Wikipedia, Boing Boing, and Reddit will go dark on Wednesday to protest bills that could require internet sites to police online piracy

[Jenna]

Do not try to look up "Internet Censorship" or "SOPA" or "PIPA" on Wikipedia, the giant online encyclopedia, on Wednesday. SOPA and PIPA are two bills in Congress meant to stop the illegal copying and sharing of movies and music on the Internet, but major Internet companies say the bills would put them in the impossible position of policing the online world.

Wikipedia's founder, Jimmy Wales, says his site will go dark for the day on Wednesday, joining a budding movement to protest the two bills.

"This is going to be wow," Wales said on Twitter. "I hope Wikipedia will melt phone systems in Washington on Wednesday. Tell everyone you know!"

Several sources said members of Congress, reacting to the online objections, were pulling back on parts of SOPA and PIPA to which Internet companies object. But the protest movement continued for the time being.

Other sites, such as Reddit and Boing Boing, have already said they would go dark on Wednesday. And some of the biggest names online, including Google, Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, have vocally opposed the proposed legislation, though they have not said they are joining the online blackout.

More here: Wikipedia Blackout: Websites Wikipedia, Reddit, Others Go Dark Wednesday to Protest SOPA, PIPA - ABC News

[Rhino]

Post a video of your kid singing Happy Birthday on Youtube? You're under arrest.

Supporters say the bill isn't meant to do that kind of enforcement. But there's no wording in the bill that expressly forbids it. So forgive me if I don't trust you at word, Congress.

After all, Social Security and automatic deductions for the income tax were meant to be temporary, and see how well that turned out.

[Jks9199]

.Have the Congress members READ the bill this time?

I'm getting kind of tired of their explanation for something amounting to "I didn't know it was in there..."

I know someone working on Capitol Hill; I am getting so tempted to push for someone to work into a bill things like the first letters of each line reading "I did not read this" or "only an idiot would vote for this"... or even trying to simply work similar messages into the actual text of a bill. Too bad I doubt they'd go for it... They actually try to do their job.

[Odd]

The thing that gets me about SOPA/PIPA is it's so ludicrously stupid it wouldn't work if offered as satire since it's such an over the top bad idea.

I'll skip the lawsuit stuff, though this is where the conspiracy theories about crippling startups and other small players comes in. Boring stuff for the lawyers to yell about.

Here's the batshit crazy part. They want the internet to be LESS SECURE FOR EVERYONE on the off chance it'll be slightly more profitable for Hollywood. The movie industry and its pet, our congressional/senate representatives, want your online banking, your shopping, maybe someday your voting to be easier to hack so more people pay for Avatar II. They submit this to be the law of the land even as study after study shows the pirates are the best paying customers so there's not even a guarantee they'll make any more money.

How? The site blocking section of SOPA is done through falsifying DNS records. Quick DNS (Domain Name Server) refresher : When you type "apbweb.com" into your browser, your computer sends a request to a server to get the IP address. When it gets that address it then connects to the apbweb server. It's just an old telephone book model, you remember names so when it's time to call someone you look up their name and get the number.

A site "blocked" under SOPA still exists once blocked. What has changed is that phone book that is DNS now has faked records. Say apbweb.com is blocked - now it, HouseOfChildPorn.com, PiratedMusic.com and other blocked sites now either don't return a result or they get shuffled off to FBI.gov; they're out of biz for mom&pop web user.

Thing is, say I really want to get to apbweb.com. And since I know it might get blocked, I perform an elite sort of internet wizardry. I write down the IP address on a Post-It Note. Now when it's blocked I just have to put in http://216.70.80.15 instead of http://apbweb.com and everything works exactly the same.

But what if I didn't plan ahead? Now there's no way I can get that IP. Well, no way unless I use a DNS server not subject to SOPA, which is every one not in the US. Or a get a friend to txt me the IP. Or read it on a forum. Or, or, or

This doesn't even partially slow down more effective and efficient forms of piracy than websites.

Ok, so it barely slows down pirates, so what? How's this bad for my online banking? Well, in order to achieve this blocking they have to be able to alter those DNS entries. This is only possible if we use the old (and sadly mostly current) DNS model which wasn't built with security in mind. Thanks to a few forward thinkers and a lot of recent address redirection attacks the long overdue securing DNS is on the horizon with DNSSEC. A lot of time (going on 16 years) and thought went into finding a workable secure system to ensure when you type in www.TheBankWithAllMyMoney.com you actually arrive there. Now that we rely on the security of the net more and more each day and as it comes under ever harsher attacks these buttnuggets want to strip that security from our grasp so their foolproof pirate site blocking scheme works, on 8.5x14" paper.

It's not just bad legislation because it's ineffective. It's horrid legislation because it can't accomplish the stated goal and causes harm to everyone using the internet.

Sorry, didn't realize I had all that simmering.

[Jenna]

[Jenna]

Looks like many members of Congress are backing down before the power of LOLcats....

Online protests on Wednesday quickly cut into Congressional support for online antipiracy measures as lawmakers abandoned and rethought their backing for legislation that pitted new media interests against some of the most powerful old-line commercial interests in Washington.

More here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/19/te...ge-course.html

[Jks9199]

SOPA and PIPA are akin to using bunker buster bombs to kill dead ants.

They'll kill lots of forums and message boards, whose owners can't absorb the risk that a single user might post a link, in violation of TOS and which will be deleted once noticed, that is simply alleged to be a in violation of that law.

[Jenna]

Looks like teh lolcats won this round....

The SOPA online piracy bill that helped spark this week's unprecedented Internet protests will be redrafted, its lead sponsor said Friday.

Leahy said he respected the decision Friday by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to postpone Tuesday's planned procedural vote, which would have brought the bill to the full Senate so it could be debated and amended. And Leahy said he was committed to revising the bill to address opponents' concerns and getting legislation passed this year.

More here: SOPA sent back to the drawing board in wake of Internet protests - latimes.com

[Ducky]

I hope they were embarrassed that anyone with any form of google savvy could figure out why this was such a horrendously bad idea, when they themselves couldn't do it. Don't they have a staffer they could have put to the task? Oh, wait, Hollywood types were schmoozing them so they wouldn't look at it too closely.