TorrentFreak explains how the SOPA virus works:

[The] SOPA virus holds all files on the host computer ransom.

“Your computer is locked!” the splash screen above warns, adding:

"If you see a warning.txt or warning screen, it means your IP address was included in S.O.P.A. Black List. One or more of the following items were made from your PC:
1. Downloading or distributing audio or video files protected by Copyright Law.
2. Downloading or distributing illegal content (child porn, phishing software, etc.)
3. Downloading or distributing Software protected by Copyright Law.
As a result of these infringements based on Stop Online Piracy Act (H.R. 3261) your PC and files are now blocked."

Now that the unwitting virus victim is terrified, the program goes in for the kill by warning that those who "don't pay the fine within 72 HOURS at the amount of 200 USD all your computer data will be erased." The ransom can be paid by a prepaid MoneyPak voucher or Western Union, depending on the victim's location.

Because it makes so much sense for the feds to ignore alleged downloading of child porn or copyrighted material as long as they receive a mere $200 in return.

Don't be scared if this pops up. After all, further action on SOPA was postponed by the U.S. House in January, 2012.

Simply search out guides to removing the ransomware, such as this one from YooSecurity. The same outfit created the helpful video below, which walks users through the steps to regaining control of a kidnapped computer--and hopefully restoring some peace of mind.

Video by YooSecurity.com.

Rep. Issa discussing CISPA, which he supports, at the Personal Democracy Forum.

One of Andrew Rasiej's favorite jokes is that legislators don't know the difference between a server and a waiter. Mr. Rasiej, chairman of the NY Tech Meetup and founder of Personal Democracy Forum, a summit on tech and politics, moderated on stage at NYU's Skirball Center. Mr. Rasiej faced off with netizens Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA). "Why is it that so many members of Congress don't seem to understand the Internet?" he asked.

"We don't use our children enough as advisors," Sen. Wyden said, in a joke that fell flat. "There is a generational divide on this issue."

Rep. Issa had a more thoughtful answer. "The path to Congress or elected office usually doesn't lead through tech activities," he said. "More than half of Senators are lawyers, slightly less than half the House are lawyers. There are more doctors than people who have ever started their own business."

He agreed there is a generational divide, with Congresspeople relying on IT staff to understand the Internet for them. "A lot of times, people have just simply gotten into the habit of not wanting to learn how things work because they're doing
other things... then they make these terrible jokes that show they really don't know how it works."

The uprising around SOPA and PIPA seems destined to hover around industry conferences indefinitely. Cheezburger Network chief Ben Huh said the now-legendary online protest that stopped the twin anti-piracy bills, SOPA and PIPA, would be the dominant topic at the Internet comedy gathering ROFLCon.

The pair positioned themselves as Internet-friendly, with Sen. Wyden even name-dropping TweetDeck. Rep. Issa thanked the audience and 15 million digital protestors "for what you did on January 18" to stop the bills.

Sen. Wyden proposed a "digital bill of rights," to repair the relationship between Congrees and the American web industry.  "It sounds like you're starting what amounts to a digital Constitutional convention," he told Mr. Rasiej. The bill of rights would enumerate broad rights such as "freedom," "open Internet" and the right of digital citizens to "share."

"The more I learn about the 'net, frankly, the less I know," he admitted.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post described Mr. Rasiej as a lobbyist. While he is a politically active techie, coordinating the Personal Democracy Forum as well as the large anti-SOPA protest in New York, he has never been employed as a lobbyist. Betabeat regrets the error.

Mr. Huh (flickr.com/yodelanecdotal)

Ben Huh, the CEO of Seattle-based Cheezburger Network, stood in the lobby of the Le Parker Meridien hotel on W. 56th St. peering into his phone as he uploaded a photo of a soggy Central Park snapped from the view outside the elevator. "All my friends have switched to Path," he told Betabeat, pulling to refresh. "Twitter just has too much noise."

