Some rights reserved by o5com on Flickr.com -- image licensed by Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

Tor has caught my eyes recently.  It seems to me Tor is great for anonymizing a user, but it’s not so great in protecting privacy unless the user is serious enough and encrypting everything he or she has to send through Tor.  Anyhow, I’m new to Tor, and so what I write about Tor in this blog post might need to be revised again in the near future.  Suggestions for corrections are welcome!  As always, I dabble on!

Let work backward a little!  Why Tor is great at anonymizing and not protecting privacy?  Well, Tor is known for being great at obscuring the identity of the data source.  Did I say identity?  It’s all about hiding (i.e., anonymizing) the IP addresses of the Internet users.  Here is an example, let say you want to visit a website, but you do not want to reveal an IP address of yours to this website, Tor is perfectly well-suited in hiding your IP address and so a website will not be able to know that it’s you who have visited it.

Tor is so able in obscuring an IP address for Tor has not a central router where every connection’s identity is made known.  Yes, I know it’s hard to understand what I mean by the previous sentence, but it means Tor relies on random folks like you to run Tor exit relay or non-exit relay (i.e., another meaning — Tor router).  The magic is happening when each Tor exit relay or non-exit relay sends the data onto the next destination.

Did I say magic?  Tor relay, especially the non-exit relay, encrypts the source and the destination IP addresses before it forwards the data onto the next Tor relay.  I do not know if Tor is going to encrypt the meat of the data (i.e., the whole enchilada of the content of the data) between the transit also, but it seems that this isn’t the case (please correct me on this if I’m wrong on this).  Anyhow, since the source and  destination IP addresses are going to be encrypted over and over again through each Tor relay, therefore even next in line Tor relay (i.e., the next Tor relay to be received your data from the previous Tor relay) can only know about a previous Tor relay’s IP address and not the source or the destination IP address.  To make things even more illusive, Tor client will always choose a different path within Tor network each time it requests or send data to a destination.  This makes the matter worse for whoever or whatever that tries to trace back to a source IP address.  I think software that specialize in analyzing web traffic might find Tor specifically unfriendly.

OK, we got the anonymizing part down, but why Tor isn’t so great in protecting privacy?  If I’ve not misunderstood from several online sources that I read on Tor, it seems to be that each Tor relay has the ability to read and log the transit data.  As the data reach a Tor exit relay, the data retain the original forms.  From here the data exit a Tor exit relay and entering third party ISP network (i.e., the Internet Service Provider which provides service to the destination — example, an ISP which provides bandwidth to a website that you’re visiting).  The third party ISP network has to be the one which passes on the data to the final destination (e.g., a website, an online service, a social network).  Since Tor relay isn’t actually encrypting the data, therefore each Tor relay is capable in reading and logging the source’s data.  This means privacy isn’t actually being protected by using Tor.

Nonetheless, many users can protect their privacy by using Tor!  How?  They only pass their data through encrypted protocol.  An example is that a user use Tor to browse the web, but he or she relies on HTTPS protocol to encrypt his or her web data.  So, in a way if a Tor user can encrypt his or her data before send the data onto Tor network (i.e., Tor relays), his or her privacy might be protected from prying eyes.

To really protect one’s privacy and using Tor the right way, Tor suggests users to use Tor Bundle Browser download.  The heavily configured, latest Firefox browser (i.e., heavily configured by Tor) which comes with Tor Bundle Browser download will always attempt to pass the data through an encrypted protocol (I might be wrong on this).  Also, Tor’s own heavily Firefox modified browser would not come with plugins that might reveal a user’s IP address, and it might actually block a user from installing such plugin in the first place (I might be wrong on this).

Can Tor be vulnerable to hack?  According to blog.torproject.org’s Rumors of Tor’s compromise are greatly exaggerated article, hackers might be able to hack into Tor relays (i.e., known Tor relays), and then somehow congest the not-so easy to hack Tor relays with some sophisticated hacks so the traffics/data of the congested Tor relays will have to go through the Tor relays that the hackers have hacked into.  This way, the hackers can actually log and read the data of the congested Tor relays since such data must go through the compromised Tor relays.  As how the article above has pointed out, it might take huge amount of computing resources to congest so many known Tor relays.  So, it might not be something that the average hackers may want to try.

