Stop The Internet Blacklist Legislation

It doesn’t take much imagination at all to see what a horrible effect this censorship could have on sites like Hackaday. Please do your part to stop internet censorship.

Imagine how many companies would rather us not share with you how our brilliant readers have hacked their hardware to do bigger and better things than they were sold to do. Sites like Hackaday would not survive this censorship.

 

 

210 thoughts on “Stop The Internet Blacklist Legislation

  1. I’m a US citizen in Qatar. I broadcast the message for more than 5 hours, in various forms, all over my social network (FB and email). I was able to reach about 15 out of about 250 people, and influence them to take action. Those are people who confirmed the action. It’s possible that others did something, and didn’t respond. It’s quite disappointing, but every voice counts.

    I mention this because, as someone above remarked, the current state of things is very much like the Orwell/Huxley/Zamyatin totalitarian dystopias. There are those of us, like Winston, who see and identify what is going on, and try to galvanize the proles into action. But the proles are ignorantly and stupidly reluctant, and even opposed to take action. It’s amazing to see them get stirred for a moment by the emotion behind a written plea, then watch it fizzle out as someone posts a comical image of a raptor wearing a basketball uniform and afro. It reminded me of Remi from Ratatouille trying to teach his brother about enjoying food.

    I did me part, and I commend HaD for doing theirs. I was concered that it wouldn’t be mentioned here, since there was no talk about it in the past. Thank you for joining the rest of the internet in opposition of a clearly ridiculous piece of legislation.

  2. I like how there is so much attention on this right now, I mean who gives a flying shit?

    This race was already lost several years ago, when most of Europe started putting down blacklists and people did nothing.

    This evolution of the internet was inevitable, seeing as people already showed they don’t care enough to stop things like this, and I find it utterly retarded that opensource sites “go down” in protest over this issue.
    The only thing that will merit is piss off the people that actually need these things, the people who can’t afford or won’t pay for commercial products.
    Does anyone in their right mind actually think that a minority like that, will even be able to make a dent in something that is backed up by so many influential people, not to mention almost the entire E.U.?

        1. Wow. That’s a horrible response. Do us a favor: don’t join any branches of the military, or take part in anything more responsible than living your own life. That kind of guidance is detrimental to any kind of success.

      1. Actually, I think he should join. That way he’ll have no choice but to learn the hard way why it’s important to fight for a cause that is greater than himself. Such narrow-minded people can never understand the hardwork that goes into maintaining freedom or even trying to obtaining it.

      2. This is typical Americans, sit on your asses to whine and protest against something YOU could have done something about years ago. But I guess with a country full of egomaniacs, that is kind of what is to be expected.

        Only act when it is something that relates to yourself and your own fortune, A++ attitude.

        This is just like any damn actual war your country has participated in, it has always and will always be for personal gain with you people. I know this is really hard for you to fathom, having your head so far up your own asses, but having America as the only free nation on earth is not preserving freedom of speech and it sure as hell isn’t winning any wars.

        So my question is, why the hell did you idiots didn’t do anything when there was an actual time to do it?

      3. kris:

        Fatalists never accomplish anything. If we’re losing, that means we need to dig in and fight harder.

        It’s not how long you live, it’s how many you take with you when you die.

    1. You’re obviously not American, so I am going to assume you are French with your “give up before the war is actually over” attitude. Every one of these bills is a battle in the overall war against censorship. Maybe we will lose a future battle where the legislators sneak the bill in with some kind of rally-’round-the-flag initiative, but for now we are fighting this one. If the time to fight against this had long passed, we could not be having this conversation right now, because the US government would have shut down HaD already, and we would all be spared from your bigotry.

      1. Are you really as dumb as you display here or are you not getting that having one country where freedom of speech is allowed, doesn’t mean freedom of speech is preserved?

        Yes this site still exists, BECAUSE IT IS PLACED IN THE U.S. I know this is really hard for Americans to get, but you aren’t the only country on the planet, your opinions and so called freedom isn’t the only ones that count.

