Anonops #13: Stop CISPA

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House Quiety Reintroduces a Piece of SOPA

Even after millions rallied against the passage of SOPA/PIPA, the House is still quietly trying to pass a related bill that would give the entertainment industry more permanent, government-funded spokespeople. The Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet Subcommittee of the House recently held a hearing on Lamar Smith's IP Attaché Act (PDF), a bill that increases intellectual property policing around the world. The Act would create an Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property, as well as broaden the use of IP attachés in particular U.S. embassies. (The attachés were notably present in Sec. 205 of SOPA—which was also introduced by Smith.)

The major issue with this bill—and all similar bills—is that the commissioning of people in the executive branch who are solely dedicated to "intellectual property enforcement" caters to Big Content. The IP attachés are charged with "reducing intellectual property infringement" and "advancing intellectual property rights" around the world, but not to critically engage IP complexities and limitations. From our perspective, this bill is nothing more than the government giving Hollywood traveling foot soldiers.

The presence of people with such a narrow cause as "intellectual property enforcement" fosters a single perspective in the federal government. In an environment where the deep-pocketed copyright lobby is pushing through favorable legislation on both a domestic and international level, this is the last thing we need. As Techdirt and Public Knowledge rightly state: trying to squeeze bits of SOPA past the people—the same people who rejected the bill earlier this year—is an awful idea. Big Content and sympathetic congressmen may think we've stopped watching their actions in Washington, but let's prove them wrong by remaining vigilant about these bad bills.

Anonymous Message: #OpPedoChat

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Anonymous message to the FDA

SPOILER

Om spoilers te kunnen lezen moet je zijn ingelogd. Je moet je daarvoor eerst gratis Registreren. Ook kun je spoilers niet lezen als je een ban hebt.

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Rights groups and activists slam Iraq’s internet law

An Iraqi draft law that would jail web users for life for a variety of ill-defined crimes has been condemned by rights groups and activists who have slammed its vague language and hefty penalties.

Little more than a year after revolutions, in part sparked by Internet-based campaigns, rocked the Middle East and ousted several dictators, Human Rights Watch has warned the bill would “constitute serious curtailments” of Iraqis’ freedoms, while activists have questioned many of the bill’s provisions.

And while several MPs involved in writing the controversial law have said they will reconsider and soften the penalties, campaigners have said they will believe them only when they follow their words with action.

“We just do not have the culture of protecting users’ freedoms, and of protecting freedom of information,” an Iraqi activist and blogger who identifies himself as Hayder Hamzoz told AFP in an interview.

Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at HRW, said in a statement: “This bill would give Iraqi authorities yet another tool to suppress dissent, especially on the Internet, which Iraqi journalists and activists increasingly turn to for information and open debate.”

MPs defend the current draft of the bill by saying it was written at the height of Iraq’s bloody sectarian war.

But while it may look to deter insurgents, its wide-ranging provisions apply to all sectors of society, in a country where Internet penetration was just 1.1 percent in 2010, according to the International Telecommunication Union.

The draft law stipulates jail terms of up to life imprisonment for “undermining the independence, unity, or safety of the country, or its supreme economic, political, military, or security interests,” according to an HRW translation.

Similar punishments could be handed down if web users were found to be “participating, negotiating, promoting, contracting with, or dealing with a hostile entity in any way with the purpose of disrupting security and public order or endangering the country.”

Life imprisonment is also a potential penalty for those guilty of “inflaming sectarian tensions or strife; disturbing security and the public order; or defaming the country” or “publishing or broadcasting false or misleading events for the purpose of weakening confidence in the electronic financial system, electronic commercial or financial documents, or similar things, or damaging the national economy and financial confidence in the state.”

One article stipulates a one-year jail term for “any person who encroaches on any religious, moral, family, or social values or principles or the sanctity of private life using an information network or computer devices in any shape or form.”

Another calls for a minimum three-year sentence for those who “disrupt intentionally the computers and the Internet devoted to the public interest, or damage or hinder their functions,” according to a translation compiled by the Belgium-based Institute for International Law and Human Rights.

