We can't access wikipedia in the United States.

Can anyone else?

Here is the message -

Imagine a World
Without Free Knowledge
For over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history. Right now, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia. Learn more.

Contact your representatives.

Enter zip code -

nah, its a worldwide black out. 

Yeah just tried to use it to knock your habour bridge crap back ;D

... wrote on Jan 18^th, 2012 at 3:34pm:

nah, its a worldwide black out.

Really?
Why would you contact your representative over an action by the US Congress??

Dsmithy70 wrote on Jan 18^th, 2012 at 3:36pm:

Yeah just tried to use it to knock your habour bridge crap back ;D

I'll save you the trouble.
Built by fellas from Teeside and Sunderland.

Andrei.Hicks wrote on Jan 18^th, 2012 at 3:37pm:

Dsmithy70 wrote on Jan 18th, 2012 at 3:36pm: Yeah just tried to use it to knock your habour bridge crap back ;D I'll save you the trouble. Built by fellas from Teeside and Sunderland.

Quote:

However, after the First World War more serious plans were made, with a general design for the Sydney Harbour Bridge prepared by Dr J J C Bradfield and officers of the NSW Department of Public Works. The New South Wales Government then invited worldwide tenders for the construction of the Bridge in 1922 and the contract was let to English firm Dorman Long and Co of Middlesbrough. The Sydney Harbour Bridge construction started in 1924 and took 1,400 men eight years to build at a cost of £4.2 million. Six million hand driven rivets and 53,000 tonnes of steel were used in its construction. It now carries eight traffic lanes and two rail lines, one in each direction, but at the time of its construction the two eastern lanes were tram tracks. They were converted to road traffic when Sydney closed down its tram system in the 1950s.

They won the tender but somehow I think less than a quarter of those 1400 were imported.
But happy to be educated if you have facts otherwise.

Some local labour no doubt.

But what is a site without a foreman?

It becomes a rabble.

The English planned and had the bridge built - no question.
I was told as much on the bridge climb the other year as well.

Good bridge climb it is too..

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/English_Wikipedia_to_go_dark

They'll be back tomorrow.

Andrei.Hicks wrote on Jan 18^th, 2012 at 3:45pm:

Some local labour no doubt. But what is a site without a foreman? It becomes a rabble. The English planned and had the bridge built - no question. I was told as much on the bridge climb the other year as well. Good bridge climb it is too..

Yeah that's what I was thinking, foreman & above mix of local & imported, Grunts local.

You've got to hand it to Jobs though, those photo's not a big fancy thing with a million special lenses.
A Iphone 4, every time I look at those photo's I am amazed at their quality.

What's the point in dragging every other nation though into a domestic problem??

I don't understand what they think someone in Australia can do or influence for a decision made here by Congress???

Dsmithy70 wrote on Jan 18^th, 2012 at 3:51pm:

Andrei.Hicks wrote on Jan 18th, 2012 at 3:45pm: Some local labour no doubt. But what is a site without a foreman? It becomes a rabble. The English planned and had the bridge built - no question. I was told as much on the bridge climb the other year as well. Good bridge climb it is too.. Yeah that's what I was thinking, foreman & above mix of local & imported, Grunts local. You've got to hand it to Jobs though, those photo's not a big fancy thing with a million special lenses. A Iphone 4, every time I look at those photo's I am amazed at their quality.

Yes you compare that to my one of Petco park above it taken with a non-Jobs Blackberry this morning and the quality difference is striking.

Andrei.Hicks wrote on Jan 18^th, 2012 at 3:51pm:

What's the point in dragging every other nation though into a domestic problem?? I don't understand what they think someone in Australia can do or influence for a decision made here by Congress???

It's the internet
It has untapped & un-realised power, also quiet a few nations leaders are lining up to censor/monitor it.
Ours included. >:(

Andrei.Hicks wrote on Jan 18^th, 2012 at 3:51pm:

What's the point in dragging every other nation though into a domestic problem?? I don't understand what they think someone in Australia can do or influence for a decision made here by Congress???

Because the internet doesn't have borders. 

