The UN propped International Telecommunication Union (ITU) began its World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) on December 3 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, aptly named ‘wicket’. Notably, the panel of 193 national delegates was to include Internet giant Google, which decided to protest the regulation of the Word Wide Web in person. Seven days into the eleven day conference both Facebook and Google Internet services crashed. In the closing moments of the WCIT, the USA, UK, Canada and Australia walked out on proceedings that counted a show-of-hands as a binding constituent resolution.

The day after the Google/FB crash, the NYC Post announced Google’s new holding company in Bermuda, shielding the Online giant from some two billion dollars of global tax deficit. The following day, Google admitted to shutting down its Shopping service in China. Meanwhile, within the conference, voting blocks had formed: India, Japan, Germany, Italy lead Europe in a rally maintaining a deregulated Internet. Almost half of the 193 nations, including Russia, China, Indonesia, Nigeria, Brazil, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia went on to ratify a treaty that boasts strong African, Arabian, Asian and Latin-American membership. Some fifty nations reserved the right to ratify at a later date while some nations simply abstained.

The conference was to mitigate the over one thousand three hundred proposals that critics attest will aid and abet government crack-downs on free speech. Censorship isn’t the only issue; some blocks believe in charging Internet providers for providing free content, while zeroing in and taxing international content to mitigate the specter of confusing multiculturalism in fragile societies.

American developers see these UN tariffs as nothing less than forced economic redistribution of good and services focused on empowering individuals to commune through communication: “Engineers, companies and people that build and use the Web have no vote. The billions of people around the globe that use the Internet, the experts that build and maintain it, should be included,” stated Google Online.

ITU Secretary-General Dr. Hamadoun Touré readily admits to targeting the world’s mobile-phone population (90% of the world by his account) and converting two-thirds of the Earth – the offline population – to an Internet lifestyle. Obviously, he’s talking about leveraging the current market dominators to accelerate market penetration as a UN policy; the preamble of the WCIT treaty certainly states so much in legalese.

While the doctor claims to be fighting for the rights of the developing world, his agency’s using development to separate the bestowers of this technology from their clients by standing against a free and unregulated multicultural Web. The proposition floated by some Europeans to fund developing-market intrusion by taxing international services underlines this point. Information Society politicians seeking to mass the market of the majority of the Earth’s population as an international politic to promote appeal is a founding philosophy of the Internet to be sure. Now it stands for politicians’ grab to price-fix, promoting foreign lobbies in a vicious circle that rewards volume and seeks to grant the voluminous ingenuity over protestations of leading companies.

Despite a unanimous vote resolving USA Congress opposition to the WCIT philosophy of a government-controlled Web December 5 – two days after the start of the WCIT – the USA must admit that it is only due to government facilitation that its miracle machine is organized by the non-for-profit giant Internet Corporation for Assigned Names And Numbers (ICANN).

While Westerners decry governed regulation of the ultimate portal into multiculturalism, the arguments against subordination to stultifying bureaucrats and against UN regulation of App-oriented browsers have wilt before the principal accusation: cultural Fascism. But corporations must be most fearful of increased global competition and powerful ITU regulations that can standardize international telecommunication equipment, championing a myriad of local entrepreneurs to introduce the Americans to the margin-cutting global realities of that nation-state controlled thing: free-speech.

Americans touting to possess the ultimate machine in free speech stand the most to lose as a brand.

But no-one mentions what UN presence represents more than anything else to free-market governments: a biting hindsight that can sue even the intelligence community for human rights’ violations by promoting free-speech in violation of hate-crime legislation.

Surely, the USA could benefit from an international body of inquisitive souls who would like to know how in the GPS-age could the awkward master-mind of the Aurora massacre manage to kill an Airforce Sergeant among his victims in a Colorado movie-house.

UN restrictions against prosecuting neglect may melt in the face of over-sight reality: an out-manned capitalist economy that no-longer polices itself with integrity but only as some Nation-State that is neither Fascist nor Communist nor watching nor political – simply disturbed.

Perhaps this is why a group of WCIT experts showed up in Stanford a week before the Dubai meeting to take part in the discussion: ‘Sticky WCIT: Is This the End of the Internet?’