“Given the vagueness and breadth of these provisions, as well as the severity of the punishment for the violations, authorities could use the law to punish any expression that they claim constitutes a threat to some governmental, religious, or social interest,” HRW said in a report Thursday.

The New York-based rights group warned that the law could also be used to “deter legitimate criticisms of or peaceful challenges to governmental or religious officials or policies.”

It added: “Given the key role of information technology, devices, and networks in journalism and the dissemination of information and opinions, the proposed law poses a severe threat to independent media, whistleblowers and peaceful activists.”

HRW warned that the draft law was “part of a broader pattern of restrictions on fundamental freedoms in Iraq, particularly freedom of expression, association, and assembly.”

It called on Iraqi MPs to delay voting on the law until it was reformed to conform to international human rights standards, a call which some members of the three parliamentary committees working on the law have agreed with.

“Many things need to be changed, especially the punishments,” said Ali Shlah from Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s State of Law alliance and a member of the Culture Committee.

“When the law was written, insurgent groups used to broadcast their statements and news through the Internet, and it affected the security of the people,” Shlah told AFP.

“Now things have changed and the government is in control, and the security situation is much better.”

Shlah said he expected it would take six weeks to two months before the draft law was re-introduced to parliament.

But even with those assurances, Iraqi activists are unconvinced.

“For many laws before this, they (MPs) said they would not approve them, but when they went to vote, the laws were approved,” said Hamzoz.

Asked if it would take actual reform of the draft law for him to finally be convinced, Hamzoz replied: “Yes.”

“I do not believe them,” he added.

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Par:AnoIA: Anonymous Launches WikiLeaks-esque Site for Data Dumps

Frustrated by the lack of impact from Anonymous’ otherwise famous hacks and data dumps, and the slow pace of material coming out of WikiLeaks, participants in the Anonymous collective have launched a WikiLeaks-like site called Par:AnoIA (Potentially Alarming Research: Anonymous Intelligence Agency).

Paranoia, which debuted in March, is a new publishing platform built by Anonymous to host Anonymous data leaks that’s trying to find a solution to a problem that plagues news sites, government transparency advocates, and large-website owners everywhere: how to organize more data than any human could possibly read.

The site marks a departure from the groups’ previous modus operandi, where it would publicly drop the documents, make them available in a torrent — usually as a zip file, and then move on. By contrast, the goal of Paranoia is to curate and present content to a hopefully interested public.

Paranoia anons say they don’t gather the data themselves; like WikiLeaks, they take submissions, but from the Anonymous community. The project was created as a response to a year of Anonymous releases where the announcement of document dumps generated plenty of media, but the documents’ content got little coverage.

“The reason no one cares about these leaks, as a general rule of thumb, is that they can’t do anything with [them],” said a Paranoia anon volunteering on document processing for the project in an online chat with Wired. “Basically, [we're] making it accessible to anyone that wants to do something with it, in a proper usable format.”

Part of the motivation to build the leak site, the Paranoia volunteer said, was to get material out faster than WikiLeaks’ long lead times. “I’m pretty sick by these 20-year-plans,” said the founding anon.

In 2012, WikiLeaks, which no longer has a way to publicly upload documents, has leaned on the anarchic collective for its major releases, including Stratfor and the recent Syrian emails. Could Paranoia represent a threat to the beleaguered leaking site’s recent lifeline?

“I don’t know. Guess that… depends on WikiLeaks.” said founding anon, who went on to say that the leaks site has recently contacted Paranoia. “(It) will be interesting to see what they have to say.”

On Friday, WikiLeaks accused one of the main Anonymous Twitter accounts of promoting insecure proxies, hinting that the account was being run at the direction of law enforcement. AnonymousIRC slapped back, including a Tweet alluding to WikiLeaks being dependent on Anonymous for its relevance:

quote:

http://pastebin.com/PgnQhq41

Dear Wikileaks - it is great to be infiltrated by the feds

So lately Wikileaks was moaning towards AnonymousIRC: "The original @AnonymousIRC holder was far too tech savvy to be telling people to use insecure proxies and file stores."
At first sight this tweet just seemed a bit ironic regarding two obvious points as they are:
1) original holder? It's not the big secret, that anonymous-accounts are shared by several people and one of the ideas behind the anonymous-idea is also to be decentralized regarding one's ego. Besides - if you have such a great insight to the "original holder" it would have been something easy to just go on irc to get an insight. Instead you decided tweeting? Makes me personally a bit paranoid - towards your motive.