        I am telling you the European Union, a unity that is 1,5x the size of the United States in population, already lost this war. Which I attempted to fight, while you were sitting on your asses munching burgers. But now that it will be affecting you, you whine and moan and accuse anyone who says the war was already fought, for being quitters and surrender monekys, yet again Americans prove to be how the world perceives them.

        As Justin pointed out, this will be snuck in at some point. Possibly though, they won’t even have to, seeing as the E.U. fully backs ideas like this now. If you had actually bothered to lift your ass and do something while there was still time to do it, you could have prevented this and one of the U.S. biggest allies would have been against the legislation. Seeing as you didn’t, this is a lost cause, because there is no government in the world left that will oppose this legislation.

        We all know that when there is noone saying “don’t do that you dumbass”, then people automatically assume that it is okay for them to do something, no matter how stupid.

        For the record I am not French and if it was up to me, my country wouldn’t even be in the E.U.

        1. Like any other situation in history, we Americans are either damned if we do, and damned if we don’t. Had we intervened when your union was creating this legislation (which you say has already passed), we would have been seen as interfering in foreign matters where we have no business. People would compare it to our interference into the politics of Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, along with several African nations. EU members would say “mind your own business”, and Americans would say “focus on the political problems we have at home”. Since we didn’t intervene, people like you call us lazy and say we don’t care about anything other than ourselves.

          Your government is in chrage for a reason. If you are part of a true democracy, or even a democratic republic, then either your people voted to put them there, or they didn’t care, and therefore can’t complain. Because America is the largest power in the world doesn’t mean we are responsible for babysitting your government. Not to mention the fact that as an American citizen I have no input on matters of your government’s policy, just as you have no input on mine. Don’t blame me; blame your fellow Frenchmen.

      2. Actually, the French were creating a trap for the Germans with that retreat and surrender. Of course, it still seems like a funny reference to put it that way (‘cowards’)unless of course you’re French or like them. ;) But it doesn’t make it true about the French nor does it change the fact that sometimes timidity seems obvious in certain European countries. I’m curious why no one mentions the UK instead with it’s anti-victim laws.

  3. Heard on the morning news US (elected) government officials backing this are publicly stating they are withdrawing their support.

    What that probably means is they are withdrawing their PUBLIC support.

    Like said above, it will get passed tacked onto some pedophile act, or some anti-terrorist amendment.

    Kinda like Kris is saying, it was a done deal long ago, ink is long dry, now they wait for the hype to go down and say “actually, we’ve received alot of positive feedback regarding this initiative, so you commies who don’t like it must hate puppies and kittens, your mother and your country.
    But if you still disapprove, add you name to this list and we promise to pay much more attention to YOU…”

    ..follow the money…

    1. HaD doesn’t show the “Reply” button at your earlier comment so I’m replying here.

      Addresses obtained from nslookup must go to the hosts file. Example:

      72.233.104.123 hackaday.com
      76.74.254.121 hackaday.com
      74.200.247.61 hackaday.com

      On Windows this file is in the directory system32\drivers\etc.

    2. Yeah or they could just use the sneakier way, like they did here in Europe, block “illegal” sites under the cover of them trying to undermine the country’s economy.
      Then forcibly back that up with a solution to monitor every single persons network activity, due to “terrorists plotting against us”.

      So that means they can pretty much block any site they want, they just need a court order and who controls those, they do…
      Not to mention that every e-mail that we send to our moms or family members is security controlled by their servers too, yay freedom.

