blindflower:

3liza:

ACTA passed one of the several voting gates it needs to get through before becoming law.

It was ratified in Poland last night.  This was the scene at Polish parliament afterwards, as (presumably) a bloc of anti-ACTA politicians expressed their displeasure and, perhaps without knowing it, foretell of the Anonymous repercussions to this bill.

Some things you should know:

• Online petitions are meaningless.  While they are well-intentioned and organized, the signing of a digital petition takes about twenty seconds, and does not require that you leave your beanbag chair in the coal cellar.  Politicians know this, and pay just as much attention to online petitions as is warranted by a “political action” that is literally less strenuous than leaving a YouTube comment.
• Nothing except direct action is going to do a goddamn thing.  This means getting out in the street, it means DDoSing, it means vicious and widespread boycotts, site blackouts, and other strongarm tactics that actually impact the flow of money from corporations to lobbyists to politicians.  How do you, as a tiny flailing consumer, do this?  You can’t, really.  You can join up with groups that are intent on doing actions that actually mean something, adding your voice to a chorus of hundreds or thousands, instead of screaming alone.  You can contact celebrities, the spokespeople of our time, as ask them to leverage their followers on the issue.  You can write to Tumblr and ask for more blackouts.  None of these things will be very effective, so don’t be too disappointed when they don’t work, but they sure as fuck are more effective than online petitions, and the intense response to SOPA by corporations and consumers was responsible for getting it “tabled” (not dead, but dreaming lies).
• ACTA was already signed by Obama in September of 2011.  He had been praising the bill for over a year prior, and signed it without reservation.  Most of us didn’t hear about it, and he likely used the 9/11 coverage to make sure of that.
  
  
• Eventually, one of these bills will pass, and the pro-corporate laws will go into effect.  Expect it.  Be prepared.  Learn to circumvent this garbage and you’ll have a leg up when the feds shut down the internet as we know it.
  
  
• The best thing you can do now is install Tor and learn how to use it.  Tor is free software and an open network that helps you defend against a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security known as traffic analysis.  In order to circumvent the coming corporate takeover of the web, we’re going to have to go underground, creating a sub-internet of encrypted nodes known as a “darknet”.  It’s probably going to be like the internet was in the beginning, with most people only seeing what AOL wanted them to see, and only a small group of super-nerds existing outside of that bubble in the “real” internet.  It’ll take another twenty years for them to catch up to us again.
  
  
• Welcome to the grim cyberpunk future.

I don’t usually do anything but read and make mental notes of posts like these, but to be honest I think this is the most relevant post I’ve seen on this topic in quite awhile.

Everyone is afraid of ACTA. There’s so much in it that could mean terrible consequences for basically everyone you know. Internet Service Providers now being required by law to be responsible for what you do on the internet is scary.

Some people seem to be blowing this off as “the police have better things to do”. Which is true. They do. But the creation of ACTA means that the countries where it’s signed have basically created an entirely new police force dedicated to finding you. And that police force is the very same company that is providing you access to the internet in the first place.

Is that a terrifying enough thought for you? 

Many, many people feel they don’t have the time or interest to get into the really technical aspects of what it really means to be on the internet. But for all those people who couldn’t be bothered before, it has now become a necessity.

You need to start learning the meaning and the use of a whole new language. Proxies, IP addresses, tunneling, caches, cookies, the whole nine yards. And you are going to have to learn how to manage them, in all applications you have that access the net. Or you can say goodbye to the freedom you used to enjoy on the web.

Prepare for the worst. Hope for the best.