User:Internetjabs/sandbox

=Internet Regulation= In·ter·net / in tər net / A global computer network providing a variety of information and communication facilities, consisting of interconnected networks using standardized communication protocols.

reg·u·la·tion / reg (y)ə lā SHən / A rule or directive made and maintained by an authority.

Introduction
Internet Regulation is defined as the regulation of everything on the web that is or might be censored and/or controlled. During the early years of the internet, uncontrolled and wide-spread crimes were committed against copyright material and intellectual property. This behavior eventually led to the reasons why the governments of the world thought it necessary to impose and enforce internet regulation. As a result, politicians worked quickly to form numerous bills to pass into law designed to protect its citizens. Several of these bills easily passed, while other bills failed. Over time, the world's economic dependence on the internet has greatly increased and social media web sites have grown in popularity. Numerous corporations and governments across the world wanting to have more control are now censoring its users from the internet. The four main topics listed below illustrate why regulation came about and what it has become today.

Internet Crime and Black Hats
In the early to mid 1980's, legislation did not exist to regulate the internet. As a result, many crimes were committed for personal gain. Everything from controlling traffic lights in busy cities, to cracking ATMs, to making free phone calls across the globe, had spread far and wide. Darker versions of hacking during that day and age were viewed as crimes by the public and the media. Driven by hate, greed and even curiosity, these crimes were perceived as core to what an internet hacker was. Later on, these crimes became more targeted and precise. Some of these crimes were executed completely in the dark, with no one knowing or finding out what had occurred.

During the late 1980's and early 1990's, as hacking became mainstream and anyone with an interest in computers might become a formidable force, governments and corporations realized that they needed more security. Around that time, email had become a popular target for hacking and computer viruses were a serious public danger. Infuriated, the public and media commonly referred to these hackers as the “Black Hats.” Three of the most famous “Black Hats” in history include: Jonathan James, the youngest hacker ever to be caught and jailed; Adrian Lamo, the “Homeless Hacker” who moved frequently between internet coffee houses and used them as a source for internet hacking; and Kevin Mitnick who committed numerous counts of wire fraud and successful break-ins to several major corporations.(ITSecurity.com ) Recently, crimes and violations of internet code have made the internet hacktivist group Anonymous famous. Crimes, including the many web sites that shared data containing other people's intellectual property, brought about the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 (Amended in 1996) which makes it illegal to break into computer systems.(Cornell University )

Through the mid to late 1990's and beyond, three big names--LimeWire, Megaupload, and The Pirate Bay--had become infamous due to their association with internet piracy.

Internet Piracy
Media companies have always looked for ways to fight piracy. According to PCWorld.com, these companies have tried to either sue individual users, force internet service providers to take action against its subscribers, or work with the U.S. Government to shut down domains based in the United States.

In 2011, two bills--the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), and the Protect IP Act (PIPA)--were drafted by legislators in the U.S. House and Senate. Because SOPA and PIPA did not pass into law, media companies continue to have problems stopping piracy web sites located overseas, such as The Pirate Bay and Megaupload.

The Pirate Bay, a Swedish file-sharing web site started in 2003, has over five million registered users. The Pirate Bay is ranked as the 71st most-visited web site in the world and 12th most-visited web site in Sweden. The Pirate Bay is one of the world’s largest facilitators of illegal downloading. The four founders of The Pirate Bay, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm and Carl Lundstrom were found guilty of assisting with copyright infringement. They were each sentenced to a year in prison and fined $30 million dollars. They appealed the case and won because the judge was accused of being biased. Google reported it received over six thousand formal requests to remove The Pirate Bay's links from Google's search index.

Established in 2005, Megaupload, a web site based in Hong Kong that provided free movie downloads, was shut down by the FBI in January 2012. The sites' services still remain unavailable. The founder of Megaupload, Kim Dotcom, is charged with copyright infringement. Nearly $330 million dollars worth of assets remain frozen by Customs in Hong Kong. The case is still pending in U.S. court. Following the shutdown, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and other similar companies quickly removed their affiliate programs from Megaupload. Today, similar file hosting websites wonder if they might become a target of this operation. The file hosting business is in a permanent state of chaos.

“Copyright infringement is when a copyrighted work is reproduced, distributed, performed, publicly displayed, or made into a derivative work without the permission of the copyright owner (U.S. Copyright Office ).” LimeWire was one of the biggest file-sharing web sites in the industry. According to Purewal, (2010 ), LimeWire was found guilty of assisting its users in committing copyright infringement on a massive scale. On October 26, 2010, LimeWire was issued a permanent injunction by U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood to prevent the web site from further violation of copyright law in the United States. A suit was filed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), on behalf of the major music publishers in the U.S., which accused LimeWire of encouraging users to participate in music piracy. According to Purewal, (2010 ), over 93 percent of LimeWire's software contained infringing content. In May 2010, Federal Judge Kimba Wood found Mark Gordon, LimeWire’s founder, personally liable for copyright infringement. Content theft is a global problem as well. In early 2012, companies associated with the music industry started their own internet blackout campaign, similar to the blackout against the SOPA bill, in which India was forced into blocking hundreds of ISPs and music sites involved in online piracy.

