To the government of the state of Israel.  We are Anonymous.  For too long we have tolerated your crimes against humanity and allowed your sins to go unpunished.  Through the use of media deception and political bribery, you have amassed the sympathies of many.  You claim to be democratic, yet in reality, this is far from the truth.  In fact, your only goal is to better the lives of a select few while carelessly trampling the liberties of the masses.  We see through the propaganda that you circulate through the mainstream media and lobby through the political establishment.

Your Zionist bigotry has displaced and killed a great many. As the world weeps you laugh while planning your next attack.  All of this is done under the veil of peace, but so long as your regime exists, peace shall be hindered. You label all who refuse to comply with your superstitious demands as anti-Semitic and have taken steps to ensure a nuclear holocaust. You are unworthy to exist in your current form and will therefore face the wrath of Anonymous. Your empire lacks legitimacy and because of this, you must govern behind a curtain of deceit.  We will not allow you to attack a sovereign country based upon a campaign of lies. Your grip over humanity will weaken and man will be closer to freedom. But before this is accomplished, the people of this world will rise against you and renounce you and all your worth.

Our crusade against your reign of terror shall commence in three steps.

Step one will be initiated after the release of this video and will be comprised of systematically removing you from the internet. Step two will be later disclosed and is already in initiation; and, as for step three, well, think of this one as a present from Anonymous to you – we will not stop until the police state becomes a free state. We are Anonymous, we are legion, we do not forgive, we do not forget. Israeli government expect us.

It is not known whether Anonymous will actually follow through on the threat, as the collective has been known to abandon some plans, while misunderstanding others.  Additionally, an operation is sometimes thwarted when it’s been discovered to be the scheming of a rogue Anon.

But there has already been plenty of cyber-warring amongst hackers in the region, if this is any indicator.  Earlier in the week, Israeli hackers identifying themselves as the “IDF Team” attacked several Arab websites, including the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency and the Abu Dhabi Stock Exchange, after Arab hackers launched a distributed denial of service attack on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and El Al airlines.  One of the lead hackers in Monday’s attack on Israeli targets told the Jerusalem Post that attacks would cease only “if the Israeli government apologized for what he described as a ‘genocide in Palestine.’”

A collective of Saudi hackers also hacked one of Israel’s largest sports sites and published the details of thousands of Israelis’ credit cards online.

According to Agence France Presse, a statement by “anonymous Saudi Arabian hackers” from Group-XP, the “largest Wahhabi hacker group of Saudi Arabia,” appeared on Israeli sports website One.co.il yesterday, announcing that the customer databases of multiple Israeli sites had been hacked.

Visitors were then redirected to another page, where they were invited to download lists of thousands of names, addresses, credit card numbers, expiration dates and security codes. Cards used to make payments to “Judaism” websites or “Israeli Zionist Rabbis” were among those listed, Haaretz reported.

The hackers’ statement described the attack as “a gift to the world for the new year” that they hoped “would hurt the Zionist pocket,” according to Ynet:

“It will be so fun to see 400,000 Israelis stand in line outside banks and offices of credit card companies to complain that their cards had been stolen. To see banks shred 400,000 cards and reissue them. To see that Israeli cards are not accepted around the world, like the Nigerian cards,” the hackers wrote.

Coincidentally, the incidents come at a time when some are speculating that Hamas leaders are pushing for another ‘Arab Spring’ in the region in light of their recent signing of a unity agreement with Fatah, a deal that was denounced by Israel’s prime minister.

Facebook is special because, in network economic terms, its product is a platform, and successful platforms are few and far between.  For all its bells and whistles and features and privacy policies, Facebook remains—at heart—a place that people hang out.  As the proprietor of a popular hangout, Facebook gets to write the rules guiding all the folks who think it’s a good place to pitch their businesses or to make some sales.  In network economic terms, these businesses operating inside Facebook’s business comprise an aftermarket.

In a very real sense then, Facebook operates as a private-sector regulator of a vibrant commercial marketplace—the Facebook aftermarket.  Vendors in this marketplace develop and launch “apps,” literally software applications that run atop the Facebook platform.  Facebook has a symbiotic—and asymmetric—relationship with these Facebook app companies (or FBapps).  The symbiosis is clear: the more people who like Facebook, the bigger the potential audience upon which each FBapp can draw; the better the FBapps, the more popular Facebook will become.  The asymmetry is equally clear: each individual FBapp needs Facebook more than Facebook needs it.

