During Google I/O 2013, Derek Slater, Jen Pahlka and others hosted a session titled “Beyond SOPA: What You Can Do To Influence Tech Policy:”

From SOPA/PIPA and CISPA, to immigration and patent reform, government is taking a renewed interest in the Internet and the businesses we’re building on it — in some cases, there is even a new focus on the use of technology which can solve government problems.

As a result, government is looking for input from our community of entrepreneurs and developers about what our needs are as a community, and how they can build better public policy in our interest.

So, what are the most efficient, easy ways for you to get involved? Join us for a panel of some leaders in the Internet advocacy space to learn how you, as a developer, can get more involved in creating better policies that can affect your business.

The House reaffirmed its hands-off approach in legislation it passed yesterday evening. The bill, H.R. 1580, is titled “To affirm the policy of the United States regarding Internet governance.” If you couldn’t tell from the title, it’s simply a resolution saying that the United States will continue supporting the multi-stakeholder approach in regards to Internet development.

It’s encouraging then that the bill was passed unanimously. Of course, no congressman would be caught dead voting against the bill as it would suggest that they were in favor of some rather unpopular suggestions made during a U.N. meeting on Internet governance late last year.

The bill’s sponsor, Greg Walden, praised the multi-stakeholder approach to the Internet on the House floor last night, and confirmed that the bill is meant to send a message to other governments:

“Government’s hands-off approach has enabled the Internet’s rapid growth and made it a powerful engine of social and economic freedom. This bipartisan bill is designed to combat recent efforts by some in the international community to regulate the Internet, which can jeopardize not only its vibrancy, but also the benefits that it brings to the entire world.”

Now, this is a good thing. It’s nice to see that at least the House is all for an Internet free from government control, but it’s unfortunate that the House sees a difference between control and intervention. SOPA, PIPA and CISPA wouldn’t hand over control of the Internet to the government, but it would give the government untold powers to intervene.

It’s much the same argument that countries like Saudi Arabia and China made during the ITU conference last year. They weren’t arguing that the Internet be placed entirely under their control. Instead, they argued that they should be given power over their corner of the Internet to intervene when things got out of control. Granted, CISPA and SOPA were never advocating something like the Great Firewall of China, but they could spiral into something similar if allowed to take effect.

In short, the Internet is a precious resource that has flourished thanks to the current multi-stakeholder model. It’s encouraging to see the U.S. government continue to recognize this, but it’s high time the U.S. government also recognizes that its attempts to regulate the Internet would violate the very legislation the House passed last night.

[h/t: The Hill]

Likewise, CISPA gives the government and corporations the ability to share your private information without a warrant and without much oversight. The bill has been met with some resistance, but not enough. The House passed it with relative ease, and now the fight will go to the Senate. Now everybody’s favorite (or most hated) hacktivist group wants to send the Senate a message with a blackout of its own.

Last week, Anonymous announced that it was organizing a CISPA blackout similar to the SOPA blackout of early 2012. Anonymous had hoped to coerce a number of Web sites into going dark today, but it only managed to get a little over 400 volunteers.

Getting over 400 Web sites to go dark for a day is no small feat, but it just doesn’t compare to the thousands that went dark in protest of SOPA.

Of course, a CISPA blackout could be effectual if Web sites frequently visited by millions of Internet users went dark. Unfortunately, the heavy hitters behind the SOPA blackout (i.e. Google, Reddit, Wikipedia) are refusing to go dark today in protest of CISPA. There are probably a number of reasons for this, but we can only guess at a few of them.

For starters, CISPA isn’t an immediate threat to companies. SOPA would burden Web sites with the responsibility of policing their own content. CISPA encourages companies to share private customer data with the government while granting them complete immunity from legal recourse. CISPA may not present any immediate threat to Internet companies, but Rep. Jared Polis argued last week that it would cause some pretty serious damage all the same:

“[CISPA] directly hurts the confidence of Internet users. Internet users – if this were to become law – would be much more hesitant to provide their personal information – even if assured under the terms of use that it will be kept personal because the company would be completely indemnified if they ‘voluntarily’ gave it to the United States government.”

The other thing standing in the way of an organized CISPA blackout is the organizers themselves. Even among anti-CISPA Web sites like Mozilla, Reddit and others, Anonymous isn’t exactly well-liked. The group’s intentions may be pure this time around, but there’s an argument to be made that CISPA was crafted in response to attacks from Anonymous and other hacking groups.

