My attention was just brought to this as my work group manages the state's DNS. This legislation as it stands is crazy and needs to be stopped. It is alarmingly far in the legislative process and close to passing.

These bills are incompatible with DNSSEC and would quite frankly break the Internet in the US. They could potentially even cause EE to be inaccessible to US citizens and result in the shuttering of a lot of websites based on user generated content. You should really look into these bills if you are American and write/call your Congress people about them.

One of the craziest things about these bills is that this is not a party line issue with members of both parties supporting and opposing the bills

Agreed! SOPA/PIPA are bad news.

maybe i should register earthempires.ca ;) haha


We could add a 10 turn bonus for sending a form letter to your congressman about it?

That would be a good idea IMO. Even if you moved to Canada these bills could yank your .ca domain from all US DNS servers.

I thought there was a firefox addon that will let you bypass SOPA.
I dunno how effective it is/isn't.

Mozilla corp would likely become a target as well under the SOPA legislation

<-- is already in canada :)

Apparently its scheduled to hit the senate floor jan 24.

PIPA that is

I don't know about everybody else, but I think she's way hotter than her sister.

I just heard about this on No Agenda last night. Information about this bill is here -->>
http://lifehacker.com/...-to-cripple-your-internet

"What Can I Do About SOPA?

Currently Twitter, Google, Reddit, Kickstarter, Tumblr, Mozilla, Yahoo, AOL, eBay, Zynga, Facebook, and several other sites have spoken out in opposition of SOPA. If you'd like to as well, there are a couple of things you can do.
Like
352,293 people like this. Be the first of your friends.

First, call your congressperson on the phone. This is especially important if you live in Texas, Michigan, Vermont, or Iowa. You can also send a letter to your congressperson by visiting the American Censorship Day web site. To activate the contact widget, you have to click the "Try it out" link that's wedged between two screenshots of a censored logo and the "Website Blocked" widget you're trying to open. This will provide you with a form and allow you to send a letter.

Second, get the word out. Post this article, the American Censorship Day web site, or any other information about SOPA on your social media accounts. Send emails to friends and family. If you oppose the bill, help others to understand why they should oppose it as well.

SOPA is on the fast track, so if you want to fight it you need to do so today. We do, however, recommend you get to know the bill so you you can make an informed decision regarding how you feel about it."

I'm wondering if by posting this I infringed on any copyrights?
"Post this article, the American Censorship Day web site, or any other information about SOPA on your social media accounts" nvmd :-P

I emailed both of my senators and my rep here in Florida. Now I'm trying to get an in person meeting with my rep as well :P

For the record since the only petition the white house has received on it's website is for SOPA. I made a veto PIPA petition as well. Please sign it. If any petition gets 25,000 votes it gets a response from the white house

Can I petition as a Canadian?

Not sure, try making an account. If it lets you then yes :P

OrkinMan, Where are we supposed to sign it?

I sent an email our Ambassador in Canada to the US, Mr. Gary Doer.

Man I'd hit Pipa like it was my last day on earth

the internet needs to be broken. Americans are full of it. they think it's their right to steal junk and smoke crack or pot or whatever the heck that they can afford to buy.

except music or videos. they're only willing to spend money on drugs.

The tide has turned....

http://www.nationaljournal.com/...line-piracy-bill-20120112

"Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said on Thursday he would remove a controversial provision from his bill that aims to crack down on piracy and counterfeiting on foreign websites.

Leahy told Vermont Public Radio he would be willing to remove language that would allow a court to order service providers to redirect U.S. users away from websites that are primarily used to offer pirated music, movies and other content and counterfeit goods."

I have no hope for flufftard Lamar Smith to budge on SOPA

Yeah, I emailed my Rep and Senators today.

Here is the petition link. Tweet it or pass it around. For some reason the white house website has been acting screwy since I posted it but it's up now

https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/...amp;utm_campaign=shorturl

Its all part of the prep for when P.R.China takes over and sets the rules.