Mr. Huh was in New York for a charity gala and a few business meetings on his way to the third bi-annual ROFLCon. ROFLCon is a Boston conference for "people at the center of memes and people who make their living from Internet culture, and people who are just fans," as Mr. Huh described it. The conference consists of two days of talks and panels about subjects like GIFs, webcomics, supercuts and "lulz."

"It's actually really academic," he said. "It's incredibly high-brow and incredibly low-brow at the same time." Attendees may show up in say, a Pedobear costume, but the "the panels tend to be rather academic. We talk about really serious topics."

He expects the biggest topic of discussion at ROFLCon this year will be the now-dead Stop Online Piracy Act, which would have posed a significant threat to meme-friendly sites like Reddit, Tumblr and BuzzFeed. The collaborative "remixing" that creates memes often starts from an image or video that may have be copyrighted.

He likened copyright protection to tariffs on free trade. "Copyright is protectionism for content," he said.

All this will only become more relevant for society at large, he said. ROFLCon is the "leading edge of this cultural change because of the Internet," he said. "It's the future of entertainment, the future of culture and how we communicate."

LOLcats are probably the most mainstream meme, he said, but "new memes will crop up that speak to larger audiences" as the percentage of the population that grew up with the Internet increases. "Nothing we do seems to be really accepted by the mainstream yet," he said. "It's more like, 'oh these weird freaks on the Internet.'"

For his part, Mr. Huh is working on the beta sites.cheezburger.com, a basic website builder where anyone can make a simple showcase for the things that make them LOL. One could, say, arrange a spread of ten photos or curate a collection of favorite memes. Cheezburger is now hosting about 25,000 such sites, he said. "As LinkedIn is to resumes, we want Cheezburger to be for people's sense of humor," he said.

Betabeat attempted to steer the conversation toward Circa, the freshly-funded news consumption startup of which Mr. Huh is a cofounder, but no dice. "Matt, my CEO, told me not to talk about that," he said.

“The future of the NY tech community is in jeopardy,” the email read. “We are writing to call you to an Emergency NY Tech Meetup in New York on January 18 so that we can publicly demonstrate our collective dismay at the unprecedented attack currently being made on the Internet and our industry.” Read More

Rick Webb

So the troubling anti-piracy bills Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) are on the ropes, effectively dead. The celebrations have begun. It's exciting. What a great, proud week for the internet, for democracy, and for fighting against money in our politics. But that doesn't mean that we can let our guard down and overlook how the the bill's defenders glossed over how SOPA and PIPA could be used to target U.S. citizens.

I share concerns with people like developer Marco Ament and journalist MG Seigler that this is just one victory in a larger battle. Furthermore, I echo my friend (and former investee) Matt Galligan's comments that "I’d GLADLY pay for premium content but instead the only option I have is piracy." This week, I've been trying to finish up watching season 2 of Boardwalk Empire. I pay for HBO through Time Warner NY. Because I use a TiVo, rather than the crappy DVR Time Warner foists upon me, I am unable to watch Boardwalk Empire on On Demand. Time Warner has no HBO Go. I pay something like $60 a month for HBO and I still can't watch their shows.

(And I am appalled at MPAA head Chris Dodd's blatant statements about money in politics when he says "Those who count on quote ‘Hollywood’ for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don’t ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don’t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake." It's disgusting.)

All that being said, I find it curious that most of the chatter around the web on SOPA and PIPA was around the admittedly nefarious firewall technology to block foreign sites. Indeed, when defending the bill, the RIAA focused on jobs and overseas pirating sites. What they failed to mention is Section 201: "Streaming Of Copyrighted Works In Violation Of Criminal Law." This section is part of Part II of the bill, "Additional Enhancements to Combat Intellectual Property Theft." Despite its title, the section deals with all types of downloading and transmission of files. And it is not limited to owners of infringing sites. It applies to all Americans. RIAA almost never mentioned the elevation of downloading by American citizens to a criminal offense. If this bill was only about stopping overseas pirated sites, then why was Section 201 even in the bill, or at least why was it not limited to the operators of these sites?