      1. I believe predecessor of the SOPA / PIPA was tested in (republic of) Serbia in 2005 and is used to this day. All internet provides are ordered to buy equipment for traffic analysis and ordered to track and record user activity for at least six months or else…
        Many sites were filtered out or redirected. For example if one is trying to access google dot com form Serbia he will be redirected to google dot rs. That wouldn’t be a problem if google dot rs wasn’t filtering out search requests, offering search results with modified ratings. For example searching for adobe flash installer on google dot rs will not show link to adobe download site, instead all the unwanted mirror sites will be displayed. Further more google dot rs uses broken SSL, so there is no secure e-mail anymore. Social web sites are monitored and filtered for offending comments. If something slips by account is hijacked and offending comments removed. :(

  4. The internet is famous for “healing itself” by routing around damage such as unreliable root domain name servers.

    Although these bills CLAIM to be anti piracy, they are crafted so wide open that it is obvious that they will be used to stifle free speech.

    When this dangerous SOPA/PIPA legislation passes under whatever new name they give it to sneak it through (or by attaching it as a rider to a critical funding bill), the root domain name servers located in the USA will become obsolete.

    All it takes is for a neutral country to set up a new set of root servers, and other DNS servers to use them, and the good old USA will have squandered to power they now have over domain names.

    1. From what I read, they are also trying to deny us the ability to even access any gateway to any information without their approval. This means that they can( through hardware and firmware) block and redirect physical access of any server. If so, such a wide-sweeping system would be extremely hard to implement and that’s not counting the cost( through taxes of course) and levels of abuse that can open up in doing so.

  5. A bookmarklet for the occasion


    javascript:(function(){function%20add(){var%20canvas=document.createElement("canvas");canvas.setAttribute("style","position:%20absolute;");canvas.width=70;canvas.height=20;canvas.style.top=(Math.random()*window.innerHeight-20)+"px";canvas.style.left=(Math.random()*window.innerWidth-70)+"px";var%20ctx=canvas.getContext("2d");ctx.strokeStyle="#FFFFFF";ctx.fillStyle="#000000";ctx.fillRect(0,0,70,20);ctx.strokeStyle="#FFFFFF";ctx.strokeRect(0,0,69,19);ctx.fillStyle="#FFFFFF";ctx.fillText("Redacted",10,12);document.body.appendChild(canvas);setTimeout(function(){add();},1000);}add();})();

  6. Heard back from my Congressman;

    Dear Mr Younker,

    Thank you for contacting me to express your opposition to the House and Senate versions of legislation claiming to address foreign-based websites that market pirated movies, music and other goods. Like you, I am concerned about the potential adverse impact of this legislation.

    While minor differences exist between the House and Senate bills, I am opposed to both the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA). These bills would give the Department of Justice expanded authority to request a court order against certain search engines, Domain Name System (DNS) providers, and Internet advertising firms to prevent sites with pirated or counterfeit content from receiving visitors or money from the United States.

    In the past few weeks, I have heard from dozens of business owners, educators, students, and others from the Big First who share your sentiments on this issue. It is good to see that we can all agree that this legislation is not the proper response to concerns over pirated Internet content. While I recognize there are some legitimate concerns that need to be addressed regarding piracy and intellectual property, I believe that neither of these bills is the answer to those problems. And, in fact, this legislation has the potential to make things far worse.

    The Internet has flourished since its inception with minimal government intervention and has revolutionized our ability to communicate and carry out commerce. It has provided businesses of all sizes a competitive edge to reach a broad domestic and global market. Open and widely accessible access to the Internet and modern telecommunications has become integral to our freedom, prosperity, and innovation. SOPA and PIPA come as just another example of big government hastily stepping in without considering the ramifications of federal involvement.

    Again, thank you for taking the time out of your day to let me know your thoughts on this issue. Please continue to be in communication with my office on issues that matter to you.

  7. A rant and a suggestion

    How the hell is one country however big allowed to dictate to the world?
    If a country like china, russia or even a group like the eu was to do this, it would be blocked straight away by the US as it would be an infringement of their rights this would more so come from the many republicans who support sopa and pipa in the first place, but because it is their baby they want to see in through to protect their pockets and shit on the rest of the world. rant over

    Any chance hackaday as a whole can be zipped up for download just in case

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