Anonymous’ planned blackout isn’t a failure, but it isn’t much of a success either. That being said, it at least shows that large groups of people are in opposition to CISPA. It might not be opposed by the teenagers who use Wikipedia to write term papers, but those in the tech community are rightly concerned about the overly broad legislation. It’s unfortunate then that Congress seems to think that only 14-year-olds living in their basements are the only ones opposed to CISPA.

[h/t: RT]

Vimeo user Sam Mularczyk created a video that recounts the events that led up to the fall of SOPA. It’s a great history refresher for those of us who have already forgotten what made the SOPA protests such a significant event.

The Fall Of SOPA from Sam Mularczyk on Vimeo.

The end of the video mentions that the Internet still faces threats at the hands of other treaties and bills like ACTA, TPP and CISPA. Some of these have already been shelved thanks to other massive protests, but others are still moving full steam ahead under a veil of secrecy. To defeat these bills, we may need another protest on the same scale of the SOPA blackout, but that’s not likely to happen.

In short, the Internet is consistently under threat by groups that would seek to undermine it for control or personal gain. The only way to stop it is to use the Internet as it was intended – a communication platform that allows those of similar minds to band together. There’s not always going to be a blackout that spurs Internet users to action, but reminding ourselves of what can be accomplished when we band together may just be enough to shelve other threats to the Internet that are likely to emerge in 2013.

[h/t: Boing Boing]

Swartz had been in some legal trouble, after being arrested in 2011 for allegedly downloading millions of documents from JSTOR with intent to distribute them. It’s looking more and more likely that this incident ultimately led to his suicide, with Swartz losing hope just days before killing himself. The Wall Street Journal reports that his hopes for a deal with federal prosecutors, who threatened to put him in prison for 30 years, fell apart before his suicide.

According to the report, Swartz’s lawyer had initially discussed a plea bargain with Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Heymann back in the fall, but was told that Swartz would have to plead guilty on every count, and that the government would insist on prison time. When the two lawyers spoke just this past Wednesday, the situation remained unchanged. The Journal also spoke with Swartz’s girlfriend:

With the government’s position hardening, Mr. Swartz realized that he would have to face a costly, painful and public trial, his girlfriend, Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, said in an interview Sunday. The case was draining his money, and he would need to ask for help financing his defense; two of his friends had recently been subpoenaed in the case. Both situations distressed him, she said.

A Tumblr has been set up to honor Swartz’s memory, and provide a way for his family and friends to share their memories. On that, an official statement from his family and partner was released. That says:

Our beloved brother, son, friend, and partner Aaron Swartz hanged himself on Friday in his Brooklyn apartment. We are in shock, and have not yet come to terms with his passing.

Aaron’s insatiable curiosity, creativity, and brilliance; his reflexive empathy and capacity for selfless, boundless love; his refusal to accept injustice as inevitable—these gifts made the world, and our lives, far brighter. We’re grateful for our time with him, to those who loved him and stood with him, and to all of those who continue his work for a better world.

Aaron’s commitment to social justice was profound, and defined his life. He was instrumental to the defeat of an Internet censorship bill; he fought for a more democratic, open, and accountable political system; and he helped to create, build, and preserve a dizzying range of scholarly projects that extended the scope and accessibility of human knowledge. He used his prodigious skills as a programmer and technologist not to enrich himself but to make the Internet and the world a fairer, better place. His deeply humane writing touched minds and hearts across generations and continents. He earned the friendship of thousands and the respect and support of millions more.

Aaron’s death is not simply a personal tragedy. It is the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach. Decisions made by officials in the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s office and at MIT contributed to his death. The US Attorney’s office pursued an exceptionally harsh array of charges, carrying potentially over 30 years in prison, to punish an alleged crime that had no victims. Meanwhile, unlike JSTOR, MIT refused to stand up for Aaron and its own community’s most cherished principles.

Today, we grieve for the extraordinary and irreplaceable man that we have lost.

Swartz had been using an MIT network for his alleged downloading of JSTOR articles, and MIT put out a letter to its community on Sunday about its role in the ordeal. In that, L. Rafael Reif writes:

Although Aaron had no formal affiliation with MIT, I am writing to you now because he was beloved by many members of our community and because MIT played a role in the legal struggles that began for him in 2011.

I want to express very clearly that I and all of us at MIT are extremely saddened by the death of this promising young man who touched the lives of so many. It pains me to think that MIT played any role in a series of events that have ended in tragedy.