To back up a bit, we have seen over the last 10 years or so a massive litigation effort by RIAA against people who download files. The effort has seen a multitude of complications, embarrassments, discovery of grey areas and incidents of mistaken identity. To put it simply, a computer is not a person, and RIAA has been in many instances lax in confirming who was actually using the computer. RIAA has, thus, brought lawsuits against parents of children, the elderly who do not know how to use their computers, people who don't even own computers and even dead people. It's been stressful and costly for many.

RIAA has pulled back on this, mainly due to the adverse PR fallout of the lawsuits. Part II of SOPA, of course, would have given them convenient cover. The civil suits were bad enough, but now RIAA sought to have the government do their dirty work for them. Previously, none of these parents or grandmothers were liable to go to jail. With SOPA, that would have no longer been the case. "How can you be upset about your grandmother? It's not us that's suing them, it's the government. Granny committed a federal offense." Read the bill.

(I should also mention I am the owner of a record label. Even in that capacity, RIAA is a joke. It does not speak for me, it does not care about small, independent record labels. Indeed, RIAA is often completely antithetical to the interests of content producers.)

Now, it's easy to think that the law only covers those who have done a ton of downloading. The numbers used in Section 201 are one or more works that retails for over $1,000 or isn't out commercially yet in the United States. One import CD or DVD and you would be in violation.

For works out already in the U.S., the number is 10 or more.  The problem here is that the bill makes no accommodation for the way that file sharing actually works. If you run BitTorrent, by default you are uploading as well as downloading. That's the way it works. It's not hard to accidentally share an entire folder of legitimately obtained music. Little bits and pieces of every album on a computer may have been uploaded. The law does not address this. If your kid or grandkid puts a BitTorrent app on your computer and leaves it running, you may well be breaking the law. Right now, you might end up with a civil suit. With SOPA, you might have ended up in jail.

Sure, the law also says "For purposes of this subsection, evidence of reproduction, distribution, or public performance of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement of a copyright." That should protect you, right? How can we know? First, they do not exclude the presence of an application such as BitTorrent being on your computer, even though it may have legitimate use. It's not unreasonable to assume that could be used as evidence of will. Your bandwidth uses could also implicate you. Who knows. It's a wide open field. More worryingly, the criminal charge may well go to juries. Juries that may not know how any of this works.

It's not clear to me why any of this is needed. It's not clear to me why we need to make this even more draconian. A meme has been going around the internet: "Under SOPA, you could get 5 years for uploading a Michael Jackson song, one year more than the doctor who killed him." It sounds insane, but it is true.

On a recent segment of the Chris Hayes show, Mr. Hayes interviewed NBC Universal VP and General Counsel Rick Cotton. Mr. Cotton was bordering on abusive in his relentless insistence that anyone who read the bill would see that SOPA was targeting oversees sites. "What this legislation is addressing are websites, wholesale devoted to illegal activities that if they were in the United States would be subject to criminal prosecution and to shutdown. This legislation would not effect a single site in the United States.... And it is totally wrong to say that a single post or a SMALL amount of legitimate activity would be threatened by this legislation." Mr. Cotton completely failed to mention Part II of the bill, except by alluding, broadly, to Part II and implying you'll be fine. Mr. Cotton goes on to say "This legislation is devoted exclusively to foreign sites."

This is a lie. Cotton was willfully fudging, trying to say that out of all the websites, the legislation only applied to foreign ones. But an entire additional section of that bill referred to US citizens. And we should be wary.

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), Founder of GarysGuide, Mentor at ER Accelerator and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can follow him at @garysguide and reach him via email at gary [at] garysguide.com.

Takeaway #1: Speed of Grassroots To Mainstream
The fight against SOPA/PIPA was under the radar for many folks for a long time but when it did finally break through to get attention, it was heartening to see the speed and intensity with which the entire tech industry, from the grassroots all the way up to the Googles and the Wikipedias, quickly rallied around and came together to fight for the freedom of the Internet and won!  Chalk that one up as another win for social media channels such as Twitter and Facebook that are making it really easy for people to come together, get their voices heard and take action around common worthwhile causes as happened during the Arab Spring revolution.