It seems Tor can be used by all types of people.  Good people might want to use Tor to really protect their anonymity for good reasons, but bad people might want to use Tor for hiding their real identities so they can do very bad things.  Here is one example how bad people might use Tor to hide their real identities so their really nasty, dirty laundries won’t hang out in the open; they might use Tor for viewing child porn videos online.

Tor can be speeded up for most Tor users if there are many more Tor users who actually host their own Tor relays.  I suspect many more Tor users who only use Tor as client.  These folks simply want to hide their identities from whatever web destinations and various ISPs (e.g., watching Hulu videos that are not made viewing available for certain people who have their IP addresses belong to the countries that are being blocked by Hulu) .  Nonetheless, few Tor users go on hosting Tor relays out of their altruistic nature.

I might be wrong, but there are four ways a Tor user can set up his or her own Tor relay or relays.  The first way would be the hosting of Tor middle relays (also known as Tor non-exit relay).  Tor middle relays are somewhat safe to host, because the middle relays cannot appear as the source of the data.  On the other hand, when a Tor user hosts Tor exit relays, he or she might be liable for the misuses of their Tor exit relays by some random Tor users, because Tor exit relays will always appear as the source of the data.  One example of a misuse of Tor exit relays would be someone might use Tor exit relays to view child porn.  The third and the fourth types of Tor relays are Tor private and public bridges.  It seems to me that Tor private bridges are only made known to the people who might know each other personally, because Tor private bridges’ information would not be distributed openly.  On the other hand, the Tor public bridges are made known to Bridge Authority.  According to blog.torproject.org, Bridge Authority is a special relay which collects all bridges’ IP addresses that pass through it.  If I’m not wrong, int a nutshell, Tor private and public bridges help Tor users to circumvent the ISPs that are blocking Tor’s normal relays (i.e., Tor middle and exit relays), consequently allowing these users to use Tor normally.  Still, ISPs can also block known Tor public bridges, therefore Tor private bridges might be the best hope for Tor users who want to truly circumvent ISPs’ Tor blocking measure.

Using Tor is easy as downloading Tor Browser Bundle for Mac or Windows or Linux, extract the Tor Browser Bundle to a known location on the computer, and then go to this location to fire up Start Tor Browser (i.e., essentially a heavily modified latest version of Firefox browser).  You might also notice when you fire up Start Tor Browser, a control panel known as Vidalia would also pop up.  Vidalia control panel allows Tor users to configure how they want to use Tor.  From Vidalia control panel, Tor users can configure Tor to be just a client to hosting a Tor relay.  Some users might even configure Vidalia to have Tor hosts hidden services.  What are Tor hidden services and why some people might want to host them?  Well, Tor hidden services are just like any other normal computing/web related services, and these might be websites, game servers, and so on.  What makes Tor hidden services different than the rest is that Tor hidden services will not reveal the IP addresses of  the Tor users who host Tor hidden services.  This might appeal to some Tor users who want to get their services or messages out to the public but stay anonymous.

In conclusion, Tor is fascinating to me since it’s a tool that can be excellent in doing what it does best, that is to anonymize a user’s IP address.  Unfortunately, Tor cannot be used solely for protecting one’s privacy.  Therefore, many people encrypt their data before they pass such data onto Tor network so their privacy can be protected better.  Tor isn’t hacker-proof, because hackers might know how to congest Tor network and compromise known Tor relays to do their dirty deeds.  Few Tor users might have been using Tor for malicious purposes such as anonymizing them from persecution of child porn and the likes.  These users might make the many Tor users who use Tor for legitimate purposes look really bad in the eyes of non-Tor users.  Tor true fans might even go as far as to host a Tor relay, because setting up one is not that hard!  All in all, Tor is pretty nifty, crafty and useful, but it can also be malicious as well!

Sources:

• https://www.eff.org/torchallenge/what-is-tor/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_(anonymity_network)
• http://www.wired.com/print/politics/security
  /commentary/securitymatters/2007/09/security_matters_0920
• https://blog.torproject.org/blog/different-ways-use-bridge

Steve Jobs image - this is a file from the Wikimedia Commons. Information from its description page there is shown below. Commons is a freely licensed media file repository.

According to Techradar’s Steve Jobs was ‘deceptive’ says FBI file article, the FBI has released Steve Jobs file, and so you can now either go read or download this file at vault.fbi.gov/steve-jobs/steve-jobs-part-01-of-01/view.  The file is around 3.9 MB which is huge for just being a PDF file (at least to me).  Anyhow, according to Techradar, Steve Jobs was under investigation by the FBI for he was considered to be nominated for a high profile government position which had something to do with George H.W. Bush’s administration (i.e., the White House).  Again, according to Techradar, FBI found Steve Jobs to be deceptive.