Since the beginning, the US Government has been creating internet regulation; many of which were designed to protect what is placed out on the internet. The next topic focuses on analyzing internet legislation and the politicians who create it.

Internet Bills, Regulation and Politicians
Similar to the Communications Decency Act of 1996, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 was designed to regulate pornographic material on the internet. This bill essentially defined a child as a person under the age of 13, and made it unlawful for a web site to collect personal information from a child without parental consent. . Both bills passed with almost no opposition.

Recently, the biggest disputes have been over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). Patrick Leahy introduced PIPA as Senate Bill 968, on May 12, 2011. The bill was the Senate’s attempt at preventing online piracy and intellectual property theft. Thirty-one Senate members supported the bill, 22 members opposed, 15 were leaning towards no, and 32 members were unknown. Months later, Lamar Smith introduced SOPA as House Bill 3261, on October 26, 2011. Similar to PIPA, SOPA was the House’s attempt to prevent online piracy and intellectual property theft. Twenty-four House members supported the bill, 117 members opposed, 51 members were leaning towards no, and 241 members were unknown. Due to world-wide dissention from the public, both bills were indefinitely postponed on January 20, 2012.

Over the past year, efforts to regulate the internet have been on the rise. Even with SOPA and PIPA tabled, many attempts are being made to create new regulation. For example, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), was written to protect against cyber threats. The bill was introduced to the House by Mike Rodgers on November 30, 2011, passed through the House on April 26, 2012, and is currently awaiting approval in the Senate. It is still too early to know the final outcome.

In recent reports, several governments throughout the world are known to be censoring portions of the internet to particular groups, countries and even individual cities.

Internet Censorship
When the internet is limited or disrupted by regulation, social and economic impact increases. What happens when, and if, access to the internet is restricted or shut off completely? It is happening today in varying degrees, and no doubt, sanctions will continue to get tighter over time. Policy and legislation are being implemented and passed, sometimes surreptitiously. If a government of one or more countries chooses to censor internet access to its citizens, the negative effects spread far and wide. Imports and exports are greatly reduced and jobs are eliminated. After the harm has been done, it takes years to revive a damaged economy.

Internet censorship is developing quickly in third world countries and autocratic societies such as China, North Korea, Iran and Syria. The U.S. is imposing economic sanctions and targeting companies around the world that directly or indirectly trade or sell technology to governments that oppress its citizens. This technology includes surveillance systems that monitor email, filter, block, or keep track of web sites that people frequent.

According to an annual report provided by Reporters Without Borders, some of the countries listed in 2012 as Enemies of Internet include: Bahrain, Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. Just recently, in early August, 2012, Tajikistan, a former Soviet country, started an internet censorship program that blocks political web sites and popular sites like You Tube and Facebook.

In early 2012, lobbyists of large corporations and politicians pushed heavily to pass two major bills into law: the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), and the Protect IP-Act (PIPA). In general, SOPA and PIPA were touted by legislators in both the U.S. House and Senate as a way to protect businesses from on-line copyright infringement and piracy, such as massive illegal downloading of music and movies. In the wake of the Wiki leaks scandal, opponents of these two measures started a fire storm on the popular social media web site, Reddit, and it went viral from there, spreading quickly to other social web sites like Facebook and Twitter. By blacking out their web sites, internet search engines such as Google and Mozilla, and popular informational web sites such as Wikipedia, also joined forces to advertise to the world the ill-effects that would occur if these bills were passed into law. As a result of the powerful world-wide uproar stemming from the viral fire storm sustained by social media web sites, these two bills failed to pass. However, this does not mean the fight to control and censor is finished.

On a local level, much of the population in the greater Fairbanks, Alaska area utilizes GCI as its internet provider. Do most users read the fine print on GCI’s Terms and Conditions or do users accept these terms without knowing what they’ve agreed to? Some of GCI’s controls established in their terms and conditions include the following:

--GCI reserves the right to update this policy from time to time without notice to subscribers.

--GCI has the right to monitor Content electronically from time to time and to disclose any information as necessary to satisfy any law, regulation or governmental request to operate the Service properly, or to protect itself or its Subscribers.

--Eavesdropping. GCI’s transmission facilities are used by numerous Service subscribers. Because of this, there is a risk that you could be subject to “eavesdropping.” This means that other Service subscribers may be able to access and/or monitor a subscriber's use of the Service.

To summarize, GCI can track which web sites its subscribers type into a search engine, GCI can read its subscriber's email, and GCI can monitor its subscriber's on-line chats. In a local and worldly perspective, censorship of the internet appears to be protecting and also hindering its users.

Closing Statement
The world is filled with diversity and differences: different cultures, languages, governments and regulations. In spite of these differences, the world and its people all belong under, and depend upon one, big internet. Through a deeper analysis of internet crime, piracy, regulation, and censorship, internet regulations and its reasons for existence are better understood.