Takeaway #2: Hollywood and Silicon Valley Sitting In A Tree?
Okay, so obviously that seems like a distant dream right now with tempers flying high after SOPA/PIPA. But I think its about time that the content industry (a.k.a. Hollywood) and the distribution / platform industry (a.k.a. Silicon Valley) toned down the rhetoric and finally found a way to come together to the discussion table to find common ground and figure out how to work together. I don't think that Paul Graham's "Death to Hollywood" clarion call is the right answer. Much as we all love watching videos of cats skateboarding on YouTube or playing FarmVille, there is a genuine demand for high quality premium content such as the Dark Knights and the Modern Families and the NFLs and The Daily Shows.

And we're willing to pay good money for it. But we also want to pay what's fair and reasonable and we want convenience and the ability to watch whenever, wherever. And that might mean that some of the old business models are not going to cut it anymore and it means that shoving stuff like region-locking and encryption and, worst of all, content windows down our throats is only going to frustrate us and drive us further into the arms of the MegaUploads and the RapidShares.

There is a need for a discussion regarding innovative and creative new business models. Look at the music industry where we went from reluctantly and unhappily paying $15 to $20 for a CD to happily forking over $0.99 for a song on iTunes or $10 a month for streaming via Spotify, MOG or Rdio.

Takeaway #3: Need For Campaign Finance Reform
One of the scariest takeways from the whole SOPA/PIPA affair was just how easy it is to subvert the political system in Washington to benefit one's own agenda assuming of course that one has a) the deep pockets to hire an army of lobbyists and buy off key politicians and b) the utter lack of conscience to actually go through with it. But even scarier was how periliously close we came to destroying the free and democratic nature of the internet. Where were the checks and balances? Where was the common sense? Surely alarm bells must have gone off in a few politicians' minds (the ones who weren't bought) as they read the proposed bills?

Does that mean its time for the tech industry to band together and have our own representative group to have the industry's concerns voiced and issues raised in Washington? Maybe. Thinking more long-term though, I really feel that campaign finance reform and the need to create an ecosystem that prevents big money in general from being able to influence key policy issues in Washington is critical. And with the 2012 elections around the corner, this may be the right time to have a national debate on the issues. Cuz next time around, we may not be so lucky in saving the internet.

Kim Dotcom - The Next James Bond Villain?!
Yes, Daniel Craig 'n the 007 crew are already busy shooting the next Bond movie Skyfall but I wonder if its not too late to make a slight script change ;) Cuz if ever there was someone tailor-made for the Bond baddie role, it would have to be the recently apprehended enigmatic MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom - big, bald and sporting those trademark wraparound sunglasses, self professed modern day pirate, sprawling mansions, private jets, b'day parties on nuclear submarines, hanging with playboy bunnies, penchant for racing fast cars and owner of a rolls royce phantom, lamborghini, pink cadillac and a fleet of benz's with license plates such as HACKER, POLICE, STONED, MAFIA and GOD, trying to finance a private army against war on terror, shelling out half a million bucks to sponsor fireworks in Auckland to buy his way to a citizenship and of course running a global piracy network spanning from New Zealand to Hong Kong to Netherlands to Virginia amassing millions in the process. The only thing missing are a purring white siamese cat and an underground volcano lair. I mean, c'mooonnnnn, the character pretty much writes itself! ;)  (Bonus: did ya know he's also the no. 1 global "Modern Warfare 3" player?)

Tech Events This Week

Ok, and now lets see where the Silicon Alley cohorts will be cozying up this week...

