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Operation Black March: An Anonymous Movement

Jon Kaykin — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 15:19:34 +0000

Hacktivist group Anonymous has called for Operation Black March, a movement against the media industry. Unfortunately, it might not be as successful as others think. As you may know, SOPA and PIPA have been postponed and have lost much support but the fight isn't over. Thankfully, many groups are still fighting against the music, film and media industry, the most important group being; Anonymous. Anonymous has been very vocal in letting the public know their plans for what they will do next and meanwhile, they have been diligently working; taking down many sites and issuing statements on Youtube (see this and this). On Friday, Anonymous released a set of leaks and hacks ( including the shutdown of the Greek government's Ministry of Justice website and a leak of a conversation between the FBI and Scotland Yard) that were publicized on their Twitter feed using #FFF. This was a large effort and received a lot of support from the public. But for Anonymous this was just scraping surface. Recently, they announced something they call: "Operation Black March." This operation is a boycott of the music, film and media industry, with the hopes that during March, people will not go see films, buy CD's, download songs, buy magazines, purchase video games -- do anything that will support the aforementioned industries: [embed]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWzRHnVbw5I[/embed] As the video states, "We will not tolerate the Media Industries' lobbying for legislation which will censor the Internet," and Anonymous is asking for our support. Although the cause is great and there is much support for this type of action, I don't know how successful this will be considering how massive the media industry is. The problem is that many people can not live one day, let alone a month without supporting big time media conglomerates. Think about it; you can't download apps to your favorite devices, you can't download new music (legally or illegally) as Anonymous states, you can't even see a movie. The idea is right and the support for this movement is necessary but with media ruling everyday of our lives, I just don't see how feasible of a task this is. It's quite intriguing what Anonymous has done and what they continue to do. With words such as, “[i]f you didn’t dig it then then you better dig it now. We are calling upon all allied battleships to rise up and make some mayhem. NDAA/PIPA/SOPA for real? The internet is ours for the taking, and we will destroy every corporation and government that attempts to stand in our way," it will be interesting to see where and/or what Anonymous attacks next. If Anonymous can get the support of many, which they already have, then anything is possible. We will just have to wait and see... You can follow Anonymous on Twitter and on their blog. Keep your eyes peeled and let us know if you discover any new Anonymous attacks. Jon@zeropaid.com | @jkaykin

American Prosecutors Censor ZeroPaid Reporter!

Drew Wilson — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 23:03:59 +0000

While over one hundred thousand websites and millions of people were taking a stand against a potential American censorship by copyright regime thanks to SOPA and PIPA, ZeroPaid's very own Drew Wilson, for the first time, has officially become a victim of censorship by copyright.

The BBC is reporting that one-click hoster MegaUpload was shut down over piracy accusations. From the report:

Federal prosecutors have accused it of costing copyright holders more than $500m (£320m) in lost revenue. The firm says it was diligent in responding to complaints about pirated material. Investigators denied a link to recent protests against proposed piracy laws, according to the Wall Street Journal. The US Justice Department said that Megaupload's two co-founders Kim Dotcom, formerly known as Kim Schmitz, and Mathias Ortmann were arrested in Auckland, New Zealand along with two other employees of the business at the request of US officials. It added that three other defendants were still at large. "This action is among the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought by the United States and directly targets the misuse of a public content storage and distribution site to commit and facilitate intellectual property crime," said a statement posted on its website.

