Internet Freedom Day

Internet Freedom Day

One year ago we defeated SOPA.
Today, celebrate your freedom of expression.
January 18th is #InternetFreedomDay
What’s something you love on the net that you’d never want to see censored?

There are lots of great things we can do to celebrate this very important anniversary of
beating SOPA one year ago today! Check out a few of them at:

www.InternetFreedomDay.net

and do what you can to
celebrate the one year anniversary of beating SOPA today!

And don’t forget: Aaron Swartz was instrumental in helping to beat SOPA!

____

Not sure what it’s all about? Check out the following article:

The Day Wikipedia Went Dark - Boston Review

Many sites, including all of my websites went dark that day!

As was noted in the article:

The free Internet will rise or fall on the involvement and ingenuity of the people, not on courts or lawmakers.

Internet Freedom Day: Coming together a year after SOPA/PIPA – EFF.org

Internet Freedom Day: Celebrate SOPA/PIPA Victory One Year Later!

Reform Draconian Computer Crime Law

Reform Draconian Computer Crime Law – EFF.org

The tragic death of Aaron Swartz, a 26-year-old coder and social activist, has shone a light on the sad truth about America’s misguided computer crime law, the breadth of discretion given to overzealous prosecutors, and the unjust results that can occur when these two things work together. For instance, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) has vague language that broadly criminalizes accessing a computer without “authorization,” but doesn’t explain what that actually means. It also contains heavy-handed penalties and shows no regard for whether an act was done to further the public good.

With Aaron Swartz, we saw the very real cost of these draconian laws: a young programmer and freedom-fighter committed suicide rather than face the potential of years in prison for a victimless act performed out of the belief that all people — not just those in ivory towers or with financial means — deserve access to academic and scientific knowledge.

While there are always many factors when someone takes their own life, the specter of being incarcerated for years should never have been one that haunted Aaron.

Over the past two years, Aaron was forced to devote much of his energy and resources to fighting a relentless and unjust felony prosecution brought by Justice Department attorneys in Massachusetts. His alleged crimes stemmed from using MIT’s famously open computer network to download millions of academic articles from the online academic archive JSTOR, allegedly without “authorization.” For that, he faced 13 felony counts, mainly under the CFAA. The charges carried the possibility of decades in prison and crippling fines.

Brilliant, talented, visionary people should be spending their time building our future, not worrying about wasting away in prison. Congress must start by updating the CFAA to ensure the penalties actually make sense in light of the behavior they’re meant to punish.

“Be curious. Read widely. Try new things. I think a lot of what people call intelligence just boils down to curiosity.” ~ Aaron Swartz (1986 – 2013) (image from EFF.org)

“Be curious. Read widely. Try new things. I think a lot of what people call intelligence just boils down to curiosity.”

~ Aaron Swartz (1986 – 2013)

 

Reform Draconian Computer Crime Law – EFF.org

The Truth about Aaron Swartz

The Truth about Aaron Swartz’s “Crime” by Unhandled.com

If the good that men do is oft interred with their bones, so be it, but in the meantime I feel a responsibility to correct some of the erroneous information being posted as comments to otherwise informative discussions at Reddit, Hacker News and Boing Boing. Apparently some people feel the need to self-aggrandize by opining on the guilt of the recently departed, and I wanted to take this chance to speak on behalf of a man who can no longer defend himself. I had hoped to ask Aaron to discuss these issues on the Defcon stage once he was acquitted, but now that he has passed it is important that his memory not be besmirched by the ignorant and uninformed. I have confirmed with Aaron’s attorneys that I am free to discuss these issues now that the criminal case is moot.

I was the expert witness on Aaron’s side of US vs Swartz, engaged by his attorneys last year to help prepare a defense for his April trial. Until Keker Van Nest called iSEC Partners I had very little knowledge of Aaron’s plight, and although we have spoken at or attended many of the same events we had never once met.

This posting is well worth reading by everyone! Thanks so much for this posting. I think we all need to hear this.

It is so sad to see another young talented hacker gone now under this type of sad situation. The loss to the world I think will be great in the long run.

My deepest condolences to Aaron’s family and friends. I couldn’t believe it when I read about this and we did discuss it during our show last night over at CNIRadio.com (JimmyLee and Bambi Show).

It is so frustrating when lies and half truths are what seem to get out to the general public. Thankfully I had read several accounts about it at DemandProgress Support Aaron Swartz Petition (which I signed when it came out), and postings and articles after his death on Slashdot, Reddit and at Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow so it was clearer what was doing on. Cory’s posting was very helpful.

And of course this posting on Unhandled.com. Thank you for posting it Alex Stamos.