I will not attempt to summarize here the complex events of the past two years. Now is a time for everyone involved to reflect on their actions, and that includes all of us at MIT. I have asked Professor Hal Abelson to lead a thorough analysis of MIT’s involvement from the time that we first perceived unusual activity on our network in fall 2010 up to the present. I have asked that this analysis describe the options MIT had and the decisions MIT made, in order to understand and to learn from the actions MIT took. I will share the report with the MIT community when I receive it.

Aaron Swartz was known for a lot of things, and among them were his contributions to the anti-SOPA/PIPA movement, a cause for which he founded DemandProgress.org. Here’s a keynote from Swartz at F2C2012, called “How We Stopped SOPA” (via BusinessInsider on YouTube):

DemandProgress.org is calling on those seeking to make donations in his name to consider doing so by giving to GiveWell, which the organization says Swartz had a “deep respect” for.

Related: Anonymous Hacks MIT In Honor Of Aaron Swartz, Academics Protest With #PDFTribute

Lead image: DemandProgress.org

In 2011, Swartz was arrested for the alleged systematic downloading of millions of documents from JSTOR with the intent to distribute them. According to The Tech, he was allegedly using the MIT network and a laptop hidden in a basement closet in an MIT building. He pleaded not guilty just this past September.

Swartz had worked for Avaaz Foundation founded DemandProgress.org to help combat SOPA/PIPA.

Philipp Lenssen at Google Blogoscoped has an interview with Swartz from 2007 in which he talks about his time at reddit, and his exit from the company:

For Christmas, I went with some friends to Europe. Towards the tail end of the trip I caught a cold and holed up in my old apartment in Boston for a week. I headed back to San Francisco over the weekend and when I came in Monday morning I was asked to leave. I spent a little while trying to figure out what had gone on, but without too much success. Eventually, I decided that I should just accept this as an opportunity. And not look a gift horse in the mouth too hard.

…

I was with the Reddit team back when we were coming up with the idea, in the months before the first Y Combinator Summer Founders Program started. We eventually began working together full time around that November and started a port of the site from Lisp to Python shortly after that.

There were three founders – me, Steve, and Alexis. Steve and I did the programming and Alexis handled promotion and customer service and office management and business development and the myriad of other tasks that came up. Christopher Slowe also worked with us part-time as he finished up his physics Ph.D at Harvard.

It was an exciting time, but working at an office job was quite different.

Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land remembers Swartz as one of the earliest Google bloggers, indicating that he was the first person to have a blog exclusively about Google, called the Google Weblog.

Swartz’s trial was scheduled to begin in April.

To that end, it would be advantageous to look back on all the bills, treaties, etc that threatened the Internet in 2012. As they say, those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Internet freedom fighters will have to learn from tactics employed this year to recognize threats to a free Internet before they even emerge.

Were you concerned for the free Internet in 2012? Do you think next year will be worse or better? Let us know in the comments.

The first battle over the free Internet came in January as the much debated SOPA and PIPA came up for vote in Congress. The bills were designed to combat copyright infringement online, but the powers granted to the government to do so were sweeping and overly broad. SOPA in particular gave government the power to censor Web sites on the DNS level thereby removing them from general access to most users. Potential for abuse was high and many feared that the bill would be used to destroy innovation and protect legacy businesses that have yet to adapt to how the Internet does business.

Worryingly enough, it looked like both bills would actually see smooth sailing through both the Senate and the House. Then the Internet banded together and launched a blackout campaign that saw many popular sites like Wikipedia going dark to show people what a world with SOPA could potentially look like. The tactic worked as thousands of concerned citizens called their representatives telling them to vote no on SOPA and PIPA. The bills were finally taken off the table for good in October.

After the threat of SOPA and PIPA subsided, a new threat emerged. It had free Internet proponents even more concerned as it was as international treaty that sought to rewrite international law in favor of large corporate interests. The treaty was called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA for short, and it contained a number of worrying implications. The most concerning part of the treaty was that it would require ISPs around the world to “monitor and censor online communications.” It was not only a threat to free speech on the Internet, but a major threat to online privacy as well.

After many parts of the treaty were leaked, citizens in countries across Europe took to the streets to protest. The protests worked as many countries refused to ratify the treaty and it was finally dealt a death blow in July as the European Parliament voted against it. The treaty was officially shelved, at least in Europe, earlier in December.

