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Internet freedoms restrained - SOPA/PIPA/OPEN/ACTA/CETA/PrECISE-related updates
TaoPhoenix:
Thanks for the notes guys.
In one sense, of the forums I post to, everyone knows the dangers at stake. And per Iain's note, it's absolutely exhausting, except it's not "an act", 'dem evil critters wanted SOPA for what it was, they didn't think 12 moves ahead in any kind of master plan. Rather, there's everything to gain and little to lose to just keep introducing these things, and like me, eventually the energy of the rebels wears out.
A main reason I'm going to take a break soon is that X internet freedom fighters can only do so much, we got the basic word out twice, on SOPA and ACTA, and we're all collectively getting tired and starting to miss the 3rd generation bills. So even if we keep hollering, one day some random FSCKILLA billa (or whatever acronym) bill hits, we'll be living in a Post-______ world.
What we need is some higher grade help, like Judge Posner I mentioned elsewhere, or maybe that new silicon valley corp coalition. We need a signature event that completely turns Copyright on its head by using their own over-extended rules against them, so devastatingly that it re-writes the entire global mood. Then I'll join back in the aftermath cleanup.
But it's getting to where I'm running out of steam in my local life, and if that happens I'll be of no use to the movement 3 years from now with whatever that time frame requires.
Edit: Although I was a low end mediocre player, I am permanently altered by my Magic the Gathering days, and I instinctively look for "News Combos". News outlets, trying to drill out copy as fast as possible, (lately?) seem to have a bad habit of treating each news "object" like it's its own thing, and either via author exhaustion or design, refuse to see what happens if you combine these IP related articles together. What MTG taught me is that even innocent looking (by innocent or malicious design) items can do absolutely devastating things in combination.
So (I'm forgetting now if I posted it here) like the Michigan law student who used a Supreme Court case to bust a local "don't yell at the meter maids" ordinance, my rough vision of these copyright rules is pinging my Combo Bell. Basically, if Copyright Infringements are $175,000 a pop, and Copyrighted Works come into play the *instant* that you create them, then some ballistic fluke backed by big pockets (to bull past the corruption stalling tactics) might be able to argue things that the mouse clicks that the user clicks *and saves locally in some kind of work* might constitute a Creative Work, and then Facebook gets to deal with $175,000 fines *per user* *per day*.
TaoPhoenix:
Well, I've done my bit of activism in my corners of the net, I'm gonna have to take a break from all this junk for a while. The emotional roller coaster is wearing me out now.
-TaoPhoenix (August 06, 2012, 10:25 AM)
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I wonder how many people feel/think the same?
I have a theory that a lot of this nonsense is designed to desensitize people by flooding them with incessant change - you get change-induced fatigue/narcosis and stop fighting it. Even the most stalwart activists could become more malleable, less resistant and more accepting.
This is how Scientology and various other brainwashing cults operate.
-IainB (August 06, 2012, 11:41 AM)
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It's more than a theory. Great minds and all that, it's been announced as an explicit strategy of theirs. "Keep pummeling them with successive versions and one day they will be too tired to fight back anymore." Sorry to say, for me, they won. (For now.)
IainB:
TorrentFreak has what looks like some good news!
Internet Archive Starts Seeding 1,398,875 Torrents
(Post copied below, sans hyperlinks. Worth a read.)
SpoilerInternet Archive Starts Seeding 1,398,875 Torrents
Ernesto - August 7, 2012
The Internet Archive has just enriched the BitTorrent ecosystem with well over a million torrent files, and that’s just the start of “universal access to all knowledge.” The torrents link to almost a petabyte of data and all files are being seeded by the Archive’s servers. Founder Brewster Kahle told TorrentFreak that turning BitTorrent into a distributed preservation system for the Internet is the next step.
The Internet Archive‘s mission statement is to provide “universal access to all knowledge,” which is not all that different from The Pirate Bay’s ethos.
BitTorrent is the fastest way to share files with large groups of people over the Internet, and this is one of the reasons that prompted the Internet Archive to start seeding well over a million of their files using the popular file-sharing protocol.
Starting today, all new files uploaded to the Archive will also be available via BitTorrent. In addition, a massive collection of older files including concerts from John Mayer, Jack Johnson and Maroon 5 and the Prelinger collection are also being published via torrents.
“I hope this is greeted by the BitTorrent community, as we are loving what they have built and are very glad we can populate the BitTorrent universe with library and archive materials,” Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle told TorrentFreak.
“There is a great opportunity for symbiosis between the Libraries and Archives world and the BitTorrent communities,” he adds.
At the time of writing the Internet Archive is seeding 1,398,875 torrents, but hundreds of new ones are being added every hour. The Internet Archive recognizes that BitTorrent is now the fastest way to download files.
“BitTorrent is now the fastest way to download items from the Archive, because the BitTorrent client downloads simultaneously from two different Archive servers located in two different datacenters, and from other Archive users who have downloaded these torrents already.”
Interestingly, the Archive’s plans for BitTorrent are not limited to providing an alternative download link for their files. Founder Brewster Kahle says that they are also working on turning it into a storage mechanism.
