Wikipedia and more sites offline for 24 hrs

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**thenoobbomb**

Wikipedia plans to shut down its online encyclopaedia for 24 hours on Wednesday in protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA.)

"Student warning, do your homework early, Wikipedia protesting bad law on Wednesday!" posted site co-founder Jimmy Wales in a Tweet on Tuesday.

The SOPA anti-piracy bill, currently being debated by the US House of Representatives, and the PROTECTIP (PIPA) Act, proposing to tackle online piracy by “foreign rogue websites” that are hosted outside of the United States, creating a series of measures aimed at tightening up control over the internet.

Many companies are against the bill arguing that freedom of speech will be seriously affected by internet censorship and that a number of the opposed measures, which include giving ISPs the ability to block access to foreign websites, are an abuse of power.

"This is an extraordinary action for our community to take - and while we regret having to prevent the world from having access to Wikipedia for even a second, we simply cannot ignore the fact that SOPA and PIPA endanger free speech both in the United States and abroad, and set a frightening precedent of Internet censorship for the world," Wikipedia said in statement released today.

Opinions?

**Wardragoon**

Bloody politicians making my lazy psuedoresearch that much harder to conduct

**thenoobbomb**

I, for one, agree with wikipedia.

**The Dreadnote**

I was going to be annoyed with the downtime, then I realised I could just stop the page from loading before it redirected me. Hah, interrupt my browsing will you?!

**filbert**

I'm guessing there will be a few OT posters who will be remarkably silent whilst this blackout is on-going....

**dogma**

Its annoying because Wikipedia is one of the ways I kill time.

Of course, that being said, SOPA and PIPA are the devil.

**Piston Honda**

Interesting to see the number of sites getting involved.

Although fighting against internet piracy is something I am for to certain extents, the bill is way to vague and easily can be abused.

**dogma**

I rather like this video, from a guy that also went in on the blackout:

**Monster Rain**

filbert wrote:I'm guessing there will be a few OT posters who will be remarkably silent whilst this blackout is on-going....

Damn you, filbert! You totally stole my line!

I think that wikipedia being offline will raise our collective IQ by several points.

**filbert**

Apparently, you can just hit escape when the page loads before the blackout is overlaid and you can read to your heart's content.

Edit - or use the mobile version

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/

**olympia**

dogma wrote:Its annoying because Wikipedia is one of the ways I kill time.

Of course, that being said, SOPA and PIPA are the devil.

Agreed.

**Monster Rain**

I used to read a lot of wikipedia before I discovered tvtropes.

If they go black, I might start caring about this SOPA business.

**dogma**

I actually have that open right now.

I was fiending for some useless information.

**Henners91**

The Dreadnote wrote:I was going to be annoyed with the downtime, then I realised I could just stop the page from loading before it redirected me. Hah, interrupt my browsing will you?!

I was quickly hitting ctrl+c and then pasting the pages into word documents... can't believe I was so stupid as to not realise I could just do that

Although since I am researching the Suez Crisis for a presentation atm, it's easy enough to just load the French page and run it through google translate.

**olympia**

Janes Defence Weekly is good nerd reading
http://jdw.janes.com

**dogma**

Henners91 wrote:
Although since I am researching the Suez Crisis for a presentation atm, it's easy enough to just load the French page and run it through google translate.

If you don't speak French, that's not a good idea.

Nor is using Wikipedia as anything other than an initial source.

**Henners91**

dogma wrote:
Henners91 wrote:
Although since I am researching the Suez Crisis for a presentation atm, it's easy enough to just load the French page and run it through google translate.

If you don't speak French, that's not a good idea.

Nor is using Wikipedia as anything other than an initial source.

Unassessed Presentation

Plus I am basing it mostly on an essay I already wrote, but said essay was on the aftermath so I needed to get more to grips with the event itself.

If I ever dare to use Wikipedia for actual essay work, I just go check out the citations.

**Wolfstan**

I'm currently in the middle of trying to clear out a Win 7 Home Security 2012 rogue malware program on a customers PC. So far it's taken me around an hour. This has been taken up with getting onto the PC, running AVG and it not finding anything, looking it up on the web, downloading and uploading some app killers like rkill and downloading and uploading Malwarebytes, Malwarebytes is now in the middle of running a scan. If this fails to fix it I will have to get the PC back and get it wiped.

I think you will find Mr / Mrs / Ms politician that this costs businesses more sodding money in time and shipping than somebody downloading and watching a CAM quality copy of the latest movie. My bloody numbers will be based on actual factual evidence rather than assuming that every downloaded copy of said CAM movie is a lost cinema ticket sale.

These bloody politicians should wake up and realise that they are being used.

**Henners91**

Tried Spybot? :>

**Wolfstan**

Malwarebytes has picked up on some stuff so wait for the scan to finish, but my point is that this is costing us as a company, real money due to the time taken to get this sorted. It's not the same as some supposed £8 cinema ticket lost sale.

My point is the politicians and governments of this planet should be chase the buggers who put this sort of stuff out there, not somebody who may or may not go to the cinema after downloading a CAM movie.

**Ratius**

I'm guessing there will be a few OT posters who will be remarkably silent whilst this blackout is on-going....

Brilliant.

**Battle Brother Lucifer**

Another site near and dear to me is also protesting

Raeg! (

)

Oh well, id rather wait 24 hours then have everything get ruined by these bills

**Howard A Treesong**

dogma wrote:I was fiending for some useless information.

Knew you were a trouble maker, you fiend!!

**reds8n**

http://newsthump.com/2012/01/18/north-korea-claims-responsibility-for-wikipedia-blackout/

**SagesStone**

Didn't take them long to try to raise the crazy bar.

**biccat**

reds8n wrote:http://newsthump.com/2012/01/18/north-korea-claims-responsibility-for-wikipedia-blackout/

Awesome.

Interesting line in the middle of the story:

Several dogs have been reported missing.

**Asherian Command**

Chicago today had a segement yesterday and they sounded like had no prior experience to the internet.
Why isn't the government allowing internet business's sending in their representives? Where are they getting billions of dollars are lost from piracy. Are you sure thats not someone in their company who is stealing that money? Or is it random numbers that can't be proven.
I know piracy is bad. But seriously reread your laws mate.

**The Dreadnote**

biccat wrote:Interesting line in the middle of the story:

Several dogs have been reported missing.

Don't they eat dog in that part of the world? And in Korea too, come to think of it

**biccat**

The Dreadnote wrote:
biccat wrote:Interesting line in the middle of the story:

Several dogs have been reported missing.

Don't they eat dog in that part of the world? And in Korea too, come to think of it

I assume that was the intended implication.

But it's tremendously out of place.

**The Dreadnote**

No more so than missile parades and giant paper flags, surely?