WCIT marks the setting of the World Wide Web behind the accessible Web and the State-controlled ubiquity of the Internet. Perhaps all three were once synonymous. Now, like a nation-state of three minds, like a Common Wealth of Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom, each community answers for itself to the benefit of the engineered whole.

Perhaps this is why long after the WCIT vote should have been published at the top of engine searches Online, discrepancies rather than harmonies leapt to the fore. ITU spokesperson Sarah Parkes reportedly contended that Google did not attend WCIT as it chose not to participate as an IT member.

So it was a haughty observer?

Google is now listed as the top Congressional lobbyist to 118 Congress members on OpenSecrets.org. So on my Internet search at the end of ITU WCIT, rather than finding a published vote tally, all that was readily available were links to the thirty page agreement and consensus on English outrage. After hours of contradictory reporting, a WCITleaks.org site rose to the helm, linking leading voices of the 4th Estate: the NY Times and Wall Street Journal, Forbes and Vanity Fair.

Follow up news was immediately inconclusive: the English-speaking world had spoken; nothing happened.

The Intellectual Property now isn’t a language – isn’t a code – it’s coding which is only something from nothing according to latest wicket.

Image Courtesy : Itupictures

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What do you think of when you think of Guy Fawkes? Maybe you think of a mask, the Gunpowder Plot, ‘V for Vendetta’ or maybe you think of the group, Anonymous. Anonymous is a group of hacktivists who come together on the internet to share important information that the public may not see otherwise.

The group has made huge headlines exposing the Church of Scientology, supporting anti-corruption movements, and has provided a platform for Iranian citizens to criticize their government. One large group that benefits from Anonymous and anonymous information, is WikiLeaks. The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, is currently facing an American “witch hunt” against him in which the New York Post says, “It’s trying to punish him for leaking American military and diplomatic secrets on his controversial site.”

The question is, how far should one be punished for revealing pertinent, valuable, information? The point of the Anonymous group is to have a safe place to reveal information that one may not be able to release with their name attached to it. Sometimes that is the only way the most important facts can be known.

Anonymous Analytics describes themselves this way:

“We provide the public with investigative reports exposing corrupt companies. Our team includes analysts, forensic accountants, statisticians, computer experts, and lawyers from various jurisdictions and backgrounds. All information presented in our reports is acquired through legal channels, fact-checked, and vetted thoroughly before release. This is both for the protection of our associates as well as groups/individuals who rely on our work.”

The founder, Assange, has currently been told by Swedish officials that he needs to be extradited from the UK where he has been on house arrest for alleged sex crimes. In a speech he made outside of his balcony, he asked that Bradley Manning (a contributor to WikiLeaks who is facing trial soon) be left alone. Manning, a Unites States Army soldier, was arrested in 2010 in Iraq for suspicion of giving classified information to WikiLeaks. He could be incarcerated for “aiding the enemy.” Manning could be seen as an object of treason, or someone who believes in telling the whole truth.

It always seems to be a debate, especially in the field of journalism, if anonymity is “okay” or not. Anonymity can lead to false information, but can also expose information that can change the lives of many people. Anonymous is a group who is challenging power through anonymity. There is a moral issue with this. The public has a right to know this information, but they also have a right to know where the information is coming from and if it is reliable or not.

However, Anonymous seems to be focusing on helping the people, and keeping them aware of what is going on around them. They have dozens of youtube videos, where they expose information and say, “We are Anonymous, we are Legion, we do not forgive,we do not forget, expect us,” as almost a threat to people who are causing harm. In one video, they even tell the U.S. Senate to expect them.

It really says something when a group of people put forth much time and energy into helping the people by researching and exposing groups who are causing harm, and who are not being paid a single cent for it. However, it also means something when they won’t attach their names to it, and are willing to destroy many group’s reputations and people’s lives at the same time.

Image Courtesy of  zigazou76

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Anonymous has attacked several British Government websites in support of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. In the attack titled #OpFreeAssange, Anonymous took down both the site of the Ministry of Justice as well as the site of the Department for Work and Pensions with the message ‘Tango Down http://www.dwp.gov.uk/  & http://www.justice.gov.uk #Assange’ posted by the #AnonymousIRC account.

