Many people probably do not realize what is going on right now in the world of the internet, or its inner workings anyhow…SOPA the Stop Online Piracy Act, which is being heavily pushed by many Hollywood studios and other media production companies to allow government to basically make websites accused of housing illegal materials such as copyrighted media illegal and allow them to force the websites to be blocked.

Essentially this bill will allow the government to control what is allow and not allowed on the internet, long story short. Many people and organizations are opposing these bills as they fear they will cause severe damage to the internet’s inner mechanics as well as the fact that it doesn’t actually solve the problem at hand.

With SOPA the initial bill allowed government to force ISPs and other DN providers to remove DNS entries to websites accused of hosting pirated material. While this may sound okay it is cause for concern on many levels. One of which is the fact the simply removing the DNS entry is not going to correct the problem because the website can still be browsed to via its actual IP.

While I am not going to go into much detail on the bills for lack of time…it should be said that people need to be pushing their congressman to vote this down just the same as the many organizations are pushing against it. Many organizations are planning protests against the bills. Some of those companies are Google, Wikipedia, Reddit, etc. There is currently a list of some 500+ websites that will be shutting their websites off tomorrow in an effort to protest these bills.

To read more about Googles stance and others on SOPA and PIPA click here.

To read more about Wikipedias stance on SOPA click here.

To view the ever growing list of companies also joining in on the blackout tomorrow click here.

Ever since technology has been becoming more entwined with our society people have wondered just who is watching. As a matter of fact this idea of “Big Brother” has been around for years. Anyone remember “1984” by George Orwell. Seems the government and other organizations are stepping closer and closer to the ideas portrayed in this book in many different ways every day.

Over the past year there have been numerous occasions with various forms of technology that have been caught tracking its users without explicit permission to do so. Apple, Android (Google), and many others have all done this and now you can add one more to the guilty list. That’s right; everyone’s beloved Facebook has been caught using tracking cookies after its users logged out of their website which the company claims it was only using to improve their users experience on their webpages.

So are you being tracked right now? In my opinion, since it seems like everyday people discover other ways that companies can track users of their items, possibly. Due to the fact that our country uses so much technology and companies try to find out how the technology is being used to “improve customer experience” then I think it’s probably a pretty good chance that something you are using now, or at least later, will track your behaviors in some manner.

If you're interested in reading more click here.

In the past there have been numerous cases on privacy and what the government/court system considers over stepping ones bounds when doing an investigation. Currently there is a case in Colorado Springs in which Ramona Fricosu is accused of a mortgage scam. Law enforcement found a laptop in her home while doing a search which has encrypted data on it. Since the law enforcement agents at the labs working the case are having trouble cracking the encryption key on the laptop they are offering Romona a deal to just give them the key so they can see the data on the laptop. Obviously at this point Ramona along with here attorney has refused this request.  So the question arises, just how far is too far when investigating someone? What constitutes a breach of ones right to the Fifth Amendment? 

Ramona’s attorney makes a very good point that, yes, the Fifth Amendment protects a person from divulging such information. So, will the courts rule in favor of the prosecution and force Ramona to give this information out? No one knows for sure at this point. One thing is for sure, this is just one more base to cover in an ever changing society of technology. 

Above is a picture of Attorney Phil Dubois, Ramona’s attorney, whom specializes in Criminal Defense and Internet Law.

If you’re interested in reading more about this case and how it could affect your rights click here.