So, in a way if you had read Steve Jobs’ biography which was written by Walter Isaacson with the title “Steve Jobs,” you may as well want to read the FBI file on Steve Jobs to compare the two to see if there is any discrepancy.  Sure, it might not be necessary to do so, but if you’re interested in learning more on Steve Jobs, how the man was and still is being worshiped by so many in the tech industry, I guess digging into the FBI file on Steve Jobs might shed some more light on what you think you already know about the man himself.  You might also want to be diligent too on judging the man from the FBI file, because it might be that the FBI could not have been entirely correct, and the same would go for Steve Jobs’ biography.  Why?  In truth, nobody would probably know Steve Jobs better than himself, therefore you can only know what you’re being fed to read.

I find that it’s quite interesting to see Steve Jobs, just a man of building a tech giant, has been the talk of the town since he made his few first headlines back in the day.  Even though he is now rest in peace, the talk of the town apparently is still buzzing about him, still.  They talk of him as if they’re worshipping him, isn’t this quite fascinating?  Some even seeing him as a celebrity even though the man wasn’t a celebrity.  Yes, you might agree why he is being worshipped or being seen as a famous dead celebrity too, because you are willing to spend lot of money on his products still.  Nonetheless, I forgot who but someone had pointed out Bill Gates has done much more than Steve Jobs in term of making the world better and so Bill Gates should be the one to be worshipped of and not Steve Jobs.  This person probably was talking about how Bill & Melinda foundation has changed the world.  I believe, Bill & Melinda foundation was found by Bill Gates and his wife.  I have heard how Bill & Melinda foundation has been involved with projects that have huge positive impacts on the world such as allowing the children of the poorest nations to have access to much needed vaccines.

With Steve Jobs is no longer with us, his company is continuing making huge gains to which Amazon and other competitors are very much like to see Apple stumbles.  Just recently, Amazon has released a commercial to point out how expensive iPad has been.  The lady in the commercial said to the man, even with her Kindle which could be read in sunlight and the other two Kindle Fires put together would still be cheaper than the man’s iPad.  The man was embarrassed and asked her who would be sitting in the empty seat next to her, and she said it was her husband.  The commercial ended gradually as it showed the man left in embarrassment and the prices of the regular Kindle ($199) and Kindle Fires ($79) appeared to confirm what the lady in the commercial had said.

Source:  http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/apple/steve-jobs-was-deceptive-says-fbi-file-1062235?src=rss&attr=all

Image via Wikipedia

Engadget’s Barnes & Noble to pull Amazon Publishing titles from shelves over exclusivity concerns article suggests Barnes & Noble has turned up the heat as the two go on competing each other for a book market domination.  Of course, Barnes & Noble is worrying that Amazon will eventually kick them out of their own game.  Meanwhile, Amazon continues to do the impossible even though Amazon is relatively new player in the book world when one compares Amazon against Barnes & Noble.  Seniority doesn’t secure a permanent establishment since we have seen how Borders had filed for bankruptcy from Chapter 11 which eventually turned into Chapter 7 (Source:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borders_Group).  The argument which Barnes & Noble has against Amazon is clear to me, but might not be true since I’m not an expert in the operation of the book business, is that Amazon is too pushy in term of demanding for more exclusivity with various book publishers.  I have to wonder though, would this be a good thing for book publishers?

Why?  If book publishers can negotiate with particular distributors for exclusivity deal, it might in the end raising the value of the book publishers who go for exclusive deals since exclusivity means rarity.  We know most things that are rare might be more valuable, right?  What if we take a look at a much bigger picture, how would the book world fare if only big players such as Amazon would be able to acquire exclusivities from popular book publishing companies?  I’m not sure but I think with more exclusive deals go around the book world, book business might change even more than it’s already has.

The book world already has changed so much in term of how ebook technology has totally changed how consumers read their books, pushing more consumers only to buy ebooks and abandon their traditional books (i.e., books made of papers).  Exclusive deals within the book world might push the change further by having small book stores to go out of business.  These small book stores usually are local book stores.  Of course, the trend seems to head in this particular route anyway since ebook technology has made it so easy for consumers to buy books online.  It means people don’t really have to go to a local book store to buy their books.

To knit the fragments of the big picture together, in my opinion, the trend of pushing for exclusivity isn’t meant the death of book publishing, but it might be the new rise of book publishing.  If Barnes & Noble wants to beat Amazon in book publishing exclusivity trend, I think Barnes & Noble has to figure out how to offer the book publishing companies better deals than what Amazon is currently offering these book publishing companies.

Will the consumers be beneficial to book exclusivity trend?  Probably not in the long run, because I think once a giant book distributor has began to dominate the book exclusivity trend, such entity tends to raise the prices of the books since the competitors aren’t going to have such titles for sale anyway.  The outlook might not be good for book customers if the Amazon defeats Barnes & Noble in book exclusivity trend, because one less competitor will give one less reason for Amazon to sell ebooks at the cheapest prices as possible.  Of course, my speculation on this might not pan out the way I speculate at all, because I’m not an expert in book business anyway.  I guess you just have to take my words with a grain of salt!

Related articles

• Barnes & Noble Says It Won’t Sell Books Published by Amazon (mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Barnes & Noble Says It Won’t Sell Books Published by Amazon (mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Barnes & Noble won’t stock books by Amazon anymore (laobserved.com)
• The Barnes & Noble vs Amazon War Continues (selfpubauthors.wordpress.com)
• Barnes & Noble Declares Wimpy War On Amazon (gizmodo.com.au)
• Barnes & Noble Declares Wimpy War on Amazon Publishing [Books] (gizmodo.com)
• BookBaby Connects Indie Authors to Kobo and Copia (prweb.com)
• Barnes (csmonitor.com)
• Barnes & Noble won’t stock books published by Amazon (digitaltrends.com)
• Barnes & Noble shuns Amazon books (seattlepi.com)

Image via Wikipedia

PCWorld’s Facebook Timeline Privacy Tips: Lockdown Your Profile article points out the concerns for how easy it’s for Facebook users to be able to devour past Facebook comments, events, daily wall posts and more of any Facebook user through Facebook newest feature known as Timeline.  Indeed, it’s quite unnerving for how easy it’s for someone to look up your Facebook history by using Facebook Timeline feature, but then again a wise person should not have posted something so private on a very public medium such as Facebook!

In fact, Facebook Timeline feature might have a backlash effect against Facebook.  Facebook users might become ever more conscious about what they will do and post on Facebook, therefore the level of Facebook activities might be shrunk in time.  Then again, it’s only a speculation of mine, because I don’t have a crystal ball of how the future will look like!

For having said a wise person should not post something so private on a very public medium such as Facebook, I fear even myself sometimes might forget to practice what I had preached.  Nonetheless, it’s good to know Facebook does in fact allowing you to tightening up the privacy to certain extend so Timeline feature won’t expose the things that you’ve posted and wanted to be hidden away from the prying eyes of the public.  I guess one can always follow the tips in the article above and lessen the effect of Timeline, but to be wise one should always post something one care not for the world to see on Facebook and keep the rest to oneself.

Related articles

• Facebook too force users onto timeline (theinformativereport.com)
• Facebook Users Not Happy Over Timeline, New Profile Design (inquisitr.com)
• Just one in ten Facebook users supports ‘timeline’ feature (telegraph.co.uk)
• Just one in ten Facebook users supports ‘timeline’ feature – TODAYonline (todayonline.com)
• Timeline Looms, But Few Users Like it, Survey Finds – PCWorld (pcworld.com)
• Over 50% Of Facebook Users Worry About Timeline (allfacebook.com)
• No Thanks, Facebook: Poll Suggests Users Don’t Want Timeline (techland.time.com)
• Facebook Timeline Looms: What You Need to Know (pcworld.com)
• Attention job seekers: Fix your Facebook timeline now (mnn.com)
• Facebook’s controversial ‘timeline’ feature is supported by just one in ten users (dailymail.co.uk)
• Facebook Timeline Becoming Mandatory For All Users (darkerme.com)
• Everyone is being forced to get Facebook Timeline pretty soon, so shut up. (toiletfodder.wordpress.com)
• Facebook Timeline a concern to users, Sophos poll reveals (it-sideways.com)

Image by Aray Chen via Flickr

Forbes’ The Real Reasons Google Killed SOPA/PIPA article suggests Google is the biggest pirate ever.  So, they claim Google copies the whole Internet.  This is so incorrect!  Google is merely a GPS for the web!  If you want to go somewhere on the Internet, you don’t really have to use Google.  Nonetheless, if you’re really lost, you might need Google to point the way to the right destination.  We call this Google Search.  How about Bing?  Bing is doing the same thing!

OK, so you might argue that Google Reader is copying the entire contents of all online news websites, but you’re so wrong!  Google Reader is only using RSS technology where these news websites are actually voluntarily pushing out their news feeds through RSS technology.  If they don’t want countless Google Reader users to be able to find their news feeds, then they should stop using RSS technology.  It’s just that simple, really!

Now, if you’re still bitter and trying to point out to all of us that YouTube is the biggest pirate of them all.  Then you are probably trying to condemn millions of YouTube users for piracy!  In the reality, YouTube users are creating and pushing their own contents onto YouTube.  User generated contents are not pirate-like contents!  Plus, I might be wrong but I think fair use law allows YouTube users to use certain copyrighted contents within certain limitations without the requirement of acquiring permissions from the copyright holders.  In this context, YouTube users aren’t doing anything wrong.  Of course, there always will be some bad apples among many other apples that reside in the same bucket of apples, and so some YouTube users might be brazenly uploaded copyright materials that are outright infringing on the rights of copyright holders.  Nonetheless, in such cases YouTube usually takes these contents down in a timely manner.

Don’t get me going on why Google Plus isn’t wrong!  Just take a look at Facebook, and you know why Google Plus isn’t wrong!  If you think Google Plus is wrong, then Facebook is just as guilty as Google!  While at it, why don’t you condemn hundred millions of Facebook users and then millions more of Google Plus users too on being pirates?  You see, it’s you against the whole world.  Google, Facebook, and the rest of the major players on the Internet are possible, because the whole world is using them!  In a sense, the whole world is being condemned by you when you say Google is the biggest pirate!  I can rant on, but I rest my case.  It’s so obvious that I think it’s rather mind boggling and pointless and idiotic that I have to even try to defend Google when Google clearly does not even need me to do so.  Nonetheless, common sense makes me do so!

Personal Note:

• I did not mention other Google services since Google has a huge list of FREE services that would add pages to my single blog post.
• Hundred millions of users are obviously being so beneficial to have being able to use Google services freely without being charged for any fee!  
• Not only Google Search, but Google Gmail is so necessary.  I know, because I use Gmail everyday!
• Google Adsense and Adwords are perfectly making sense!  If someone thinks Google is doing something wrong by placing ads on their search engine, then I think such a person isn’t making sense.  It’s like somebody tries to tell you how you should decorate your own house!  
• It’s also making sense that Google has to make money to keep pushing out useful, free services.  
• It’s OK for the whole Internet to display ads! 

Related articles

• YouTube soars past 4 billion daily video views (news.cnet.com)
• How to upload a video to YouTube (marketing.yell.com)
• YouTube Streams 4 Billion Videos Every Day (escapistmagazine.com)
• YouTube’s Reach Begins to Eclipse Television (readwriteweb.com)
• YouTube hits 4 billion daily video views (ibnlive.in.com)
• YouTube – One Hour Per Second (adverblog.com)
• Social Media Digest: Foursquare Search, YouTube Growth and FB Apps (umpf.co.uk)
• News in Brief: One more thing: today’s other news (techradar.com)
• YouTube Gets Way More Social With Facebook, Google+ Integration (hubspot.com)
• Each day, 4 billion online videos streamed via YouTube (9to5google.com)

Image by mermadon 1967 via Flickr

SOPA and PIPA are retreating, but something else much worse is on the rise?  Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is something I have only heard just now by reading Forbes’ If You Thought SOPA Was Bad, Just Wait Until You Meet ACTA  article and watching YouTube’s What is ACTA? video.  The article and video have successfully convinced me ACTA might be worse than SOPA and PIPA.  Check out the videos right after the break to know more about ACTA!

You might want to check out Wikipedia’s Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement article to know more about ACTA.

Personally, I think SOPA, PIPA, and ACTA might not be effective against the things these bills want to address.  Instead, these bills might bring about inadvertent effects that would be detrimental to many constructive, current and future innovations.  Especially ACTA, because this treaty tries to address not one but many industries at the same time.  For better or worse, such a broad language of a treaty might effectively change how many industries would behave (i.e., each industry might work differently).  Of course, the Internet might be one of those industries that breaks under the pressure of ACTA.

Personal note:  Come to think of it, the Internet has been an important vehicle which helps the spreading of ideas and knowledge.  I don’t think it’s wise to stop the Internet from helping to spread ideas and knowledge.  Why?  People want to be heard, to share, and to know more.  Is it wise to go against the will of so many people?  Is it wise to stop the advancing of modern civilization?

Related articles

• Now Its ACTA (wakeuporkney.wordpress.com)
• ACTA Will Be SOPA/PIPA Alternative (wdednh.wordpress.com)
• ACTA Will Be SOPA/PIPA Alternative (euzicasa.wordpress.com)
• New Petition to White House To End ACTA Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (copyrightlitigation.blogspot.com)
• The Global Assault on The Internet – With SOPA/PIPA shelved it’s ACTA we need to worry about! (toodamnez.wordpress.com)
• World War Web Advisory #2: We Must Stop ACTA (the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) (amerikanreich.com)
• World War Web Advisory #2: We Must Stop ACTA (the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) (corporatecriminalsexposed.com)
• After SOPA and PIPA, here comes ACTA (100gf.wordpress.com)
• ACTA Will Be SOPA/PIPA Alternative (platopress.com)
• SOPA and PIPA Shelved But Is ACTA Unstoppable? (i-programmer.info)
• SOPA, ACTA and the end of the Internet (shawnmwilson.com)
• White House petition to end support for ACTA (boingboing.net)
• Awesome YouTube Video Explains Why PIPA And SOPA Are Bad For The Internet Users; You Should Be Watching (essayboard.com)
• Exclusive Google+/YouTube Interview With President Obama (techfleece.com)
• STRIKE Against SOPA, PIPA and ACTA (csltm.wordpress.com)
• Ron Paul: Preserve the Internet, Down with SOPA (mountainrepublic.net)
• The Day the Internet Died (jelastic.com)

Image via Wikipedia

Do you have a story to tell?  Well, if you do and don’t mind to have it films under 15 minutes, you might be a perfect candidate for entering YouTube’s Your Film Festival.  The short film will be watched and voted by millions of people.  The winner will go on to win $500,000 and work with Ridley Scott to produce a new film using the storyline of the short film.  The new film might be released on the big screen.  You have until March 31st to create your short film under 15 minutes and enter the contest.  This June, the voting will begin for the best short film under 15 minutes, and YouTube promises the world will be watching.  If you have the inner creative talent which begs to explode onto the world stage, I guess this is one of those chances you should not pass up.  So, take up the challenge and it might be fun!

Related articles

• Watch Ridley Scott’s film “Life in a Day” for free on YouTube (thenextweb.com)
• La Mostra di Venezia apre (di nuovo) ai giovanissimi “youtuber”. A settembre i dieci finalisti del “Your Film Festival” di Youtube, selezionati da Ridley Scott, seguiranno il festival al Lido. Al vincitore un buono di mezzo milioni di dollari per produrre (lagiustadistanza.com)
• Cinemagis 4: Digital Short Film Festival (January 17) (spontaneouscribblersnotes.wordpress.com)
• More Than 7,000 Protest YouTube’s Censorship of “The Last War Crime” Film, According To Director Pen (prweb.com)
• [NEWS] GHS – in Short Film Festival staged on RUSIA (kvanessach.wordpress.com)
• Life in a Day: Now available in full on YouTube (pocket-lint.com)
• Life in a Day: Watch the Beautiful YouTube-Fueled Epic Right Now [Video] (gizmodo.com)
• A global search for the world’s best storytellers (youtube-global.blogspot.com)
• 13 Films Make Their Digital Premieres Through the Sundance Institute Artist Program (binsidetv.net)
• “YouTube: 2 Days Left Until Historic Life In A Day Movie Experiment” and related posts (softsailor.com)
• Bel Ami Screening at Glasgow Film Festival 2012 (thinkingofrob.com)
• Glasgow Film Festival 2012: The Thumbcast guide to Kapow, Fright Fest and beyond (thethumbcast.com)
• Glasgow Film Festival 2012 Programme Launched (thepeoplesmovies.com)
• Banff Mountain Film Festival (glasgowmbc.wordpress.com)

Awesome and funny and meaningful!

The blackout of these popular online services has exposed the useless effort of trying to block websites at DNS level.  As you can see, by using third party DNS servers, people can access the blackout websites just fine.  It’s rather pointless, and it might encourage people who have no idea of DNS to use the wrong third party DNS servers that may get them in situations where they can be infected with computer viruses, malware, and so on.  Don’t think so?  What if those third party DNS servers are intending to redirect targeted victims to the phishing websites where people will enter their confidential information such as banking credentials?  I think you know where I’m heading, and so I hope you know how important it’s for us to make sure the integrity of DNS structure within the United States of America stays innocent and harmless (i.e., does not discriminate against specific types of web traffics), otherwise people might find themselves to be victimized by computer viruses, identity theft, and more just because they try to use unknown, unpopular third party DNS services’ servers.

Even worse, I don’t think Google Public DNS and Open DNS services will be fine and dandy when SOPA and PIPA become law!  Why?  If you read Yahoo article’s Why SOPA is Dangerous, it explains that any service enables/allows people to access copyright infringed materials would be subjected to SOPA and PIPA regulations.  This means Google Public DNS and Open DNS services might have to be shut down since these popular third party DNS servers are clearly within the United States’ jurisdiction and allowing people to access all contents (i.e., even copyright infringed contents).  Since well known third party DNS servers such as the ones that belong to Google Public DNS do not have the ability to screen every web traffic (i.e., simply not cost effective), third party DNS servers simply cannot function under SOPA and PIPA.  Without having access to popular third party DNS servers, people might just have to rely on malicious third party DNS servers that locate outside of the United States.  I’m going in a loop in explaining to you over and over again on purpose, because I think SOPA and PIPA are just downright dangerous!

Some of you might argue that since the founders of SOPA and PIPA had taken out the specific bits that allow to block web traffics at DNS level, therefore we might not need to worry about SOPA and PIPA anymore.  I think you’re wrong!  Why?  Other bits within SOPA and PIPA are still gunning for shutting down websites and online services that are just simply enabling users to access infringed copyright contents.  Knowing these bits are still within SOPA and PIPA, it’s simply making sense that DNS servers that are being targeted or will be targeted by Attorney General (i.e., as how it is explained by Yahoo’s article Why SOPA is Dangerous) will have to be shut down still.  So, how can we be sure that Google Public DNS and OpenDNS will be in service in our near future?  I think we simply just don’t know!  So, the idea that DNS structure as a whole isn’t going to be regulated by SOPA and PIPA is an irony.  When SOPA and PIPA become law, the Attorney General might still have the power to shut down specific DNS servers within the United States, because the languages within SOPA and PIPA are just too broad.

When I say DNS servers get shutdown, it might mean certain affected websites might not be accessible within the United States.  It’s all depending on how the Attorney General wants to make things happen under the contexts of SOPA and PIPA.  For all we know, the Attorney General can just shut down the DNS servers that allow Internet users within the United States to access certain copyright infringed websites.  When DNS servers get shutdown, not only infringed copyright websites but all websites that are relying on the same out of service DNS servers will be unreachable.  To put this in another way, it doesn’t matter which website, because all websites and online services accept all web traffics, and Internet users who rely on out of service DNS servers might have to rely on malicious third party DNS servers.  In the case where specific websites are being blocked by DNS servers and not the DNS servers are being shutdown, Internet users can still access such websites with relying on malicious third party DNS servers.  Of course, not all third party DNS servers are malicious, but I think the probability of having people who don’t know much about DNS using malicious third party DNS servers is high!  End rant!

Related articles

• OpenDNS and the SOPA blackout: The censorship you can expect (opendns.com)
• Where Do SOPA and PIPA Stand Now? (mashable.com)
• OpenDNS To Participate in Anti-SOPA Protests (forbes.com)
• Wikipedia to Go Dark on Wednesday to Protest SOPA & PIPA (everyjoe.com)
• Hollywood: SOPA’s DNS Blocking ‘Off The Table’ (mashable.com)
• SOPA Author Attacks Wikipedia, Schedules Debate on Bill (mashable.com)
• White House comments on SOPA/PIPA, Congress responds (vator.tv)
• Reeling MPAA declares DNS filtering “off the table” (arstechnica.com)
• Block DNS… (chrisbuijs.com)
• Wikipedia Will Go Dark On January 18 To Protest SOPA And PIPA (techcrunch.com)