2) This tweet appeared right after the video of Par:AnoIA (regarding Innodata). So either Wikileaks gave it a try to keep some sort of monopoly position, or - what would be even funnier - situation really has changed into the irony that a group calling itself paranoia is leaking stuff, while a platform calling itself Wikileaks gets paranoid.

Face the truth, Wikileaks - you have changed as well. The reason people are supporting you is not because they think you are perfect or the best platform in the world. The reason is more, they see the injustice brought upon people like Assange and Manning. So they take steps back from critizising your modus operandi (no place to upload stuff, syria emails, some sort of WL-centralisation of information etc - you know the points anyways) and focus on the main issue: that we have to work hard to (re)gain democratic values and transparancy. They take a step back to seek for opportunities to achieve a change of situation, to seek for a way they personally can participate to achieve a next (or first) step of democracy where it is not all about money or "dog eat dog". Regardless their personal preferences they take a step back to prove that "freedom" "transparency" or "loyality" aren't just words but values and they are scarifying their time, their knowledge, their money and even their freedoms to achieve that.

Of course in your next tweet you couldn't resist to bring up the Sabu-case as well. Don't you think yourself that's a bit retarded? Creating fear to prove your point. Really? Dear Wikileaks - at the moment I really do think you are the greatest risks of all because you seem to be in fear. There is countless anons who are in cooperation with the feds. Some are exposed, some will never be, some perhaps even changed the sides. Did they stop Anonymous? (rhetorical question, I think you know the answer already). Regarding Sabu - oh you read his court-files. Uh uh I guess you watched Foxnews then too didn't you? I truly hope you also added some irrelevant articles by Chen as well, so you now have the "big picture". You, who obviously tend to see conspiracy behind every corner obviously never had the guts to do right aftermaths here. (guy cooperating for 8 month and all the feds get is like 2 hackers. on the same day of his arrest foxnews had the full story of his life - this is common? feds exposing their informants - this is common? Welcome to some thinking outside of the box here).

My main point is though: stop bullshitting around. Instead of paralyzed psycho-games towards anonymousIRC be happy they exist, be happy they created Par:AnoIA and try to find more efficient ways to cooperate with anons. As you, they all sacrificed to achieve what Anonymous has achieved so far. And I surely don't have to tell you that it might sound exciting as hell to be anonymous - as long as it is a 90minutes movie and we know that Superman will prevail in the end. Taking a step back from one's personality isn't fun all the time. We were mainly raised in creating personalities, compete to others and show the world that we are a valuable impact to society. Taking a step back in favor of a higher idea isn't just a hobby. You really should know that.

Regarding feds - we need more of them, seriously. The possibility of them being within the collective makes us stronger in the end. For we have to educate ourselves about security, about what would be wise to do and where everyone has his or her personal limits - what path we better go by ourselves and where we need the strength of teamwork. If it weren't for this possibility the percentage of truly uneducated people who would participate for reasons they probably wouldn't know themselves would be tremendous. The possibility that the next irc-chat might be a conversation with a fed is the reason why people hide their identities. The arrests are the warnings to the next generation of anons to do better and the number of anons participating to the idea are the prove that you can infiltrate an irc network, you can arrest people, or threaten them but you simply can't infiltrate, arrest or SE an idea if its time has come. accept it. And appreciate the unconscious help from feds who make us better every day.
This is 2012 not 1692. So leave the Salem witchcraft trials to the feds and cooperate with your friends instead. may the wisdom be with you.

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Anonymous Global Communique - There is NO "War" With WikiLeaks

Saturday - July 14, 2012 2:00 PM ET USA We will now address your latest article regarding some sort of supposed feud between WikiLeaks and Anonymous. The article in question is here:

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/(...)a-files-stratfor.htm

"The Anonymous hacking collective has declared war on whistleblowing website WikiLeaks following a furious Twitter row over the disclosure of two million e-mails from Syrian political figures, ministries and companies."

