Image Credit: Google

Do you share a lot of pictures online?  If you do and use Google+, there is something you should know.  Posting a picture to your stream works so fast it made my head spin.  It really says something about the technology we use today and the muscle Google has.

The video below was shot using a Tablet, 3g Phone and a laptop.  The laptop was logged into my Google+ Account while the mobile phone had the image and the tablet shot the video.  I shared the image on the phone with the Google+ app and recorded how long it took to actually post the picture online once my phone was done SENDING it.

Notice how the image shows up on my laptop BEFORE the phone says it is done SENDING.  Why is this important?  Say you upload the wrong image, it might be an innocent mistake or it could be a picture of someone who doesn’t want to be online, the instant online of Google+ may pose an issue.  So to be safe, double check what you post online before you hit the SEND button.

*Any post can be removed from Google+ if you make a mistake, just remember it is possible for people to see it BEFORE you correct it.

Many are up in arms about what amounts to Internet censorship, some for personal reasons, others for reasons of public interest.  The common denominator is NO ONE (Except media companies) likes SOPA because it creates a government bureaucracy that places your ISP and search engines into a nearly untenable position by making them either block a website’s IP or strip it from a list of search results.  That doesn’t even mention the government’s tie ins to PayPal and Credit card Companies.  Let me give you a real world example:

The Road to Avoid

A website located in Norway is giving away expensive software, movies, music, digital books and video games for free.  All of the content is copyright in the United States but the people that worked hard on the content do not see a dime from this pirate website.  If the SOPA bill passes here’s what happens -

The copyright holders call the government.  With its’ new SOPA power, the government calls your ISP (Comcast, ATT, Verizon, etc), calls your search engine (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.) and finally calls PayPal, Amex. Mastercard, Visa, etc.  The call to the ISP demands that the pirate website’s IP or web address is blocked.  The call to the search engine demands all search results related to the pirate website be removed and the final call to the payment companies demands payments to NOT be released to the pirate website’s owners.

Doesn’t all this sound great?  Especially if you hold copy-written content.  But what happens when this far reaching new power of the government gets abused?  The SOPA bill is written so vaguely it can easily be construed to shut down this website because I’ve written about the SOPA bill and put it in a bad light.  The bill is so broad it harkins to the laws used to govern the Internet in China.  That’s bad news.

Alternative

Logo Copyright: http://www.robbwhite.net/

My solution is simpler, employs Americans who actually do something instead of “make phone calls” and it has the potential to intimidate piracy.  Using laws we already have on the record, we can choose to enforce these laws in the courts.  I’m not a fan of litigation, but if the pirate website is located in the United States or the owner is, then they have to be taken to court and awarded all the rights an American Citizen is afforded.  That’s our system and it works when people don’t screw with it.

What if the website or the owner are not American Citizens?  This is my favorite part!  Using the international court usually goes no where, ask Microsoft or anyone who writes books.  Therefore I propose a military style response.  A group of whitehat hackers will first try to shutdown the pirate website and then post a message in the website’s homepage describing what has happened.  If the pirates get the website up and running again, which they will, then a team of trained military personal will be utilized.  Using NONLEATHAL means, this “response” would infiltrate the location of the pirate website’s servers and take them out physically by destroying the server hardware by any means possible with out hurting any one at the location.  This military response can be attached to or work under the CIA to avoid any international courts just like the pirates avoid our courts.

I believe this physical response will intimidate the pirates into “thinking twice” about it.  Of course the law will be written with CLEAR guidelines protecting American Citizens and their rights first.  What do you think?