The single most successful FBapp provides the clearest illustration of this asymmetry—and perhaps the single best justification of Facebook’s value.  Zynga created a suite of wildly popular social games running atop the Facebook platform.  Zynga worked hard to launch its games and to build a following.  To generate revenues, Zynga decided to sell game credits to its players.  That idea succeeded; players showered considerable real dollars on Zynga in exchange for those game credits.  Zynga excitedly projected its revenues forward and developed business plans capable of making investors salivate.

Investors were not the only ones to notice, however.  Facebook also noted Zynga’s success, and asked for a piece of the action.  Zynga demurred.  So Facebook announced that anyone selling credits inside an FBapp must sell Facebook credits—which, by the way, carry a 30% commission.  What did Zynga do?  The answer is in Facebook’s IPO filings: commissions from Zynga’s sales of Facebook credits generated $445 million in 2011 revenues for Facebook, or roughly 12% of Facebook’s total.

This story contains some key lessons for the modern economy.  First, it’s good to be a platform.  Second, aftermarket players need to pay closer attention to their platform providers.  It’s easy enough to cast Facebook as the villain in this tale—the larger company preying on its smaller symbiote—but that characterization misses the point.  Facebook worked hard to create an attractive platform.  Facebook let Zynga come hang out with a couple of hundred million of its closest friends.  Facebook handed Zynga a sizable potential customer base.  There’s no question that Facebook deserved some compensation for this work.  The only real question, then, is how much compensation Facebook deserved.

Anyone who understands and appreciates markets knows the answer to that question, too.  Facebook deserved whatever it could negotiate with Zynga.  From a consumer standpoint, as long as both Facebook and Zynga retained enough earnings to stay in business, the details of the negotiation are irrelevant.

Still, it’s hard to hear this story without concluding that Facebook played its hand very well while Zynga played it poorly.  By all public accounts, Facebook caught Zynga by surprise.  Zynga developed its entire business model and revenue projection unaware that Facebook could erode 30% of it overnight.  Why?  While it’s hard for an outsider to know, the most likely answer is also the simplest: fast-growing startups are understaffed, and they can’t see everything that might come their way.  Zynga’s attention was likely focused elsewhere, and Facebook exploited a blind spot.

That blindness should serve as a cautionary tale.  Today’s tech sector is dominated by aftermarket players—software and hardware developers toiling on applications or add-ons dependent on someone else’s platform.  Relationships between platform owners and the players in their aftermarkets can be tricky.  Rules governing patents, copyrights, antitrust, unfair competition, encryption, and circumvention all come into play in curious ways.  Strategic negotiations and contracting can all play critical roles.  And as the folks at Zynga can attest, getting caught blind can cost you a half billion dollars a year or so.  After a while, that sort of money can add up.

Welcome to life in the aftermarket economy.

Give Newt credit, he can deliver ideas on such projects with a straight face and then dare you to scoff at him for being, quintessentially, American. One president can gut NASA and make it irrelevant, another can give it a new mission and focus.

“By the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the moon and it will be American,” Gingrich said to applause.

He said the development would include commercial and private efforts, and will make apparent, “we clearly have the capacity that Chinese and the Russians will never come anywhere close to us.”

Gingrich also said he would push to develop propulsion technology that would get man to Mars.

He emphasized that it doesn’t have to be expensive, exploration in partnership with private companies can lower the cost.

“If it’s cheaper and it’s faster and it works, do it,” he said (Politico).

America has always operated paradoxically; a nation of profound idealism but always tempered with practical application. What I mean by that is America has all the patience in the world for dreamers just so long as its interesting, capturing, and desirable. Space has long been considered the final frontier for man’s exploration and it will truly be a matter of time before other nations of the world begin to militarize it and use it for their on advantages.

But there is the problem of our national debt and of course our budget is a mess. It’s a mess because we can’t prioritize and each party plays to its own power base. It is a see-saw battle between hoarding resources and dispensing with the spoils after political victories. There comes a point when constituencies and ideological differences must take a back seat to national interests.

It’s time America gets back to dreaming and doing.

Long ago, Jefferson warned, “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.”  The exceptions to that rule have been few and far between recently, and ought to be celebrated when they occur.

One did this past week with the announcement that supporters of the so-called “Stop On-Line Piracy Act” and the “Protect Intellectual Property Act” have indefinitely postponed their measures after an unprecedented protest across the Internet.

