VIDEO: Anonymous brings down Interpol website in retaliation for 25 arrests

[anyplayer:url=http://rt.com/files/news/anonymous-website-arrests-hacker-461/i7ecf3579721763d9fb04a22039d72ff8_tesa-anonymous.flv] Interpol’s main website has been downed by the Anonymous hacker group in retaliation for the international police agency’s hacker arrests worldwide. And such attacks will continue, the hacktivists promise. The website Interpol.int was unreachable…

CHINA’S PARALLEL UNIVERSE

The Chinese government recently issued new rules to strengthen Internet regulations. Most notable is the real-name requirement for micro-blog (Weibo) accounts – China’s equivalent of Twitter. Some Weibo users have attested to an increase in government monitoring and self-censorship by hosting companies. Many are decrying this as China’s further violation of freedom of expression. The reality is far more complicated. More than a decade ago, when China’s Internet was in its infancy with a few million users, the government made it clear that it would exercise political oversight on the nascent cyberspace while allowing it to grow. Many experts then predicted that such efforts were doomed to fail. The Internet, they said, was to be a brave new world that could not be controlled. There were only two possible outcomes: A freely expanding Internet beyond the reach of political authority and subverting it, or an Internet stifled by government control and unable to realize its social and economic benefits. Rupert Murdoch famously proclaimed that advances in communications technology posed an “unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes everywhere.”

SOPA: Co-sponsors Defect, Backtrack After Blackout

Cockroaches scatter as spotlight is pointed at Internet censorship bill       Lawmakers have begun to jump ship following a day of protest against the draconian internet legislation, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)…

SOPA Will Take Us Back to the Dark Ages

I had an epiphany today. The Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, was not written by people who fundamentally misunderstand how the web works. They understand all too well, and want to change it forever. Behind the almost unreadable (yet truly scary) text of SOPA (and its Senate doppelganger, PIPA, or the Protect Intellectual Property Act) is a desire, likely fueled by powerful media conglomerate backers, to take us all back to the thin-pipe, content-distribution days of 1994 — right before the World Wide Web launched. From the moment the Internet and websites arrived, a veritable Pandora’s box of opportunities have opened to every average Joe and Josephine in the world. Everyone became a content creator. Everyone had an audience. The Internet also almost immediately became the transport mechanism for a steady flow of pirated content — first images, then music and, when the pipe got fat enough, movies. Major media companies, which once upon a time had sole control of the creation and distribution of popular entertainment, were appalled — and also powerless to stop it.

Cuba, the Embargo and the Digital Divide

“You have to figure out how you can reach the informed masses. The solution is not the newspapers… Internet is more accessible.” –Fidel Castro, November 12, 2010 [1] There is a lot of discussion about Cuba and…