is the caveat that I was taught in my youth. It is not that I want to download a ton of movies or songs or videos on the sly. It is more that I rebel against my government or other governing body blocking my access to wherever I wish to go on the internet. I don't need to be protected from my own self.
The world has changed and the internet is part of that change. I feel a bit of nostalgia for the days when we recorded songs off of the radio for our own personal use and yes, sharing with friends. To be sure the quality wasn't very good. And certainly we were not claiming that we wrote or sang the songs we had stored on our cassette tapes. It used to be that one was allowed to make one copy of an album as personal backup. It used to be that reviewers who used their blogs to criticize large institutional organizations or write a review of a restaurant were not faced with lawsuits. It used to be that one could quote from a book for use in a critical essay without having to deal with subsequent court action. In a society where folks are arrested for pointing out holes in security rather than thanked for the information, it is scarcely any wonder that hackers became a secretive lot and the need for an organization such as Anonymous has arisen.
The battle for free expression needs to be fought on all fronts. There is a place for the folks shutting down websites with Denial of Service attacks just as there is a place for the folks who sign Google's on-line petitions. Although the rads and the suits are frequently and publicly at odds with each other, we should be joining arms as brothers and sisters in this war and all others that speak up for the commoner. I learned years ago during my days in Act Up and as a founding member of Queer Nation Albany the necessity of an approach which involved the rads burning an effigy of a xenophobic politician and the suits showing up the next day in order to talk with politicians about the issues in a calm fashion.
I lack the skills to join Anonymous and am at most a script kiddie-- and barely that. So I am doing what I can-- signing petitions and contacting my Senator and Congressperson. As of right now, I am boycotting Big Hollywood. What are you doing?
radical sapphoq
urls of some of the many many articles that I read via Google News:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-57362609-261/megaupload-assembles-worldwide-criminal-defense/
http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/19/2719223/megaupload-criminal-copyright-justice-department-conspiracy
http://www.hackingnetflix.com/2012/01/the-real-problem-with-the-anti-piracy-bills.html
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/
http://news.techeye.net/internet/big-content-ignores-sopa-failings-in-enormous-show-of-force
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-china-internet-20120120,0,31035.story
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/sopa-petition-gets-millions-of-signatures-as-internet-piracy-legislation-protests-continue/2012/01/19/gIQAHaAyBQ_story.html
http://www.pcworld.com/article/248401/were_sopapipa_protests_a_success_the_results_are_in.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57360665-503544/sopa-pipa-what-you-need-to-know/
http://www.xda-developers.com/announcements/xda-is-back-sopapipa-still-a-threat/
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71641.html
http://www.stopthewall.us/?gclid=CNDKjcTx3q0CFcZM4AodDjgjZg
https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jan2012/pers-j19.shtml
https://www.eff.org/issues/coica-internet-censorship-and-copyright-bill
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