UPDATE: Please attend NYTM’s SOS Jan. 18th, 12:30pm-2pm
Outside the Offices of Senator Charles Schumer and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand 780 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Please RSVP with NY Tech Meetup: http://nytm.org/sos/

As the saying goes:

Dear Congress, It’s No Longer OK To Not Know How The Internet Works

Jan. 24th will be a big vote for the Internet. PIPA, SOPA’s twin will be voted on in the Senate. Here’s what we’re doing to let our Senators know they should reject PIPA on Jan. 24th. We are asking our 2 NY State Senators to have town hall meetings or an in-district meeting with us (you can request them but sometimes the request stuff like faxes). We don’t have a date for a meeting in NYC yet, because the Senators are on recess and it’s difficult to effectively schedule a date with an answering machine. New Yorkers, stay tuned, we’ll announce the date to meet with our Senators. If you’re not in New York – we urge you to contact your Senators for a town hall meeting or in-district meeting in your area before the Jan. 24th vote. Those of us who call the Internet home need to educate Congress on the dangerous nature of this Act, because srsly, do they get how DNS works? Or what xkcd is? We don’t think so.

The following is a citizen packet prepared by Public Knowledge: 

Tell Congress to Reject Internet Censorship Tools in PIPA

On January 24th the United States Senate will be voting on S. 968 the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). Your two Senators will have the opportunity to decide whether America will adopt the tools of censorship used to block websites in China or reject them by voting no and standing with Senators Wyden, Moran, Paul, and Cantwell. Ask your two Senators to stand against adopting the tools of censorship in any bill that comes up for a vote.

What you should know about PIPA:

• 83 of Internet’s original creators including Vint Cerf, co-designer of TCP/IP, and Robert W. Taylor, founder of ARPAnet, oppose SOPA and PIPA.
• The government has a poor track record of protecting free speech on the Internet. For example, lawful hip-hop music blog Dajaz1.com was held by the government for anentire year on the accusation of copyright infringement.

• Think tanks, government agencies, and industry associations across the political and social spectrum have said that SOPA and PIPA would undermine freedom of expression
• Top cyber security experts have said that SOPA and PIPA would undermine a 15 year government initiative (DNSSEC) to update Internet security.

• Human rights groups have told Congress that PIPA would help censorship regimes like China and Iran by sacrificing America’s fight for Internet freedom worldwide.

• Congress has yet to allow experts on free speech, network engineering, Internet security, or human rights testify at a hearing on PIPA.

• The content industry has spent $94 million in lobbying Congress to pass their bills in 2011, arguing that if China can censor the Internet the U.S. can also do it.

• Lobbyists have misled Congress by saying the United States already uses censorship tools for malware and child pornography.

Sample Town Hall Questions:

•  Will you stand with Senators Wyden, Moran, Paul and Cantwell and oppose Internet censorship on January 24th?
•  Do you understand what the Domain Name Server (DNS) system is and have you consulted with cybersecurity experts on the effects of the Protect IP Act?
•  Would you still vote for Protect IP if it restricts freedom of speech?
• Have you taken money from the movie and music industry?

Who Opposes SOPA/PIPA’s DNS Filtering Provisions (full list)?

Non-profit organizations and education institutions, including Public Knowledge, the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and library groups like The American Association of Law Libraries, American College of Research libraries, the American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries, and the Special Libraries Association. Other non-profit organizations opposed to the bill include the Future of Music Coalition, the Institute for Intellectual Property and Social Justice, the Internet Society and the Public Interest Registry.

A group of 41 “press freedom and human rights advocates,” including the Center for Media Justice, Free Press, and organizations from the European Union, Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, England, Finland, France, Germany, India, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Sweden. Additionally, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First, and Internews all oppose SOPA/PIPA’s filtering provisions.

83 Internet professionals, cybersecurity experts, and Internet engineers including Vint Cerf, the creator of TCP/IP, Paul Vixie, the author of BIND, Esther Dyson, the founding Chairman of ICANN, and Robert Taylor, an early ARPAnet innovator.

Founders of some of the most successful Internet companies: Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape, Michell Baker, co-founder of Firefox, Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and Square, Caterina Flake, co-founder of Flickr and Hunch, David Filo, co-founder of Yahoo!, Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, Arianna Huffington, co-founder of The Huffington Post, Chad Hurley, co-founder of YouTube, Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive and co-founder of Alexa Internet, Elon Musk, co-founder of PayPal, Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist, Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay, Biz Stone, co- founder of Obvious and Twitter, Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation, Evan Williams, co-founder of Blogger and Twitter, and Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo!.

Think tanks such as the Brookings Institute and CATO Institute as well as consumer groups such as the Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, and U.S. PIRG: The Federation of State PIRGs, and the Entertainment Consumers Association.

The Sandia National Labs under the Department of Energy and OpenDNS, “the largest DNS and Internet security service in the world.”

130 “entrepreneurs, founders, CEOs, and executives who have been involved in 283 technology start-ups,” including Chas Edwards of Digg, Chad Dickerson of Etsy, and Dennis Crowley of Foursquare.

55 venture capitalists from firms such as Union Square Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, and SV Angel.

Thanks Public Knowledge!!

This week come craft yourself a new liver at Not-NYCResistor!! Craft night is CANCELED this week (Oct. 13th) but we’ll all be at Pacific Standard just around the corner.

