Friday, January 20, 2012

Firefox Users Engage Congress: #SOPA Strike Stats | The Mozilla Blog

Firefox Users Engage Congress: SOPA Strike Stats

Yesterday, we blacked out the default start page in Firefox and redirected visitors to the Mozilla sites to a special action page. We also sent direct messages to members of the Mozilla community through multiple online channels. All these steps were aimed at informing and mobilizing millions of people on the poorly drafted anti-piracy legislation – SOPA and PIPA – pending in Congress.

The result: Mozilla reached over 40 million people who, in turn, generated 360,000 emails sent to Senators and Representatives in Congress.

Here’s the breakdown of the stats from yesterday’s remarkable campaign:

  • Approximately 30 million people in the US who use the default start page in Firefox received the blacked out page with our call to action
  • We sent messages out to almost 9 million people via Facebook, Twitter and our Firefox + You newsletter
  • Our messages were retweeted, shared and liked by over 20,000 people (not counting MC Hammer’s tweet to his 2.4 million followers!)
  • 1.8 million people came to mozilla.org/sopa to learn more and take action on the issue
  • 600,000 went on to visit the Strike Against Censorship page, hosted by the EFF
  • Ultimately, 360,000 emails were sent by Mozillians to members of Congress, contributing a third of all the emails generated by EFF’s campaign site.

The debate is far from over. There’s a vote next week in the Senate. Keep the pressure on and make sure your elected officials understand the nuance of the issue and the importance of protecting the open Web.

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

@JoeRogan - Newark police searching for escaped wolf hybrid | The Columbus Dispatch

Newark police searching for escaped wolf hybrid

By  Josh Jarman

The Columbus Dispatch Friday January 20, 2012 12:05 PM

The hybrid wolf was last seen yesterday at about 9 p.m.

Newark police are cautioning residents after a hybrid wolf escaped from its owner late yesterday.

The animal escaped and was last seen by its owner at about 9 p.m. yesterday, in the area of Oakwood Avenue and the Rt. 16/Rt. 79 overpass, according to a news release from Newark police. Officers were not alerted to the animal’s escape until this morning, police said.

“The aggression level of the animal is not known, but it is an exotic animal,” the release states.

Police and animal-control officers have searched the area, but have not found the animal. Police notified local schools and asked them to keep children inside.

Anyone who spots the animal is advised to avoid contact and call Newark police at 740-670-7200.
 

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

What Happens To Your Files When a Cloud Service Shuts Down?

Slashdot

MrSeb writes "Megaupload's shutdown poses an interesting question: What happens to all the files that were stored on the servers? XDA-Developers, for example, has more than 200,000 links to Megaupload — and this morning, they're all broken, with very little hope of them returning. What happens if a similar service, like Dropbox, gets shut down — either through bankruptcy, or federal take-down? Will you be given a chance to download your files, or helped to migrate them to another similar service? What about data stored on enterprise services like Azure or AWS — are they more safe?" And if you're interested, the full indictment against Megaupload is now available.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sent with Reeder

Posted via email from Tony Burkhart

Father of the web backs SOPA protests

Father of the web backs SOPA protests

Tim Berners-Lee says US government plan to censor the internet violates human rights.

The father of the web has added his voice to the global chorus of outrage at US Government plans to censor the internet, saying its plans are undemocratic and violate human rights.

The US Congress is pushing ahead with contentious legislation to censor internet communications, the Stop Online Piracy Act, that is backed by five-year jail terms. Although it applies ostensibly to only US entities, Australians who host websites or do online business or rely on resources on US servers would be impacted.

The bill is currently held for "markup" next month, a review that may mean alterations in light of wide-ranging criticism.

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British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee, who is credited with inventing the World Wide Web.

British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee, who is credited with inventing the World Wide Web, has called for people to take action against the SOPA. Photo: AFP

As major websites including Wikipedia blacked out in protest overnight, the web's creator, Sir Tim-Berners Lee, urged people to let their feelings be known to block it before it is enacted.

"It affects all the stuff on the internet working and something which would affect what you want to connect to, where you want to connect to," Sir Tim said.

"If you're in America then you should go and call somebody or send an email to protest against these (censorship) bills because they have not been put together to respect human rights as is appropriate in a democratic country."

Sir Tim's call to arms was met with rousing applause and hoots from 5000 delegates to IBM's annual Lotusphere conference, held in the southern, state of Florida.

High-profile sites such as Wikipedia's English-language edition, Google, Yahoo!'s Flickr photo sharing site, news aggregator Reddit and web browser Mozilla are among a growing number of digital media companies who banded together to protest the proposed changes to America's copyright regime either blacking out entirely or carrying messages in condemnation. Google redacted its name in response to one of the biggest ever changes proposed to global copyright policing.

Critics from a broad coalition that includes most IT companies contend the bill's wording would make any internet use potentially impossible without fear of running foul of the law that they say undermines online security while its proponents backed by Hollywood's powerful film distributors say it is needed to stop rampant online piracy.

The bill, coupled to the related Protect IP Act, would grant the US Government unprecedented powers to:

# Block websites thereby erasing protections afforded by internet security standards;

# Demands search engines censor their results not to point to allegedly infringing content;

# Orders payment providers not to process funds deemed to be from alleged infringers;

# Erodes internet commerce by demanding online ad companies refuse to accept ads from allegedly infringing advertisers.

Those convicted of breaking the eventual law face up to five years in jail but compliant internet service providers would be immune from prosecution.

The writer attended Lotusphere as a guest of IBM.

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Posted via email from Tony Burkhart