Thanks of the Day
I'd like to make a big shout out to every single tech news feed I'm subscribed to for pointing out how to bypass the various anti-SOPA protests. Also, to all those on facebook posting about it going to be happening.
The former annoys me noticeable more because the suggestions are so mind-numbingly obvious to anyone who spends a minute to look at the page. Or, in fact, think about what Wikipedia is protesting against - SOPA / PIPA won't stop people finding what they want on the internet, but merely make it more annoying / easier to punish1. If you watch it loading, it clearly loads the page before the lovely banner comes up, so there is already clearly going to be some way to get at the information. In this case, it's as simple as pressing escape.
There is a minor level or irony here that, if the bill(s) were to pass, Google's cache would probably quickly become an un-viable option, as it seems like on the things that would be amongst first to fall afoul of the regulations. Equally, Wikipedia would probably be around longer as the content is almost all licensed under creative commons and thus is probably widely archived in a number of different institutions
As for myself, I'm falling back to letter writing. My local MP seems like a nice enough person for a Conservative MP (and, I have a couple of addresses elsewhere I can send letters from to parties more against this kind of legislation). What good will complaining to the Bristish government do? Very little; even if they wanted to do something, Her Majesty's Government doesn't carry the weight it use to.
What I'd like to see is the question of the extradition of Richard O'Dwyer raised in Parliament, as this proceeding took place in a British court, but seems to be for the purpose of paving the way for extraditions in relation to these bills. I haven't had a chance to read about what happened in the proceedings - and I also don't want to suggest that government should directly overrule a court ruling - but if this is the interpretation of the law as it stands, then these laws need reviews.
The letters, once written, will also be copied to the blog (as will any non-confidential responses I receive). Here's to trying to make a difference!
- 1 ↑ perhaps