All the previous treaties and bills only sought to remove copyright infringing material from the Internet. It’s bad, but it could be worse. Our friends in Washington took on that challenge when lawmakers introduced CISPA and CSA – two bills that aimed to tackle cybersecurity, but threatened to violate any privacy that U.S. citizens may have online. CISPA was definitely more worrisome as it had the support of those who opposed SOPA just a few months prior. The new bill garnered support because it made it easier for companies to share information with government bodies without having to worry about lawsuits from those whose information was shared without consent.

Like the previous bills thus far, both were killed before getting very far. CISPA was able to pass the House, but its Senate counterpart, CSA, was killed time and time again. The latest attempt for passage happened in mid-November with the bill being officially killed for the last time.

The biggest threat by far, however, happened earlier in December when delegates around the world met to discuss an update to a decades old telecommunications treaty. The ITU, or International Telecommunications Union, was met with skepticism as some felt less than scrupulous members of the global community would use the meeting as an opportunity to seize control of the Internet. They did not disappoint as China, Saudia Arabia and others introduced a last minute change to the treaty that would have given them more power over the Internet. The treaty was rejected by the U.S. and much of Europe though, and it was unceremoniously killed.

Do you think these were legitimate threats to the free Internet? Were Internet freedom proponents blowing the potential threat of these bills and treaties out of proportion? Let us know in the comments.

As the above illustrates, 2012 was one hell of a year for Internet censorship and regulations. All of it was defeated, however, and tired Internet freedom fighters can rest easy knowing that the Internet is no longer under attack, right? Wrong. 2013 is shaping up to be an even worse year for proposed Internet regulation as various treaties and bills from 2012 are sticking around into the new year while new treaties and bills will obviously be proposed in due time.

Speaking of relics from 2012, TPP is a prime example of a trade agreement that refuses to die. The Trans-Pacific Partnership is much like ACTA, but it seeks to establish better trade relations between the U.S. and Southeast Asia. It’s similarities to ACTA don’t end there, however, as the treaty is negotiated in complete secrecy without any input from the public or Congress. In fact, many members of Congress are lobbying to have the USTR make negotiations more transparent since they have the constitutional right of approving treaties.

So, where does TPP stand in 2013? It could go either way to be honest. We keep hearing tales of how the treaty is constantly on its last legs as Southeast Asian countries are starting to realize it’s not good for their economy, but the secrecy in which it’s being negotiated makes it hard to tell just how close it is to either death or ratification.

Another worrisome trade agreement to look out for in 2013 is CETA – the Canada-European Union Trade Agreement. It doesn’t directly affect the U.S., but the treaty’s passage could spell trouble for the free Internet around the world as the treaty contains much of the same language that made ACTA so horrible. If ratified, the treaty could be seen as proof that ACTA wasn’t so bad and new attempts to ratify similar treaties could take hold around the world.

The last relic left over from 2012 is Clean IT – an European Commission project that seeks to censor the Internet in the name of protecting citizens from terrorism. The concern is that the project does little to actually stop terrorism and does everything in its power to use the Internet to monitor citizens in everything that they do. What’s worse is that the project turns people into Internet vigilantes where they can submit content that they feel is terroristic or otherwise “bad” to have it removed and those who fail to report any “bad” material would be punished.

As you can see, 2013 is already looking pretty grim and these are just the leftovers from 2012. There’s bound to be more laws, treaties and projects introduced in 2013 that will make SOPA, ACTA and others look like bastions of Internet freedom in comparison.

The free Internet has been a major force of change in the world, and some clearly don’t like that whether they be a legacy business that refuses to adapt or a world power that wants to subjugate its citizens even in the digital world. Either way, the Internet has proven to be resilient to any threats against it thus far and 2013 may prove to be its biggest test yet. It will be fascinating to see how the Internet and those who use it respond.

Do you think the Internet will survive 2013? What are you most concerned about in the coming year? Let us know in the comments.

Wait, what? Why does SOPA want your money? Well, it’s not really SOPA. It’s a ransonmware virus that’s using SOPA to scare people into giving them money. Ransomware is a particularly nasty virus that essentially holds your data hostage until you pay up. Here’s what you’ll see if you come across this particular piece of malware:

The worst part about these scams is that paying won’t solve anything. They want your money and your data. By paying, you’re just giving them access to both. Thankfully, these kind of viruses are also incredibly easy to remove. There are many ransomware removal walkthroughs available, but this one from YooCare has proven to be the easiest to follow.