This statement is complete rubbish and typical of the journalistic hyperbole so prevalent amongst you reporters. Frankly we are a bit appalled as we expected better of you. If we continue to see such nonsense from you, our respect will diminish considerably.

As your article goes on to state rather accurately, what REALLY happened here was a spat between ONE SINGLE Anonymous related Twitter account and the staff of WikiLeaks. Hardly a war, and one account certainly does not represent the Global Collective.

The Anonymous account in question (@AnonymousIRC) is angry because all the contents of the "Syria Files" are not being instantly published. This is due to the fact that the individual behind this account is not in the decision loop regarding our handing over these files to WikiLeaks. Here's the knowledge this individual lacks:

The primary reason Anonymous decided to allow Wikileaks to manage the disclosure of the "Syria Files" is that we were unable to deal with the important processing that must take place for any disclosure on such a large cache. For example, we discovered at least 42,000 attachments in the cache that contained malicious code (viruses), and we expect there are many more we didn't find. In addition to weeding out and cleansing malicious code from all 2.4 million, some effort must be made to authenticate the cache. After those tasks are complete, a thorough review of every message must be done - and any messages that could have a powerful and immediate impact on the genocidal Assad regime must be highlighted on the main Wikileaks site and a separate press release done for those messages. Remember, this isn't just ANY leak - this monster is killing hundreds of his own people everyday. There is a sense of urgency to find and bring forth anything that might have an immediate impact on the conflict. Finally, the cache must be made into an indexed and searchable format. Only after the entire process described above is completed for the entire 2.4 million messages can the entire cache be released online.

This is an ENORMOUS task, which even for a few thousand messages would take considerable time. But for a disclosure of this magnitude, which may well be the largest leak in history - it will take a great deal of patience. I have spent considerable time working directly with the staff and volunteers of WikiLeaks that are involved in this endeavour and I assure you they are working as hard as then can night and day to complete this important and historic task. At no point did the people in Anonymous who actually made this decision expect anything else but exactly this. There was always an expectation that this would take considerable time and patience. And as a final back-up plan, if for any reason WikiLeaks should fail in it's task - a back-up copy of the "Syrian Files" was delivered to the AP as well. To ensure that for the historic record these files will never be lost.

There is NO war between WikiLeaks and Anonymous, nor could such a stupid thing ever happen. There is NO misunderstanding or disappointment in the speed of WikiLeaks disclosure of the "Syrian Files", this was expected by those of us who made the decision to hand over the files to WikiLeaks and indeed the reason for the delay IS the reason we gave the files to them in the first place.

In the future, as we have advised journalists publicly before - do not take the actions or words of one single Twitter account as the voice of Anonymous Global. Instead, follow MANY Anonymous related accounts and aggregate the message to see what the true consensus of the collective is. Here are some accounts we would highly recommend for this purpose.

@YourAnonNews @AnonPR_Network @PLF2012 @AnonCollective

@Anon_Central SINCERELY -- Anonymous

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Hackers Attack Servers of Oil Companies Working in Arctic

Hacker group Anonymous said it had successfully hacked into the servers of five oil and gas companies operating in the Arctic, including Gazprom and Rosneft, posting hundreds of company email addresses and passwords online.

In a statement posted on the website Pastebin.com, the group said it had acted in support of environmental organization Greenpeace and that organization's drive to cease oil and gas drilling on the Arctic shelf. The group emphasized that it did not work in concert with Greenpeace, but only in its support.

The apparent author of the statement, who identified himself only as Twitter user @le4ky, said arctic drilling leads to the melting of polar ice caps and increases the risk of oil pollution in ocean waters. He said accidental spills are more likely than at a conventional offshore production site because of the climate and the risk of icebergs hitting a rig.

The companies affected by the hack included Shell, BP Global, ExxonMobil, Gazprom and Rosneft, according to the statement. The hackers released the information of 190 accounts from Gazprom and 80 from Rosneft, and database access details were also made available. The hackers said the information wasn't accessed through a software vulnerability but rather through a mistake by the webmaster.

