Help Stop SOPA/PIPA

Jan10
by Ike on January 10, 2012 at 7:18 pm
Posted In: Backups, CMS, Community, PHP, Releases, security, Wordpress

You are an agent of change. Has anyone ever told you that? Well, I just did, and I meant it.

Normally we stay away from from politics here at the official WordPress project — having users from all over the globe that span the political spectrum is evidence that we are doing our job and democratizing publishing, and we don’t want to alienate any of our users no matter how much some of us may disagree with some of them personally. Today, I’m breaking our no-politics rule, because there’s something going on in U.S. politics right now that we need to make sure you know about and understand, because it affects us all.

Using WordPress to blog, to publish, to communicate things online that once upon a time would have been relegated to an unread private journal (or simply remained unspoken, uncreated, unshared) makes you a part of one of the biggest changes in modern history: the democratization of publishing and the independent web. Every time you click Publish, you are a part of that change, whether you are posting canny political insight or a cat that makes you LOL. How would you feel if the web stopped being so free and independent? I’m concerned freaked right the heck out about the bills that threaten to do this, and as a participant in one of the biggest changes in modern history, you should be, too.

You may have heard people talking/blogging/twittering about SOPA — the Stop Online Piracy Act. The recent SOPA-related boycott of GoDaddy was all over the news, with many people expressing their outrage over the possibilities of SOPA, but when I ask people about SOPA and its sister bill in the Senate, PIPA (Protect IP Act), many don’t really know what the bills propose, or what we stand to lose. If you are not freaked out by SOPA/PIPA, please: for the next four minutes, instead of checking Facebook statuses, seeing who mentioned you on Twitter, or watching the latest episode of Sherlock*, watch this video (by Fight for the Future).

Some thoughts:

  • In the U.S. our legal system maintains that the burden of proof is on the accuser, and that people are innocent until proven guilty. This tenet seems to be on the chopping block when it comes to the web if these bills pass, as companies could shut down sites based on accusation alone.
  • Laws are not like lines of PHP; they are not easily reverted if someone wakes up and realizes there is a better way to do things. We should not be so quick to codify something this far-reaching.
  • The people writing these laws are not the people writing the independent web, and they are not out to protect it. We have to stand up for it ourselves.

Blogging is a form of activism. You can be an agent of change. Some people will tell you that taking action is useless, that online petitions, phone calls to representatives, and other actions won’t change a single mind, especially one that’s been convinced of something by lobbyist dollars. To those people, I repeat the words of Margaret Mead:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

We are not a small group. More than 60 million people use WordPress — it’s said to power about 15% of the web. We can make an impact, and you can be an agent of change. Go to Stop American Censorship for more information and a bunch of ways you can take action quickly, easily, and painlessly. The Senate votes in two weeks, and we need to help at least 41 more senators see reason before then. Please. Make your voice heard.

*Yes, the latest episode of Sherlock is good. Stephen Moffatt + Russell Tovey = always good

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Threats to the web hosting industry (Anti-SOPA and Anti-PIPA)

Jan10
by Ike on January 10, 2012 at 12:04 pm
Posted In: Apache, CMS, Community, cPanel, Events, Releases, security, System

Dear Hosting Providers,

We believe the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) bills recently introduced by the U.S. Congress pose severe threats to the hosting industry as a whole and we ask that you take a few moments to understand why.  
 
While created with the good intentions of combating widespread copyright and trademark infringement, cPanel opposes these bills for a number of reasons due to their impending negative impact on hosting providers around the world.
 
First, these bills will legally destroy the Internet’s basic organizational structures by attacking the domain name system, service providers, financial providers, and hosting providers by inhibiting their ability to generate revenue and access to advertising.  Armed with only a mere accusation of infringement, under the current vague language of these bills a U.S. Attorney can obtain a court order requiring web hosting providers, Internet service providers, financial transaction providers, advertising services, and search engine sites to block access to accused websites. In addition, the bills will:
 
  • Restrict online free speech. 
  • Obstruct the “safe harbor” protections given to website operators by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
  • Block online payment processors and advertising networks from doing business with websites suspected of infringing. 
  • Allow for the arbitrary creation of “blacklists” of websites suspected of infringing.
  • Scare investors away from funding Internet startup companies.
  • Potentially criminalize currently legal conduct.

