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Internet freedom advocates are finding creative ways to get their message out to the masses.

Source: http://www.dccomics.comThe latest unique effort comes from Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian and online advocacy group Fight for the Future. Their plan: a "Bat-Signal for the Internet." According to Forbes, once it launches next month it will provide participating website administrators with code they can add to their sites that can be triggered in the case of a freedom-infringing episode.

The code will add to the sites widgets or banners that ask users to do things like call politicians or boycott companies. It supposedly even could trigger another blackout similar to the one that occurred in January when Google, Wikipedia, Craigslist and other sites went dark and posted messages in protest of SOPA.

Legislation such as SOPA, PIPA, and CISPA, which threaten the freedom of the Internet, seem to be popping up like a game of Whac-a-Mole and squashing them means online advocates rallying their followers. This is apparently another way to do it.

"People who wish to be tapped can see, 'Oh look, the Bat-Signal is up. Time to do something,'" said Ohanian. "Whatever website you own, this is a way for you to be notified if something comes up and take some basic actions ... If we aggregate everyone thats doing it, the numbers start exploding."

According to Forbes, Fight for the Future and Ohanian have been focused most recently on defeating CISPA, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protect Act. The bill, which was passed in the House of Representatives last month, aims to protect the U.S. from cyber terrorism and other online attacks. One of two versions of the bill will likely come up for a vote in the Senate early next month.

The problem with CISPA is it includes a provision that would let companies share users' private data with government agencies, and not just regarding threats of cyber attacks; companies will now be able to share users' private data in the event of "computer crime," exploitation of minors, and to protect individuals from "the danger of death or serious bodily harm."

This broad definition has privacy watchdogs up in arms.

Rainey Reitman, activism director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is an outspoken contributor to the CISPA debate. In a radio debate last month, Reitman said that while CISPA proponents employ rhetoric that the bill will "fend off a cyber Pearl Harbor," what they're really doing is inciting fears of security threats when, in fact, such concerns have existed for years. "I do think there is a need for companies to get more information from the government in a timely fashion. The problem that arises with CISPA is that it does so much more than that," she said.

"It also opens the floodgates for companies to intercept communications of everyday Internet users and pass unredacted personal information to the governments," she said, adding that several amendments to the bill would have addressed such concerns but they never made it to the House floor for a vote.

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Internet Freedom Advocates Take a Page From Caped Crusader

In an attempt to recreate the Internet "blackout" that shut down SOPA and PIPA, a group of online activists have created the Internet Defense League, which promises to craft a "Bat-Signal for the Internet" that will warn Web users against bad legislation.

Every month, it seems, a new piece of legislation, or secret trade agreement, pops up that threatens to castrate the Internet as we know it. First came SOPA and PIPA. Now we have ACTA, CISPA, CSA, SECURE IT, TPP, and others. It is a veritable storm of nefarious acronyms. And for many, the bombardment is just becoming too much to keep up with. Those who spent precious time and energy to protect the Web from SOPA and PIPA are tired. When does it end?, they ask.

The answer is, of course: it doesnt. To combat this problem of activist fatigue, Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian and Internet rights group Fight for the Future have come up with a solution. Its called the Internet Defense League (IDL). Its mission: create a Bat-Signal for the Internet, a bit of code crafted by the IDL, which the organization hopes can be used to launch concerted online protests, similar to the Internet blackout that helped stop SOPA and PIPA in their tracks.

Heres how it works: Anyone with a website from a personal Tumblr blog on up to major Web destinations signs up with the IDL using an email address. Anytime a bit of legislation that threatens the open Web pops up, the IDL will release the custom-tailored code, which webmasters can embed in their site. No details about what exactly this code will do have yet been released, but the goal is clear: Alert concerned Netizens that its time to act; get the word out to the most people possible; and show Washington that the Internet is not to be messed with.

Well invent something at the time, and it will be some really unified and shocking action, Tiffiny Cheng, co-director of Fight for the Future, tells Forbes. Were creating the tools and the forms of protest that allow for viral organizing. Thats how the SOPA protests were able to get started and grow to the level they did.

So far, Reddit, Mozilla, Imgur, Cheezburger Network, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Public Knowledge have all joined the Internet Defense League. There are surely many others (I added my neglected personal Tumblr blog, for instance), but those are the big names we know about at the moment.

To kick things off, the IDL, Fight for the Future, and Ohanian are campaigning heavily against CISPA (the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act), which the Senate has now merged with the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 (CSA), a bill that would allow for mass data sharing between the Federal government and businesses for an undefined range of law enforcement purposes. The Senate is expected to vote on CSA sometime at the beginning of June, and Fight for the Future has set up a website, Privacy Is Awesome, that allows concerned U.S. citizens to easily contact their senators to express opposition to the legislation.