Rest in peace, Aaron Swartz. A man of many talents and one who just wanted to see the injustices of the world resolved in the best possible way.

When there’s a problem, you shouldn’t get angry with the gears—you should fix the machine.
~ Aaron Swartz (via Aaron Greenspan)

Aaron is dead.

Wanderers in this crazy world,
we have lost a mentor, a wise elder.

Hackers for right, we are one down,
we have lost one of our own.

Nurtures, careers, listeners, feeders,
parents all,
we have lost a child.

Let us all weep.

timbl

EDIT: Added links –

Official Statement – Josh Marshall – January 12, 2013 – TPM (TalkingPointsMemo)

The inspiring heroism of Aaron Swartz – Glenn Greenwald – theguardian

Aaron Swartz – Wikipedia

Posthumously pardon Aaron Swartz – Petition – Whitehouse.gov

Aaron Swartz’s memorial service – Boing Boing

Prosecutor as bully – Lessig Blog, v2

The Death of Aaron Swartz – Aaron Greenspan ~ Writing

Remembering Aaron Swartz – FreePress.net

Family of Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz accuse ‘bully’ lawyers and MIT of driving him to suicide as he faced 30 years in jail – dailymail.co.uk

Farewell to Aaron Swartz, an Extraordinary Hacker and Activist – EFF.org

Aaron Swartz, Internet Pioneer, Found Dead Amid Prosecutor ‘Bullying’ In Unconventional Case – HuffingtonPost

Aaron Swartz (AaronSwartz.com) and Weblog – Aaron Swartz – Raw Thoughts (one of the items he pasted back in 2009 – A Life Offline)

Remember Aaron Swartz – Tumblr

Petition for MIT to apologize for role in Aaron Swartz prosecution – MIT Society of Open Science – January 14, 2013 Blog posting

Aaron Swartz, hero of the open world, dies – Internet Archive Blog

Remembering Aaron Swartz – Lawrence Lessig – CreativeCommons.org

Freedom to Connect: Aaron Swartz (1986-2013) on Victory to Save Open Internet, Fight Online Censors – DemocracyNow! (includes Aaron’s speech about Saving Open Internet, Freedom To Connect, SOPA, PIPA)

Remember Aaron Swartz – RememberAaronSW.com - In memory of Aaron, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. (includes Official statement from family and partner of Aaron Swartz)

A time for silence – Lessig Blog v2

MythBuster Adam Savage: SOPA Could Destroy the Internet as We Know It

MythBuster Adam Savage: SOPA Could Destroy the Internet as We Know It

Right now Congress is considering two bills—the Protect IP Act, and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)—that would be laughable if they weren’t in fact real. Honestly, if a friend wrote these into a piece of fiction about government oversight gone amok, I’d have to tell them that they were too one-dimensional, too obviously anticonstitutional.

Make no mistake: These bills aren’t simply unconstitutional, they are anticonstitutional. They would allow for the wholesale elimination of entire websites, domain names, and chunks of the DNS (the underlying structure of the whole Internet), based on nothing more than the “good faith” assertion by a single party that the website is infringing on a copyright of the complainant. The accused doesn’t even have to be aware that the complaint has been made.

I’m not kidding.

Hope everyone has contacted their Congressmen and women and told them exactly what you think of this unconstitutional and anticonstitutional ‘so called’ legislation! I have!

BTW: Don’t forget to urge the President to VETO NDAA!!! “President has until December 26 to act on NDAA” per Americans to Obama: Veto NDAA, White House phones jammed

SOPA flip flop

So we can’t just sit back and relax and enjoy the holidays, eh?

House Delays Taking Action on SOPA Until Dec. 21 – Mashable

Nope. Guess not. SOPA was supposedly pushed off till 2012, but then they flip flopped and now they will be meeting on the 21st. I wonder how they got Congress to come back when they were supposed to be on break? Must have been pretty profitable to them one way or another?

SOPA Markup Runs Out Of Time; Likely Delayed Until 2012 [Update: Or Not...] – TechDirt

From this article: SOPA, bill to stop online piracy, hits minor snag in House – CBS:

Public Knowledge, a Washington based advocacy organization pushing for an open Internet, slammed the panel’s chair for pushing the legislation without understanding the bill’s unintended consequences.

“SOPA, as written, would threaten the functioning, freedom, and economic potential of the Internet,” said Sherwin Siy, deputy legal director of Public Knowledge, adding that scheduling a vote “when many members may well be absent demonstrates a clear desire to continue dodging the questions raised by experts, members, and the public.”