Anonymous said that "Phase I" of its project last month used hacked accounts to sign a petition to save the Arctic. The group released 300 email addresses and passwords from Exxon on June 26, some of which it said were subsequently used in so-called phishing attacks — meaning the defrauding of an online account holder's financial information — prompting the group to release less information this time.

Read more: http://www.themoscowtimes(...)6.html#ixzz20oRwWFxD
The Moscow Times

The Stream - Assad's Shadow Army

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Hahahahahahahahahaha !! Butt hurt much SEA ? Check out all those (2.4 million) E-Mails on WikiLeaks and then eat shit you pro-regime turds. LOVE -- Commander X

CommanderXanon 44 minuten geleden

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Google to tackle internet crime with Illicit Networks summit

Internet giant teams up with politicians and academics to host two-day summit in bid to disrupt illegal activity on the internet

Google is attempting to turn the tables on criminals and terrorists who exploit the internet by using its search capabilities to expose and disrupt illicit activity.

The internet giant has launched a campaign against the secrecy and impunity of drug cartels, organ harvesters, cyber-criminals, violent radicals and traffickers in arms and people.

It has assembled victims, law enforcers, politicians, academics and technology experts to devise strategies in a two-day summit in Los Angeles, starting Tuesday, called Illicit Networks: Forces in Opposition.

Google Ideas, the company's thinktank, has teamed up with the Council on Foreign Relations, Interpol and other organisations to look for ways to use technology against organised crime, jihadists and others.

"Google is in a great position to take these on," Rani Hong, a survivor of child trafficking in India who is now a special adviser to the United Nations, told reporters on the eve of the event. "They're a powerful medium and they have great tools to solve this problem."

It is the brainchild of Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, and the thinktank's head, Jared Cohen, a former state department wunderkind best known for persuading Twitter to delay maintenance so that protesters could continue communicating during upheaval in Iran in 2009.

The summit has assembled an eclectic mix including Ronald Noble, Interpol's secretary general; Juan Pablo Escobar, son of the late Colombian drug lord; Alejandro Poire, Mexico's interior minister; Okello Sam, a Ugandan former child soldier; Andy Weber, assistant secretary for nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs at the US department of defense; and a group of North Korean defectors.

Others due to attend include former homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff, senior executives from JP Morgan Chase and Credit Suisse, experts in DNA and counterfeiting and civic society leaders.

Stewart Patrick, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who helped organise the event, told AP: "It might sound like a different path for Google, but technology companies today have a lot of powerful tools for bringing transparency to these illicit networks, to fight back against corruption and empower those who are trying to combat transnational crime."

Participants will discuss how illicit surgeons and organ brokers smuggle kidneys and other organs; how whistleblowers can expose narcotics networks; how insurance fraudsters and counterfeiters use evade borders. Another topic will be how recovered human skin and bone is transformed into dental and cosmetic products for plumping up lips or smoothing wrinkles.

This gathering follows a conference Google organised in Ireland last year which assembled dozens of former gang members and radical militants to discuss ways technology can inhibit others following their footsteps.

Cohen, one of the few high-ranking state department officials to serve both the Bush and Obama administrations, joined Google last year to head a small New York-based team and practise what he has called 21st century statecraft. He calls Google Ideas a "think/do-tank", reflecting Silicon Valley confidence – hubris, say critics – at tackling complicated, deep-rooted problems.

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http://pastebay.net/1068196

AFTER MICROSOFT ACQUIRING SKYPE FOR 8.5 BILLION DOLLARS AND PROCEEDING TO ADD BACK DOORS FOR GOVERNMENT TO THE PROGRAM, THE SOFTWARE HAS BEEN HACKED AND IT'S SOURCE CODE RELEASED

Skype1.4_binaries
http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/6442887

SkypeKit_sdk+runtimes_370_412.zip
skypekit binaries for Windows and x86_Linux + SDK
http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/7190651/

skype55_59_deobfuscated_binaries (Windows)
http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/7238404/

http://twitter.com/57UN

#Anonymous #Antisec #PoliceState #SecurityState #OpenSource

twitter:

AnonCollective twitterde op dinsdag 17-07-2012 om 15:22:40 The Skype torrents that are released are reverse-engineered and as such not the original source code. reageer retweet

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Anonymous outs Burger King employee who stands in the lettuce container.

