The House and Senate’s respective anti-online piracy bills, SOPA and PIPA, have stirred controversy over internet censorship. Firefox now has an add-on, DeSopa, that circumvents the bill’s DNS blocking.
DeSopa, created by developer T Rizk, is a simple Firefox extension that allows internet users to revert to using a site’s IP (internet protocol) address, thereby bypassing DNS blockades of foreign websites such as The Pirate Bay. At the Firefox DeSopa download page, the add-on is described as such, “DNS Evasion to Stop Oppressive Policy in America.”
T Rizk told TorrentFreak, “I feel that the general public is not aware of the gravity of SOPA and Congress seems like they are about to cater to the special interests involved, to the detriment of Internet, for which I and many others live and breathe,” adding that it will serve as proof that SOPA will not work and hopefully help Congress come to its senses.
One can also access The Pirate Bay through the “The Pirate Bay Dancing” add-on, developed by MAFIAAFire, which routes users around DNS and IP blocks through thousands of random proxies that are constantly rotated. According to TorrentFreak, it is believed that this add-on might well be able to circumvent national firewalls, such as those found in China.
Certainly, DeSopa will be a frustrating development for Rep. Lamar Smith and the other sponsors of SOPA and PIPA, and will also inspire hackers and developers to create other ways to circumvent state internet blockades.
Good things.
December 20, 2011 at 5:05 pm, Tamer Rizk said:
I hope this legislation does not pass, but if it does a slew of innovative start-ups will start offering offshore DNS hosting for $2/month.
December 20, 2011 at 5:43 pm, DJ said:
You think so? You want to talk about that in more detail?
Shoot me an email.
My address is here: http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/about/
December 21, 2011 at 9:35 pm, Paul Frank said:
This Firefox addon will circumvent SOPA — the pending law designed to stop piracy, but so frivolously written it could shut down almost any site with open posts or shares. It does this by using the alternate links which uses numbers instead of names. My hope here is that this will bring lawmakers to their senses so they will not enact this law. Would you trust a George Bush with the de facto power to shut down any website at will?
(Personally, if this becomes law and it significantly shuts down the non-pirating Internet, I will boycott any entity that supported this. Goodbye Hollywood! Your products are not so wonderful as to shut down a favored tool of activists and protesters around the world, not to mention all the social sharing sites and any other sites which allows open comments. Just to be clear, with the CURRENT laws, a viral video of a baby was pulled because some copyrighted music was playing in the background. And the proposed new SOPA law would shut down whole sites, and even fine your local Internet providers! This law is tantamount to bombing a village because a few terrorists live there, and the terrorists have access to a bomb shelter to boot.)
December 24, 2011 at 9:42 pm, Constitution said:
Ron Paul doesn’t stand for this and neither should you!
December 22, 2011 at 10:36 am, JustSomeSchmoe said:
the link on the Firefox AddIn page is now gone. Did they cave?
December 25, 2011 at 11:10 am, Paul Frank said:
It was down for part of a morning, but it came up again later that day, and was up when I just checked now. The law does as it now stands provides for stiff penalties for those who provide ways to circumvent it, so Firefox may need to not list the addon itself. An author could list it on their own site if they are outside US jurisdiction, or it could be listed any such place.
At this point in time I see the main point of the addon as a demonstration of how easy the law is to circumvent, at least for its stated purpose. The law would be very convenient for destroying most of the Internet as it is convenient for the purposes of anyone in power. Consider the fallout from any “graduate” of the “John Yoo School of Law” who went after any website that suited any administration’s purposes.
The point isn’t the addon. The point is the law takes a shotgun after houseflies, so there is collateral damage everywhere since there is no due process. Internet providers are liable and will restrict any site that might possibly have a link on a post, that, say, has copyrighted music playing in the background of a video someone posts.
I can’t talk about this without going on a rant. I’m sorry. This is crazy.
January 11, 2012 at 3:32 pm, Anonymous said:
Ron Paul would circumvent SOPA for real.
January 18, 2012 at 11:15 pm, Berzley said:
I have a facebook event spreading the word and encouraging users to protest and contact represenatives
http://www.facebook.com/events/331207713568213/
Please check it out
February 24, 2013 at 12:58 pm, Mladen Ilić said:
uuuuuuu
February 24, 2013 at 12:58 pm, Mladen Ilić said:
mivt