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Congress will probably vote on SOPA soon. We don’t yet know what the outcome will be, but we do know that the copyright industries have donated heavily to nearly every senator and representative in Washington. If the measure (or a slightly modified version, like PIPA) passes, then the internet will be fundamentally altered.
As it stands, the internet is like an open highway, where — apart from engaging in blatantly incriminating acts like terrorism, spilling government secrets, or distributing child porn — you’re basically free to do what you want. If SOPA passes, the internet will become more like a highway that is littered with police checkpoints and speed traps. Worse still, those police are less concerned with serving the public, and more interested in maximizing the profits of the copyright industries.
Though some people find comfort living in a world of rules and authority figures, most modern thinkers would rather lean in the direction of personal liberty. SOPA does not support personal liberty. So what do you do if the legislation makes it through congress, and is ultimately signed by the president? We have some preemptive suggestions to help you to bypass SOPA:
DeSOPA
One clever developer wasted no time in coming up with his own solution. As we’ve told you previously, DeSOPA is a Firefox extension that will supposedly bypass SOPA restrictions placed on any given website.
Of course there aren’t yet any SOPA restrictions in place, but the DeSOPA method should be sound. It avoids DNS blocking by connecting to sites by IP address. It won’t work for every site (subdomains aren’t supported), but it’s a simple, free, and moderately effective place to start.
Get DeSOPA
Browse by IP address
This is the DIY version of DeSOPA. You’ll simply open a Command Prompt (Windows) or Terminal (Mac) window, and ping the website that you want.
So, for example, if you want the IP address of geek.com, you would type:
ping geek.com
After typing this, the site’s IP address will be displayed in the command/terminal window. Simply type that IP address (in geek’s case, it’s 107.21.116.89) into a web browser.
Of course if SOPA takes effect, pinging a blacklisted domain won’t give you its IP addresses anymore. If you’re worried that any of your favorite sites will get SOPA-slammed, you might want to plan ahead and make a list.
Like DeSOPA, this approach isn’t perfect. Sites with Dynamic IP addresses won’t play nicely with this method. It is, however, a great method to try before bringing out the big guns.
Tor
Tor is a free application that routes your traffic through the computers of various volunteers. You may think such a method would leave your data wide open, but Tor’s “Onion” method of layering encryption is actually quite secure. In fact, it’s endorsed by the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) as a means for whistleblowers and human rights activists to communicate with journalists.
What are the drawbacks? Like anything on the internet, Tor won’t protect your identity 100%. Tor also can lead to slower data speeds, so you may find that it’s more trouble than it’s worth.
Get Tor
VPN
Finally, we have the Big Daddy of all anti-SOPA solutions: a virtual private network (VPN). A VPNchannels your internet traffic through an encrypted tunnel, which will maintain your online anonymity.
If SOPA passes, it’s important to find a VPN service that has servers outside of the US, or you’ll be stuck at square one. Most VPN providers will charge $10-20 per month, but you can often save by paying for a full year at a time.
Again, nothing on the internet will protect you if you’re engaging in high-level criminal activity. For example, an alleged member of Lulzsec was found via his VPN. After revealing his provider in an IRC thread, the FBI convinced a UK judge to have the VPN turn over its records. Those records apparently provided enough info to identify the Arizona resident and take him into custody. This was, of course, an exceptional high-profile case (Lulzsec was accused of hacking the Playstation Network). For those of us who simply want to avoid censorship, a quality VPN will more than suffice.
Another potential hole with VPNs is that there’s a clause in SOPA that may let the Department of Justice cut off VPN providers (never mind that VPNs can be used for a million things other than piracy). Non-US providers obviously couldn’t be shut down, but — in the most extreme scenario — payments to them could potentially be blocked. There will always be workarounds; but if SOPA reaches that far, things will get trickier.
Some of the most popular services are VyprVPN (pricey but high quality), StrongVPN, WiTopia, andHideMyAss! The pros and cons of each could constitute an entire post, so we’d encourage you to merely use these as a starting point.
Déjà Vu
The saddest thing about all of this is that these solutions have been used before. While these workarounds will help you to bypass SOPA, they are the same methods that experts recommend for bypassing the national firewall in China.
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