“The next step is to make BitTorrent a distributed preservation system for content like ours,” Kahle told us. Kahle believes that the Internet Archive and the BitTorrent community can help each other and hopes to get the discussion on the preservation idea started.
“I think this whole thing will be awesome, and possibly very important,” he adds.
In the wake of recent news featuring raids, crackdowns, DDoSes and lawsuits, this announcement from the Internet Archive brings some very welcome positive news about BitTorrent. For those who are interested in tracking how many people are leeching from the archive, here are some fancy graphs.
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IainB:
Relevant to Internet freedoms and the Dotcom raid: Post at arsTechnica: (rather good video they made there - "Are Your Politicians for Sale?)
(Post copied below sans embedded links.)
SpoilerAnonymous donors bring Hollywood production values to anti-MPAA video
Video has been featured on the Pirate Bay, generating 10 million views.
by Timothy B. Lee - Aug 9 2012, 1:10pm NZST
A video accusing the American government of selling out to Hollywood has made a splash after being featured on the front page of the Pirate Bay, where it has garnered over 10 million views. Anti-Hollywood sentiment is nothing new, especially on The Pirate Bay, but what sets this video apart is its top-notch—one might even say Hollywood-caliber—production values.
On Wednesday, Ars talked to an individual behind the video. He said he and a friend paid for the video out of their own pockets. They are hoping to "raise awareness" of what they view as America's repressive copyright policies.
The video has three scenes. In the first, the "American Motion Picture Association" announces it has hired "Senator Chris Rodd" (clearly references to the MPAA and its chairman, former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT)) to represent Hollywood. In the second scene, police carry out a military-style raid on a London home. The final scene takes place in an "undisclosed location." The kid arrested in London is now in chains, wearing an orange jumpsuit and a hood over his head. The young soldier guarding the prisoner asks an older American in a suit what the suspect did, and looks incredulous when he's told that he's been arrested for copyright infringement.
Obviously, the video is over-the-top. Nothing exactly like the incident depicted has happened in real life. The US government doesn't subject copyright defendants to the same harsh treatment as suspected terrorists. But after the commando-style raid on Kim Dotcom's mansion in January, it may be close enough to the truth to make effective propaganda.
The website associated with the video depicts Kim Dotcom, Richard O'Dwyer, and others as victims of a copyright regime run amok. The site is short on details about who's behind it, providing only an email address.
On Wednesday, Ars spoke to one of the producers, who identified himself as "Andrew," via Skype. He told us he's a financial professional outside the United States. He created the video with a friend who also works "on the stock exchange."
Believing a video would attract a wider audience than a text-based website, they hired a director and a sound professional to produce a 3-minute video. "Andrew" told us the whole video cost about $5000 to produce, and that he and his friend funded the project out of their own pockets. "We really don't have much to do with the Internet industry as a whole," he told us.
If this video is a hit, it could be the first in a series of videos focused on "online freedom and copyright." The next one might be tied to the American elections in November.
Why the secrecy? "You see what's happening with people who are involved in this kind of stuff," "Andrew" told us. "Especially when you're directly attacking against political figures. We don't want to attract unnecessary attention in our lives."
He said he was motivated by the sight of people being "getting arrested left and right in different countries for various copyright infringement 'offenses.'" He said that copyright issues "affect pretty much anybody."
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IainB:
Interesting post at Hacker News: Ask HN: Wikileaks is available from Tor. Who's blocking it?
Ask HN: Wikileaks is available from Tor. Who's blocking it?
9 points by alex_marchant 47 minutes ago | 6 comments
It looks like the DDoS isn't the main culprit here. I assume that if the site is available from Tor, then someone must be blocking the site.
Can ISP's block Wikileaks? What is their justification if so?
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guns 24 minutes ago | link
That's pretty interesting. I can't reach wikileaks.ch from my home connection, or from one linode instance, but it is available through a second linode instance (in Dallas):
https://www.refheap.com/paste/4309
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Udo 30 minutes ago | link
Can you give a little more context?
Wikileaks.org loads just fine using my standard ISP here in Germany. I once worked for a project that scraped WL periodically for content, so I can tell you from experience that Wikileaks uptime is not exactly stellar - that's why they have a million mirror sites.
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Skalman 25 minutes ago | link
Wikileaks has been having DDoS issues for quite a few days now[1], and wikileaks.org (88.80.2.33) is not available with my ISP in Sweden.
[1] http://www.technolog.msnbc.msn.com/technology/technolog/wiki...
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alex_marchant 23 minutes ago | link
Why would it be available so consistently in the Tor browser though?
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Skalman 19 minutes ago | link
I have no clue. It does seem like it's blocked selectively as guns seems to have it working from linode.
Edit: It also seems to work from an Amazon instance that I have access to.
Edit 2: It seems like it works from my university (Lund in Sweden).
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alex_marchant 27 minutes ago | link
I'm in the US. If it doesn't load in any browser, and http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/ says its down, but then loads instantly in Tor... I assume something is preventing me from seeing it.
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Presumably, this could be deliberate blocking/censoring of Wikileaks(?). If it is, then it may be a deliberate test/demonstration of a fait accompli. I suppose that it could be pointless to think of fighting the SOPA etc. legislation, if the Internet controls were already in place and being used to "good effect".
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