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Summary: The hacktivist group Anonymous has gotten so pissed off at Pastebin and its censorship plans that it has created its own alternative: AnonPaste. Its currently in alpha though, so dont expect much.

Earlier this month, the hacktivist group Anonymous complained that Pastebins plans to monitor the sites content for sensitive information was censorship. Now Anonymous has put its money where its mouth is, teaming up with the Peoples Liberation Front (PLF), and launching AnonPaste.

AnonPaste features the basic functionality youd expect, including the ability to expire a paste after 10 minutes, one hour, one day, one month, one year, or never. Theres one big problem though: the pastes are hosted on PLFs website.

While you can paste your content on anonpaste.tk, you get redirected to peoplesliberationfront.net when you hit the Send button. For example, heres a paste I made: peoplesliberationfront.net/anonpaste/index.php?308913c82f300cd3#aweRz3sHi72hC0s/VsyXCncwQ3Epg7BTaq9KvMr+FWs=.

Thats a ridiculously long URL. Theres a Shorten URL button, but it just redirects you to snipurl.com. This is a pain. The good news is that this is AnonPaste Alpha 0.11 so maybe the two groups will eventually host everything on the anonpaste.tk domain.

Pastebin, which has over 200,000 members and 17 million unique visitors per month, has been the de facto choice for hackers who want to publicly post data they have stolen from their targets. Hacker pastes ranges from something simple, like a list of sites that have been hacked, to very detailed information, including administrator credentials for website servers, credit card numbers, phone numbers, e-mail addresses with corresponding passwords, and even home addresses.

Heres how the two groups announced the new site, on AnonPaste of course:

As many might be aware, PasteBin has been in the news lately for making some rather shady claims as to what they are willing to censor, and when they are willing to give up IP addresses to the authorities. And as a recent leak of private E-Mails show clearly, PasteBin is not only willing to give up IP addresses to governments - but apparently has already given many IPs to at least one private security firm. And these leaked E-Mails also revealed a distinct animosity towards Anonymous. And so the PLF and Anonymous have teamed up to offer a paste service truly free of all such nonsense.

AnonPaste is built using open source software called ZeroBin, a minimalist online pastebin where the server has zero knowledge of pasted data, according to the two groups. To improve on it, they are asking for donations via BitCoins or WePay.

The duo wants to emphasize the following five AnonPaste features:

Follow this link:
Anonymous claims Pastebin censorship, creates alternative

Company says it has already altered some proposed changes to its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities because of the reaction they received.

Facebook has scrapped a change to its terms that users complained could be used as an excuse for censorship, and reopened the consultation into the other changes to those terms.

Thousands of users sent in responses to the proposed revisions to Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, during a brief consultation period that Facebook quietly ran in March. The social-networking firm said late today that it would re-open the consultation for the next week, and that it had already altered some proposed changes due on the reaction they received.

"Based on your feedback during the recent comment period for our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities (SRR), we have decided to revise some proposed changes and further explain many others. We are also re-opening our comment period," Facebook said on its site governance page, the only place it now notifies users of changes to its terms.

Read more of "Facebook tweaks terms over censorship fears" at ZDNet UK.

See original here:
Facebook revises terms over censorship fears

In recent weeks, Auraria Higher Education Centers botched handling of a confrontation over an art piece containing adult content has been seething within the Arts Building. But now, accusastions of censorship have caused the controversy to boil over.

A mixed media piece of art titled Garbage Vagina was put up on one of the Post Artwork Here wallsnow the Post Approved Artwork Here wallsin the Arts Building as an attempt by artist Estee Fox to be a part of the showcasing of artwork students on campus can create.

It was a serious subject that I was painting, but it was my own personal expression, said Fox, a Metro junior seeking a BFA with an emphasis in painting. Garbage Vagina depicts a blacked out face on a body with garbage discharging from female genitalia, which holds artistic meaning open for interpretation beyond its initial adult content.

A Metro club got all the administrations to approve of putting up boards for students to elect to hang up their own artwork whenever they wanted without ever going through anybody, said Fox. So that is when I put it up.

Shortly after Fox put up her piece, some students took it into their own hands to censor Foxs artwork. The first attempt by a student involved ripping down Garbage Vagina and leaving a message on the back reading, Not here. People bring their innocent children into this building. Show some fucking courtesy.