Dsmithy70 wrote on Jan 18^th, 2012 at 3:53pm:

Andrei.Hicks wrote on Jan 18th, 2012 at 3:51pm: What's the point in dragging every other nation though into a domestic problem?? I don't understand what they think someone in Australia can do or influence for a decision made here by Congress??? It's the internet It has untapped & un-realised power, also quiet a few nations leaders are lining up to censor/monitor it. Ours included. >:(

They lost my custom for a bit then.
I was trying to find out how old Caroline Wozniacki was....

... wrote on Jan 18^th, 2012 at 3:55pm:

Andrei.Hicks wrote on Jan 18th, 2012 at 3:51pm: What's the point in dragging every other nation though into a domestic problem?? I don't understand what they think someone in Australia can do or influence for a decision made here by Congress??? Because the internet doesn't have borders.

So everyone gets dragged into a domestic American problem....

Smithy my guess is the photos were taken on 10 X 8 or possibly a 5 X 7 or 5 X 4 camera. That's inches not CM's

blackadder wrote on Jan 18^th, 2012 at 4:54pm:

Smithy my guess is the photos were taken on 10 X 8 or possibly a 5 X 7 or 5 X 4 camera. That's inches not CM's

Nah mate a standard iphone4
cross my heart :)

Andrei.Hicks wrote on Jan 18^th, 2012 at 3:32pm:

We can't access wikipedia in the United States. Can anyone else? Here is the message - Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge For over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history. Right now, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia. Learn more. Contact your representatives. Enter zip code -

Hi Andrei,
Good on Wikipedia for highlighting this problem.
I find answers to questions almost every day from Wikipedia.
It's one of the best sites on the internet & it's free.
It would be terrible if it gets censored.

For those who understand SOPA as I do, it is an absolute disgrace, and puts the corruption that now infects U.S Politics like a plague right out in the open for everyone to see.

The point as they claim it is to fight Piracy, but it instantly stops being a fight it against Piracy when you KNOW it will solve nothing related to that problem. The Fighting Piracy excuse is just absolute bullsh*t, it is all about censorship.

The fact they think they have the audacity to influence how Foreigners use the internet is a testament to how far they've fallen, and I would openly encourage Obama to fight this with all the Power he commands.

GoddyofOz wrote on Jan 18^th, 2012 at 7:09pm:

For those who understand SOPA as I do, it is an absolute disgrace, and puts the corruption that now infects U.S Politics like a plague right out in the open for everyone to see. The point as they claim it is to fight Piracy, but it instantly stops being a fight it against Piracy when you KNOW it will solve nothing related to that problem. The Fighting Piracy excuse is just absolute bullsh*t, it is all about censorship. The fact they think they have the audacity to influence how Foreigners use the internet is a testament to how far they've fallen, and I would openly encourage Obama to fight this with all the Power he commands.

Obama will fight nothing, he is a corporate shill like every other western politican.
People go on about a one world government not even realising we already have it, just spread thru several boardrooms instead of one big hall.

Obama is too busy with his bankrupt economy
to worry about internet censorship.

Bobby. wrote on Jan 18^th, 2012 at 7:21pm:

Obama is too busy with his bankrupt economy to worry about internet censorship.

Despite publicly stating his opposition to the bill. Sounds like it's really at the back of his mind.

Only the English version of wikipedia is down.

The Italian version went down in protest against the Italian government's plans a while back, and it worked.

Wikipedia does not have an Australia specific version. The only option was to take down the English one. Possibly the spanish one too.

US regulations will affect everything. For example, this site is hosted on a US domain, not a .au one. I'm not certain how it works. I just know that the .com domains were a lot cheaper than the .com.au ones and had no paperwork. The company that hosts this site is probably US based too (hostgator).

Obama does not support or oppose it. He is trying to make everyone happy by getting it through but fixing the problems with it.

Any such legislation can be defeated. If the web page operates a system where it uses a continually changing IP address then it will be impossible to censor. Obviously that requires the end-user to install special (free) software.

http://freenetproject.org/


Quote:

Latest news (13th April 2011) Freenet top anti-censorship tool in survey of Chinese users!