Back in 2010, when authorities and the content industries were trying to cut off payment processes to MegaUpload, MegaUpload spoke to ZeroPaid, saying in response to being called a rogue website, “Megaupload is a legitimate business operating within the boundaries of the law. In five years of operation we have not been sued by a single content owner. If the RIAA or MPAA would have legal grounds they would have taken us to court by now. We suggest that they attack us within the legal system and stop labeling us until they have something to show.” That apparently doesn't seem to matter much at this point with the owners of the site being arrested and the website forced offline. The question is, where does that leave MegaUpload's users? I, for one, have used MegaUpload to spread my music around. Under my DJ name, DJ Frozen IceCube, I've used the site on numerous occasions to allow access to my own personal music I've made. Examples of this include my tracks Kinda Distracted, Phantoms of London and Constructing Light. All of these tracks and more were posted to MegaUpload - a site now shut down by American prosecutors. For years, I have been following cases of censorship by copyright. I've advocated that copyright abuses are a major problem that shouldn't be ignored. Now, as of today, I am officially a victim of censorship by copyright. While I can easily find other one-click hosters to host my music, that does not fix the underlying issue I now have with American authorities. American authorities, plain and simple, are censoring artists who have legally produced and uploaded their music for free for others to listen to. This action is blatantly anti-competitive in that if I independently upload my music, I am under the threat of having my music censored under the guise of copyright infringement. Make no mistake, I am far from the first victim and I certainly will not be the last. The content industry will not stop censoring legitimate free speech until the competition is strangled and destroyed and only they have the exclusive power to decide who can reach an audience and who can not. To add insult to injury, they will use government resources, and therefore, taxpayers money, to push their anti-competitive agenda. I am Drew Wilson, I am a reporter and music producer, and I am now officially a victim of America's censorship by copyright tactics. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

Emergency IP Lists Emerging in Event SOPA Passes

Drew Wilson — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 19:27:31 +0000

SOPA is getting one step closer towards final passage. This has many users nervous. Now, it seems, a very predictable development is occurring, users are generating IP address lists to bi-pass DNS censorship.

DNS censorship could soon be a reality in the US. If a company or government entity choose to make a website disappear, it would be one complaint away from a reality. From the beginning, I personally envisioned groups sending IP lists over things like IRC to ensure that the internet remains relatively uncensored. This concept of sharing uncensored domain names is now a reality. BoingBoing is pointing to both a Reddit post and a Google docs posting with IP address lists to popular websites. Many users who sees this list might not necessarily know what to do with them. That is why, months ago, I wrote a guide on how to maintain a HOSTS file complete with screenshots. The guide shows you what to do with an IP address such as the one above. In fact, if you want to find an IP address to a website not found in the emergency SOPA list, there are multiple ways of obtaining it. You can either obtain the IP address of your favorite IP address through web hosting tools or even using command prompt. Ideally, you should obtain the IP addresses before the domain is censored. As in the past, I foresee this being a new norm should SOPA pass. The inherent problem is that you are putting your net security in the hands of whoever is generating these lists. If someone were to put an IP address in the list that actually points to a malicious website instead of the real website, then this is something that has to either be manually fixed on the end-users part or the entry has to be removed entirely. This is one big reason why many security experts are freaking out over this legislation - because it makes the internet less secure. If the automatic DNS system is left alone, this problem wouldn't be happening in the first place. For more information on other ways DNS censorship can be bi-passed, check out our 8 technical methods that make DNS censorship useless article. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

Opinion – What SOPA Means for a Non-US Citizen

Drew Wilson — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 22:26:39 +0000

SOPA heads for a vote tomorrow. There's no question what kind of damage it could do to internet companies, users of the internet, jobs and the economy within the United States. Drew Wilson offers a perspective on what SOPA means as a citizen of a country outside the United States.

BoingBoing is noting that today is the last day for US citizens to have their voices heard before the legislation is brought to a vote. SOPA - (Stop Online Piracy Act) is basically enacting a sort of "Great Firewall of America". This is named after China's famous internet censorship known as the Great Firewall of China. SOPA The term, "Great Firewall of America" is especially appropriate given what the legislation is really about - censoring the internet. If someone wants to take down their competition, all they have to do is secretively go to a government body and complain that the website is infringing on copyright. That can set the wheels in motion to have the website simply vanish off the internet - all over a single, unproven claim of infringement. Proponents say that this is merely to stop rampant piracy, but for the end-user, it means little more than an inconvenience. We were one of the first websites to discuss ways for users to bi-pass, circumvent and defeat such censorship (some more effective than others). Unfortunately, defeating American censorship is pretty much an end-user game. For websites, trying to avoid being censored is a completely different story short of moving servers and domain names offshore to a free speech friendly country. Knowing this, I am proud that ZeroPaid participated in the American day of censorship and I thank Chris, Jorge and Jared for having this website a participant on such an important issue. We took a stand and said government mandated censorship on the internet without critical oversight is wrong. A lot of the concern, in spite of all of the ways Americans can avoid censorship, still revolves around the negative effects of the US end-user. What is discusses less, however, is the negative effects SOPA would have on non-US citizens and why it's bad for the US. Not to sound egotistical, but I am personally an excellent example of this. What SOPA Would Mean for Me I am a non-US citizen residing outside of the US. I am a journalist who reports on copyright, privacy, technology and all things related to the best of my ability. ZeroPaid, here, is a US-based website. Since I contribute a lot of my time and effort to a US-based website, that means the inherent value of the website goes up (given that an additional staff member working to make the website better means the value of the website goes up). More content on the main page means more traffic to the website. More traffic to the website more or less means more advertisement revenue. A number of these advertisements advertise for US companies. This means that not only is there additional revenue for ZeroPaid, but also for a number of these other websites as well. All of these companies would then be contributing to the US economy. Really simple web economics, really. Now, SOPA comes in to the picture. Knowing that nothing more than a simple accusation can theoretically remove a website from the internet, I personally get concerned; especially knowing that I've had my fair share of questioning the motives and actions of the entertainment industry. I do what any rational person, who has contributed to the US economy from the outside, does: ask what sort of assurance the web administrator has that the website I work for isn't a case of "here today, gone tomorrow". If SOPA is passed, the honest answer that a web administrator residing in the US ultimately is, there is nothing the administrator can offer that can guarantee the security of the websites existence. Even if the website was moved completely offshore, the administrator is still in the US jurisdiction. What US authorities and lobbyists can do is anyone's guess for the foreseeable future theoretically speaking. The SOPA Effect on Others I wouldn't be alone in this. I'm sure there are thousands, if not, more, people in the same boat as me. They work for a US website and now their website can theoretically be targeted maliciously and censored. They would then be unable to contribute to the US economy just like me. The websites existence is just one bad review, one troll or one user posted link away from being terminated. People such as myself would have two choices should SOPA pass, either choose to stick it out and hope that, by luck or chance, won't be the next website targeted by US censors, or look for a website that has as few connections to the US as possible. Some people do require that sense of stability and may choose to leave based on lack of technical assurance that the website won't be censored or removed. So, even before a single website is removed, SOPA is harming the US economy. Once the entertainment lobby, several over corporate entities and who knows what else starts ordering the takedown of numerous websites, the threat will become real for many non-US citizens. Non-US citizens will be able to fully appreciate the type of threat the legislation has whether they want to believe it or not. Some might choose to stay on the website they work for or freak out and leave for a non-US website. In other words, whether the website is censored or not, the damage on the US continues. Follow the Legislation "Leader" We've seen it with the Three Strikes law and we've seen if through the DMCA (re: TPP). Once one country enacts a draconian copyright law, entertainment lobbyists use it as a license to pressure other countries to enact similar legislation. If SOPA is passed, then other countries would face pressure from these major corporations. Some would likely bow to pressure immediately while other countries would resist and hold out for a while. This is the next immediate threat to non-US citizens. While there is the direct impact of having job losses due to a tough censorship regime, the second is the threat of the local government enacting similar (or worse) laws. The Effect on Piracy Websites are being censored on the whim of a single complaint. Proponents say that this legislation is needed to stop rampant piracy and that those who question the legislation based on censorship concerns are ignoring the serious implications of piracy. I'd like to explain how the issue of piracy in the face of this legislation will work in the real world. Websites outside the US would start getting blocked. OK, what to hardcore pirates do when this happens? They circumvent it. We already covered 8 ways pirates could theoretically accomplish this. These methods existed before SOPA was the talk of the town. There will be an arms race to beat the censors should this legislation pass with increasingly more sophisticated way to defeat censorship. Failing this, there would likely be ways of sharing IP addresses for servers. We know how successful private BitTorrent websites are and it's very likely that success in a similar method of file-sharing is entirely possible. If ISPs started enacting protocol blocking, traffic encryption would be presented as a way to bipass such restrictions at the ISP level. With some back and forth, it'll likely get to the point where, at best, the ISP will see a lot of traffic from certain users, but they wouldn't know exactly what it is for because it's heavily scrambled. In short, the effect SOPA would have on piracy is zero - zero, zilch, nothing. Let me reiterate my point concisely: through SOPA, for the price of lost jobs, increase is restraint on free speech, an economy that would be more vulnerable than before, a destroyed reputation of being the world leader in human rights like never before, and the destruction of innovation used to make the US compete better in the global economy, the net gain is absolutely nothing. As a content creator and producer of music, I say SOPA is very bad news for everyone. I am against it because in this day and age, the loss of freedom, the economy and jobs in general is something I wouldn't wish on anyone. We need to look forward, not drive the traditionally strongest economy into the stone age just to keep a handful of maladaptive corporations happy. Website people can use to join the cause of stopping American censorship [Americancensorship.org] Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

ZeroPaid Speaks to Executive Director of Tor Project About PROTECT-IP Act

Drew Wilson — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 15:39:40 +0000

We've discussed the PROTECT-IP Act at length here at ZeroPaid. While we have plenty of ways of examining the PROTECT-IP Act, we've decided to talk to Andrew Lewman, the Executive Director of Tor Project, about Tor, and the PROTECT-IP Act.

There's been plenty of discussion about the PROTECT-IP Act. One way we've examined it is the technical side of it. The main question we asked a little while ago is essentially, is it technologically possible to actually stop alleged piracy on the internet through the PROTECT-IP Act. Our findings were really an overwhelming "no" after we explored 8 technical methods that, in theory, could easily circumvent DNS censorship. We even picked apart and debunked a piece by Don Henley who supports the PROTECT-IP Act late last month. One of the technical measures we suggested would be likely effective against DNS censorship was using Tor which is sometimes referred to as the onion router. It can be described as a network of proxies one can use to better protect their online privacy among other things. Since then, we asked Andrew Lewman, Executive Director and press contact of the Tor Project for his take on a few things. We mentioned to Lewman that there was some debate over which solution was best to bi-pass internet censorship. Is one solution better over another? This was the subject of some debate in our comments section and websites linked to our article. Lewman had an interesting take on that. "The first issue with the story is that there is no best solution for everyone. Censorship circumvention is very localized. Generally, using the least sophisticated method to circumvent is all you need to do." Lewman also explained, "The arms races with the censors proceeds slowly, in some cases by design, so as to not accelerate it for little gain on either side. The general population cannot keep up with the technical arms race, at least from our experience. It takes time for people to understand the risks and act accordingly." I think that is a very important point to make. It's one thing to say one person will start using tools to better protect their privacy, but it's quite another for the general population in a given country to start using such tools. In our e-mail conversation, I said to Lewman, "one person [in the debate over whether or not one technical measure is better than another] said that officials would start creating honey-pot nodes in the Tor network. To me, that doesn't make any sense because Tor uses multiple proxies, so it would make such an effort be almost a waste of time." "Law enforcement organizations already create 'honey pot' servers on many networks, including Tor. These servers fully log all accesses at a service, network, and ISP level. If the core, underlying protocol is correctly implemented, then the users have little to fear. Law enforcement agencies around the world are known to run Tor, I2P, Freenet, and generic socks/http proxies servers as part of a dragnet to catch criminals. While this statement may get you lots of page views, anyone that has thought about this for 30 seconds will realize this is of course the reality. Whether protecting someone's audio/video bits is equivalent to murder, rape, extortion, bribery, and slavery is for individual societies to determine." It is interesting that Lewman brought this up given one of our more recent reports noted that, in France, someone could get the same legal punishment for manslaughter as they would for online copyright infringement. We asked Lewman, "looking at what lawmakers are proposing in the PROTECT-IP Act, do you think that the proposed law is a threat to the internet? If DNS censorship is one way the government wants to remove remove copyright infringement, do you see that as being effective or do you see potential pirates simply routing their way around it?" "PROTECT-IP will break the American Internet." Lewman told ZeroPaid. He said, "It will simply move innovation elsewhere and drive the arms race towards an alternate domain name system not controlled by the US government. It may temporarily quell some sorts of piracy, but that victory will be short lived. In the beginning, there were many DNS root servers, not one single set. AlterNIC and many universities ran their own DNS root servers for their own purposes. Having spoken to various agents, they privately wonder why protecting someone's commercial bits is now equivalent to stopping child pornography, human trafficking, and other heinous crimes." ZeroPaid also asked, "if governments like the US government decide on trying to censor the internet, do you see it being possible that users will start using things like Tor more so than before because of a perceived threat to something like free speech?" It's already happening. See [Tor Metrics Portal - User Statistics] Lewman explained, "Our top ten countries by users is filled with "free democracies" that have started to either censor the Internet or implement Internet traffic data retention in some way." We would like to thank Andrew Lewman for taking the time out of his busy schedule to speak to us. To learn more about Tor Project or download and try out Tor project or otherwise support Tor in general, you can check out their homepage at TorProject.org. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

Censoring Civil Unrest in Social Media Exacerbates Rioting – Study

Drew Wilson — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 14:27:08 +0000

We've been covering the technological side of the UK riots for some time now. After all that has happened to date, it seems a new study has surfaced in France that might serve against Prime Minister David Cameron should he try to go through and censor social media.

Last week, UK Prime Minister David Cameron stood before the House of Commons and said that he wanted to "stop people from communicating" on social media when they wanted to find ways of participating in civil unrest. At the time, we suggested that this was unwise because whatever Cameron meant specifically, if he were serious, there are too many ways of getting around it. Whether it's simply using different social networks or encrypting the messages, it's highly unlikely such a plan would even be successful in the first place. In any event, state media in China took full advantage of the situation in the UK and pretty much praised the move, using the idea that the UK is now censoring the internet to justify the countries own censorship of the internet. It was certainly a surreal moment when praise is coming from China over a "western" first world country wanting to implement a censorship regime on the internet of any kind that's political. In another turn of events, one man (as it turns out, actually two men) were sentenced to 4 years in prison for creating a Facebook page that could be seen as inciting the riots. Later reports confirmed that the page never actually incited any riots in the first place. That didn't do a whole lot to quell criticisms over the length of the sentence. Now, a study has surfaced that could put further doubt into Cameron's idea of stopping people from communicating on social media. Numerama reports (Google translated, original) that a study released by Telecom ParisTech (EHESS) suggests that trying to censor civil unrest will make matters worse if your ultimate goal is to stop rioting. From the report:

Their study is based on modeling the behavior of crowds during civil unrest produced by JM Epstein in 2002. According to this model, the decision of an individual to express dissatisfaction is determined by its active neighborhood social police if he sees around him, he will act only if a sufficient number of demonstrators offset the police presence. One of the factors considered in this model is the "vision" which has the potential of expressing this neighborhood. Does he see the police and other protesters? To simulate the cutting of social networks and media, the researchers then used this model by imagining that censorship led to a vision of zero neighborhood. It is not possible to know where to find a group of demonstrators, or places where the police is absent. Yet, against so-intuitive, their simulation concludes that the more confidence, so the fewer vision among protesters, the higher the level of violence remains high. Conversely, the failure to censor at all leads to the average level of violence the lowest obtained by larger peaks of violence, but occasional periods of calm many more.

The report points that while this is a computer model, one only needs to look at the civil unrest in Tunisia and Egypt as a real world example of the effects of censoring the internet at all. This, I certainly agree with. When certain countries do try to censor the internet, this tends to reflect poorly on the government - especially in countries on the African continent. I think that this is another case of something being obvious after it is pointed out. In the context of the UK riots, maybe some people think that maybe a crackdown on social media isn't such a bad idea. Then you look at a study like this, start connecting the dots and realizing that, no, censoring social media during times of civil unrest might be an unwise move. I think that if the UK government is now more focused on gang activity, then all power to them. I have no problem with it. Censoring social media in general, though, not such a bright move. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

Anonymous Hacks myBART.gov, Database Exposed

Drew Wilson — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 15:45:34 +0000

What started as a group of people wanting to protest has become an all out war over censorship. After earlier threats were made by Anonymous, it appears as though Anonymous did make good on their threat to target BART.

We've been following the story about BART and censorship. It was sparked by the death of a knife-wielding at the hands of police by gun fire. Upset at the events that transpired, some people wanted to protest at the San Francisco subway station. When BART caught wind of the potential protest, they cut all cellphone services in an effort to avert the protest. The news spread like wildfire and caused outrage amongst several including the ACLU and the EFF. In the midst of a fierce debate over things like censorship and personal safety, Anonymous, a hacking collective, threatened to "remove" BART from the internet in retaliation against what many have called censorship. While they threatened to remove the website for 6 hours, it appears that the myBART.gov database was compromised. The database was dumped on to a webpage for all to view. The database dump came with this statement:

We are Anonymous, we are your citizens, we are the people, WE DO NOT TOLERATE OPPRESSION FROM ANY GOVERNMENT AGENCY. BART has proved multiple times that they have no problem exploiting and abusing the people. First they displayed this by the two recent killings by BART police. Under no circumstance, unless police are shot at, make police killings acceptable. Non-lethal weapons were available to use during both incidents, providing even that was necessary, but instead they shot to kill. Next they violated the people's right to assembly and prevented other bystanders from using emergency services by blocking cell phone signals in order to stop a protest against the BART police murders. Lastly, they set up this website called mybart.gov and they stored their members information with virtually no security. The data was stored and easily obtainable via basic sqli. Any 8 year old with a internet connection could have done what we did to find it. On top of that none of the info, including the passwords, was encrypted. It is obvious BART does no give a fuck about its customers, funders and tax payers,THE PEOPLE. The governments and government agencies of the world are becoming tyrannical and oppressive, and the people are responding and will not take your shit for much longer. The people will fight this oppression with protests, demonstrations, riots, hacking, ddos, online attacks and by any other means. We will not allow ourselves to be killed, exploited, or get shitted on. From the streets of Chile, England, Portland, San Francisco, Oakland, the people are rising up and we will support each other and stand in solidarity against any injustice. Worldwide resistance is happening, we will participate in solidarity against oppression. SOLIDARITY IS OUR WEAPON. Thus below we are releasing the User Info Database of MyBart.gov, to show that BART doesn't give a shit about it's customers and riders and to show that the people will not allow you to kill us and censor us. This is but the one of many actions to come. We apologize to any citizen that has his information published, but you should go to BART and ask them why your information wasn't secure with them. Also do not worry, probably the only information that will be abused from this database is that of BART employees.

I think it's fair to say that this controversy isn't going to go away any time soon at this stage. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

UK PMs Internet Censorship Insinuation Receives Praise from China

Drew Wilson — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 11:00:56 +0000

You know your internet censorship plans are too strict when China praises you for it.

I'll say this right off the bat, if someone told me one month ago that I would end up writing a headline like that, I would have told them they were insane. I am simply stunned that it has come to this. Last Thursday, British Prime Minister said that he wanted to "stop people from communicating on social media" whenever that person is using it to instigate violence. A growing majority of observers are interpret this as meaning that he wants to block social media websites altogether whenever civil unrest is suspected. Blocking social media has certainly caused some debate in many places - especially in the UK. The discussions around possibly censoring the internet has received international attention. This includes China. Chinese state media website Global Times weighed in on the debate suggesting that "Western" countries are coming to realize that free speech cannot go unhindered on the internet. From the report:

The British Government’s wariness of the Internet and Blackberry Messenger – symbols of freedom of speech – is a forced reaction, which might upset the Western world. Meanwhile, the open discussion of containment of the Internet in Britain has given rise to a new opportunity for the whole world. Media in the US and Britain used to criticize developing countries for curbing freedom of speech. Britain’s new attitude will help appease the quarrels between East and West over the future management of the Internet. As for China, advocates of an unlimited development of the Internet should think twice about their original ideas. On the Internet, there is no lack of posts and articles that incite public violence. They will cause tremendous damage once they are tweeted without control. At that time, all governments will have no other choice but to close down these websites and arrest those agitators. Turbulence must lead to self-examination, otherwise it’ll lead to great peril in one’s destiny.

If you think that David Cameron is trying to censor the internet and that there is no difference between his policy and China's policy, then this will no doubt pretty much cement that opinion. If you think that David Cameron should be censoring the internet, I think, for some, this revelation will make your position a little more uncomfortable. I think that David Cameron should think very carefully how he plans on going forward on his plans to prevent rioting. On the one hand, the move to crack down on rioters will receive little resistance. On the other hand, trying to control the internet in any way is an extremely slippery slope with respect to free speech. [Via BoingBoing] Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

Anonymous Threatens to ‘Remove’ BART Over Censorship Fiasco

Drew Wilson — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 00:47:03 +0000

On Friday, we reported on the chilling story of BART shutting down cell phone services in an effort to avert a protest. The move created quite a stir and now, Anonymous, is threatening to take action.

It's the latest in a series of controversies around the world regarding censorship. Previously, British prime minister David Cameron wanted to stop people from communicating on social media in an effort to stop some of the riots that were happening. More recently, BART ordered the shut down of all cell phone services in a sub way because a protest might have occurred. It caught the attention of many and that includes Anonymous who wasn't exactly thrilled about what went down. In a recent statement, Anonymous described the actions by BART as an "outage was unacceptable". The posting also goes on to describe what actions will be taken:

1) We have begun at once a massive Black Fax and E-Mail Bomb action, where we will fill every inbox and fax machine at BART with thousands of copies of our message that this outage was unacceptable. 2) Tomorrow, Sunday - August 14, 2011 at High Noon Pacific Time we, Anonymous - will remove from the internet the web site of BART located at www.bart.gov for exactly six hours. That’s twice as long as they shut off the cell phones for. 3) On Monday - August 15, 2011 at 5:00 PM Pacific Time there will be a physical protest at the Civic Center Bart Station. Expect us !

The statement also goes on to say, "We sincerely hope that this series of actions will serve as a warning to BART and every public organization in the USA to NOT engage in this sort of dangerous and human rights violating behavior." No doubt BART will be in damage control in the midst of all this even if their website isn't "removed" on Sunday. It'll be interesting to see what will occur in the next 48 hours to say the least. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

US Cell Phone Service Provider Shuts Down Services to Disrupt Potential Protest

Drew Wilson — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 00:02:42 +0000

There's some disturbing news coming out of the United States. BART, a San Francisco cell phone service provider that provides cellphone services for subways, shut down all services after rumors circulated that a protest might occur. An official did confirm that this was the sole reason for shuttering services.

Accusations of censorship are flying right now over the move to shut down the services to disrupt a protest in the US. A report from SFGate details a story about a subway cell phone service provider shutting down cell phone services to disrupt a rumored planned protest against police officers accused of shooting a knife-wielding man to death. From the report:

"All over the world, people are using mobile devices to protest oppressive regimes, and governments are shutting down cell phone towers and the Internet to stop them," said Michael Risher, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California. "It's outrageous that in San Francisco, BART is doing the same thing."

A BART official confirmed that the reason for the shutdown was to try and disrupt the planned protest, but used the excuse of safety:

"Organizers planning to disrupt BART service stated they would use mobile devices to coordinate their disruptive activities and communicate about the location and number of BART Police," the transit agency said. "A civil disturbance during commute times at busy downtown San Francisco stations could lead to platform overcrowding and unsafe conditions for BART customers, employees and demonstrators."

Other civil rights groups are also outraged at the move. From the EFF:

This week, EFF has seen censorship stories move closer and closer to home — first Iran, then the UK, and now San Francisco, an early locus of the modern free speech movement. Operators of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system (BART) shut down cell phone service to four stations in downtown San Francisco yesterday in response to a planned protest. Last month, protesters disrupted BART service in response to the fatal shooting of Charles Blair Hill by BART police on July 3rd. Thursday’s protest failed to materialize, possibly because the disruption of cell phone service made organization and coordination difficult. Early reports indicated that BART cut off cell phone service by approaching carriers directly and asking them to turn service off. Later statements by James Allison, deputy chief communications officer for BART, assert “BART staff or contractors shut down power to the nodes and alerted the cell carriers” after the fact. AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile have not yet made comment as to whether or not they were complicit in the shutdown. Obviously, we'd like to know exactly what the carriers said to BART, but many other unanswered questions remain as well. Was pulling the plug on people's phones a quick, on-the-spot decision, or part of a protest-response plan vetted by BART's lawyers? Who decided that blocking all cellphone calls at these BART stations was the right response to news that there might be a protest? Were the carriers ever in the loop about this plan or action? Who decided that the news of this planned protest justified the shutdown? How do we know this isn't going to happen again?

The move comes on the heels of UK Prime Minister David Cameron wanting to stop people from communicating on social media in the midst of the UK riots. I, for one, am not one bit surprised some are comparing this to things that Mubarak would do. I'm also not surprised others are saying this is a clear case of infringement of free speech. If anything else, this will only serve to make awareness of the "No Justice, No BART" protest explode in to public consciousness like never before thanks to the efforts to censor it. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.