Assange was granted Asylum by the Ecuadorian government earlier last week, following over two months of waiting within the Ecuadorian embassy after he broke his bail conditions and stayed there overnight. As a result, Assange has been unable to leave the embassy for fear of being arrested.

However, the British government warned that it could still enter the embassy despite the diplomatic immunity he has and arrest Assange. While the British Government have yet to follow through on this threat fully and arrest Assange, they have not seen fit to withdraw it either. The police did enter the embassy two days ago and although they did not arrest Assange, this act could have been the Government showing they will enter and arrest him should they choose to.

Addressing the public keeping watch outside the embassy Assange, said in a speech on Tuesday “Inside this embassy after dark I could hear teams of police swarming up into the building through its internal fire escape, but I knew there would be witnesses and that’s because of you.”

While it is not clear whether Anonymous’ members appear to be carrying out their attacks just for fun or as a way of causing disruption, they do have loosely agreed goals that they attempt to achieve. The main factor prompting Anonymous to launch an attack is any attempt from government’s to curtail people’s freedom of speech or rights especially concerning censorship of the internet.

This can be seen in their defence of several pirating websites, as well as their involvement in the Occupy movement. Therefore it is easy to see just why they have leapt to the defence of Assange. After all, Assange’s website is devoted to bringing news to the public, and like Anonymous, has received condemnation for its methods of obtaining data.

The attack, which also apparently targeted the Prime Ministers No 10 and home office websites, was done using Anonymous’ standard method of DDOSing. DDOSing stands for distributed denial of server, and involves a multitude of computers bombarding a website with requests for information. If successful, the server will be unable to handle the huge amount of information received by the various attackers, and as a result is forced to shut down and stop processing information for the site being attacked.

This type of attack is illegal in both the U.S. and U.K., with laws in place to prevent them from taking place. These laws seem to have done little to prevent people from taking part in the attacks, which have become vastly more popular in recent years.

They are so effective that governments may have started using them. Demonoid, one of the world’s largest torrent websites, was DDOSed and hacked three weeks ago, just days before the Ukranian government raided Demonoid’s servers. This attack was either a huge coincidence or a carefully constructed plan by the Ukranian authorities, turning the attackers’ main weapon against them.

Image Courtesy of   Uros Zunic / Shutterstock.com

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As technology advances at such a rapid pace, government regulations of censorship of the internet are cracking down just as fast. In recent weeks, an anonymous group has begun attacking the Indian government in retaliation of the government blocking citizens from using certain websites.

The websites that have been banned to the public thus far include, “YouTube, Vimeo (a video sharing website), Pastebin (a web application that allows users to write a large amount of text for public viewing), Daily Motion (another video sharing website) and The Pirate Bay (a Swedish website that allows users to download music, movies, games, software, etc), all in an effort to fight online piracy,” says Reporter DJ Pangburn.

Internet censorship has become a global issue. Is it perhaps that governments in various countries don’t want their citizens to see certain things on websites? Pangburn uses examples of the growth of censorship by mentioning that, “of course, it isn’t right to steal and distribute content, but it’s also not right to resort to draconian, Orwellian measures that empower governments to control the Internet.

Indeed, this architecture of control could be used for any variety of measures to stop what the government doesn’t want Internet users to see. This Internet censorship effort is truly global, with various treaties, executive agreements and UN proposals such as one currently being pushed by Russia, Iran and China that would have the UN implement an Internet code of conduct and create a superstructure to manage it all.”

The group ‘Anonymous’ keeps their identity concealed by wearing decorated masks or cloth to cover everything but their eyes. The group is communicating with the Indian government and the rest of the world through a program on the internet they created called ‘Anonymous Operations.’

On their website, the group recently announced they “had taken down the Indian Supreme Court and All India Congressional websites, as well as the Department of Telecommunications with the hacking collective accusing the Indian government of censorship and corruption in the form of bribery,” says Pangburn.

A member of India’s Upper House, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, wrote a letter to India’s Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, expressing his opposition over India’s recent attempt to control the Internet through a United Nations committee. He wrote that, “any attempt to expand government’s power over the Internet should be turned back,” according to his website, Death & Taxes.