 

The most troubling aspect of SOPA and PIPA is that they will do little to stop online piracy since most violators will simply open a new website within hours of being shut down.

Congress’ current session will resume soon and hold votes on these bills. If you also agree that SOPA and PIPA are detrimental to the web hosting industry it is important that you take action by contacting members of Congress and voicing your opposition.  Additionally, if you want to help in opposing SOPA and PIPA by being part of a grassroots movement within the web hosting industry, you can find more information at: http://savehosting.org. 

To help in this fight, cPanel is donating $5,000 to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has been fighting to preserve individuals’ digital rights since 1990. (https://www.eff.org). In addition, for every tweet our hosting providers post with the hash tag #cpanel4antisopa, cPanel will donate an additional $2.50 (up to a total donation to the EFF of $10,000).

 

 

 

Thank you for your time and effort in combating SOPA and PIPA. More information to assist you may be found below.

Sincerely, 
/s/ Nick Koston
J. Nick Koston
CEO of cPanel, Inc.

 

 

Find your Congressmen to e-mail your SOPA and PIPA opposition
https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8173

Further Details of SOPA and PIPA 

Christian Dawson from ServInt provides an in-depth explanation of SOPA and PIPA:
http://blog.servint.net/2011/12/16/what-is-sopa-and-pipa/.

What is The SaveHosting.org Coalition about?

According to SaveHosting.org: “The hosting industry in the United States, and the security of private data in general, is under threat. Legislation that is making its way through Congress represents a sea change in the way our government has regulated data in our country. HR 1981 – for instance – would dramatically increase the logging and data retention rules for hosting companies, allowing the government access to the online habits of countless Americans.”

“The hosting industry is made up of small to medium service businesses. So as new bills hit the floor of Congress, such as last year’s net neutrality bills or this year’s PROTECT IP bill, we need to start getting worried – because we have no voice at the table. The SaveHosting.org Coalition is our first step towards trying to change that.”

 

 

 

 

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Plesk Panel 10.4.4 MU#11 for Linux and Windows

Jan10
by Ike on January 10, 2012 at 8:23 am
Posted In: Plesk, Releases

The following bugs have been fixed:
[-] safe_mode defined in Service Plan PHP settings does not applied during domain creation.
[-] Migration of domains or subdomains with custom DNS A records causes errors.

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Parallels Plesk 10.4.4 MU#11

Jan09
by Ike on January 9, 2012 at 8:00 pm
Posted In: Plesk, Releases

The following bugs have been fixed:
[-] safe_mode defined in Service Plan PHP settings does not applied during domain creation.
[-] Migration of domains or subdomains with custom DNS A records causes errors.

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Enkompass enhances reliability of updates with its latest release

Jan04
by Ike on January 4, 2012 at 9:43 pm
Posted In: Apache, CMS, Community, cPanel, Events, Releases, security, System

In an effort to streamline the Enkompass update process, the Enkompass development team has removed thousands of lines of upgrade code that is no longer needed. This removal will prevent technical problems when administrators upgrade Enkompass to newer versions.

As a result of these improvements, new versions of Enkompass will not support upgrading to the CURRENT tier from versions older than 2.2.0.15.

We strongly recommend that all server admins update Enkompass to at least version 2.2.0.15 —preferably version 2.4.0.43 — by January 20, 2012.

To update Enkompass:

  1. Log into SAI as the Admin user.
  2. Click the Update link in the top right corner of the screen.
  3. Click Install to update Enkompass to the latest version

For more information regarding updates, please visit the Enkompass Change Log.

update-install-screenshot.png

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