Rabb: Internet laws really about control and money

It’s all about control, money

Thomas Jefferson was such a clever man. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Clever because the original phrase — the one he borrowed from John Locke — ran just a bit differently.

Locke, arguably the father of modern Liberalism, pegged his fundamental rights as life, liberty and property. Happiness for property. Very clever.

There’s no denying the more I have the happier I am (I might deny that), but I think Jefferson was after something else. Happiness is so much more expansive a thing than property. Noble even. A fundamental right to property — or at least protecting property — seems a bit petty on the grand scale of human pursuits. More than that, the pursuit of happiness never runs headlong into the rights afforded life and liberty. Property... that’s another matter.

And that’s where we happen to be right now, smack dab in the middle of that conflict, when it comes to SOPA, PIPA and ACTA.

Information on the Internet is life. Information on the Internet is liberty. Information on the Internet is happiness. In the words of Faber College’s illustrious motto (and when possible always quote from National Lampoon’s Animal House), “Knowledge is Good.”

The question is: is knowledge property? To those of us who’ve actually found our “information” — in this case excerpts from one of my novels — sitting on a site I’ve never been contacted by or when a friend tells me that they’ve seen Xeroxed copies of one of my books, loosely bound and being sold in China), the answer is yes.

More: http://savannahnow.com/column/2012-02-03/rabb-internet-laws-really-about-control-and-money#.TzgzgFGMqyc

Hacking Ukraine: Govt retreats after massive cyber-siege

Ukrainian government websites have suffered a two-day cyber attack after the authorities closed a popular file-sharing service. The police have withdrawn the blocking order, but their investigation into alleged piracy is very much ongoing.

Users lost access to dozens of official websites in Ukraine after they came under attack on Tuesday. Websites belonging to the president, the government, Ukraine’s security service, the national bank, and the interior ministry were among those affected.

The cyber offensive was fuelled by thousands of internet users trying to protect the popular file-sharing service, EX.ua. The site, which is similar in function to Megaupload.com, was closed by the authorities on Tuesday.

Ukrainian police allege that the site was involved in online piracy. The interior ministry searched EX.ua offices and seized some 200 servers containing more than 6,000 terabytes of data.

The move triggered an instant tsunami of anger among Ukrainian internet users which quickly spilled over in a series of hacker attacks on the government. According to sources in the movement, the virtual siege involved about 500 IT professionals and hundreds of thousands of ordinary users who flooded the websites with requests in a bid to force them offline.

The attackers were prepared to seek help from the hacktivist group Anonymous, reports the news website Ukrainian Pravda, citing a letter received from one of the hackers involved in the situation.

More: http://rt.com/news/ukraine-hacker-attack-triumphant-411/

Open journalism: How to get involved

Welcome to our Open Journalism page - a new home for all our ventures into open journalism across guardian.co.uk
Happy Friday and welcome back to our Open Journalism page, where we pull together the best of the open journalism taking place on guardian.co.uk each day.

Below you'll find many interaction opportunities, but we are always keen to hear suggestions for new ways we can involve you more in what we do. Please give us your feedback, ideas and experiences in the comments below or on Twitter with the hashtag #opennews.

More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/feb/03/open-journalism-how-to-get-involved-friday-3-february?newsfeed=true

Editorial: Gauging pressure

As a general ideal, the process of government decision-making should strike a balance among the need to take into account the concerns of civil society while making decisions according to rational, demonstrable and defensible criteria.

Civil society always must have the space to make its voice heard; the consequences of an inability to do so are there for all to see in the experience of unfree countries.
Unfortunately, however, some issues appear to be decided solely on the criteria of governments nervous about their popularity only to willing to back down when faced with protests by those skilled in the use of social networks while sometimes not fully skilled in matters of science and law.

The fracking and ACTA issues are illustrations of this. Debate should be democratic, indeed, but it also should be rational and factual.