Disable javascript in your browser if you really really want to read Wikipedia articles during the blackout. In Firefox, that's Edit>Preferences>Content> and uncheck Javascript.

Quote:

STOP SOPA: Why MichaelMoore.com Will Be Blacked Out Wednesday, January 18th ...a note from Michael Moore Tuesday, January 17th, 2012 Friends, My websites MichaelMoore.com and Mike's High School Newspaper will both be going dark for 24 hours starting at midnight tonight in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act now before Congress. I'm proud to join with Wikipedia, Reddit, Boing Boing and thousands of websites in this action to raise awareness of this huge threat to an open internet. I think we all knew that the powers-that-be would eventually try to kill the world wide web as we've come to know and love it. I'm sure it's just an accident that these bills are being proposed after a year where uprisings around the world were literally started on the internet. This is a scary device to those in power and I'm sure they rue the day they allowed us to talk freely to each other. They weren't thinking about the revolution that would cause -- they just saw it as a way to sell more stuff. Oops. And now they want to rein it in. Please take the time to learn about SOPA (and its twin Senate bill, PIPA) and then call AND fax AND email your Representative and Senators tomorrow. Let's melt their phone lines and computers. We've got to use the internet while we still can to organize, fight back and stop this. The good news is the Obama administration says it doesn't support the bills in their current form (but he said that about the National Defense Authorization Act -- and then went ahead and signed it after changes that still left its most dangerous provisions intact). We can win this. But we've got to pour it on right now. I'll see you on the other side tomorrow night at midnight! Yours, Michael Moore MMFlint@MichaelMoore.com @MMFlint MichaelMoore.com

- or use a proxy server if you don't want to disable javascript:
http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOPA


Quote:

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), also known as House Bill 3261 or H.R. 3261, is a bill that was introduced in the United States House of Representatives on October 26, 2011, by House Judiciary Committee Chair Representative Lamar S. Smith (R-TX) and a bipartisan group of 12 initial co-sponsors. The bill, if made law, would expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement and copyright holders to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods.[2] Presented to the House Judiciary Committee, it builds on the similar PRO-IP Act of 2008 and the corresponding Senate bill, the PROTECT IP Act.[3]

who cares if wiki is blacked out, if you're smart you can easily circumvent it. just go to a wiki article you want to read and save as html. then you can read the html file on your pc as it is on the site without worrying about it being blacked out.

or do what muso said.

deleted

tried a proxy when downloading from Vuze.
Never really worked and after several emails to try and get it right I think they gave up on me ;D

muso wrote on Jan 18^th, 2012 at 8:53pm:

barnaby joe wrote on Jan 18th, 2012 at 8:50pm: who cares if wiki is blacked out, if you're smart you can easily circumvent it. just go to a wiki article you want to read and save as html. then you can read the html file on your pc as it is on the site without worrying about it being blacked out. - or just disable javascript.

that too.

GoddyofOz wrote on Jan 18^th, 2012 at 7:09pm:

For those who understand SOPA as I do, it is an absolute disgrace, and puts the corruption that now infects U.S Politics like a plague right out in the open for everyone to see. The point as they claim it is to fight Piracy, but it instantly stops being a fight it against Piracy when you KNOW it will solve nothing related to that problem. The Fighting Piracy excuse is just absolute bullsh*t, it is all about censorship. The fact they think they have the audacity to influence how Foreigners use the internet is a testament to how far they've fallen, and I would openly encourage Obama to fight this with all the Power he commands.

Heartily agree, but I really can't see Bazza doing much to stop it.

And I wouldn't be at all surprised if it finds its way into a treaty
or trade-agreement somewhere down the track, and we'll find it
being enforced here.

SOPA is like trying to kill a Cockroach with a Nuclear bomb; it might look like it's worked initially, then you discover the Cockroach still lives, and by that point it's too late; the Fallout has already set in and ruined the landscape without solving anything at all.

An absolute disgrace and despicable bill, and an International breach of sovereignty by the U.S Government.

Seems to be having some impact though. One bill down, one to go:

http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/12671627/us-lawmakers-abandoning-online-piracy-bill/