Why is craft night canceled?

Because we said so. Also because we are getting the space all painted so it looks shiny and new for NEXT craft night.

So, to recap:

Please DO NOT show up to NYCResistor on Oct. 13th but DO go drink yourself silly at Pacific Standard. It’s a nice bar, once they let us bring our robot over. Please DO come back on Oct. 20th in the newly painted spaced when craft night will resume at NYCResistor with the candlestick and Prof. Plum. Ms. Peacock will also be in attendance.

Very truly yours,

NYCResistor

Back by popular demand from a really awesome open source hardware community, and people like you, the Open Hardware Summit is back for more! Check out the extraordinary lineup of speakers this year, featuring some of the biggest game-changers in Open Hardware history. We also hear you can purchase your tickets here: http://ohs2011-eorg.eventbrite.com/

Read all about it!

* * * Please Redistribute * * *

The Open Hardware Summit (OHS) invites submissions for the second annual summit, to be held on September 15, 2011 in New York City. The Open Hardware Summit is a venue to present, discuss, and learn about open hardware of all kinds. The summit examines open hardware and its relation to other issues, such as software, design, business, and law. We are seeking submissions for talks, breakout sessions, and demos from individuals and groups working with open hardware and related areas. Submissions are due by June 24, 2011. Notification of accepted proposals will happen by August 1st. If you are looking for a new software to start using in your business then you should consider using this work order management software.

Since the first Open Hardware Summit in 2010, we have seen the open hardware movement continue to flourish. The Open-Source Hardware Definition was announced, the OSHW logo was selected by a popular vote, an open source oil spill cleaning robot got more than $33,000 in crowd funding, Google adopted the open hardware movement’s biggest success story, Arduino, as its platform and our very own keynote speaker, Limor Fried, was featured on the front page of Wired Magazine – to name a few. Needless to say, open hardware is getting BIG.

Submission topics

Topics of interest for the summit include, but are not limited to:

• Lessons learned from past projects
• Legal and intellectual property implications of open-source hardware
• Means of supporting collaboration and community interaction
• Manufacturing
• Distributed development and its relationship to physical goods
• Digital fabrication (e.g. laser cutters and 3D printers)
• Software design tools (CAD / CAM)
• DIY technology
• Ways to share information about hardware that’s not captured in source files
• Business models
• Manufacturing on demand
• Competition and collaboration
• Sustainability of open hardware products (e.g. how to unmake things)
• Industrial design
• “open-washing” (green washing for open source)
• Open-hardware in the enterprise
• Specific product domains: e.g. science, agriculture, communications, medicine

And any other topic you think relates to openness and hardware. We want to hear all about it!

Types of submissions

You may submit proposals for one or more of the following formats:

Talk

• Expected duration for talks is between 5 and 20 minutes, depending on the number and quality of submissions.
• We expect all talks to be plenary (i.e. presented to the entire summit audience).
• Talk submissions primarily containing marketing for a product will not be accepted. However, talks that share knowledge and insight derived from work on commercial products are welcome.

Breakout session

• Depending on submissions, there may be an opportunity to organize breakout sessions with smaller groups (5-40) to discuss a particular topic
• We expect breakout sessions to occur during a single time-slot of approximately 1 to 2 hours.
• Breakout session submissions should include an overview of the content and plan for the session.
• You are encouraged to co-author breakout session submissions with other interested parties but sessions will be open to general summit attendees.

Project Demo

• This is a casual show and tell session that will take place during the end-of-day drinks.
• You are encouraged to include pictures as part of your demo submissions.
• Please include all demo requirements: amount and type of space (e.g. “one 3×3 foot table and one chair” or “a 5 × 5 section of wall with at least 10 feet in front of it”), power requirements (note: we cannot provide any power adaptors). Please keep in mind this is an informal project demo, and complex requirements/constraints (internet, light/sound conditions etc) will be difficult to accommodate.
• It will be your responsibility to carry/assemble/set up/disassemble your demo. We cannot provide any support for the receiving, storing, or shipping of demos.
• Note: If submitting a project demo, Your project MUST be working by the time of the summit.

Submission format

• Submissions should be formatted as plain text of no more than 1,000 words in length and include ALLof the following:
• The type of submission (talk, breakout session, or demo)
• A title
• A bio of the speaker(s) (That’s you!)
• What you intend to talk about, the topic for your breakout session, or a description of your demo
• An explanation the importance of your submission to the open-hardware community
• A maximum of TWO photos that help explain your topic of submission (optional)

Submissions should be emailed to proposals [AT] openhardwaresummit.org with the subject line “Open Hardware Summit submission” followed by the type of submission in parentheses (e.g. “Open Hardware Summit submission (breakout session)”). Deadline is JUNE 24th, 2011 BY 11:59pm (EST). Accepted submissions WILL BE PUBLISHED on the OHS website.

For more information

For more details about the Open Hardware Summit, see the website at openhardwaresummit.org Please direct questions about submissions to the Review Chair, David Mellis, at

mellis [AT] media.mit.edu.

Please direct other questions about the summit to General Chairs Alicia Gibb and Ayah Bdeir at

info [AT] openhardwaresummit.org

Thank you and we hope to see you in September!