ARGOMENTO:

Hello Italian Crunching Friends! I see that Santa brought you a beautiful English subsection, so let me use it for one announcement.

As you might be aware, legislators across the globe are working on implementation of new laws, which are putting more restrictions on Internet and citizen freedoms within it. In Europe, the main problem is a trade agreement called ACTA, which intends to by-pass national laws and reduce civil rights. On the other hand US Government passed ACTA and now further laws like SOPA or PIPA are being considered.

Because of these laws, a number of services are going to protest against the new legislature. This is a wide movement, including not only numerous Free/Libre/Open Source Software and civil rights sites, but big names like Wikipedia, Google, Mozilla, Reddit&ArsTechnica as well.

My team, BOINC@Poland, and our affiliated project Radioactive@home are supporting the protest.

Our side portal www.boinc.com.pl will be blacked out, and the main services like www.boincatpoland.org and radioactiveathome.org/pl/ will highlight our message.

We invite all the projects, BOINC teams and volunteers to support the protest, in a way you feel would be appropriate.

Just let me pass the ask of a sysop of Radioactive@home:

Welcome

Because of acceptance of ACTA agreement, and also other attempts of forcing legal solutions targeting increase of legal control over internet, administrators of Radioactive@home decided to place note of protest on the project site, with the following information.

"With regard to the ACTA (so-called Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) accepted by European Union, we feel obliged to warn you that our website may be unavailable in some countries soon.

ACTA Agreement was initiated by organizations describing themselves as "defending artists from bad pirates" and has been enforced on EU in secret negotiations initiated by US Government. Non government
organizations from all over the world agreed on condemning both the way of negotiations ware taken and allowing by this agreement cutting off websites "uncomfortable" for governments of countries that
signed ACTA, without proving infringements of any laws."


We would like Your project to join this action. We plan to publish this note on Wednesday 18.01.2012 on 0.00am.

Regards,

Krzysztof 'krzyszp' Piszczek

As far as I know, Krzysztof plans to highlight his message for three days. The action may be repeated.

Sorry for writing you that late - we don't have any professional PR Agency yet and we are pretty busy with our lives and BOINC already. :] But please, feel invited to join or express your concerns!

Best Regards to you all and happy crunching,

aegis maelstrom
BOINC@Poland

hi mate

frankly speaking I don't know very well this topic, these acts.... ok ok, I know, I should know them

today I noticed several websites supporting this protest, but I need to know more about it before involving this website in it

not asking you to inform me of course , I will by my self and next time I'll have a proper reaction


btw, thx for the news


Paolo

en.wikipedia is closed today for a 24 hours protest against 2 of the bills we are talking about, as you can see here
(screenshot for the future readers here )

on the english wiki (the only page still working) we can also find more information about these acts


being an italian wikipedia user who strongly supported the italian wiki blackout a couple of months ago, I obviously proudly support any kind of protest against these laws, which don't make any sense at all

thanks to Aegis for posting about this problem here



(I translate for the italian crunchers)

come saprete sono in corso forti proteste contro alcuni progetti di legge statunitensi ed europei che limiteranno la libertà di molti siti ed utenti)
contro quelli statunitensi si stanno mobilitando un po' tutti e la wikipedia in lingua inglese ha deciso di chiudere i battenti per un giorno

anche Renderfarm.fi e Radioactive@home supportano la protesta ;)

renderfarm.fi joined the protest (see the news on their homepage)

I'll translate it asap

When I first started using the Internet at the start of the 1990's, anon.penet.fi (operated by the Finnish Internet pioneer Johan Helsingius) was the most famous anonymous email relay service on the Internet. Through Helsingius's well-loved service one could obtain anonymity (correction: the real term is pseudonymity, though let me assure you at the time it really did feel like anonymity) on the Internet and discuss things without the fear of harrassment. A change came in 1995 when the Finnish courts forced Helsingius to release the real IP address of a user thought to have released compromising information about a US entity (according to some reports the Church of Scientology). Helsingius fought the lawsuit but lost. Less than a year later, he decided it was time to take anon.penet.fi down for good. In the world of legislation, precedents count - even across national borders. To Helsingius, the move must have been partly motivated by the knowledge that the Finnish courts had been compromised and any further legal fights for true anonymity on the Internet would be likely to fail. On this day, 18th of January 2012 anonymity on the Internet is harder to reach than ever, but that aside, right at this very moment we stand upon an even more threatening ledge. The whole Internet, as we have come to know it, could become extinct. You might already recognize the words I used for the title of this blog post. If you didn't yet, you are likely to later today, for they are written on the front page of the English version of Wikipedia. What has driven Wikipedia to protest in such a strong way? The SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) house bills. As the Wikipedia article on SOPA explains: "The originally proposed bill would allow the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as copyright holders, to seek court orders against websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. Depending on who makes the request, the court order could include barring online advertising networks and payment facilitators from doing business with the allegedly infringing website, barring search engines from linking to such sites, and requiring Internet service providers to block access to such sites. The bill would make unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content a crime, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison for ten such infringements within six months. The bill also gives immunity to Internet services that voluntarily take action against websites dedicated to infringement, while making liable for damages any copyright holder who knowingly misrepresents that a website is dedicated to infringement." Though Renderfarm.fi will not join the blackouts (I feel we have been down too many days of late), we support the protestors by not accepting any new renders today. Let us not go down this path. If SOPA and PIPA would get accepted by the US House, what would be next? How soon would the Finnish legislators follow suit and how would this affect free, democratically motivated services like Renderfarm.fi?Stop SOPA. Stop PIPA.

sembra che a qualcosa sia servita questa protesta


seems that the protest was useful

baxnimis ha scritto:

sembra che a qualcosa sia servita questa protesta


seems that the protest was useful

Sorry for italian ....

sebbene punto informatico (almeno da quel che vedo sulle notizie scientifiche) non sembra molto affidabile, riporto questo articolo proprio sull'argomento ACTA/Polonia:

ACTA: UE a favore, hacktivisti contro
L'approvazione del contestato trattato anticontraffazione da parte di Bruxelles ravviva il fuoco delle polemiche. Ma le proteste sembrano aver avuto l'effetto contrario, almeno in Polonia