Source: http://www.sofiaecho.com/2012/02/03/1758393_editorial-gauging-pressure

An Entertainment Boycott Is Not The Right Way

I just read about Operation Black March on Reddit which suggests to boycott all media, and in particular film, music, books and magazine companies, in the whole month of March. The operation aims to be a counter-movement against the lobbying of media companies that try to censor the Internet and act openly against the freedom of speech. With SOPA, PIPA and ACTA only the beginning, it could get a lot worse before it gets better.

The flyer reads: DON’T buy any magazine, newspaper, DON’T download ANY song (legally or illegaly), DON’T watch any movie at the cinema, DON’T buy ANY DVD or videogame and DON’T buy any book.

A boycott would likely send a message, if enough earth citizens would participate in it. It would also hurt people that have no say in the matter but earn their living from it, like the small bookstore owner, a record store and even the cinema in your town. It could also impact the creative people of the entertainment business, people who do not have any say when it comes to company policy.


More: http://www.ghacks.net/2012/02/03/an-entertainment-boycott-is-not-the-right-way/

PRESS DIGEST - Bulgaria - Feb 3

Feb 3 (Reuters) - These are some of the main stories in Bulgarian newspapers on Friday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

POLITICS

- The authorities closed the Danube bridge that connects Bulgaria and Romania due to the freezing weather. (Monitor, 24 Chasa, Trud)

- Bulgaria will ratify the ACTA agreement that protects intellectual rights online with a special opinion and will continue to apply national legislation for internet traffic, Prime Minister Boiko Borisov said. (Trud, Capital daily, Monitor, Sega, Standart, Klasa)

More: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/03/bulgaria-press-idUSL5E8D30JK20120203

Hundreds gather to protest controversial intellectual property treaty; Sentiment on the economy is getting worse

PROTEST Around 900 people, some wearing masks characteristic of the international hackers group Anonymous, demonstrated in Prague's Malá Strana Feb. 2 against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which the Czech Republic signed in Tokyo along with 21 other countries Jan. 26. Organizers said the agreement was a significant violation of democratic rights as it seeks to bolster the enforcement of international copyrights. The European Union's rapporteur on ACTA has resigned his post over the agreement, which he says goes "too far."

INTEGRATION Politicians from Šluknov, a low-income region in north Bohemia that has been the site of ethnic tensions since last summer, met with the government Agency for Social Inclusion Feb. 2, the Czech News Agency (ČTK) reported. Mayors from the area previously criticized the 25 million Kč agency for its ineffectiveness in helping resolve the region's issues with the integration of migrant Roma groups.

More: http://www.praguepost.com/news/12002-friday-news-briefing.html

Act on Acta now if you care about democracy and free speech

The anti-counterfeiting trade agreement could criminalise internet users globally. But it hasn't been ratified yet …

Acta is the latest copyright enforcement scheme to cause alarm among digital activists. Given its reach, this is understandable.

The anti-counterfeiting trade agreement is, despite its name, effectively an international treaty that forces signatories to criminalise "commercial-scale" copyright and trademark infringement. Some of it covers knock-off merchandise, but most applies to the digital world as well. Many of Acta's provisions already exist in countries such the US and the UK – for example, it makes sure courts can block or take down infringing websites – and the idea is ostensibly to bring the rest of the world in line.

However, some elements would go further than existing laws in most of the countries that sign up. Acta criminalises activities such as breaking the digital locks on rights-protected files, or even distributing tools to help people do so. Stripping the artist information from a music file becomes a crime, as does decrypting content that has been scrambled for copyright protection. Acta also codifies the flawed idea, in calculating damages from so-called piracy, that every unlawful download represents a lost sale.

More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/03/act-acta-democracy-free-speech

ACTA signee Slovenia ambassador now calls for mass protest

One of the most recent leaders to sign the secretive and wide-spread internet censorship-minded Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement has now apologized and called for mass demonstrations to protest what she’s done. It’s Slovenia’s ambassador to Japan, miss Helena Drnovsek Zorko, who signed the ACTA and was immediately drown in emails and calls from Slovenians criticizing her for doing so. This bill was then read in full by the ambassador, she then deciding that the agrees fully with the critics who’ve mailed her, apologizing to her children and her country before calling for what’s effectively a revolt against the agreement on the whole.