Even without the DNS level blocking, there is still a lack of due process. Not to mention its giving more power to those that abuse what they already have (read DMCA).

How do you make small urls for twitter? It seems like there are better things than tinyurl now?

Edit:nm... got this link from signing

http://wh.gov/ZWy

well, the white house responded

http://www.whitehouse.gov/...ns-sopa-and-online-piracy

"While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet."

20 bucks he signs the bill regardless of reduction of freedom. He's obviously shown us in the past he doesn't give a crap about our freedom.

So what's up with SOPA and PIPA? What specific things would change and why? I've read up on both on Wiki but I still don't know exactly how individuals would be affected if they passed. Can someone give a brief synopsis of these two proposed bills?

http://veniceforchange.blogspot.com/...llywood-professional.html

Not so brief, but you can certainly read the main points while skipping the details.

Also a good link for following the SOPA/PIPA fiasco.

http://www.techdirt.com/blog/?tag=protect+ip

LOL, no internet censorship sezs the Raging Grannies. should have them talk to mods here. :-P

course, i don't really mind the deletions and bans. probably because i can't remember what i posted 1/2 the time.

Dibs: Do you not understand how the internet works? I haven't met a person who does who is behind this BS.

think it has something to do with 1s and 0s. before the internet, if i couldn't afford to purchase a book, i'd have to walk down to the library to borrow it. don't see why i should support a bunch of people who are stealing stuff and then making it freely available. if they're even doing that, more than likely they're offering it at a discounted price because the only thing they have to fill is their pocket.

I have emailed both of my senators, who are both supporting the legislation.... sigh GA...

GJ Atryn ^^ more pressure the better

Can anyone explain how this legislation will effect me? I don't really understand it.

It's not the fact that pirates are being targeted its the method the government is using. They are legislating that Google, ISPs, etc... Proactively police the Internet for them with the threat of criminal action looming over their heads

Never mind that what they are asking these companies to do is technically impossible

Klown: of all the links posted, I found Cougar's to be the most informative:

http://veniceforchange.blogspot.com/...llywood-professional.html

Plain english, lots of examples and plenty of external links to references and deeper dive if you want it.

Thanks. It sounds like the problem with the legisilation is that its a slippery slope kind of problem.

Hm it's not just a slippery slope; it also puts in nearly impossible-to-police technical limitations; for example, it would require google/facebook/yahoo/EARTH EMPIRES to remove content related to piracy -- not that we wouldn't necessarily, but it's impossible to read everything heh -- or face crazy consequences

The other thing is that it does stupid things to the structure of the internet, with DNS delisting. It's like if the police were to remove street signs for streets that crimes occurred on. If you know how to get somewhere, you can still *get* there, but if you're new to an area/(website) you can't; and it fundamentally breaks other parts of the structure. And then when your neighbour (china) decides they want to remove the street signs for places where political dissidents live, the structure is already in place to do so, with good precedent.

http://www.xkcd.com/86/
that's my final answer

Wikipedia will be staging a blackout of all english wiki pages in protest of SOPA and PIPA on January 18th. http://wikimediafoundation.org/...ipedia_anti-SOPA_blackout

yay

also SOPA was supposedly dropped in the meantime (PIPA is still going)


search it yourself, google is awesome and I'll go to sleep!!! tata

Yeah, MD's FA contacted Congress and told them "what's with this fluff'd up [p]act you have with all these unenforceable terms in it with the MPAA clan?"

It took a lot of work, but they backed down and are looking into how to remove the fluff'd up parts from the [p]act.

lol

So qzjul you guys doing anything tomorrow now that google and Wikipedia are joining in?

Wikifail. I put in my zipcode for Alexandria, VA and got Del. Eleanor Norton (DC). We only have to travel back in time to before Civil War for that to be true.

http://theoatmeal.com/

LOL. they joined the blackout and put up a funny video (or animated gif, or whatever it is). Definitely worth the minute it takes for the loop to finish =)

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