Worldwide hacktivist collective Anonymous will expose Mexican drug cartels and out pedophiles on Twitter. It will also apparently help bring justice to the Burger King employee who stands in the lettuce container.

Last week, Anonymous members picked up on a since-deleted 4chan post featuring a photograph of a fast food employee standing with his feet in two exposed lettuce containers.

Outraged the collective sprung into action, using the GPS data embedded in the post's Imgur data to figure out that the photo was taken and posted at a Burger King on Cleveland's Mayfield Road. Anonymous then found the store's exact location and logged a complaint through Burger King's Tell Us About Us forum.

At 12:18am ET, one Anonymous member, identified as wtisdcBX, recounted a conversation had with the store's evening manager.

According to the post, the manager said that he would "find out who closed up last week, because they're gonna have hell to pay."

"I don't know what kind of game these kids are playing," he continued. "But it's sick and pathetic."

That's when the Anon offered to send along the picture.

The Mayfield Road Burger King's phone has been busy for the past hour, but the Vince Grzegorek of the Cleveland Scene was able to get in touch with Andrea, the shop's breakfast shift manager, this morning:

. When Scene directed her toward the snapshot, she quickly said: ‘Oh, I know who that is. He's getting fired.’”

Burger King global communications director Bryson Thornton issued a public statement addressing the matter this morning.

"We are aware of the photo that was allegedly posted by an employee at a Burger King restaurant in Ohio and are taking the issue very seriously," he said.

. "Food safety is a top priority for Burger King restaurants and the company has strict policies regarding its food handling procedures. We are investigating the matter and will take appropriate action as necessary."

Appropriate action in this case should surely lead to a firing. We at the Daily Dot are also hoping it leads to a temporary decrease in the cost of a Whopper Jr.

twitter:

DoveSyrienne twitterde op dinsdag 17-07-2012 om 22:56:13 #Anonymous Netherlands Hacked by Syrian Electronic Army #SEA...VIVA the Pro... VIVA SEA... VIVA Syria... http://t.co/QnM4ReRU reageer retweet

twitter:

SpiritusNL twitterde op dinsdag 17-07-2012 om 23:30:49 @DoveSyrienne @Official_SEA Best hacks! they're so awesome! they breached an old word press version! nice! I never heard from them till now. reageer retweet

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Alec Empire Interviewed an Anonymous Nazi Hunter for Us

Hey, you know what's a big re-emerging trend in Europe at the moment, besides the Cosby sweater and poverty? Fascism! I mean, it's only the middle of July and so far we've seen nationalists playing football with anarchists' heads in Poland, slapping women on Greek TV and crashing May Day and Gay Pride parties in Sweden and Bristol respectively.

The hacking/general mischief collective Anonymous is pretty ahead of the curve when it comes to scary fashions. Completely unfazed by the hotness of fascist women, a few months ago the group declared war against the many Nazi-loving websites that have begun to flood the internet, with something they called Operation Blitzkrieg and later with a website dedicated to leaking fascists' personal data called Nazileaks.

Finally, do you know who is very good friends with Anonymous? Alec Empire, of Atari Teenage Riot fame. And so, he interviewed one of the members of Anonymous involved in Nazileaks for us.

Take it away, Alec.

quote:

Google ordered to censor 'torrent', 'megaupload' and more words

French Supreme Court bans pirate lingo from searches

The French Supreme Court has ruled that Google should censor the words ‘torrent’, ‘rapidshare’ and ‘megaupload’ from its Instant and Autocomplete search services.

Music industry group SNEP asked the court to stop the terms from coming up in Google’s searches because, it claimed, the Chocolate Factory was thereby facilitating piracy.

A lower court rejected the request from SNEP because it said that these links did not constitute infringement of copyright in and of themselves. However, the Supreme Court has reversed the decision, saying that the relief sought by the group was likely to prevent or partially stop infringements.

“This decision in principle is a first in France, which shows that search engines should participate in the regulation of the internet,” SNEP chief David El Sayegh said in a canned statement.