Tech Companies have repeatedly stated that this would be bad for everyone:

Looks like Congress has declared war on the internet – Gigaom

Tech firms fight SOPA by talking job creation – CNN Money

WTF is happening with SOPA now? – Boing Boing:

If you followed my tweets from the markup session for SOPA in the House of Representatives, you know how frustrating it was to watch: you had these lawmakers blithely dismissing the security concerns of the likes of Vint Cerf, saying things like, “I’m no technology nerd, but I don’t believe it.” In other words: “I’m a perfect ignoramus, but I find it convenient to disregard the world’s foremost experts.” Another congressman from Florida kept saying things like “No one can explain to me how this bill harms political debate or academic freedom.”

Congressional SOPA hearings: no opponents of the bill allowed:

Irony Alert: The House is holding hearings on sweeping Internet censorship legislation this week — and it’s censoring the opposition! The bill is backed by Hollywood, Big Pharma, and the Chamber of Commerce, and all of them are going to get to testify at the hearing.

But the bill’s opponents — tech companies, free speech and human rights activists, and hundreds of thousands of Internet users — won’t have a voice.

And can anyone be blamed for being upset with this mess!?!

The nightmarish SOPA hearings – ComPost – Washington Post:

This is terrifying to watch. It would be amusing — there’s nothing like people who did not grow up with the Internet attempting to ask questions about technology very slowly and stumbling over words like “server” and “service” when you want an easy laugh. Except that this time, the joke’s on us.

…

As long as there have been new technologies, the entertainment industry has been trying to get them shut down as filthy, thieving pirates. Video cassettes? Will anyone tune into TV again? MP3 players? Why even bother making a record? Digital video recorder that lets you skip ads? That’s a form of theft!

…

SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, is a bill that, in the name of preventing online piracy of copyrighted work, creates a horrifyingly large censorship authority for the Internet. Among other things, it requiresservice providers (which have come out opposing the bill) to block access to entire sites if a user on the site is accused of copyright infringement.

There are dozens of reasons this is wrong. The biggest and most pressing is that not only does the bill not do what it sets out to do, it also creates a horrifyingly blunt instrument to censor the Internet.

Top Internet engineers warn against SOPA:

Some of the original engineers of the Internet called Thursday for lawmakers to scrap anti-piracy bills, saying the proposals would pose major technological barriers for the Web and stifle new innovations.

The letter comes as House Judiciary committee members on Thursday debate the Stop Online Piracy Act introduced by Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) that has drawn impassioned support from media firms but opposition by Web firms and some public interest groups.

…

Vint Cerf of Google, domain name system software author Paul Vixie and Internet routing engineer Tony Li were among 83 high-profile engineers who signed an open letter to Congress in opposition to the House Stop Online Privacy Act and Senate Protect Intellectual Property Act.

“If enacted, either of these bills will create an environment of tremendous fear and uncertainty for technological innovation, and seriously harm the credibility of the United States in its role as a steward of key Internet infrastructure,” the engineers wrote.

An Open Letter From Internet Engineers to the U.S. Congress:

Today, a group of 83 prominent Internet inventors and engineers sent an open letter to members of the United States Congress, stating their opposition to the SOPA and PIPA Internet blacklist bills that are under consideration in the House and Senate respectively.

The article has the letter itself, as well as a link to the pdf of the letter.

It also has the impressive list of VERY SMART PEOPLE! Engineers! People who would know! SOPA is a very bad thing!

Call your Senators! Please work it in to your busy holiday schedule. I did and I hope you will too. I will do it again come Monday. All this on the weekend when we can’t do anything about it?! Very annoying that they would flip flop like this at beyond the 11th hour!

As an American Citizen..I am appalled at our Congress. And even more so with our President who seems to be backing this crap legislation.

The PIPA (Protect IP Act = Senate Bill S.968) is no better. Both of these crap legislations need to go!

These bills are so bad, in next to no time, we could all be feeling like we are in a tyrannical empire … The NDAA was bad enough and they let that piece of crap legislation through already. Don’t let Congress make yet another major mistake and give away the remaining liberties and freedoms we so love.

In the words of Eye Drops from the old ZDTV/TechTV: “Think about that!“

EDIT: Adding the following from Cory Doctorow on Twitter:
“@doctorow: A good piece explaining what #SOPA can mean to everyday Americans http://t.co/qIqInkYJ” The original posting is here: http://www.bricoleur.org/2011/12/overbroad-censorship-users.html

An Explosion of Opposition to the Internet Blacklist Bill – EFF.org

An Explosion of Opposition to the Internet Blacklist Bill – EFF.org Deeplinks

On the eve of the House Judiciary Committee’s hearing on the Stop Internet Piracy Act—where five witnesses will appear in favor of the bill to just one against—a broad group of tech companies, lawmakers, experts, professors, and rights groups have come out against the bill.

