Anonymous Strikes Back

After taking down Megaupload, the government thought that it sent a clear message to world, stating that they will not put up with piracy and copyright infringement. Although the scoreboard read 1-0 Government, it wouldn't last for long. Just hours after Megaupload was beheaded, the Hacktivist group Anonymous waged war on the government.

Anonymous Logo

For those of you who don't know, Anonymous is a group of unknown activist who coordinate protest and attacks against anti-piracy campaigns, using the Internet as their main weapon. The group is most known for their attacks against the Megaupload and Pirate Bay controversies.

After the government had shut down Megaupload, Anonymous went ahead and struck back. Within hours of Megaupload going offline, multiple government and media related websites also went down. Some of these sites include the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the U.S. Copyright office, the Recording Industry of America, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), and Universal Music, just to name a few. Any attempt at logging into any of these sites proved to be difficult. None of them worked. Anonymous' main weapon of choice was a DDoS attack, or distributed denial of service. Basically what this means is that a bunch of people simultaneouly try to login into a site. This overloads the servers and causes that site to crash. Technically, this is not hacking, since Anonymous didn't do anything more than log into the website. 

If you follow any of the Anonymous fan pages on Twitter, such as @anonops, you got to see every site that got taken down. I'll admit that it was very entertaining to watch as multiple sites were taken down. Anonymous mocked these sites with little quips like, "Tango Down! Tango Down!"

Although the sites were quickly fixed and put back up, a clear message was sent and received.

Anonymous let the government know that their actions will not be taken lightly and that they are not the only people that control the internet. In my opinion, this was a victory for Anonymous and for those who are against the SOPA and PIPA bills. Anonymous spoke for us all by saying that we will not take this lying down. 

Since that night, Anonymous has continued to attack certain websites, showing the government that they are still here and they are watching. Since that night, no other websites have been shut down.

Governments First Strike on Piracy

So I know this is a few weeks old, but I thought I'd talk about it anyways. Last month, Megaupload, a popular file-sharing website, was shut down by the government.

Before I go into it, let me explain exactly what Megaupload is. Megaupload, founded in 2005, was the largest file sharing website on the Internet. Based out of Hong Kong, Megaupload allows users to upload files, such as videos, photos, and music, and then let other users download the files to their own computers. Originally, the site was supposed to be used for strictly legal purposes. Soon users found out they could upload anything, including copyrighted material, and it wouldn't be taken down. This helped make Megaupload the largest file sharing website.

Back to the present. In January, the government went ahead and shut Megaupload down. For a long time, the government had been looking at Megaupload for copyright infringement. With SOPA and PIPA becoming so popular, the government decided it was time to take action, so they shut it down. Here's a link to the Justice Department Indictment if you want to read it. Along with shutting it down, they also took every piece of uploaded material down. Not only did this include all of the illegal material, but also all of the regular user's data. Many people relied on this site as a backup of their files, and others even used it as their main hard drive. People lost family photo albums and their entire music libraries.

Was the government right to shut down Megaupload? Somewhat, I would say. I agree that they did have illegal material up on their website, and for that they should be in trouble, but what about all of those people who used the site the right way? Should they have really had all their data erased?

In my opinion, I believe the government had the right to shut down the website, and also the right to arrest the owners of the website. What I don't feel the government had the right to do was erase all of the data. Instead, the government should have allowed users a chance to get their files off of the website.

I know before I said that I believed the government had the right to shut it down. What I meant by that is they had the right if it was an American made website. Being made in Hong Kong, I don't believe the government had the right to do it. It's a website made in a different country, ran by a different country. It's not the United States government's place to take control of foreign made websites.

Next time, I'll be talking about Anonymous and their strike against the government's actions against Megaupload.

First Post

Hey Internet,

This is my first ever blog! For my Communication Technology class, I have to make a blog and discuss communication related issues for a few weeks. In this blog, I will be talking about the issues of the government trying to take control of the Internet, more specifically, SOPA and PIPA.

Before I get into my opinions on this issue, let me give those who don't really understand these two acts the facts. SOPA (Stop Internet Piracy Act) is a bill that would allow the U.S. Government the right to shut down any website, domestic or international, that in any way infringes on copyright laws. PIPA (Protect IP Act) is a bill that if passed would allow the U.S. Government to take legal action against any site that potentially infringes on copyright laws. For more info, check out SOPA/PIPA Explanation

I am strongly against the government trying to censor the biggest forum of free speech. SOPA has caused an outcry across the Internet community, including some of the largest powerhouses, such as Google, Wikipedia, and Reddit. A few weeks ago, Wikipedia and Reddit went into black-out mode for 24 hours to show the world what life would be like if SOPA was passed. That's a really scary thought.

Thanks for reading and look out for more post. Please comment with any opinions.