Congress Debates SOPA, Hypocritically Downloads Illegally Itself

[qubit]

Almost everyone who understands something about technology will have heard of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) (H.R.3261) currently being debated in the U.S. House. This is internet censorship legislation by any other name and anyone that doesn't have a vested interest in it like the big media cartels is against it. This is because it hands almost total control of the internet to powerful (read: money) special interest groups, allowing them to shut down websites at the mere whiff of an accusation of 'piracy', however small and however unfounded. This will easily ruin many legitimate businesses, all on the pretext of 'protecting copyright' from supposed 'financial losses' due to content 'theft'. It also does an awful lot of other things, all of them bad, which are fully detailed in the link above. Now, if anyone thinks that this is far-fetched, just look at how the current 'darling' of the internet, GoDaddy operates: they pulled the DNS records of weebly.com, because of one little complaint against the site and without even contacting the domain owner first to advise of the situation. Disgraceful. Give them SOPA and a webmaster doesn't stand a chance, regardless of their size.



However, in a revelation that will surprise nobody, it turns out that members of Congress have been downloading illegally themselves – shock! A little investigation by the good people at TorrentFreak has demonstrated that these people are complete and total hypocrites. Yes, hypocrites. So, how did they out this revelation? We'll let DailyTech explain the fine details:

TorrentFreak used Hurricane Electric's handy list of assigned IP blocks (found here) to track down which IP addresses belong to the offices of members of Congress. And lo and behold, when those addresses were compared to results on YouHaveDownloaded, a torrent tracking site, they yielded over 800 hits.

Now to put this in context YouHaveDownloaded tracks only a tiny portion of torrent traffic, so it appears that Congress -- even as they look to punish lesser mortals for file sharing -- are themselves gleefully committing a "smash and grab" as Vice President Joe Biden (D) once put it.

Yes, that can only mean one thing: one rule for the rich and corrupt elite and another (much harsher and unreasonable) one for the rest of us. Here's a couple of screenshots of the many incriminating results obtained by TorrentFreak:


Pirate Windows! Throw them in jail!



This is porn, the details of which you don't want to know

Hopefully, there will be enough of an outcry to eventually stop this abomination of a bill from ever becoming law.

There's lots more info on this kind of corruption reported daily, over at techdirt.com

Propaganda picture credit: Shepard Fairey

[seronx]

Porn REALLY?

[entropy13]

[FordGT90Concept]

You know, those might be by staffers and not the elected officials themselves. It is also IP address based and we all know how accurate that is (not). Not saying they're innocent, just pointing out the facts.

[theJesus]

I lol'd so hard when I saw "Gangland.Cream.Pie.21" listed there.

edit: Oh, shush, Ford, nobody wants to hear logic.

[aradi]

Damn FreeMasons they want every thing to them self's and nothing to the rest of us

most of the SOPA supporters are free masons

[qubit]

Originally Posted by FordGT90Concept

You know, those might be by staffers and not the elected officials themselves. It is also IP address based and we all know how accurate that is (not). Not saying they're innocent, just pointing out the facts.

That actually doesn't help them at all in terms of justification, because of the following reasons:

- It may or may not be the officials; it's not possible to tell, just like it isn't with private accounts
- Regardless of who it is, the whole organization is supposed to be against illegal downloads, so everyone working for it represents it. If one employee slips up, the whole organization is deemed to have failed
- When some poor schmuck account holder has a friend download something without his knowledge, or has his wi-fi hacked etc, these parasites still try to nail him as the 'responsible party'. Same shit applies here; it don't matter who's done it, the top guy is still liable. Double standards otherwise. Oh, wait...

[entropy13]

Ford harder, troll. I mean troll harder, Ford.

[newtekie1]

I'm waiting for idiots at Congress to use the same excuse the idiots at the RIAA used: "It totally wasn't us, it was someone else using our IPs!" Of course it has always been the RIAA's stance that a person IP linked to downloading was enough to sue the shit out of people, and right after saying that lame ass excuse the RIAA sued a bunch more people based solely on the fact that the people's IPs were linked to downloading copyrighted material...

[Fx]

Originally Posted by aradi

Damn FreeMasons they want every thing to them self's and nothing to the rest of us

most of the SOPA supporters are free masons

ladies and gentlemen, we have a BINGO over here!

[Bundy]

Originally Posted by qubit

That actually doesn't help them at all in terms of justification, because of the following reasons:

- It may or may not be the officials; it's not possible to tell, just like it isn't with private accounts
- Regardless of who it is, the whole organization is supposed to be against illegal downloads, so everyone working for it represents it. If one employee slips up, the whole organization is deemed to have failed
- When some poor schmuck account holder has a friend download something without his knowledge, or has his wi-fi hacked etc, these parasites still try to nail him as the 'responsible party'. Same shit applies here; it don't matter who's done it, the top guy is still liable. Double standards otherwise. Oh, wait...