This is wonderful news! Let’s just hope things haven’t gone so far that our government won’t listen to their own people…that can’t happen, right?…

Bye, Bye, Facebook, Bye, Bye…

***NOTICE***

BYE, BYE, FACEBOOK, BYE, BYE

This notice is to my friends and family on Facebook

After this weekend (waiting only to give friends and family a chance to know what happened), I will be deactivating my Facebook account, and may ultimately be deleting it in the very near future if A LOT OF THINGS don’t change in the way that Facebook is ‘doing business.’

Facebook has a lot of gall to say Facebook users are not unhappy with their recent changes to Facebook privacy policy changes. I know many who are VERY unhappy with these changes, IF they even realize the changes being made.

To help folks realize what changes are being made, here are some links to do your own research:

Six Things You Need to Know About Facebook Connections (EFF)

Facebook security flaw makes private chats public (Network World)

Consumer groups hammer Facebook privacy violations in federal complaint (Macworld UK) – Facebook privacy violations stemming from recent feature changes

More EFF links over the last week or two on Facebook:

Facebook’s Eroding Privacy Policy: A Timeline

A Handy Facebook-to-English Translator

How to Opt Out of Facebook’s Instant Personalization

If you plan on maintaining your Facebook Account, you also might like to read the following article at ZDNet Blogs:

Contemplating FaceBook Hara-Kiri

When Copyright Goes Bad

When Copyright Goes Bad

Info from the YouTube video page:

A film by Ben Cato Clough and Luke Upchurch.

Suddenly, copyright rules no longer do what they are supposed to do. They have gone bad.

This is a film about how copyright has become one of the most important consumer issues of the digital age; why corporate lobbying risks criminalising the actions of hundreds of thousands of people; and what the future holds for the fight for fairer copyright laws.

When Copyright Goes Bad is an introduction to the renegotiation of copyright and is for anyone interested in how copyright is affecting consumers. It features some of the key players in the copyright debate, including:

Fred Von Lohmann – Electronic Frontier Foundation; Michael Geist – University of Ottawa Law School; Jim Killock – Open Rights Group; and Hank Shocklee – Co-founder of Public Enemy.

For more, visit http://www.A2Knetwork.org/film

FTC Chairman refuses to recuse herself?

FTC Chair Refuses to Recuse Herself on Google-DoubleClick Deal…Well, shouldn’t the FTC itself force her hand? As a group that is supposed to be looking out for the interests of the Citizens of this great country — shouldn’t they force her hand?

Wired and many others are reporting:

Federal Trade Commission chairwoman Deborah Platt Majoras is not going to be stopped by a couple of privacy-loving non-profits. Majoras says she will not recuse herself from the Google-DoubleClick review, despite a petition from the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center for Digital Democracy.

The “privacy-loving” groups had filed a petition calling for her disqualification on the matter earlier this week. They cited a conflict of interest. (since Majoras’ husband works for the law firm Jones Day — where Jones Day represents DoubleClick in the antitrust case in Europe. Not only that, Majoras also used to work at Jones Day.)

BOLD emphasis mine.

We don’t claim to be attorneys, but Majoras’ defense seems lame. Her argument is this: a) Jones Day has never represented DoubleClick in front of the FTC, and b) her husband is a fixed participation partner, and not an equity partner at Jones Day, so he doesn’t have a financial interest in the outcome of the case.

They are claiming there is no conflict of interest? Huh? The most obvious is that Jones Day signs her husband’s checks. And used to sign hers. But it goes so much deeper than that! If we can connect the dots, why can’t the FTC?

The FTC should not be allowing even a hint of any conflict of interest. There should be NO ROOM for doubt as to the impartiality of the Chair or the Members of the Panel which is to review a given situation, IMHO. I thought that was the FTC’s stand as well…maybe I was wrong on that??

So my questions are the following:

What’s up with the FTC allowing her to make such a claim and buying into it? …and… Is the rest of the FTC going to allow this??

Why would the FTC want to waste our tax dollars on a less than their best investigation? (Whether she is generally good at her job or not has nothing to do with perception and intent.)

Just because she believes at this moment that there were no conflict of interest doesn’t mean there isn’t a conflict of interest. And if she doesn’t see the conflict of interest, is she really the right person for the this job?

Just a few questions…

Oh, and while we are looking closely at some government type things:

A make-or-break moment for telecom immunity has arrived — after months of back-room committee-meetings, the FISA bill will finally reach the Senate floor on Monday! The clock is ticking and the upcoming votes will be critical. Email your Senator now:

http://www.eff.org/showdown