Monday, January 23, 2012

Anonymous attacks on Polish government websites after they sign ACTA treaty

Per Joanna Kulesza, through Giganet:

Hopefully a useful link to ones researching copyright and ACTA. In Poland
the battle is currently on:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/polish-government-websites-face-appar
ent-attack-by-internet-group-anonymous/2012/01/22/gIQAF1GEIQ_story.html


Hackers from Anonymous are attacking Polish governmental sites attempting to
force the government out of signing ACTA on Jan. 26th. You can follow the
attacks as they unfold: http://twitter.com/#!/AnonymousWiki

Regards,

Joanna (Kulesza)

ACTA stands for Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. Final text is available here (pdf). The first link here takes you to a U.S. government website that includes not only a link to the full text of the final version, but also previous versions as well. It also includes supporting statements from various recording industry, entertainment industry and the organizations that manage intellectual property for those industries. There are statements from the sponsor of SOPA and President Obama as well.

On October 1, 2011, the United States, Australia, Canada, Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Morocco, and Singapore signed the treaty in Tokyo. Representatives of the remaining ACTA negotiating parties, the European Union, Mexico, and Switzerland, attended the ceremony and confirmed their continuing strong support for and preparations to sign the Agreement as soon as practicable.

PC Magazine reports that Polish government leaders are meeting to reconsider their support for the ACTA Treaty.

Wikipedia's article on ACTA is very useful in pulling together links to criticism and the history of the treaty, including leaks about its negotiation. There are a number of organizations and groups that have strongly criticized the treaty's provisions. Follow the link to Wikipedia, or follow up this list of organizations:

* Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)

* Consumers International (Press Release, May, 2011) (ACTA open letter, 2009)

* Free Software Foundation

* Free Knowledge Institute (European Union-based)

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