The Supreme Court said that Google couldn’t be held responsible for people downloading illegal content, since they had to click through to another site and make that decision for themselves, but banning the search terms would make it more difficult for them to find their way to illicit stuff.

Google said it was disappointed by the court's ruling.

"Google Autocomplete algorithmically returns search queries that are a reflection of the search activity of all web users," a spokesperson told The Register in an emailed statement.

"Google takes online copyright very seriously, and we will keep working with content creators in order to help them reach new audiences online and protect against piracy."

The search firm actually already blocks “piracy-related” terms from Autocomplete, but on its own terms. The web giant announced back in December 2010 on one of its blogs that it was taking steps to stop copyright infringement, including blocking search terms closely associated with piracy.

However, as general counsel Kent Walker said at the time, it’s hard to know for sure which terms are being used to find pirated gear and commentators said at the time of the ban that Google seemed to have picked the terms somewhat arbitrarily. For example, while BitTorrent won’t be autocompleted by Google, popular torrent client BitComet will. ®

quote:

Syria Deleted Itself from the Internet Today

For 40 minutes this afternoon, Syria didn't exist on the Internet—its (currently) ruling government completely unplugged itself. All's fair in war and more war.

Although 40 minutes isn't so long, it had serious effects, explains Internet monitoring firm Renesys:

. For about 40 minutes today, all networks routed through the Syrian incumbent, Syrian Telecommunications Establishment (AS29256 and AS29386), were withdrawn from the global routing table, effectively cutting off most of Syria from the Internet.

It's unclear why exactly the regime chose to hit the switch exactly when it did, and for only 40 minutes.

That could've been eons for a people who are currently waging open rebellion against their tyrannical leader, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Internet was instrumental in Libya's own revolution, and it's easy to imagine a free conduit to the rest of the planet would be just as useful for Syrian's freedom fighters, if only to keep up the steady YouTube stream of massacres.

quote:

Abusing Copyright To Stifle Dissent & Censor Critics

Earlier this week news broke that rapper Lord Finesse is suing his colleague Mac Miller for “stealing” one of his beats. This prompted UK rapper Dan Bull to respond with a parody track, calling out Lord Finesse on his hypocritical stance. However, Finesse’s lawyers didn’t appreciate the criticism and managed to pull Bull’s clip off YouTube, essentially abusing copyright as a censorship tool. However, by doing so they seem to have made matters worse.

Dan Bull is known for his protests against draconian copyright legislation such as SOPA and ACTA, and this week it once again became clear what he’s fighting for.

After Bull responded to a “ridiculous” lawsuit brought by rapper Lord Finesse against his colleague Mac Miller, the critical response was censored from YouTube on copyright grounds. Interestingly enough, plenty of other Lord Finesse copyrighted content on YouTube was not censored, suggesting the takedown was political.

Needless to say, this has made Dan Bull even more angry than before.

“I have fought ACTA, SOPA, DEA and various other forms of censorship in the name of copyright. I will not be silenced by this kind of abuse of the copyright system. The DMCA is not supposed to be used in this way,” he writes.

In the video below Bull explains in detail how ridiculous the situation is.

quote:

‘Anonymous’ members plan ‘Occupy the White House’ for Guy Fawkes Day

“Anonymous” is planning a march on the White House in November, according to a notice posted on the bulletin board of the Washington Peace Center.

The event is planned for November 5, the anniversary of the failed 1605 Gunpowder Plot, in which Catholic radical Guy Fawkes attempted to assassinate British King James I by blowing up parliament. Fawkes’ likeness has been appropriated by the political “hacktivist” group.

The bulletin said: “this event will be in memory of Guy Fawkes. For he is our true hero. Let us make this event in honor of him.”

“[T]his protest is being organized by Anonymous members,” said the notice, “let us show the government that we are the 99%.”

The group ominously notes that “this protest will be more than just a simple march,” adding, “we hope to see you on November the 5th. Until then we must prepare for it.”

The user profile that posted the event, “ullmank,” has advertised other protests on the Peace Center’s bulletin, including an event titled “anarchy spring training.”

The Washington Peace Center hosts an open “Activist Alert” bulletin board. The “Occupy the White House” notice was posted under the “DC Local Justice” tab.