Come Back, Megaupload

January this year the U.S. Government destroyed Megaupload, but founder Kim Dotcom is a not done with the file-hosting business yet and is preparing to come back with a vengeance. The coding work for the new Megaupload is nearly finished, the servers have been ordered, and investors are lining up. A return of the file-hosting site appears to be looming.
With 50 million visitors per day at its peak, Megaupload was one of the largest websites on the Internet.
This quickly changed January this year when the U.S. Government took down the file-hosting service and had several key employees arrested including founder Kim Dotcom.
Abruptly, the focus of Megaupload’s team shifted from serving customers to defending itself in a high-profile criminal prosecution. While the criminal case is moving ahead very slowly, Megaupload’s founder does have some progress to report on another front.
Dotcom previously announced that he planned to bring Megaupload back to life, and new information suggests that this may happen rather quickly. In an update this weekend he tweets that most of the work on the second incarnation of the site is already done.
“Quick update on the new Mega: Code 90% done. Servers on the way. Lawyers, partners and investors are ready,” Dotcom teases.
“Be patient it’s coming,” he adds.
From the brief progress update it’s clear that the site is on schedule for launch later this year. In addition, it’s interesting to note that despite the ongoing criminal case, partners and investors are happy to be involved.
In recent weeks Dotcom has delivered several hints about the new Megaupload, which he says will be bigger and better than the file-hosting service that was taken down.
“We are building a massive global network. All non-US hosters will be able to connect servers & bandwidth,” he explained earlier.
According to Dotcom we can expect a Megaupload with an even greater range of applications than just file-sharing. While developers of file managers are being encouraged to get in touch for early API access, Dotcom is also calling out to those involved in email and fax tools, VOIP and video apps.
It’s clear that Dotcom doesn’t have the slightest urge to throw in the towel.
“They abused the wrong guy. I am going to turn this world upside down. Power to the people. Bye bye Echelon. Hello Freedom,” Dotcom added.
It will be at least a few more weeks before the new Megaupload appears online, but there are exciting times ahead. MEGA exciting.


http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-readies-for-comeback-code-90-done-120923/  reposted under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front Website

Southern Africa, Announcing the new Zabalaza website

We, at the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (ZACF), are pleased to announce that the new Zabalaza website, Home of Southern African Anarchism, is now online.

Zabalaza: The Home of Southern African Anarchism

Obama Could Hold Internet Kill Switch

There is a major debate over new legislation and the impact it could have on the Internet has people from the tech world and Capital Hill talking. There is a clause that will allow the President to pull the plug on the Internet and stop people from accessing it. CNET's Declan McCullagh joins RT's Kristine Frazao to discuss this and other hot web issues.

FBI Wants to Wiretap Internet

The FBI has urged members of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security to make it easier for authorities to eavesdrop and wiretap internet communications. CNET's Declan McCullagh, explains.

Hillary Clinton Calls for Global Internet Guidelines (Hypocritical or Courageous?)

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Multisource political news, world news, and entertainment news analysis by Newsy.com

Lieberman's "Kill Switch"

Just as the Egyptian government recently forced the Internet to go dark, U.S. officials could flip the switch if the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset legislation becomes law, say its critics.

...

The bill — crafted by Sens. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn.; Susan Collins, R-Maine; and Tom Carper, D-Del. — aims to defend the economic infrastructure from a cyberterrorist attack. But it has free-speech advocates and privacy experts howling over the prospect of a government agency quelling the communication of hundreds of millions of people.

"This is all about control, an attempt to control every aspect of our existence," says Christopher Feudo, a cybersecurity expert who is chairman of SecurityFusion Solutions. "I consider it an attack on our personal right of free speech. Look what recently occurred in Egypt."-'Kill Switch' Internet bill alarms privacy experts

If The Government Shuts Down The Internet...

via Claire Wolfe

Projects to Create a Government-less Internet

Klint Finley — who blogs at Technoccult, and writes regularly for ReadWriteWeb — has a great article over at ReadWriteWeb about creating a government-free Internet; the necessity of which is illuminated by recent events in Egypt, which include the government “shutting down the Internet.”