As always, these kind of viruses can not effect you unless you visit a malicious site or download a virus-ridden file. Use common sense when browsing the Internet and avoid sites that seem suspect. Also, you should only download files from trusted sources. That RapidShare link promising beautiful babes may be tempting, but it’s probably a virus. It could even be this one.

[h/t: TorrentFreak]

MPAA CEO Chris Dodd was a speaker at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club on Tuesday night where he spoke at length about SOPA, PIPA, and what Hollywood’s doing to help combat piracy. He also spoke at length with Wired after the talk to further clarify what he thought about the Internet movement against the two anti-piracy bills from earlier this year, and other subjects.

First of all, Dodd was adamant that SOPA and PIPA are dead. During his interview with Wired, he said that the “legislation is gone. It’s over.” He did say this was his own opinion though. Lawmakers could introduce a similar bill next year.

As for the Internet’s reaction and subsequent protest, he said that he’s never seen a bigger protest to proposed bills in his life. He also said that the protest “changed forever how people are going to address their elected representatives.” He even went on to call it a “transformative event.”

After the talk, Dodd provided some more details on the secretive six-strike policy that the MPAA and ISPs are implementing across the country. He says that Internet users will not receive any kind of punishment for the first three offenses, but will be subject to various “mitigation measures” after their fourth offense. These include speed throttling and redirects, but it’s still unclear if ISPs can cut off service altogether for repeat offenders.

On a final note, it seems that Dodd is ready to start working with the tech sector instead of pushing through ill-conceived legislation. He said that he’s not interested in pursuing a legislative solution, but rather teaming up with the tech industry to educate consumers about piracy and its effects on the marketplace. The fruits of Dodd’s labor can already be seen in Google’s recent algorithm update that adds copyright removal notices to their ranking signals.

This morning, GoDaddy put out a statement saying that it had not been hacked, and blamed the outage on internal issues. Anonymous Own3r’s response to that was:

Follow @AnonymousOwn3r

Anonymous Own3r
@AnonymousOwn3r

whooa @godaddy is denying that it was hacked by me! they don’t wanna show their cybersecurity is bad this way they would lose customers !

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3 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto

Anonymous Own3r later tweeted, “I think I will have to bring down godaddy.com again, so this way they would admit instead of hiding the attack.”

Since then, it’s been a series of tweets including one linking to the following Anonymous message to GoDaddy:

Anonymous Message: GoDaddy

and http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/03/godaddy-silence/ [Go Daddy Silences Police-Watchdog Site]

Other recent tweets include:

Follow @AnonymousOwn3r

Anonymous Own3r
@AnonymousOwn3r

Now yes I broke into the security of one of godaddy servers! just expect!

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1 hour ago via web · powered by @socialditto

Follow @AnonymousOwn3r

Anonymous Own3r
@AnonymousOwn3r

@BinKillEthical and now I’m inside one of they servers

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38 minutes ago via web · powered by @socialditto

Follow @AnonymousOwn3r

Anonymous Own3r
@AnonymousOwn3r

@bigbearhw ok if you say so I’m not inside their servers lol you will see soon

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35 minutes ago via web · powered by @socialditto

Follow @AnonymousOwn3r

Anonymous Own3r
@AnonymousOwn3r

yes @godaddy i got a port of your souce code and database

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11 minutes ago via web · powered by @socialditto

Follow @AnonymousOwn3r

Anonymous Own3r
@AnonymousOwn3r

anyone know any good file uploader to me post the godaddy leaks?

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11 minutes ago via web · powered by @socialditto

Follow @AnonymousOwn3r

Anonymous Own3r
@AnonymousOwn3r

I need a uploader to upload the @godaddy leaks

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10 minutes ago via web · powered by @socialditto

Follow @AnonymousOwn3r

Anonymous Own3r
@AnonymousOwn3r

Go daddy souce code and database leaked by @AnonymousOwn3rhttp://t.co/lNV7Q4bO

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1 minute ago via web · powered by @socialditto

No word on any of this from GoDaddy since the statement. There is talk on Twitter that the code he uploaded is fake.

Update: GoDaddy VP, Public Relations, Elizabeth Driscoll, tells WebProNews:

The “source code” released on Twitter is not Go Daddy source code. It is code from a 2010 app called ttpython. To see where the files originated, you can visit http://code.google.com/p/ttpython/source/browse/#svn/trunk/godaddy.

For more coverage, see this page. You can see both the latest tweets from AnonymousOwn3r and from GoDaddy from one page here.