Over at Reddit, which has been designated the official Internet Defense League forum of choice, Fight for the Future has posted a list of all 99 senators (and their phone numbers) who have not yet come out against CISPA. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), who has bashed CISPA for its invasions of privacy, is the only senator absent from the list. (Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) also says hes against CSA, according to some of his constituents.) Here is that list:

This is all certainly a good start. For the IDLs plan to really work effectively, however, it seems to me that it will have to better define what exactly their code will do before the vast number of sites that are needed for the plan to work will sign up. That said, such a Bat-Signal is quite obviously the next step in online activism we are all connected by the Internet, after all; why not use that connectivity to fight these battles? At the moment, the only people doing anything similar are Anonymous-branded hacktivists, who are excellent at acting in concert to carry out distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks as a form of protest. DDoS will not, of course, win over anyone in Congress. So a less controversial strategy needs to be employed.

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Internet Defense League plans ‘Bat-Signal’ for the Web to combat dangerous bills

Internet defenders, assemble!

Months after the success of the virtual protests against the SOPA online piracy bill, the nonprofit group Fight for the Future is forming the Internet Defense League -- an organization of people who support Internet freedom and have pledged to fight for it using whatever powers they have.

"The Internet Blackout was just the beginning," the league founders write on a Web page announcing the project. "Together, our websites and personal networks can mobilize the planet to defend the Internet from bad laws and monopolies. Are you in?"

Joining up is as simple as entering the URL of your website (or blog, YouTube channel, Twitter stream or Tumblr account) as well as an email address on the Internet Defense League's website.

Then in a few weeks you'll get further instructions on how to place a piece of code on your website that will allow the league to alert you when you need to jump into action.

That action might be allowing the league to take over your entire site or placing a message in a sidebar. You may be asked to show your readers a streaming video or urge them to contact a congressional representative.

For now, the sign that you are needed will look like the bat signal the people of Gotham used to summon Batman, but with a cute cat face. They call it the "cat signal."

Tiffiniy Cheng, co-founder of Fight for the Future who is spearheading the project, said WordPress, Reddit and the Cheeseburger network have already signed up to be part of the league and that Wikipedia -- the largest website to take part in the anti-SOPA protest -- is also considering membership.

"With the current sites signed up we have a combined reach of tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of people," Cheng said. "We are taking the network and tactics of the SOPA fight that we created and turning it into a permanent force."

As for why the signal for Internet action is a cat, Cheng said it has to do with Ethan Zuckerman's cute cat theory of digital activism, which posits that the same tools that help people share cute cat photos can also be used for online activism.

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Internet Defense League introduces 'cat signal' for websites

23-05-2012 13:18 THINGS I FOUND ON THE INTERNET FRIDAY Visit my other channel - for film trailers Curtsey of ITN news. Stuntman Gary Connery completes an incredible jump from a helicopter 1.4km up, onto a pile of boxes, using a wingsuit but no parachute. Report by Sam Datta-Paulin. NO COPYRIGHT INTENDED

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No Parachute Skydive ~ Things I Found on The Internet Friday ~ Episode #2 [HD] - Video

INDIANAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

At the annual meeting of shareholders of First Internet Bancorp, parent company of First Internet Bank, Chairman and CEO David Becker announced yesterday the Bank had increased its employee count 42% by adding 22 employees between December 31, 2010 and December 31, 2011.

The unemployment rate in Indiana is at its lowest rate since 2008, and First Internet Bank is proud to contribute to the growth in private sector jobs, Becker said. He went on to explain these positions helped to support the Banks recently launched commercial lending initiative as well as its established and growing mortgage lending operation. First Internet Bank offers commercial and industrial lending locally, commercial real estate lending regionally, mortgage loans in 49 states, and personal loans and deposit accounts in 50 states.

First Internet Bank did not receive any economic development funds to finance the employment expansion. First Internet Bank had assets of over $610 million as of March 31, 2012, its highest point since its launch in 1999. In addition to employment, First Internet Bank reported 10% growth in loans and 15% growth in deposits in 2011. The Bank closed 38% more mortgages in 2011 than it did in 2010.

A seasoned entrepreneur, Mr. Becker has a history of job creation in Central Indiana since launching his first Indiana-based company 31 years ago.

About First Internet Bank First Internet Bank of Indiana (First IB) is the first state-chartered, FDIC-insured institution to operate solely via the Internet and has customers in all 50 states. Deposit services include checking accounts, regular and money market savings accounts with industry-leading interest rates, CDs and IRAs. First IB also offers consumer loans, conforming mortgages, jumbo mortgages, home equity loans and lines of credit, and commercial loans. First Internet Bank opened for business in 1999.

About First Internet Bancorp First Internet Bancorp (FIBP.OB), the parent company of First Internet Bank of Indiana, is privately capitalized with over 240 private and corporate investors. The Bancorp became effective March 21, 2006.

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Employment up over 40% at First Internet Bank