This happened in Egypt on Thursday Jan 27th; at 22:34 UTC the Egyptian Government effectively removed Egypt from the internet. Nearly all inbound and outbound connections to the web were shut down. The internet intelligence authority Renesys explains it here and confirms that “virtually all of Egypt’s Internet addresses are now unreachable, worldwide.” This has never happened before in the entire history of the internet, with a nation of this size. A block of this scale is completely unheard of, and Senator Joe Lieberman wants to be able to do the same thing in the US.

Yes this could happen here in the U.S., or in the UK, or in Australia, or anywhere else in the world.

Last year Senators Lieberman and Collins introduced a fairly far-reaching bill that would allow the US Government to shut down civilian access to the internet should a “Cybersecurity Emergency” arise, and keep it offline indefinitely. That version of the bill received some criticism though Lieberman continued to insist it was important.

Read the rest: 3 Projects to Create a Government-less Internet, and Why It’s Needed

Are You Ready For A Qwiki?

What's a Qwiki, you ask? This is Qwiki. It's a new search site that they call an "information experience".

Qwiki at TechCrunch Disrupt from Qwiki on Vimeo.

The first check he wrote to an entrepreneur turned him into a billionaire and a lead character in a Hollywood blockbuster.

Now Eduardo Saverin, the Facebook co-founder and onetime friend of Mark Zuckerberg who has shunned the spotlight for the last several years, is writing a much bigger check in hopes of planting a seed that will blossom into another Internet wonder.

On Thursday, Qwiki, a Silicon Valley start-up, announced that Mr. Saverin was the lead investor in an $8 million round of financing. The company, whose Web service responds to search queries with interactive multimedia presentations rather than links, recently received a top award at an Internet conference.- Facebook Co-Founder Backs Start-Up

Your Digital "Legacy"

I didn't know I had one. Oh well. Who's gonna inherit your online crap?

Digital Legacy [pdf]

Facebook Overvalued?

Is social networking site Facebook worth $50 Billion? It has finally (and to me this was a surprise, but then, I'm not on Facebook...yet) passed Google as the most visited website in the United States, but still...

There are a growing number of signs that a bubble is building in tech.


Well, hell, our economy has been built on pretty much nothing but bubbles for the past 30 years...what else is news.

The latest and potentially most disturbing: Investors now believe Facebook is worth $50 billion. Facebook is indeed an innovative and very successful company. It has 550 million users, and accounts for about 1 of 4 American page views. And, as you have probably heard, we at TIME named Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO, the Person of the Year. But the company isn't making that much money yet. Its revenue, while impressive and probably growing fast, is nowhere near $50 billion. And because it has undertaken an unorthodox means of making money, it's not clear when the big bucks for Facebook will start rolling in. It has also struggled with privacy issues. So are the high values for tech stocks, particularly Facebook, setting investors up for a dangerous fall? Perhaps.

Read more: Is Facebook Really Worth $50 billion?

AltaVista Search Engine Will Be No More

AltaVista was launched in 1995 and, for a great many people including myself, was the search engine of choice for many years. It was set up by researchers at Digital Equipment Corporation’s Western Research Laboratory.

AltaVista and Delicious to Close in 2011

The Internet, The State, and Liberty

With all this fuss over Wikileaks, I’ve noticed that the supporters seem to believe that the Internet has provided the technology to combat tyranny and corruption like nothing else.  I think many people are becoming arrogant in thinking that they can beat the State simply by logging on.  I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the State has always found a way to combat the efforts of the people to be free.  It is reflected in the long history of man’s struggle to dominate and fight against dominance.

The natural tendency of the State is to devise new means to conquer, to subdue, and to crush the opposition.  The very nature of the government is similar to a drug cartel (or any other cartel, really).  They do not like competition and they will fight tooth and nail to keep their power.

What Wikileaks has done is annoy them.  Sure, they have retaliated against Julian Assange, as any sane person would argue that Assange is innocent if the only evidence is a broken condom.  We all know that these rape charges are bogus and that the State is using these women in order to set an example for the rest of us.  Of course, to believe that, you’d also have to believe that there was some group behind the scenes orchestrating the events we are seeing now.

Whoever they are, if they do exist, it is clear that they seek to dominate and profit from the rest of us.  My chief goal in life has been to get to a point where I don’t have to be bothered by anyone.  I have no desire for power or dominion over others.  Why should I seek to steal the freedom of my fellow man in order to obtain my own?  Sure, it’s much more difficult to do so, but I think it is all worth it.

