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"Now that The Pirate Bay is serving tiny "magnet links" instead of torrents, its whole database will fit in 90MB. "

Article showing which websites are protesting against SOPA and what their founders' opinions are on the bill

add those tags Benjon!

SOPA and PIPA Shelved But Is ACTA Unstoppable?

Better than just stopping SOPA/PIPA/ACTA is to pass well drafted legislation like the OPEN Act: http://keepthewebopen.com/

Nice video explaining the current issues

The SOPA is mainly adresses the protection of intellectual property of content creators. Obviously this is the one of the biggest advantages being proposed by the act as artists and entertainers will be able to profit more from the content they make. Nowadays much of their content is illegally downloaded from the internet, such as music. However SOPA will have a severe impact on online freedom of speech as numerous websites would be affected by the act and blacklisted as a result. The internet is makes frequent use of copyrighted material not necessarily in a legal way. Doing streaming of such content after the act could lead to a maximum penalty of five years in prison. However the US congress states that protecting intellectual property is not the same as censorship http://agbeat.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/sopa-infographic1.png The image above provides more detail about SOPA including how it will take effect and the impact it would have on businesses. It shows the major supporters of SOPA as well as the major opposers, one of them being Google.

Apparently there are multiple ways of circumventing the SOPA: 1. Using a VPN Service 2. Using Your HOSTs File 3. Using TOR 4. Using a Web DNS Tool 5. Changing Your DNS Server 6. Using Command Prompt 7. Using Foxy Proxy 8. Using MAFIAAFire Source: http://www.zeropaid.com/news/95013/8-technical-methods-that-make-the-protect-ip-act-useless/

The main social and ethical issue in this article is security and privacy. Using a method known as 'spear-phising', hackers were handed users' account information. I find it quite freightning how people, who are supposed to be some of the best minds in the world, as they work in sensitive parts of the US government, fall into the trap of giving their account information to hackers. In my opinion a greater awareness should be raised, on how to protect their privacy, among high-profile government officials in order to protect vital and classified information.

this is racism...

In what way is this racism Zhan?

An entertaining video on copyright laws. It covers these topics: Chapter 1: Copyright definition - 0.52 Chapter 2: What things can be copyrighted? - 2.52 Chapter 3: Copyright Duration and the Public Domain - 3.52 Chapter 4: Fair Use - 6.22 Chapter 5: Why use Disney cartoons? - 8.14 Credits - 8.52 Public domain

"The distribution of copyrighted materials without permission (over the internet) can be a violation of federal law. The law is known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 ("DMCA"). Much of the music, movies, video, or games that are downloaded via file sharing networks like KaZaA, Gnutella, Napster, Blubster, and eDonkey, are distributed without the permission of the copyright owner, and thus these downloads are illegal. The federal government and various organizations (such as the Recording Industry Association of America, RIAA) are very serious about enforcing the provisions of the DMCA legislation, and violations can carry stiff fines and potential jail sentences."

Piracy letter campaign 'nets innocents'

Good find. Very interesting

To what extent does media and governments distort information that is presented to the general audience, taking into consideration the concealing of an extremely sensitive piece of information such as this?\n\nWhat degree of obscurantism does the US army's "don't ask, don't tell" policy imply? How much misunderstanding can it provoke?\n\nHow reliable is the information provided to us by Wikileaks?

Wikileaks on Monday released a 17-minute video of footage from an Apache helicopter that was reportedly one of two helicopters involved in a fight against insurgents in the neighborhood of New Baghdad on July 12, 2007.

"WikiLeaks posts video of 'US military killings' in Iraq"