SXSW Interactive NYC Community Meet Up
SXSW may still be a couple of months away but its never too early to start the party, right?! ;)
Monday, 6 p.m. @ Drom, 85 Avenue A

Entrepreneurs Roundtable 43
ERA honcho Murat Aktihanoglu is back with the first edition of Entrepreneurs Roundtable of 2012. Featured speaker is Eric Hippeau of Lerer Ventures.
Monday, 6 p.m. @ Chadbourne & Parke LLP, 30 Rockefeller Plaza 36th Floor

Under30CEO Demo/Pitches: The Tough Question Competition
Judges include Brad Harrison (BHV Fund), Hezekiah Griggs (H360 Capital), Eric Bertrand (EJB Capital), Heather Gilchrist (Rak Group and Jonathan Axelrod (Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator). Presenting are Matt Bishop (iGiveMore), Jason Blanck (Broodr), Michael Giles (RoboInvest), Clay Hebert (Spindows), Jason Nadaf (SureDone) and Ron Williams (Knod.es)
Monday, 6:30 p.m. @ Microsoft HQ NYC, 1290 Avenue of the Americas 6th Floor

Digital Media MBA January Happy Hour
Schmoozin' and boozin' with fellow startuppers.
Monday, 6:30 p.m. @ Solas, 232 East Ninth Street

The Digial Media Center – Official Launch Event
Digital Media Center is a collaboration betn SVB, Cooley, Deloitte and NASDAQ. Speaking are Andy Mitchell (Facebook), Ben Wolin (CEO, Everyday Health), Roger Keating (SVP Digital Media, Hearst Television), Jerry Neumann (Ad Tech Angel Investor), Eric Anderson (VP Content and Product Solutions, Samsung Electronics America) and Kathleen Sullivan (CMO, Verizon Digital Media Services).
Tuesday, 4:30 p.m. @ NASDAQ, 4 Times Square

Talking UI/UX for Location Based Apps
SoLoMo + UI/UX = A Good Time ;)
Wednesday, 6:30 p.m. @ Aol Ventures, 770 Broadway 6th Floor

Inaugural NY Enterprise Technology Meetup
Enterprise is going to be an important trend in 2012. Presenting will be Bitly, PerspecSys, Socialware and RedRover.
Wednesday, 7 p.m. @ Cooley, 1114 Avenue of the Americas

Getting Down to BDNess
Wherein u explore the practice and craft of business development. Speaking will be Matthew Friend (Sr. Manager, Digital Partnerships & BizDev, American Express), Jesse Hertzberg (SVP, Operations & BizDev, Squarespace) and Graham Siener (VP of Customer Development, Profitably).
Wednesday, 7 p.m. @ General Assembly, 902 Broadway 4th Floor

Hackers & Founders NYC Meetup #27
The place to be to hang out with other hacker/founders.
Thursday, 6 p.m. @ The Ginger Man, 7 East 36th St

NY Video Jan 2012 Meetup
Presenting will be Dave Ford (Sharethrough), Jared Neumark (CEO, Landline TV), Aubrey Levy & Sander Kooijman (CoFounders, Mobcaster) and Chuck Storman & Mike Bittle (CEO & COO, Attend).
Thursday, 6:30 p.m. @ Aol HQ, 770 Broadway 6th Floor

Digital DUMBO 3rd Year Anniversary Party
Everyone's favorite Brooklyn tech networking event turns 3! Time to par-tayyy :)
Thursday, 6:30 p.m. @ Dumbo Loft, 155 Water St, Brooklyn

More on the horizon...

January Hacker Townhall on Jan 30 @ General Assembly
500 Startups Demo Day NYC on Feb 01 @ General Assembly
18th Annual Columbia Business School Private Equity & Venture Capital Conference on Feb 03 @ Columbia Business School
NYC EDU Startup Weekend on Feb 03 @ The Mandell School
API Hackday NYC on Feb 04 @ Mashery HQ
TEDxBigApple presents Disruptive Ideas @ Saatchi & Saatchi on Feb 04 @ Saatchi & Saatchi
SecondMarket Presents: Capitalyze on Feb 15 @ Dream Downtown

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit, brought sympathy cards which he planned to hand-deliver to the senators, mourning the death of the internet.