In a second effort to remove the piece, another student posted a page long letter near the artwork expressing how the piece offended the student and that Garbage Vagina should be put in an area where people can choose to view it instead of in a public hallway. However, the Post Artwork Here walls were originally intended to be an area designated with the intent to showcase student artwork away from the public.

In the third censorship attempt, a student stabbed a several paged manifesto with a large flip-out knife onto Garbage Vagina covering the woman, shocking Fox at the way it had escalated to an angry threat instead of a civilized attempt to send a message about their objection. The first page read, While the First Amendment guarantees the unhindered expression of creativity, it does not guarantee that expressions validity, quality, or gravitas.

Censorship to me isnt about intimidation. Its about expressing your opinionand an opposing opinionand trying to work to control that together to come to an agreement, as opposed to threatening, said Michael Brohman senior instructor of sculpture at CU Denver. What happened with Estee is more of a threat with a knife. Threat and intimidation as opposed to a planned out sit-down-and-talk your differences over.

Subsequently, Fox filed a BETA report and police report, only to find that no one from administration contacted her during or after the occurrence. A few weeks later, Fox decided to take down Garbage Vagina herself.

The Institute for Womens Studies and Services approached me and asked me to hang it up in their gallery, so we put the painting back up in their building, said Fox. Then we had a brown bag discussion, so I invited people to come and talk to me about the issues and censorship and the painting. The conversation that was happening around it was really good and healthy.

Read more from the original source:
Art censorship stifles speech

Russias Ministry of the Interior plans to set up special centers to assess hate-mongering and extremism in mass media, including online publications, YouTube, and Facebook pages, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said on Friday, according to Ria Novosti.

Nurgaliyev wants to open a center in each Russian district. Two already operate in Moscow and St. Petersburg. "We are working on creating special interregional centers with expertise in electronic media, printed, audio and video features to check them for any indications of extremism," he told Gazeta. The monitoring will be done by bureaucrats who are part of the presidential administration.

The initiative is the latest in the governments crackdown on extremism on the Internet. And while politicians and activists alike believe it needs to be dealt with, this measure seems to have touched a nerve with everyone. So much so that even those expected to implement it have washed their hands of it.

I'm afraid it may create the total surveillance of the Russian segment of the internet," Pavel Chikov, a lawyer and head of Agora human rights watchdog, told Gazeta. He said the initiative would lead to political censorship and an increase of criminal cases against bloggers on "invented accusations connected to extremism," something Russia has been accused of before.

Duma members were also skeptical, saying it was unclear how plenipotentiaries, who are political institutions, were supposed to help fight extremism.The plenipotentiaries themselves seem surprised, too. "This idea is definitely not ours. This is important, but the Ministry of the Interior and the Federal Supervision Agency for Information Technologies and Communications already do this expertise," a Far Eastern representative said.

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Russia's Interior Minister Pushes For Extreme Internet Censorship Measures

Summary: Under the banner of anti-porn: Egypts boldest move to filter the internet, UK violates broadband user privacy, Wikipedias rules are bent.

All happens where tech meets sex.

Egypt has moved to enforce broad internet censorship, Wikipedia has another embarrassing edit war and a UK broadband provider is ordered to turn over alleged downloaders and more.

UK pornographer exposes privacy of broadband downloaders

A UK ISP - behemoth providor O2 - has been forced by the courts to hand over the details of over 9,000 alleged downloaders.

The people suspected of downloading porn files produced by Ben Dover / Golden Eye Productions have stood accused of illegally downloading its films and now their priviate digital footprints (and names and addresses) have been given to Dover.

Golden Eye (acting on behalf of 13 porn companies) originally demanded the details of those it suspected of using peer-to-peer networks to illegally download the copyrighted content.

It also had a draft warning letter set to send, demanding 700 ($1,120) from each and every alleged downloader. If all of those accused paid the settlement fee, it would amount to 6.3 million ($10m).

This all rings similar to the failed American porn file-sharing mass lawsuits - except unlike the UK, US defendants had strong advocates fighting to safeguard their privacy, and their innocence.

Reference for US cases: Every Inch Counts: Porn Filesharing Lawsuits Crest 30K Defendants

The rest is here:
Sex Tech: Egyptian Porn Censorship, UK Filesharing Travesty, Wikipedia Sex Wars