LOL qubit - don't you see what the most logical move that the politicians might do now....the same as if someone revealed drug use in congress. It will involve a witch hunt, not an empathetic withdrawal.

[Darkleoco]

Can't wait until this load of shit is thrown out of congress if this kind of hypocrisy isn't dealt with at the top then what kind of example does that set for everyone else?

[tolzkutz]

Against piracy and I think it should be persecuted by the law. But closing websites because they used materials by the big media is not very cool. All torrents that represent copyrighted material should be banned though!

[Fx]

Originally Posted by tolzkutz

Against piracy and I think it should be persecuted by the law. But closing websites because they used materials by the big media is not very cool. All torrents that represent copyrighted material should be banned though!

this is not about piracy- it is about censorship

[Aleksander]

nice but the movement needs to be more powerful

[MicroUnC]

davidicke.com "Forums" have way more info about SOPA subject than here. Check it out guys!

[MicroUnC]

Originally Posted by Fx

this is not about piracy- it is about censorship

100% agree!

[mod2max]

SOPA... hmmmmm.

I think if this act is inforced then we will see the following changes.


1) The war that is raged over the internet EVERYDAY will increase and become extremely (more so) violent.

*Speaking of war, Anonymous attacked Sony again (did anyone know?). Then Nintendo VERY quietly withdrew their support for SOPA. For full details go to > http://www.geek.com/articles/games/a...port-20111230/.

2. Organized (on street) crime will make an extremely violent and unexpected come back.

3. All the people that currently download software will be left with nothing to do, will they consider doing something that will make them heard? Will they murder someone?


Anything bad you can think of is now becoming possible, or is possible once again.

WELCOME TO THE NEW AGE!

[hardcore_gamer]

Gotta fight SOPA!!!

BRB after downloading Gangland

[_JP_]

Politicians are hypocrites. Whoop-de-doo. So people didn't realize that right after electing them? I mean, it doesn't take SOPA to know they are a bunch of people with no ethic.

[qubit]

Originally Posted by _JP_

Politicians are hypocrites. Whoop-de-doo. So people didn't realize that right after electing them? I mean, it doesn't take SOPA to know they are a bunch of people with no ethic.

Of course people realized it. However, this information can be used against them to block SOPA - that's the point of outing it.

Anyway, never mind that - Happy New Year!!

[_JP_]

Originally Posted by qubit

Of course people realized it. However, this information can be used against them to block SOPA - that's the point of outing it.

Anyway, never mind that - Happy New Year!!

A campaign to find dirt would help to discredit them all (senators/lobbyists), thus making SOPA look like a badly made joke. Although I think that could also backfire, because if SOPA is taken as a bad joke, it stops having the menacing look/presence and that might be dangerous.
Happy new year.

[TheMailMan78]

Originally Posted by aradi

Damn FreeMasons they want every thing to them self's and nothing to the rest of us

most of the SOPA supporters are free masons

lol Freemason conspiracy?? You got to be kidding me. Really? This is all the piracy crowd has now?

Originally Posted by mod2max

2. Organized (on street) crime will make an extremely violent and unexpected come back.

WELCOME TO THE NEW AGE!

Yes because all the Bloods and Crips of L.A. became macfags at the dawn of the internet. Are you a Hells Angel? Theres an app. for that.

[Suhidu]

Congress is ready for this, they've all started leeching self-help books like mad. The peer-count on my "Digital Assassination: Protecting Your Reputation" PDF just shot up tremendously.

[Fx]

Originally Posted by TheMailMan78

lol Freemason conspiracy?? You got to be kidding me. Really? This is all the piracy crowd has now?

Yes because all the Bloods and Crips of L.A. became macfags at the dawn of the internet. Are you a Hells Angel? Theres an app. for that.

look at this from an overview instead of with tunnel vision. they proposed SOPA, PIPA and NDAA 2012 all within a very short period of time. all of them eviscerate our rights under the Constitution. you can also take note of Fast & Furious and see that is the tried and true Hagalean Dialect method that is meant to undermine the 2nd Amendment

I know it is a lot to believe that they could actually have alternative motives other than the "piracy" or "protection from terrorism" bs they are feeding the public but all of the evidence points towards that direction

"The individual is handicapped by coming face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists."
-J. Edgar Hoover, FBI Director 1924-1972