Scott Heiferman, Meetup CEO, held up a sign after his speech that read, “Can we go back to work now?” in a cunning reference to the jobs the industry creates in New York, and perhaps the cold weather too.

Jessica Lawrence, managing director of NY Tech Meetup, felt for the kids who had to do their homework without the help of Wikipedia, after the site shutdown for the day to show support for the protests, “that tells you how much the internet affects the whole of society,” she said.

Andrew McLaughlin, former Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer and current Executive EP of Tumblr, and John Perry Barlow, founder of Electric Frontier Foundation and ex Grateful Dead lyricist, spoke to the Betabeat after the rally.

“It would be unthinkable if it passed,” said Mr. Barlow. Responding to whether he thought Hollywood lobbyists are actively flexing their muscles in this bill, he said “I mean Lamar Smith, who is kind of a small time Texas Representative, got over $60,000 in the last election from Hollywood.”

“I take the backers of the bill at their word,” Mr. McLaughlin said. “They are concerned about a legitimate problem: counterfeiting overseas and copyright infringement overseas, but [the bill] is not simply a function of Hollywood lobbying, it’s who [Congress is] used to hearing from.”

He added, “They are used to hearing from Hollywood, now the internet community is mobilizing to say ‘we’re here, we matter and we’ve got legitimate problems with how they are going about pursuing these well intentioned goals.’”

Mr. McLaughlin thinks the movie and recording industries need to rethink their own plans. “It’s not so much that Hollywood and the recording industry are dying, it’s that some of the companies are having trouble adjusting to the new ways of making money,” he said.

So can the “well-intentioned” goal of policing and stopping piracy actually be enforced successfully and without quelling a vibrant startup industry? Mr. McLaughlin thinks so. “Domestic privacy is not a problem because we have the DMCA here, who take copyright seriously and pursue it.

What examples can he give when such clampdowns were fruitful? we asked.

“Well, we’ve done that in the case of commercial child pornography, illegal online gambling and terrorist networks. In all those different areas we’ve proven that we can utilize techniques to find the bad guys, track them down, break into their email and in most cases arrest them. Those same techniques can be applied here.”

Newt Gingrich began his answer with a joke.

"Well, you're asking a conservative about the economic interests of Hollywood and I'm weighing, I'm weighing it. I'm not rushing in, I'm trying to think of all the many fond left wing people who we're so eager to protect," Mr. Gingrich said.

After his swipe at Hollywood, which is one of the main industries supporting SOPA, Mr. Gingrich expressed his opposition to the bill. Read More

Ooh, ooh, ooh. What a little blackout (and 4.5 million signatures) can do for you!

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), one of PIPA's former co-sponsors decided the bill was "simply not ready for prime time."

Eighteen of the Senators now opposed are Republicans. Previously, as VentureBeat reports, PIPA had support from more than 40 Senators, who co-sponsored the bill. We're currently having trouble accessing the OpenCongress site, however, earlier reports say the bill still had support from 33 senators, with a number of others who still have not made their position clear.

According to ArsTechnica, the Republicans suddenly scrambling in the other direction are now bolstered by conservative pundits:

"Those who dropped their support were most likely bolstered by strong opposition from conservative think tanks and blogs. On Tuesday, the influential Heritage Foundation announced that it would include SOPA and PIPA as a key issue on its voter scorecard. And the popular conservative blog redstate.com, whose founder threatened to mount primary challengers to SOPA supporters last month, has been hailingSenators who come out in opposition."

Marco Rubio (R-FL), for example, a freshman "rising star," withdrew his co-sponsorship based on "legitimate concerns about the impact the bill could have on access to the Internet and about a potentially unreasonable expansion of the federal government's power to impact the Internet."

Now that Republicans have been given the go-ahead by their elders that its okay to side with the Internet, expect more partisan in-fighting and less attention paid to actual solutions for policing piracy. Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), says Ars Technica, blamed Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) for "pushing forward w/ a flawed bill that still needs much work." And yes, that's Sen. Blunt, the bill's former co-sponsor.

We will update the post as we learn more.