baubles of my mind's eye

occupyallstreets:

CISPA Replaces SOPA As Internet’s Enemy No. 1 (Must Read)

The Internet has a new enemy. The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011 (CISPA), also known as H.R. 3523, is a “cybersecurity” bill in the House of Representatives. While CISPA does not focus primarily on intellectual property (though that’s in there, too), critics say the problems with the bill run just as deep. 

As with SOPA and PIPA, the first main concern about CISPA is its “broad language,” which critics fear allows the legislation to be interpreted in ways that could infringe on our civil liberties. The Center for Democracy and Technology sums up the problems with CISPA this way:

    •    The bill has a very broad, almost unlimited definition of the information that can be shared with government agencies notwithstanding privacy and other laws;
    •    The bill is likely to lead to expansion of the government’s role in the monitoring of private communications as a result of this sharing;
    •    It is likely to shift control of government cybersecurity efforts from civilian agencies to the military;
    •    Once the information is shared with the government, it wouldn’t have to be used for cybesecurity, but could instead be used for any purpose that is not specifically prohibited.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) adds that CISPA’s definition of “cybersecurity” is so broad that “it leaves the door open to censor any speech that a company believes would ‘degrade the network.’”

Moreover, the inclusion of “intellectual property” means that companies and the government would have “new powers to monitor and censor communications for copyright infringement.”

Furthermore, critics warn that CISPA gives private companies the ability to collect and share information about their customers or users with immunity — meaning we cannot sue them for doing so, and they cannot be charged with any crimes.

According to the EFF, CISPA “effectively creates a ‘cybersecurity’ exemption to all existing laws.”

“There are almost no restrictions on what can be collected and how it can be used, provided a company can claim it was motivated by ‘cybersecurity purposes.’” the EFF continues.

“That means a company like Google, Facebook, Twitter, or AT&T could intercept your emails and text messages, send copies to one another and to the government, and modify those communications or prevent them from reaching their destination if it fits into their plan to stop cybersecurity threats.”

Read the full text of CISPA here, or the full official summary at the bottom of this page.

Read More

(via socialuprooting)

occupyallstreets:

Obama And ISP’s To Launch Largest Digital Spying Scheme In History (Must Read)

If you download potentially copyrighted software, videos or music, your Internet service provider (ISP) has been watching, and they’re coming for you.

Specifically, they’re coming for you on July 1st.

That’s the date when the nation’s largest ISPs will all voluntarily implement a new anti-piracy plan that will engage network operators in the largest digital spying scheme in history, and see some users’ bandwidth completely cut off until they sign an agreement saying they will not download copyrighted materials.

Word of the start date has been largely kept secret since ISPs announced their plans last June. The deal was brokered by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), and coordinated by the Obama Administration. The same groups have weighed in heavily on controversial Internet policies around the world, with similar facilitation by the Obama’s Administration’s State Department.

The July 1st date was revealed by the RIAA’s CEO and top lobbyist, Cary Sherman, during a publishers’ conference on Wednesday in New York, according to technology publication CNet.

The content industries calls this scheme a “graduated response” plan, which will see

-Time Warner Cable

-Cablevision

-Comcast

-Verizon

-AT&T

and others spying on users’ Internet activities and watching for potential copyright infringement. Users who are “caught” infringing on a creator’s protected work can then be interrupted with a notice that piracy is forbidden by law and carries penalties of up to $150,000 per infringement, requiring the user to click through saying they understand the consequences before bandwidth is restored, and they could still be subject to copyright infringement lawsuits.

Read More

Response: This is much worse than SOPA/PIPA and ACTA. It doesn’t necessarily censor the internet but it spys on everything you do. Your ENTIRE web history will be watched and recorded and might even assist the government. This was coordinated by Obama and his administration with the help of the MPAA and RIAA.

What is so dangerous about this is that this is not a law it is a policy adopted by several companies. That means this will not be debated in Congress and you will agree to be spied on by signing a contract with the company.

Internet censorship is becoming a reality and now the corporate elite will legally be able to spy on you. If we spread this and cause an uproar like what we did with SOPA, maybe they will back down. Either way people NEED to know about this.

(via socialuprooting)

abaldwin360:

A controversial bill regarding retention of Internet records passed through committee and was approved for consideration by Congress in December.

The Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011 would require Internet providers to retain archives of every subscriber’s online activity for up to 18 months, including phone records, credit-card numbers, websites visited and bank-account data.

Max Ayalla, a senior from Kansas City, Kan., who works at Information Technology, said he’s worried about the information’s security.

“If someone hacks into the data, it would be disastrous,” he said.

Another issue is the measure’s effectiveness and legality. Under U.S. Code Title 18 Chapter 121, to obtain the records from Internet providers, no probable cause is needed; the government would only have to request a warrant or find a judge who is willing to give them one. Subscribers with no criminal record are also subject to requests.

Supporters of the bill argue that law enforcement is unable to track child pornographers under current laws.

read more

I love it.

See, with a name like this, they can say anyone opposing the bill must be on the side of child pornographers. 

Our fucking government is so hell bent on taking our freedom and privacy away.

(via socialuprooting)

abaldwin360:

A controversial bill regarding retention of Internet records passed through committee and was approved for consideration by Congress in December.

The Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011 would require Internet providers to retain archives of every…

(via socialuprooting)

rubyvroom:

mohandasgandhi:

reuters:

A change in policy: Twitter announced Thursday that it would begin restricting Tweets in certain countries, marking a policy shift for the social media platform that helped propel the popular uprisings recently sweeping across the Middle East.

 

“Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country while keeping it available in the rest of the world,” the Twitter blog said.

Read more: Twitter to restrict user content in some countries

Not cool.

very worrying.

(via adailyriot)

anti-propaganda:

‘Micro-blogging service Twitter has announced that it will filter tweets on a country-by-country basis due to differing legal demands. Critics were quick to accuse the company of attacking freedom of online speech to make extra profit.

Individual tweets can now be shown in some countries but blocked in others, the internet giant said in a blog post on Thursday. The goal is to comply with legislation under different jurisdictions, while not deleting offending content globally. Twitter offers the example of France and Germany, where public pro-Nazi statements are banned.

“Until now, the only way we could take account of those countries’ limits was to remove content globally. Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country — while keeping it available in the rest of the world,”the statement says.

Twitter adds that it will do its utmost to keep its filtering actions transparent and notify users, whose tweets are being blocked, of why this is being done.

Coming at a sensitive time shortly after the global internet strike against the SOPA/PIPA bills, deemed a bane on online freedoms, the move could not but draw criticism over ‘self-censorship’. Forbes contributor Mark Gibbs called it ‘social suicide’ on Twitter’s part, going on to speculate that the company now probably filters all new tweets for keywords like “Nazi” and automatically bans those deemed suspicious.

Indeed, by-country filtering would appeal to countries like China, which recently launched a crackdown on national micro-blogging sites to force their users to disclose their real names, so that authorities could hold them accountable for “spreading harmful rumors.”’

(via socialuprooting)

krona:

SaveTheInternet.com | Egypt’s Internet Crackdown

dingane1:

egypt’s internet being shut down with the help of american companies

and those companies have names and addresses

(via krthing)

krona:

wired’s how-to wiki: Communicate if Your Government Shuts Off Your Internet

emilyswash:

Scenario: Your government is displeased with the communication going on in your location and pulls the plug on your internet access, most likely by telling the major ISPs to turn off service.

This is what happened in Egypt January 25 prompted by citizen protests, with sources estimating that the Egyptian government has cut off approximately 88 percent of the country’s internet access. What do you do without Internet? Step 1: Stop crying in the corner. Then start taking steps to reconnect with your network. Here’s a list of things you can do to keep the communication flowing.

Relevant to people in other countries too.

The US could shut off the major ISPs relatively easily if it had to. And think how many of us depend on it to communicate. In times of unrest or change or whatever our ability to use and spread decentralised communication would be of utmost importance.

(Source: nuditea, via krthing)

silas216:

nwbtcw:

malefeministandthenakedsamba:

the-madame-hatter:

fleetfootedfox:

Egypt turns off internet, Lieberman wants same option for US - Boing Boing

PCNAA or some version thereof have been waiting around for a 9/11-esque event to promote its passage (much like the patriot act).  Why on earth Lieberman thinks that this is that event, I don’t understand.  We’re going “holy shit, Egypt is really fucked up, corrupt, and autocratic” and he thinks we should be Just Like Them?  Please, sir, continue your crazy bullshit rants, so that we can use you to discredit anyone who shares your thoughts.

