Threats to the Open Net: April 6, 2012

• The House of Representatives proposed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act. In what critics call the sequel to SOPA and PIPA, the bill if passed would allow Congress to circumvent privacy laws and monitor private Internet activity in attempts to combat cyberattacks.
• Anonymous pulled off one of the its largest attacks in Chinese cyberspace. In an attack against more than 500 websites, the hackactivist group protested the Great Firewall and the government in defacing the sites. Included in the hack was the message in English and Chinese, "In the defaces and leaks in this day, we demonstrate our revolt to the Chinese system. It has to stop!"
• Arizona's House of Representatives approved a bill that would prohibit online content that "offends" or "annoys" any Internet user. As an extension of telephone harassment laws to the Internet, the law—which is intended to prevent online stalking and harassment—has critics worried that content takedowns would become more arbitrary given the vague wording of the act.
• Torrentfreak reported that Windows Live Messenger is blocking links to the Pirate Bay. Users who sent chats over the messaging service about the torrent website received error messages instead.

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