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MAFIAAFire’s ‘Slash Unblocker’ Revives Blocked and Deleted Videos

Posted: 16 Aug 2011 02:13 PM PDT

mafiaa When the U.S. Government began seizing domain names last year, a group called "MAFIAAFire" decided to code a browser add-on to redirect the affected websites to their new domains.

Releasing the browser add-on had a bigger impact than the MAFIAA Fire team could have ever hoped for. The U.S. Government was not amused by this “uncensor tool” and asked Mozilla to pull the it from their site. However, Mozilla refused to do so and the add-on gained Internet fame as a result.

This success motivated the MAFIAAFire team to come up with more anti-censorship tools. Two months ago they released the "Gee! No evil!" plugin which thwarts Google's search engine censorship, and today they introduce a fresh add-on for Firefox and Chrome, which allows people to find alternative URLs for blocked content.

Named “Slash Unblocker” – a reference to a recent South Park episode – the add-on provides a quick way for people to submit and obtain links for videos or other content that has been taken down or removed.

“The idea is born out of the general frustration you have when you go to a page and see it has been taken down for some stupid reason. Or because the page is “not authorized for viewing in your country”,” the MAFIAAFire team explained to TorrentFreak.

The plugin is pretty straightforward. Whenever you run into a page that contains content which is blocked in your country, or has been taken down entirely, you’ll click on the “Slash Unblocker” button to see if there are alternative sources. The system relies on participation from users, who are encouraged to submit alternative sources when there are none available.

The video below explains in detail how the process works.

MAFIAAFire’s ‘Slash Unblocker’

With more than 100,000 downloads the previous MAFIAAFire plugins have been a great success. This motivated the team to continue working on new projects that they believe are needed to stop the ever-increasing censorship attempts on the Internet. Not just because the tools are useful, but also to make a statement.

“The message is you CAN fight back, the time to fight back is NOW, we outnumber them in numbers, intelligence, and will,” the MAFIAAFire team told us. “The fact that the U.S. Government tried to interfere with what we are doing is testament to it working.”

Although not everyone will agree with the tactics used, MAFIAAFire is once again proving John Gilmore right:

"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."

Source: MAFIAAFire’s ‘Slash Unblocker’ Revives Blocked and Deleted Videos

Free Textbooks For Students Will Break Greedy Monopoly

Posted: 16 Aug 2011 11:10 AM PDT

Students often struggle to make ends meet as they train for meaningful future employment.

There are countless complaints about the catch 22 situation of needing money to continue, but no job yet to provide it. One of the unavoidable major expenses faced by most students is compulsory spending on textbooks.

“According to a study (pdf) conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, textbook prices have increased FOUR TIMES the rate of inflation of other finished goods for the period of 1990-2009,” the admin of LibraryPirate.me [LP] told TorrentFreak this morning.

LibraryPirate was founded a little over a year ago with a site mission of providing college students with an alternative to continuously rising textbook prices.

“Our mission is simple and specific,” LP’s admin explains. “To revolutionize the digital e-textbook industry and change it permanently.”

LibraryPirate’s founder believes that real-world business rules don’t apply when it comes to textbook pricing and he bemoans the often unnecessary annual updates that render last year’s textbook obsolete, just as this year’s version – with its 6% annual price uplift – becomes the dictated ‘choice’.

“The Government Accountability Office reports that the average student spends about $1000 on textbooks each year, or 26 percent of their yearly tuition [source, pdf]. Publishers defend their actions claiming increased expenses in updating this supplementary material are only being passed along to the student,” he explains.

“While there is a need to keep information current, most of what is taught in big introductory courses simply isn’t going to change that much from year to year, or even from decade to decade. For example, Calculus was invented 300 years ago however new editions of textbooks are released like clockwork.”

In common with the music and movie industries, a relatively small group of textbook publishers have a monopoly on the market. Even congressional intervention is said to have failed in dislodging their grip.

“New Textbook legislation was introduced by the Higher Education Opportunity Act (H.R. 4137), which passed 380-49 in the House and 83-8 in the Senate on July 31. The bill was signed by President Obama on August 14 and went into effect July 1, 2010,” LP’s admin explains.

“The bill aims at making textbook publishers more up front with students about textbook pricing and also forces them to sell some additional course materials separately. While this is a start, it is clear now that these measures have done nothing to prevent the continued rise in inflation of textbooks and new digital course material.”

Furthermore, as is becoming increasingly common in the video games market, publishers are taking steps to discourage student use of the pre-owned books market. LP’s admin says they are achieving this by offering discounts up to 20% on their eBook products to encourage uptake, but then disqualifying the purchaser from selling the product by implementing DRM.

But LP’s admin, who says that he experienced the street-level effects of the monopoly during his time as a student, intends to undermine it through what he describes as the open access movement.

“Open source textbooks alone will, without a doubt, turn the textbook industry on its head by taking away the power from the major publishing companies,” he explains.

“Those with access to e-textbook resources — students, librarians, scientists and professors have the responsibility to share this knowledge openly with the rest of the world. Unfortunately, the majority of universities do not utilize open source textbooks today. Professors continue to require students to buy hundreds of dollars in textbooks and ‘kiss the ring’ of textbook publishers.”

This open source dream is not yet reality, which automatically leaves students in the hands of the textbook monopoly. However, LP’s admin says he intends to meet demand by making ALL textbooks open for everyone to use and distribute.

“To strike back against the textbook monopolists we must hit them where it will hurt the most – not in the testicles, but in the pocketbook,” he says. “Tell all your friends not to buy books from the campus bookstore when they can get them for free online. ”

While there are currently around one thousand textbooks indexed on LibraryPirate.me, the site’s founder hopes that through collaborative effort that collection will grow.

“Grab every textbook you can get your hands on and scan it so that everyone in the world can have a chance at education,” he says. “Professors, students, and avid readers alike, it is our responsibility to do everything we can to make education available to all who seek it, and this policy flies directly in the face of the textbook publishers that are using you to line their pockets.”

While many users of torrent and other file-sharing sites will simply be looking for casual digital entertainment to fill their free time, the careers of those searching for textbooks could hang in the balance depending on whether they find their target material or not.

But of course, just as poor students want to save money on their way to a career, textbook publishers need to make money in order to survive too. Is there a moral difference between downloading a song or movie and downloading a career-enabling educational textbook, even if it is provided at unfair prices through an anti-competitive monopoly?

“While many may view the open source movement as blatant ‘piracy’, I believe they are overlooking the obvious moral imperative at play here,” TorrentFreak was told. “Personally, this notion became very clear to me after attending college and has remained the driving motivation behind the LibraryPirate project.”

“It’s no secret that college students today are simply victims of a broken educational system. Until real steps are taken to ensure textbook material is made more affordable and accessible to students, I only see one path to moral high ground.

“So, in the historical tradition of civil disobedience, the time has come for students to declare their opposition to this private theft of education,” LP’s admin concludes.

Source: Free Textbooks For Students Will Break Greedy Monopoly

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