These men have other ideas in mind.  Many of them are probably guided by their own ideologies, which are more than likely various Statist theories, such as Fascism, communism, and Socialism, cobbled together for their own benefit.  I’m certain there is a religious component as well, although they may have devolved into mere hedonists without reverence to any god, which makes them even more dangerous.  Say what you want about religion, but it does keep most people honest.

Conspiracy aside, the very nature of the State is one of violence and vengeance.  Sure they use terms like ‘armed conflict’, ‘justice’, and ‘equality’, but if you have any sense you’ll know that the State is always set up not to govern, but to oppress.  Sure, every once and a while some men come along who seek to establish something better, like the Founding Fathers did, but that never lasts long.  It didn’t take long for the Federal government to pass the Alien and Sedition Acts.

Keep in mind also that while the Internet is an electronic repository of trillions of ideas (and many like mine are usually worthless), there are physical points of access that the State can regulate and control.  Routers can be shut down, wires can be cut, and domains can be blocked.  The United States government has demonstrated slick craftiness in developing a worm that literally took out Iran’s nuclear program, even though that whole system was on a closed network.  Do not assume for a minute that the State cannot come up with ways to properly deal with activity like Wikileaks.

Is the fight worth it?  Well, you have to weigh the benefits of your freedom with the benefits of living under what is now a soft tyranny.  For many people, I suspect that this is not a hard choice to make and that living under a soft tyranny is a great trade off for the benefits you gain from it.  Like having the trains arrive on time and all that.

But don’t lose heart.  The United States was founded by a war of independence, of which only about 33% supported it.  Another third fled to Canada because they enjoyed tyranny.  So while those of us who love liberty and freedom are few, we are able to do so much more.  Never forget that a single man can change the course of humanity.

Coming for Your Website!

Domain names were seized by the Department of Homeland Security, and more specifically, ICE. This happened without Congress passing the Act which would allow the government to make entire websites disappear if infringement is deemed to be "central" to the purpose of the site. So if the bill hasn't been passed what is the Homeland Security doing? TechDirt founder Michael Masnick explains.

Obama Wants Wider Wiretap Law for Web

Fascism continues its ugly rise in the former "Land of the Free". Welcome to the American Police State. And of course they want all the power over the freest medium in history that they can get their filthy hands on, because the Internet is threatening to topple the old order and the control of the ruling class.

Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, traveled to Silicon Valley on Tuesday to meet with top executives of several technology firms about a proposal to make it easier to wiretap Internet users.

Mr. Mueller and the F.B.I.’s general counsel, Valerie Caproni, were scheduled to meet with senior managers of several major companies, including Google and Facebook, according to several people familiar with the discussions.

...

Mr. Mueller wants to expand a 1994 law, the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, to impose regulations on Internet companies.

Wider Wiretap Law for Web

Facebook Busting Bad Drivers

Obama Worse Than Bush

The Obama administration is seeking to make it easier for the FBI to compel companies to turn over records of an individual's Internet activity without a court order if agents deem the information relevant to a terrorism or intelligence investigation.

The administration wants to add just four words -- "electronic communication transactional records" -- to a list of items that the law says the FBI may demand without a judge's approval. Government lawyers say this category of information includes the addresses to which an Internet user sends e-mail; the times and dates e-mail was sent and received; and possibly a user's browser history.-White House proposal would ease FBI access to records of Internet activity

The World’s First Pirate ISP

The Swedish Pirate Party, who are at the forefront of anti-copyright lobbying in Sweden, are planning to shake up the country’s ISP market. After taking over the supply of bandwidth to The Pirate Bay, Piratpartiet will now partner in the launch of Pirate ISP, a new broadband service that will offer anonymity to customers and provide financial support to the Party.

To defend the rights of BitTorrent users worldwide, the Swedish Pirate Party volunteered to provide bandwidth to The Pirate Bay after previous hosts got into legal trouble in May. At the beginning of July, the Pirate Party surprised again. Not only would they be The Pirate Bay’s new host, but they would use Parliamentary immunity to run the site from inside the Swedish Parliament.

Now the Party have made another interesting announcement. Together with technology partners, they will enter the broadband market with Pirate ISP, a new service designed to deliver consumer Internet in line with the Pirate Party’s ideals.

Gustav Nipe, student of economics, long-standing Pirate Party member and CEO of Pirate ISP told TorrentFreak that Pirate ISP is based on the hacker ontology. “If you see something and you think it’s broken you build a patch and fix it. With that as a reference point we are launching an ISP. This is one way to tackle the big brother society.”

“The Pirate ISP is needed in different ways. One is to compete with other ISPs, let them fight more for our internet. If they don’t behave there will always be someone else taking their share,” Nipe added.

Aside from the competition angle, Gustav Nipe told TorrentFreak that the Pirate ISP will maximize privacy for all its customers. Operated by ViaEuropa – the company behind the iPredator anonymity service – Pirate ISP users will remain anonymous.

World’s First Pirate ISP Launches In Sweden

h/t A Division by Zer0

The Mainstream Media Will Save Us!

These two CNN pro-state shills (Kyra Phillips and John Roberts) discuss the Internet's "wild west" Dark Side (Ooooh Scary!) "all the time". And no wonder they do, because the freedom of the Internet threatens the very foundations of the State that supports the Statist media that has provided such shills with such a good living for so long. No mention of the "dark side" of the regime "news" organizations, though, like spreading the State's lies about the need for an attack and invasion of Iraq (that led to the death of tens of thousands of civilians).

And Kyra sure is a supporter of the State and all its glorious wars of "liberation". As Glenn Greenwald writes:

...this is the same Kyra Phillips responsible for one of the more disgusting television moments of the last decade. In April, 2003, she interviewed the doctor treating Ali Abbas, a 12-year-old Iraqi boy who had just lost 15 relatives, including his father, pregnant mother and three siblings, as well as both of his arms, in an errant American missile strike on the Baghdad suburb where he lived. While this child had burns all over his body, some of them infected, putting him in constant pain, Phillips asked his doctor this question:

Doctor, does he understand why this war took place? Has he talked about Operation Iraqi Freedom and the meaning? Does he understand it?

As Joan Walsh put it at the time: Phillips asked this "question" after the doctor explained that Ali said he hopes no other "children in the war will suffer like what he suffered"; "Phillips seemed shocked by Ali's apparent inability to understand we were only trying to help him."

As Greenwald also points out, the two CNN anchors are concerned about the anonymity the Internet provides, even though the case in question (Shirley Sherrod) didn't involve an anonymous blogger at all. He also amusingly shows the hypocrisy of the media's highly paid professional "journalists" when it comes to "anonymity", as so much of their "reporting" is the spreading of rumors and opinions from "anonymous sources".-CNN anchors attack the scourge of anonymity


In the video below, Andrew Keene (Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing our Culture), is featured, praising the Mainstream Media for coming "to the rescue" to straighten it all out.

On bloggers, Kyra Phillips then said "something is going to have to be done legally. . . . these people have to be held accountable, they're a bunch of cowards." Yes, "legally", so we get the Mainstream Media's friend and supporter the State involved.

“How about all these bloggers that blog anonymously. They say rotten things about people and they're actually given credibility, which is crazy”.-Kyra Phillips

Phillips and Roberts then talk about a “gatekeeper” (it should be the media, surprise!). Roberts thinks people should “put their name to it” when they make statements about others. Of course, the Mainstream Media doesn't force their anonymous sources to "put their name to it" when they report what those sources say about others.


From Greenwald again The catty, harmful insults in the 2004 campaign that John Kerry "looks French" and John Edwards is the "Breck Girl" were introduced to the public by The New York Times' Adam Nagourney, quoting an anonymous Bush aide.

Yes, it's "crazy" to give credibility to bloggers, but not journalists like former National Public Radio producer Sarah Spitz, who said of Rush Limbaugh that she would "Laugh loudly like a maniac and watch his eyes bug out" while watching him die and that she "never knew I had this much hate in me. But he deserves it."

I guess we can trust her and other mainstream media figures to give us honest, objective reporting, unlike the world of bloggers where, in the words of Roberts "anyone's enemy can take something nasty and post it".




Video via LRC Blog

Liberation by Internet: How Technology Destroys Tyranny