‘Anonymous’ chose June 9 as the protest day for the censorship of the internet in India. Several protest sites have already been announced including Mumbai, New Delhi, Chandigarh, Indore, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Kochi, Kozhikode, Nagpur and Pune, according to the Times of India.

‘Anonymous’ has made a statement in regard to what they are hoping for as a result of the protests, but wants it to be known that they have no plans of this becoming a violent retaliation against the government. In the groups press release they stated, “this is to be a 100% Non-Violent Civil rights protest,” and encouraging “any one who feels they need this movement needs to be in their city can start a FB page for the Occupy City movement and let us know about it.”

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Thursday, April 26, the House of Representative approved the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) on a bipartisan vote by a margin of 248 to 168, despite the threat of a possible veto by President Obama.

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act would allow the government to access web users’ private data and to pass on information to commercial companies on suspicion of cyber attacks and hacker threats, and it would allow also the companies to share their users’ information with the government and security agencies to ensure the networks’ security.

The Obama Administration strongly opposes the measure and it says the law repeals “important provisions of electronic surveillance law without instituting corresponding privacy, confidentiality and civil liberties safeguards.”

In a statement on Wednesday, the White House has also threatened to veto the House bill.  “[CISPA] would allow broad sharing of information with governmental entities without establishing requirements for both industry and the government to minimize and protect personally identifiable information,” reads the statement. “The broad liability protection not only removes a strong incentive to improving cybersecurity, it also potentially undermines our Nation’s economic, national security, and public safety interests.”

Instead of putting private information and cybersecurity in the hands of military and intelligence agencies, the White House would prefer a Senate measure to give the “central role” to the Department of Homeland Security, which is a civilian agency.

Despite the opposition of the Administration, the bill passed with some amendments to the original that moderate its effects and limit the government’s use of threat information to specific purposes such as the protection of individuals from death or serious bodily harm investigation and the prosecution of cybersecurity crimes; protection of minors from exploitation; and the protection of national security.

Advocacy groups, CISPA opponent coalitions and lawmakers strongly condemned the passage of the bill, arguing that these amendments are not enough to assure users’ privacy protection.

“CISPA goes too far for little reason,” said ACLU legislative counsel Michelle Richardson. “Cybersecurity does not have to mean abdication of Americans’ online privacy. As we’ve seen repeatedly, once the government gets expansive national security authorities, there’s no going back. We encourage the Senate to let this horrible bill fade into obscurity.”

“In an effort to foster information sharing, this bill would erode the privacy protections of every single American using the Internet. It would create a “Wild West” of information sharing,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi.

CISPA was introduced by Republican Rep. Mike Rogers in November 2011 and it is supported by more than 800 private companies. Among those include Facebook, Microsoft, AT&T, Intel, IBM and Verizon.

“We can’t stand by and do nothing as US companies are hemorrhaging from the cyber looting coming from nation states like China and Russia,” said Rep. Mike Rogers. “America will be a little safer and our economy better protected from foreign cyber predators with this legislation.” “There is no government surveillance, none, not any in this bill,” he argued referring to the legislation.

Over the last weeks, activist groups and organizations like Avaaz.org, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Reporters Without Borders, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, strongly criticized CISPA and launched campaigns to turn the spotlight on the internet privacy right issues tied to it.

In a video released on April 27, titled “Operation Defense. Phase II,” the famous hacker group ‘Anonymous’ called on American CISPA opponents to take the battle to the street and organize local protests at the offices of the companies that support the bill between May and June.

“Remember, you have a right to protest if you care about your freedom of speech, your right to privacy and your government censoring you. This is your time to act now. We will defend our home. Operation Defense phase two engaged. We are Anonymous. We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Supporters of CISPA, you should have expected us,” the video statement concludes.

After SOPA, CISPA is the new battle for the internet, but what will be the next? 

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Controversial YouTube user AnonymousVoice777 has made a video threatening to target the servers hosting Facebook, Twitter and more in light of Congress’ recent closure of Megaupload.com.

