A Quantum Immortal

Do you care about a free, open internet?
Do you care about Israel?

If so, please head over to netneutral.org.il, and help.

netneutral is a new site that I created, under the banner of the Israeli Pirate Party … but forget your politics for now (the site is not affiliated with IPP, it’s independant). A paralemnt member by the name Yaniv Levin has proposed a new law. Roughly translated, it reads:

If a police officer has reason to suspect that a website is used to commit a felony, that police officer has the authority to issue a warrant limiting access to this website. ISPs will have to respect this warrant and block the said website.

If you see yourself as unjustly damaged by this warrant, you can appeal it in a court of law.

Now tell me, how is Israel different in this aspect from Iran, China, or even U.S for that matter?

This law makes it so the mere accusation is enough. Regulating illegal activity should be a matter for lawmakers and courts, it’s not right that every police officer will have this much power.

Do you have anywhere between 2 seconds and 2 weeks to help?

• Got 2 seconds only? Please share this post and netneutral.org.il
• If you have some more time, please head over to our github. There are tasks there for designers, marketers, coders … whoever can contribute.
• Do you know key people in the Israeli startup industry? We would appreciate if you let them know what we’re trying to do. Internet companies had a major role in defeating SOPA, we will need the help of Israeli startups as well.

In case you have been living in a hole and haven’t heard about SOPA, I’ll just explain it briefly – it’s a proposed US bill that if passed, would literally destroy the internet as we know it. This bill includes massive punishment for anyone who hosts or streams copyrighted material, or even merely links to such sites (Go TV Links!).

Even sites that host or index user generated content such as Facebook, Wikipedia, WordPress or Google are not except. What’s especially outrages is that no court order is required for liability – if anyone doesn’t like a certain blog post that contains links to copyrighted material, and they file a complaint, if the owner does not remove the offending content, then he is liable, as well as a vast array of internet infrastructure that “assist him in his activity” – Internet Service Providers are expected to block his domain name, payment networks such as Paypal are expected to refuse to work with him. It’s a literal thought police, and it could happen.

Luckily, a lot of companies have stepped up and announced their objections to SOPA. If passed, SOPA could destroy those companies, but I believe that a major part of their objections is also on moral grounds. SOPA is pure evil, a revert to darker times.

Today, the U.S government still controls the internet. The major internet user-facing business are based on U.S soil, as well as payment processors and ISPs. This will not be the situation forever. Bitcoin is proving to be an alternative to the U.S dollar and Paypal, that no body can shut down or control. Namecoin can be a fully distributed alternative to DNS and SSL Certificates. These technologies are not yet mature, but the very idea of SOPA being proposed in the so called “land of the free” clearly shows the necessity of disentangling the internet from U.S control.

The internet is our home. It’s the force that binds us together, and we will not let it be corrupted and controlled.