I’ve disliked Lieberman and his brand of bullshit since he blamed Marilyn Manson, Rammstein, and the video game DOOM for the Columbine shootings. 

He’s really into censorship. Really. Is anyone else surprised that he supports such a fucked up idea? The internet has connected a generation of people all over the world to each other. Activists in the USA can talk with activists in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, etc. That scares the ever living shit out of Lieberman. We’re no longer dependent on the news agencies and government for information about what happens not only within our own borders, but outside them as well.

He wants the US government to have the power to take that away? Fuck you and no thank you.

Filed under FACES OF EVIL & BIGOTED US-IAN FUCKERY. 

I’ve seen this mentioned elsewhere, but everyone needs to hear about it. Luckily Lieberman is on the way out (eventually).

Good gravy.  Is it time for the Quisling to leave yet?

(via bohemianarthouse)

thenoobyorker:

“A bill giving the president an Internet “kill switch” during times of emergency that failed to pass Congress last year will return this year, but with a revision that has many civil liberties advocates concerned: It will give the president the ability to shut down parts of the Internet without any court oversight.” -Raw Story

How large of a role does the internet play in your life?

(via tranqualizer)

(Source: formerlyforeheadtittaes, via bohemianarthouse)

It was like déjà vu all over again. I’d go from one Yahoo article to another and notice that regardless of the subject matter, the first user comment was always the same — at least on AP articles covering the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The comment that kept reappearing was posted by “Robert” and it was a one liner. “Hamas is now in control of the Gaza Strip after winning an election there against Abbas Palestinian Authority.” That was it. Fair enough — I’ve got no quarrel with the messenger or the message. But somehow that one comment generated an incredible 184 responses and, last I checked, readers had given it 3212 thumbs up and 2525 thumbs down.

I got a little curious about why Robert’s one liner had generated so much controversy. I’ve written hundreds of articles and never got anywhere near that kind of attention. Frankly, I was full of envy. How did ‘Robert’ pull this off with one miserly line? Then I noticed the strangest thing: it was dated March 09, 2010. The comment was two months old and was the lead comment of 40,000 responses. That seemed a little high considering the fact that the AP article I was reading had only been posted for thirty minutes.

What were Yahoo and AP up to? The answer is simple; they were porting comments from one article to another and, in this particular case, they’ve been doing it for two months. It took a little research till I realized that the first few hundred comments were related to Biden’s ill-fated visit to Jerusalem. It was an ancient story and quite unrelated to the posting I was reading which was a slanted AP article white washing the murderous Israeli assault on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla.

So why is this important? Well, you see, the default setting on comments for Yahoo articles is that readers get to see the oldest comments first. To see the newest comments, you have to know enough to change the default to engage other readers. Otherwise, you have to wade through tens of thousands of comments to get to the ones relating to the story.

Just to make sure that I was seeing what I thought I was seeing, I decided to do a little forensic analysis. I put an audit trail in and now have documented proof that Yahoo was porting tens of thousands of comments from one article to another including thousands of outrageously racist and derogatory comments that violated Yahoos terms of use. So I came up with an idea; I repeatedly responded to Robert’s one liner when I saw it appear on whatever AP article I happened to encounter. And sure enough, my comments were also ported from one article to another. Each of my comments specified the article I posted it from, the date, the title and the journalist who wrote it.

Now it’s time to name names. Among others, the AP journalists involved in this scam were Associated Press Writers Tia Goldenberg aboard the Israeli warship INS Kidon, Selcan Hacaoglu in Ankara, Rob Gillies in Toronto and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations. Steven Gutkin and Amy Teibel also have their handprints on this scam. I haven’t come up with the names of the Yahoo participants yet but it’s unlikely that Yahoo management didn’t understand and approve the conduct of their news staff. If this article gets any traction, their names will hopefully be publicly disclosed.

azspot:

fuckyeahlouisebrooks:

Some clips of Louise Brooks from the documentary “Why Be Good? Sexuality and Censorship in Early Cinema”