Less than 72 hours after the closure of popular file-sharing website Megaupload, YouTube user AnonymousVoice777 has posted a video in which threats are made to the security of social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as to corporate companies and even the United Nations. The video’s narrator, using the guise of a voice modulator, dictates that:

“We are prepared to unleash a full-scale global blackout of these websites … if Megaupload is not reinstated to the Internet. We have access to banking and credit card information of millions of citizens … to those who support SOPA … you have been warned.”

The video closes with the voice declaring:

“We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.”

The claims made here are as of yet unsubstantiated, but the video has become a viral sensation since it was first posted on January 19th, so far attracting close to half a million hits while AnonymousVoice777’s YouTube channel has amassed over 2,000 subscribers. There is no indication that the threats made here will indeed amount to anything in execution, however, the popularity of the video suggests that public opposition to the highly-contested SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) bills is as strong as ever.

These bills, which seek to make amendments to the current rules and monitoring of copyright piracy, have so far been stalled after House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith postponed the vote “until there is wider agreement on a solution.” Nevertheless, supporters of AnonymousVoice777 appear eager to continue in their protests of the bills before any such vote can be carried out, with one further video appearing on late Monday (January 23rd) with information on how the public can get involved with this alleged multi-platform blackout.

The gargled narrator repeats its earlier declaration and provides an in-depth breakdown of how this blackout would take place on its scheduled date of January 28th.

AnonymousVoice777’s identity remains unknown, however, the possibility of it being a title adopted by unconnected opposers to SOPA and PIPA has been raised after Senator Chuck Grassley’s Twitter account was hacked by a figure urging Grassley’s followers:

“Dear Iowans, vote against ACTA, SOPA, and PIPA because this man, Chuck Grassley wants YOUR Internet censored and all of that BS.”

These tweets have since been deleted and no reference to the hacking was made in AnonymousVoice777’s latest YouTube video, thus, the uncertainty over the user’s true identity has only served to strengthen public interest in these proposed acts of protests; whether or not anything will come of these allegation remains to be seen.

Rob Kints / Shutterstock.com

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Anonymous has been very active, posting videos via Youtube in order to attain a more just and positive world. All viral campaigns are aimed to encourage people to step up and make a difference in today’s unequal society.

On July 16, Internet hacking group Anonymous released a two-minute long video, plotting against Facebook. Their bone to pick with Facebook is its deception of users, regarding privacy on Facebook.

Facebook has legally maneuvered its terms and conditions so that it allows them to sell users’ private information with consent. Facebook has records of users’ logs and has access to said information, which is a breach of privacy. They know more about users than the people we come into contact with every day.

In order to send a message to Facebook and its users, as a result of its misappropriation of rights, Anonymous announced that on November 5 Facebook will illegally be shut down. The name Guy Fawkes was a trending topic on Twitter on August 10.

This date was not chosen at random; it is connected with their identity and is the idea behind the mask. The idea was inspired by Guy Fawkes, a man who is known for taking part in a failed plot to bring down King James in 1605.

Recent updates show that members of Anonymous are in a sort of civil war; the entire group is not in agreement with the idea of bringing Facebook down. In a Twitter post they say “#OpFacebook is being organized by some Anons.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that all of #anonymous agrees with it.” The message of the campaign is to bring awareness to the lack of privacy Facebook grants users when they agree to its terms and conditions upon joining.

Anonymous is not enthused about the gross violation of privacy put upon people, in order to provide advertisers with personal information, which makes the spamming of pages possible.

The message spread so quick that it inspired them to release a new video pertaining to the London riots that took place earlier this month. The operation is known as Operation Britain. The message was to motivate protestors to speak up for their rights on October 15 and to resolve conflicts in a peaceful manner.

They do not condone “thuggery” but support the reasoning for the actions that took place in London. In their message they say “The riots that we have witnessed over the last week, whilst violent and misguided are a product of decades of neglect inflicted on your country by various governments.

We do not condone mindless thuggery, but that does not stop us from seeing the reality behind it,”

Later in the video, Anonymous said, “Saturday October 15, 2011 will be your opportunity for rebellion. We call on Britain to unite and organise peacefully. Unions, anti-cuts groups, community organisations, students, activists, citizens: you know your political system is not fit for purpose,”

There is no definitive answer as to whether what Anonymous is doing is right

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