Wikipedia Russia, other sites protest proposed Internet ‘censorship’ law
The Russian version of Wikipedia went black on Tuesday to protest a proposed law that could become the basis for Internet censorship.
Wikipedia's protest is backed by other large Russian online businesses such as the social networking site VKontakte and the Russian LiveJournal.
"We are protesting because the proposed amendments are too inaccurate, and in its current form they can damage Internet development in Russia," said Vladimir Medeyko, director of the Russian Wikimedia foundation, via instant message.
If the new law, "On Information, Information Technologies and Protection of Information," is adopted with the proposed amendments, this might lead to the creation of a Russian analogue of "the great Chinese firewall" or an "electronic curtain," Medeyko said, adding that in a worst-case scenario access to Wikipedia might be blocked in Russia.
Visitors to the Russian Wikipedia site were unable to access it on July 10. Those who tried to access the site saw a black censorship banner over the Cyrillic word for Wikipedia. "Imagine a world without free knowledge," the slogan reads on the blocked website. Read more...
Anonymous says it hacked Chinese government sites
China was struggling Thursday to restore several government websites that international hacking group Anonymous says it attacked in an apparent protest against Chinese Internet restrictions.
On a Twitter account established in late March, Anonymous China listed the websites it says it hacked over the last several days. They include government bureaus in several Chinese cities, including in Chengdu, a provincial capital in southwest China.
Some of the sites were still blocked Thursday, with error messages shown. Read more...
Too Big To Fail: Why Anonymous And Hacktivism Will Go On After Sabu
Earlier today, authorities descended on a hacker called Sabu and five of his cohorts, who are now in custody, with more than a little love lost between him and the bigger Anonymous group with which they were associated. The reports claim that Sabu (real name, Hector Xavier Monsegur) had been an informant for months over the group’s hacking, distributed denial of service, and other attacks used to bring down websites against which they were protesting.
That’s an explosive betrayal that seems almost too dramatic to be true. But while the news today has surely rocked a lot of people, for those closely involved with this movement, experts in the field of online security believe it is unlikely to make much of a difference longer term.
Quite simply, Anonymous is too big to fail. Read more...
FireFall creator Red 5 drops from E3 to protest SOPA
Red 5, the PC game developer behind the upcoming free-to-play shooter/MMO mashup FireFall, has dropped out of E3 2012 in protest of SOPA.
CEO Mark Kern, also a Boston University Law School graduate, is redirecting the company’s E3 funds to launch The League For Gamers, an advocacy group representing end users, gamers and First Amendment advocates. The Entertainment Software Association (ESA), a trade body for the games industry, owns the E3 show and supports SOPA.
Kern gave an extensive interview to Ars Technica in which he explained that the ESA has taken only the side of large publishers on the SOPA issue, leaving out developers, indies, and users. Read more...