More: http://www.slashgear.com/acta-signee-slovenia-ambassador-now-calls-for-mass-protest-03211989/

ACTA's EU future in doubt after Polish pause

NEWS The chances of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement becoming law in Europe dwindled suddenly on Friday, after Polish prime minister Donald Tusk said he was suspending ACTA's ratification in his country.

Acta, EU, Copyright, Poland, Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, European Union, File-sharing, Intellectual property, Activists, Enforcement, Law

Polish prime minister Donald Tusk, pictured here on a visit to Greece, has suspended ratification of ACTA in his country. Image credit: Office of the Greek Prime Minister

According to reports, Tusk said on Friday that his government had made insufficient consultations before signing the agreement in late January, and it was necessary to ensure it was entirely safe for Polish citizens.

Although it is technically a trade agreement, ACTA is effectively an international treaty aimed at criminalising copyright infringement and associated activities.

Tusk's backtracking could spell the end of ACTA for the entire European Union. If Poland or any other EU member state, or the European Parliament itself, fails to ratify the document, it becomes null and void across the union. As it stands, there are already five member countries that have not even signed ACTA.

More: http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/intellectual-property/2012/02/03/actas-eu-future-in-doubt-after-polish-pause-40094978/

Remains of the Day: Poland Stands up to ACTA

Poland thinks twice about passing ACTA, Google will no longer use CDMA devices as developer units, and a new study begs the question, "Do iOS apps crash more frequently than Android apps?"

More: http://lifehacker.com/5882167/remains-of-the-day-poland-stands-up-to-acta

ACTA: Row Continues, Irish Aid Web Site Taken Down

The Irish Aid, a government oversees development body, had to take its Web site offline after it was hacked and several staff members' private information was posted under a 'Stop ACTA' banner.

The Anonymous Sweden, who last week claimed responsibility for taking down several Irish government Web sites, tweeted a link to the post before it was taken down.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is a plurilateral agreement between 10 countries and the European Union that aims to establish a legal framework against counterfeit goods. The agreement, according to The Guardian, is scheduled for debate in June. It is yet to be ratified by the EU parliament.

The legislation, which is being sought by major record labels, including EMI, Warner Music, Sony and Universal, has been compared to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S.

More: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/292925/20120204/acta-row-conitinues-irish-aid-website-taken.htm

Slovenian ambassador apologizes for signing ACTA, Poland halts ratification

Helena Drnovsek Zorko, Slovenia's ambassador to Japan, is one of the EU representatives that signed ACTA a week ago.

Yesterday, though, the ambassador reconsidered her position and issued an apology to her country for signing the international treaty on counterfeiting. She wrote:

I want to apologise because I carried out my official duty, but not my civic duty. I don’t know how many options I had with regard to not signing, but I could have tried. I did not. I missed an opportunity to fight for the right of conscientious objection on the part of us bureaucrats.

Apparently she was flooded by emails and messaged from Slovenian citizens that criticized the treaty's ratification. On her personal blog, she then acknowledged that online protests raised concerns about a treaty that she now defines as “damaging to the state and citizens."

The ambassador also warned against demonization by the people who protested against her, pointing out that the responsibility is on her government:

This was decided by the Slovenian government and by the parliamentary committee for EU matters, and before that, Slovenia was for quite some time involved in coordinating the agreement. All this was done with too little transparency, judging by the outraged responses that have appeared following the signing. Back then, the Slovenian media did not demonise this decision to the same extent as they now demonise my signature. This I consider very dangerous for the continuous (non-)development of democracy in Slovenia.

More: http://techpresident.com/news/21727/slovenian-ambassador-apologizes-signing-acta-poland-halts-ratification

CBS Evening News with ...: Anonymous hacks FBI call to Scotland Yard

The hacker group Anonymous managed to secretly listen to and record a 16 ½-minute phone call between the FBI and Scotland Yard, then posted the recording online. Bob Orr reports on how security was breached.

More -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLOIvrnPJoI