Internet Defense League To Be Deployed Against CISPA

yanom writes "Slashdotters may remember the launch of the Internet Defense League, a network for website owners that would allow for the replication of a media campaign similar to the one that took down SOPA. Now it plans to spring into action in response to the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, which is now making it's way through Congress. The IDL wants its members to embed anti-CISPA banners into their websites, which will be activated tomorrow, March 19th."

Comments

A banner

[slackware 3.6]

will not stop Congress.

Re:A banner

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as people think like you it won't.

Re:A banner

[TemperedAlchemist]

Yeah, this may strike down the bill, but it shows how they really feel about it.

The death of Aaron Swartz wasn't enough to show them that they lost their humanity.

Re:A banner

[collet]

Really? What sort of organism was that?

Re:A banner

[Anonymous Coward]

Gonorrhea.

Re:A banner

[tburke261]

But.....but....the "Mission Accomplished" banner stopped the war....right?

Re:A banner

[interkin3tic]

Who told you government was something you only had to manage at election times or once or twice when something particularly bad comes up?

Re:A banner

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for the part where it did last time

Re:A banner

[thoughtlover]

will not stop Congress.

True, they won't stop anything if no one is there to post them.. better yet, when they're holding them up in an organized and peaceful demonstration of solidarity. Banners tell 'The Powers That Be' exactly how the crowd feels. A banner that censors Google's logo or Wikipedia's website probably has more effect because it's making people aware of issues within the USA when they're half a world away --quite possibly dealing with the very same issues in their country.

Education

[uberbrainchild]

Maybe every person in congress should be required to take a few lectures on how computers work and what the internet is?

Re:Education

[Anonymous Coward]

And how medical operations work. And how financial investment works. And how farmers grow things. And...

The list goes on and on. It's ridiculous to insist politicians have knowledge of everything. Were they to spend that much time learning about the things they legislate on, they would have zero time to actually pass any laws...

Wait.

You're a genius, and I create you Viscount uberbrainchild of the Internets.

Re:Education

[Anonymous Coward]

What *is* ridiculous is that you elect people to make extremely important decisions when they don't have any clue about the subject matter. What is more ridiculous is that you allow them to make such decisions again and again even though many experts and many more have already pointed out how clueless this is, and after that re-elect those people to go on.

> And how medical operations work. And how financial investment works. And how farmers grow things. And...

Yes, exactly. That's why they get voted into office, and why we need many of them: So they get a clue about the topics they decide on, and so they can veto clueless or malicious decisions of other representatives.

Re:Education

[Anonymous Coward]

Like how we should be able to pirate stuff and use bitcoins and everything and have unlimited porn and not pay for anything because FREEDOM

Re:Education

[bloodhawk]

please point out ANY person elected or not that has the required knowledge? The truth is there are far FAR more areas of expertise than Politician's, So you can either decide to massively increase the government to ensure there is someone that is knowledgeable about every area and hope they also don't have an agenda (I say fuck that), or learn to work with the fact that it is simply not possible to expect them to be knowledgeable about all areas and in many cases it is better that they aren't and instead try to elect people that actually listen to the people they are supposed to represent.

Re:Education

[julesh]

The problem is that they just end up listening to the pressure groups, who are basically an unelected elite selected for their capability to make every minor problem seem like a moral crisis that spells impending doom for civilization as we know it. I don't know the general fix for that, but politicians with at least a little knowledge of the areas they are legislating in seem to be better able to resist them.

Re:Education

[Anonymous Coward]

heck why not? if it can be accommodated without major social/financial issues?

Re:Education

[DarkOx]

Exactly this. The sequester is a prefect example. The big arguments against it are this its ill timed, and second that its indiscriminate. I won't speak to former because its off topic but the later illustrates your point. The sequester is not bad solution because its indiscriminate; that is in fact the only reason why even the very very minor spending reduction it amounts to could be accomplished at all.

Sure in a perfectly sane world we would identify the least effective, most out dated, most abused, least needed programs and make cuts there. Our government has [d]evolved to a point where it can't accomplish that anymore though. The first is it really is actually a hard question the number of budget items is mind blowing, coupled with the fact that you could never guess in may cased what services an agency, office, ..., actually provides without conducting weeks of interviews. The second more germane reason to this discussion is that every line item is someones sacred cow, or gravy train.

If you eliminate one of those line items those people suddenly have a big interest in hiring one of the lobbyists to go wine, dine, and blow (or provide blow to; depending on the members preferred forms of recreation) enough CONgress persons to get the legislation amended. Naturally these guys no how to spin it too. Even though as a libertarian I am pretty convinced our government has become a dangerous corrupt mess and only its ineptitude spares us real horror; I still believe most legislation is originally enacted with good intentions. So when you talk about any one item it always sound reasonable. "It only costs a few million and think of all the undernourished bullfrogs that get a second chance at life; oh and TEH JOBS!; also we can't let TEH TERRORISTS WIN!"

It becomes impossible to make the argument anyone thing will really benefit the bottom line. You can't justify causing one group so much pain to accomplish so little, in the way of reform. People just are not wired to see how a million here, and million there add up to a trillion. The numbers are just separated by to much magnitude. If on the other hand you indiscriminately cut everything. You make everyone suffer some loss, but not enough to justify the cost of a lobbying effort and maybe less able to afford it.

The same applies to industry issues. The IP lobby has gotten used to just getting ever stronger protections whenever any new technology threatens them. You'll never convince anyone they should be made to give anything they have up. If we all stick together and remain universally opposed to enacting new protections, and continue to frame the debate about being pro-freedom though we can probably block legislation like this. Do it long enough and the market will out grow the current players. They will become marginalized and nobody will care about them because disruptive technologies will have replaced them in our daily lives. Just like nobody much cares about laws regulating horse cart safety; other than small pockets of Amish here and there.

Re:Education

[Jawnn]

Maybe every person in congress should be required to take a few lectures on how computers work and what the internet is?

Or maybe... people should stop voting for fools simply because the fool holds the "correct" view (take your pick) on abortion or gay marriage. The "issues" that decide elections these days are, by and large, not the ones that actually affect our lives. This is by design, a design crafted and paid for interests that are definitely not aligned with those of the electorate.

Re:Education

[Anonymous Coward]

How about only allowing people to stand who have had a real job for at least 10 years previously for which they were paid, and on which they depended for the bulk of their income in that time. That would weed out people who have no link to the real world whatsoever.

Re:Education

[Ramley]

YES! this is exactly right. Women's rights, abortion, etc... are very surface and personal issues that hit home to a lot of people, but aren't really going to change no matter who is elected. They are not the relevant issues, nor will they change easily.

It's a smokescreen to get elected, and make the other guy look out of touch. When will people figure this out?

In the U.S. we've got to stop electing the "cool" guy who would be fun (and interesting) to sit and have beers with, rather than a leader who puts the power back into the hands of the people.

The road we are going down undermines everything that this country was founded on, and made it stand out from the rest (good or bad). One must admit, to a point -- we had it good for a while.

This road we're on has been taken countless times before in other ways, and it has never, ever ended well.

Re:Education

[0123456]

What *is* ridiculous is that you elect people to make extremely important decisions when they don't have any clue about the subject matter.

If the US government actually followed the Constitution, it wouldn't matter, because there would be very little they could do to screw things up.

It's only because of two hundred years of bending the meaning 'for a good cause' that they've reached the point where they can do so.

Re:Education

[Anonymous Coward]

How about instead of interns they want to sleep with, they get experts on fields they vote on.

Re:Education

[CanHasDIY]

It's only because of two hundred years of bending the meaning 'for a good cause' that they've reached the point where they can do so.

This is why every time I hear a politician talk about "Interpreting the Constitution," I run like hell in the other direction.

Re:Education

[PhxBlue]

Funny, that spending reduction doesn't feel very "minor" to me. Maybe that's because it's going to cost me about $800 per month once furloughs kick in.

Re:Education

[moeinvt]

"When will people figure this out?"

Never.

Re:Education

[claytongulick]

As Bastiat pointed out so eloquently in That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen your $800 per month is what is seen.

What is not seen, is the $800 per month that this no longer costs your neighbors.

All government spending is not evil, and all public works aren't bad. But it is a mistake, a fallacy, to think that taking $800 per month from your neighbors so you can spend it is somehow good for the economy, or your neighbors.

When we must engage in public works, we should do so - hold our nose and accept the necessary evil. This, however, should never be mistaken for economic activity. That is an illusion.

It is worth taking a hard, critical look at yourself and what it is you do. Is your job really justified? Maybe so, perhaps you are a civil engineer or water treatment specialist, I have no way of knowing. Only your conscience can guide you when you wake up in the morning and greet your struggling neighbors, look them in the eye, and know that they are paying for you to do what you do.

Re:Education

[Anonymous Coward]

General fix:

(A) Outlaw political TV advertising, as it stops people from engaging rationally and instead make them engage emotionally. (In persuasion theory, going from the central to the peripheral route of influence.)

(B) Avoid regulation of a large number of people at the same time. Much lobbying is of the form "Take $5 from everybody and give it to us"; if the everybody is a 10x larger group, the lobby group can spend 10x more resources to influence the decision, and still come out at the same ROI. This shifts the power towards the lobby groups, effectively away from citizens. At the same time, of the everybody is 10x higher, and there's still the same number of decision makers, then each citizen has on average at most 1/10th as much access to the decision makers, which shifts power away from citizens.

(C) Require all lobbying to be recorded and publicized, so it can be fact checked by members of the public.

(D) Require all campaign contributions to be described as "bribes". "MPAA gave a bribe of $100,000 to Senator Scumbag's campaign."

Re:Education

[Anonymous Coward]

[Public works], however, should never be mistaken for economic activity. That is an illusion.

Oh really? What definition are you using?

Actions that involve the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services at all levels within a society.

Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/economic-activity.html#ixzz2O0QuPFKO

To use a web analogy, public works are like a crowdfunding model where everyone long ago agreed to vote on how much to collect, from whom and what to spend it on. But that is not to say that that spending it is not economic activity. There are some public works that are certainly inefficient, wasteful and perhaps completely unnecessary, but there are many public works which are an immense benefit for our nation (talking about the U.S., obviously (hopefully)).

The question of the worth of spending the $800 on a public employee or $xx million or billion on a defense project has nothing to do with the amount. It is a regular, common, even everyday matter of a value proposition. If we are paying PhxBlue $800/month to sit on his ass and eat french-fries or cheetos, then I would agree that it is not money well spent. But if, for a reasonable amount of the month (say, 40 hours per week, less some sick and vacation days to be taken at their discretion), PhxBlue is treating patients who can't afford it, building a road or bridge, teaching children, or working to keep society safer (both in the literal/practical, emergency personnel sense or the more theoretical/regulatory sense of working at the DMV or FDA or the theoretical/violent sense of ), then I say that $800 is money (probably*) well spent and I will gladly pay my share of it.

We agree that public works are necessary. But I disagree strongly that they are categorically evil.

* with a large degree of transparency and a nonzero amount of and civilian oversight.

Re:Education

[Anonymous Coward]

Then maybe you should work for something that produces something of use for the economy and not for the government.

I'm sorry, I just do feel any sympathy for government workers having their pay reduced. I just don't. People who work for the government and universally people who couldn't make it in private enterprise due to a lack of talent and skill, and so decided to take the government route where they don't have to worry about being any good at what they do in order to get paid.

It's been two months, and you know how much the sequester has affected real Americans?

Not at all.

Go get a real job and stop relying on the government.

The government is part of the economy. They produce services which the public consume, and they consume others' goods. They are a monopoly in a sense, yes, but they interact with the economy in an important way. Are you saying that not a single government program contributes to the economy?

Also, way to generalize over an entire group. I find that an astonishing amount of people, in private or public enterprise, manage to bumble their way along due more to sheer coincidence and luck than any semblance of competence.

Re:Education

[Anonymous Coward]

There aren't enough informed or educated voters for that to work.

You've correctly identified that the problem is the voting populace. But how do you fix a nation of fools? Should we vote for who is allowed to vote?

Re:Education

[PhxBlue]

It's been two months, and you know how much the sequester has affected real Americans?

Not at all.

I know at least 40 people who would disagree with your assessment. You can expect more companies to feel hits like this as the full effects of sequestration start to kick in.

I'm sorry, I just do feel any sympathy for government workers having their pay reduced. I just don't. People who work for the government and universally people who couldn't make it in private enterprise due to a lack of talent and skill, and so decided to take the government route where they don't have to worry about being any good at what they do in order to get paid.

How many government employees do you know personally?

Re:Education

[Anonymous Coward]

I know at least 40 people who would disagree with your assessment. You can expect more companies to feel hits like this as the full effects of sequestration start to kick in.

40 people from the military-industrial complex. I don't think you're going to find anyone else on this site who cares about them losing their job wasting our money. Those are exactly the type of people who should be losing their job as we reduce the size of our bloated military spending. Maybe now they can get a job doing something productive.

How many government employees do you know personally?

Enough to know that this rule remains true: anyone who works for the government but is competent will move to the private sector for better pay. Anyone left is, by definition, too incompetent or too stupid to find a better job.

Re:Education

[Rich0]

But it is a mistake, a fallacy, to think that taking $800 per month from your neighbors so you can spend it is somehow good for the economy, or your neighbors.

With the way taxes are structured in the US, what you're basically doing is taking $800/month from some buy who makes $50M per month, with no benefit to them whatsoever. The alternative is to move from a society where the top few percent own 80% of everything to a society where the top few percent own 99.99% of everything.

The average American simply isn't capable of providing an "economic benefit" using the kinds of definitions you are employing. So, you can either hand them money, or let them starve. The nature of specialization in our society means that the genetic/environmental lottery only really gifts a small portion of society with being able to contribute much. We don't have jobs for ditch diggers any longer. We haven't figured out how to create new Albert Einsteins without creating a million Bud Finkelsteins as well. Obviously I exaggerate a bit, but this is the direction society is moving in, which is why unemployment and income disparity keep growing.

Couldn't get it out of my head...

[Anonymous Coward]

Internet Defence League - ASSSEEEEEEEEEEMMMMMBBBBBBLLLLLEEEEEE!!!!
For those not getting the reference

Not Quite

[Jane Q. Public]

Close, but not quite. Most members already have the code on their sites already. Alerts show up automatically, members don't have to "add them" to their sites.

They are, however, looking for new members, and want THEM to add the alert code.

Re:Not Quite

[x_t0ken_407]

They are, however, looking for new members, and want THEM to add the alert code.

Added :)

Re:Not Quite

[CanHasDIY]

I'll join up to, even though my site has an average daily traffic of somewhere between zero and.. aw, who the hell am I kidding - it's zero.

Re:Not Quite

[x_t0ken_407]

Lol, mine too! It's the though that counts, I suppose, hahaha.

Re:Not Quite

[Jane Q. Public]

Yes, well, my personal site (if you even want to call it that) has nothing BUT this on the home page. I never bothered to measure the traffic, but it's probably not much higher. :o)

Re:Not Quite

[CanHasDIY]

Thought... and analytics.

I presume the IDL keeps track of which websites have the code, so they can say, "X number of web admins support our cause! FTW!"

Re:Not Quite

[CanHasDIY]

A client of mine has agreed to let me add the code to the site for his gun shop... couldn't think of a more appropriate industry to jump to the defense of the First Amendment.

How to actually do something about it

[Myria]

How do you do anything about this when your district's congressman is completely opposite your views on almost every issue? Especially when you didn't vote for him. Any letter writing would go to the technologically-clueless equivalent of /dev/null.

Re:How to actually do something about it

[Anonymous Coward]

Congressmen don't want stronger opponents. Become strong and be willing to support his competitors.

Re:How to actually do something about it

[Anonymous Coward]

Write letters anyway. Try to get others to do it. If your congressman thinks the wind is changing he will adjust his sails and change too. Even if it doesn't work you will at least be able to say you tried instead of just letting it happen.

Re:How to actually do something about it

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, exactly, don't under the impression your congressman care about any of the things he claims to care about, he will flip if he things the votors are swaying the other way, and this will have a bigger impact that his campaign bribes from lobbyists.

Re:How to actually do something about it

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahahahah.

Just run for Congress, that'll fix everything.

I might as well try to kill God and do it by next Tuesday.

It's a good idea, but...

[guises]

I've said this before, but again: the Internet Defense League is doing good work, but playing defensively like this is a losing game. It's not enough to kill bad legislation, like CISPA it will just keep getting reintroduced - we need to be supporting good legislation. If people took the same enthusiasm that killed SOPA and put it into supporting something like the OPEN act we'd have a significantly stronger barrier against further negative legislation.

Re:It's a good idea, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've said this before, but again: the Internet Defense League is doing good work, but playing defensively like this is a losing game. It's not enough to kill bad legislation, like CISPA it will just keep getting reintroduced - we need to be supporting good legislation.

Or perhaps, electing good legislators. Let us remember that gerrymandering doesn't protect a candidate from a challenge from within his own party.

Re:It's a good idea, but...

[PPH]

the Internet Defense League is doing good work, but playing defensively like this is a losing game.

The IDL has to win every fight. The promoters of this sort of legislation only have to win once.

Its just like terrorism.

Re:It's a good idea, but...

[moeinvt]

"It's not enough to kill bad legislation, like CISPA it will just keep getting reintroduced - we need to be supporting good legislation."

Right. These power-mad creeps are conducting a relentless assault on our civil liberties and forcing us to pay them while they do it. I don't think there are any legislative barriers anymore. When they blatantly ignore The Constitution, what other laws can hold them back?

The only solution I see is to strip the federal government down to about 20% of its current size and force a balanced budget. That would go a long way toward eliminating special interest influence and corruption in general. These slime would also be forced to focus on real priorities with no spare time and resources to continue their power grabs.

Re:It's a good idea, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." -- Thomas Jefferson

Aaron Swartz

[roman_mir]

Aaron Swartz, not only was he very vocal about SOPA, he was at the centre of the fight against it.

I called all my friends, and we stayed up all night setting up a website for this new group, Demand Progress, with an online petition opposing this noxious billâ¦. We [got] ⦠300,000 signersâ¦. We met with the staff of members of Congress and pleaded with themâ¦. And then it passed unanimously.â¦

He won that fight, but then it meant he got the government's attention. That's how it works, you are just part of the crowd until they see you as one of the leaders and then they hammer you until you can't go any longer. He lost all of his money in that legal battle, obviously the government can just throw everything to defeat you if you are the enemy. He could have ended up in prison, just like Bradley Manning, but he went a different route.

You and your government, the relationship is not what you were brought up to believe it is.

Re:Aaron Swartz

[interkin3tic]

There's a problem with your conspiracy theory: the overzealous prosecution of Aaron had begun before SOPA.

On July 19, 2011, the grand jury's indictment was unsealed. It charged Swartz with wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer and recklessly damaging a protected computer

SOPA happened in 2012, later.

This is not a big evil government purposefully stamping out someone they hate, it wasn't even because of the bribes Hollywood et al paid to set up SOPA. It was because the government and specifically the prosecutor didn't give a damn about ruining people's lives.

Were it a conspiracy rather than reckless prosecution of trivial crimes, that would be reassuring. Were it simply a matter of don't mess with powerful interests, that would be easy enough to avoid or know what you're getting into. What we have is worse: a justice system that will send you to prison for a very long time arbitrarily.

obvious

[WarJolt]

Where is the banner on /.?

Re:obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is the banner on /.?

Don't worry—it's scheduled to be posted a week after the campaign is over and will be duped from Reddit.

Re:obvious

[L4t3r4lu5]

It's not Geeknet anymore, remember. DICE may decide that it's not a cause they want to be associated with, so they may not run the banner.

Re: playing defensively is a losing game

[TaoPhoenix]

Your comment gave me an idle interesting passing thought. All this stuff is starting to feel like a Stratego game. In classic Stratego pieces of equal rank remove each other, but I seem to recall that in one of the anniversary editions they introduced a variant rule that in clashes of equal rank, *the attacking piece wins* (through power of surprise/initiative/momentum etc.) I like that as a concept. That's what seems to be happening in the Copyright War. Yes, we kicked out SOPA, but they just shuffle the pieces and keep re-introducing it and eventually we'll be too tired to fight anymore and they win.

Over on another story, Jammie Thomas lost the Supreme Court appeal, so that $222,000 for sharing 24 songs is now part of the judicial landscape.

Re: Life RTS

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean you don't already play your whole life as an RTS?

Am I the only one?

yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

Good luck with that...

Bloodshed and loss of life seems to be the only deterrent parasites understand, and even those are not 100% solutions. They are closer than any 'diplomatic' solution will get you however.

When I read "Internet Defense League"

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not the only person who thought of this, right?

The constructed language Cispa

[tepples]

What's wrong with using a made up language?

But seriously, Herman Miller was using the "Cispa" name for something before Congress.

Re:The constructed language Cispa

[CanHasDIY]

What's wrong with using a made up language?

But seriously, Herman Miller was using the "Cispa" name for something before Congress.

Quick! To the Copyright Lawyer Cave!

Feedback

[Synerg1y]

Reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber_Intelligence_Sharing_and_Protection_Act , the people quoted for the 2013 version seem to voice the same concerns as last year's version. I think CISPA is a shining example of lobbyists power over congressmen, they seem to be forcing them to introduce a bill they pretty much know will be opposed in a similar manner. Do I even have to take a stab at who could be lobbying such a thing?

Simple fix

[viperidaenz]

Ban all bills with a name that ends in "Protection Act"

Make it personal....

[tokencode]

In addition to the ad campaign, the Internet needs to start playing so politics of its own... I say create a Super PAC using crowd-sourced funds that goes out and specifically targets and campaigns against individual senators and representatives that support CISPA. Keep a running total of the money that will be used for negative ads in LOCAL races when hey are next up for election. Make their support of CISPA cost them their job.

Internet Defense League?

[Anonymous Coward]

How to take a serious issue and blow the shit out of your chances of fighting it: give your group a shitty name.

Sad, but true.

Re: Life RTS

[TaoPhoenix]

Oh, I do often treat life in gaming terms, but that particular example lurked in my mind for 20 years and today it became useful to haul out.