Yesterday was a big day for the Internet. CISPA (H.R. 3523) the bill that we spoke about a few weeks ago, was approved in the House by a vote of 248-168. It wasn’t even supposed to be discussed until today, which is why it’s even more shocking. The bill went through a rush vote and was quickly passed with a few minor amendments.

What does this mean? This means that the bill will now move onto the Senate for approval. If the Senate approves it, then it could still be vetoed by the President, since his advisors have already threatened to veto it.

An excerpt from that statement:

“The bill also lacks sufficient limitations on the sharing of personally identifiable information between private entities and does not contain adequate oversight or accountability measures necessary to ensure that the data is used only for appropriate purposes. Citizens have a right to know that corporations will be held legally accountable for failing to safeguard personal information adequately.”

The bill passed yesterday with some amendments, but were those amendments enough to protect us and remove the severe vagueness of the bill? I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but no, they actually do the exact opposite. The bill is even more vague and invading. The bill basically says that the 4th Amendment doesn’t apply online anymore. Ridiculous to say the least.

An excerpt from a CNET article:

“CISPA would “waive every single privacy law ever enacted in the name of cybersecurity,” Rep. Jared Polis, a Colorado Democrat and onetime Web entrepreneur, said during the debate. “Allowing the military and NSA to spy on Americans on American soil goes against every principle this country was founded on.”

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and author of CISPA, responded by telling his colleagues to ignore “all the things they’re saying about the bill that are not true.” He pleaded: “Stand for America! Support this bill!”

The amendments to the bill can be viewed here.

So, what can you do? Follow this link to quickly and easily send a message to your Senators.

I think this government needs a tune up.

Back in November 2011, 6 Estonians were arrested and charged with creating and distributing a virus to millions of computers worldwide. The virus affects the way your computer looks up the IP addresses of websites or DNS. When you type: www.no-ip.com into your browser, your computer
queries your ISPs server to ask “what is the IP address for no-ip.com” in response, your ISP tells your computer what the IP address is, and your computer successfully loads that website. Well, what the “DNS Changer” Trojan does is, instead of querying your ISPs servers, your computer queries one of the malicious servers. This whole scheme was setup in order to make a ton of money on online advertising, and it worked, until the FBI caught on.

So, back in November, the FBI successfully arrested the 6 people behind the Trojan, and replaced the malicious servers with good, happy servers. The servers were only meant to stay on for 4 months, but because of the large quantity of computers suspected to be infected with the trojan and the high level of traffic they were receiving, they were left on a bit longer. Until July 9th that is, when they will be shutdown forever.  Which will cause a MAJOR headache if you are in fact, one of the unlucky ones that was infected.

So, what can you do? Well, for starters head to this site to test your DNS. If you get the green light, you are good to go, but if you get the dreaded red light, you are infected and will have to follow the additional instructions for disinfecting your computer (yeah spring cleaning bonus round!)

I wouldn’t suggest waiting either… If you are one of the unlucky ones that has been infected, it will be much easier to fix your computer now, when you actually have a working internet connection. As opposed to on July 9th when your internet is no longer working and you now have no way to get connected to the internet to download the necessary software to fix the issue.

So, take 5 seconds right now to see if you computer is infected, okay GO!

So, How many authoritative DNS queries did we resolve a day (on average) in March on our Free DNS service?

1,353,200,000

You heard us correctly! That is a whole lot of queries! The winners are:

Stefan: 1,256,000,000

Jesse Shawl: 1,472,111,289

Congrats! Email ngoguen-giveaway(at)no-ip(dot)com

Thanks and have a great weekend everyone!

In case you missed it, check out our redundant load balancing coffee table. Nerd meets metal! Sad thing is that the original MSRP on this coffee table was way above $40,000! Yeah technology!

The question of the week is:

How many authoritative DNS queries did we resolve a day (on average) in March on our Free DNS service? (3 Winners closest to the number will win. Hint: it’s a BIG number.)

Leave all answers below as a comment. Winner announced on Friday April 20th. Winners will receive a sweet No-IP Tshirt! Be sure to share this on Facebook and Twitter!