SOPA and PIPA pose a crippling danger to the Internet because they use the legitimate concern over copy-right infringement as an excuse for government to intrude upon and regulate the very essence of the Internet – the unrestricted and absolutely free association that links site to site, providing infinite pathways for commerce, discourse and learning.

It is not the Internet per se that has set the stage for the next quantum leap in human knowledge and advancement – but rather the free association at the core of the Internet.  And this is precisely what SOPA and PIPA directly threaten.

But as dangerous as this concept is to the Internet, it pales in comparison to the danger it poses to our fundamental freedoms as Americans.

It is true that rogue web sites operating from off-shore havens, are stealing intellectual property and then selling it.

We already have very good laws against that, as evidenced by the arrest yesterday of Mr. Kim Schmitz and his associates in New Zealand, who now stand accused of operating one of the biggest of these rogue sites.

Theft of intellectual property is fundamentally no different than the theft of any other kind of property.  It should be taken no less seriously than the thefts perpetrated by the likes of Bernie Madoff, John Dellinger or Willie Sutton.

It is no different and it should be treated no differently.  In every such case, it is the individual who commits the theft and the individual who is culpable and accountable to the law.  And it is the individual who is accorded the right of due process, including the presumption of innocence, while he stands accused.

This is what SOPA and PIPA destroy.  Upon mere accusation, these measures would allow the government to shut down web sites, ruin honest businesses, impound property, disrupt legitimate speech and dragoon innocent third parties into enforcing laws that may or may not have been broken.

When property is stolen, we hold accountable the individuals who knowingly commit the act, and place the burden of proof on the accuser.  The accuser must demonstrate to the satisfaction of a jury that the defendant stole property or that he received property that he knew was stolen.

Yes, it is a ponderous system.  Yes, it means you actually have to provide evidence.  Yes, it means you have to convince a jury.  Yes, it means we can’t catch and successfully prosecute every criminal.  But the experience of mankind over the centuries has proven that this is the best possible way to protect the innocent and to protect our freedom while also punishing the guilty.  In part, we punish the guilty to discourage others we might not be able to punish.

And as the arrests yesterday in New Zealand prove, it works.  Let Mr. Schmitz and his confederates be extradited and let them have their day in court.  Let evidence be presented.  Let a jury be convinced of that evidence.  And if convicted of one of the greatest thefts in human history, let us mete out the full measure of punishment provided by the law to stand as a fearsome example to others.

That doesn’t and won’t stop all theft and it isn’t perfect.  But to replace it with one where mere accusation can bring punishment or inflict ruinous costs upon innocent third parties, would introduce a despotic and destructive concept that is antithetical to the ancient rights that our government was formed to protect.

The developments of the last few weeks have saved the Internet and saved these fundamental principles – at least for now.  But Jefferson was right that the natural order is for government to grow at the expense of liberty.  That is why we have our Constitution.

And to the protection of that Constitution, the Internet has now empowered its rightful owners, “We, the People,” to defend it more effectively than ever before.

Which leads me, Madam Speaker, to conclude that because of the events of this past week, we will see many more victories for freedom in the days and years ahead.

“America has zero production on all the metals that we currently need,” he says. “China, controlling all these materials, is really set to become the Middle East of the 21st century in the sense that they’re going to control alternative energy sources.”

Highlighting the need for rare-earth material in various military technologies, Silver also suggests the creation of a Strategic Metal Reserve.

The segment below, from the Washington Post:

Read Mr. Silver’s previous writings on rare earths here.

Many key journalists in the tech industry have already pointed out that SOPA and PIPA were, until the industry and American consumers got a hold of the bills, a “sure thing” set to pass without much, if any opposition from members of Congress. The indefinite delay, prompted by massive outrage and widespread protests last week, prompted a total reconsideration of the bill, with Marco Rubio and Congressional Republicans leading a firestorm of criticism and a mass exodus from the bill. Its worth noting, however, that one of the bill’s key sponsors, Democratic Senator Harry Reid, was quick to note that we haven’t seen the last of the bills.

“We live in a country where people rightfully expect to be fairly compensated for a day’s work, whether that person is a miner in the high desert of Nevada, an independent band in New York City, or a union worker on the back lots of a California movie studio,” he said in a statement posted by Games Industry (requires free account sign up.)

He went on to encourage other key senators to look into the proposed amendments to the bills, rehashing SOPA to make it more likely to pass if pushed through again.

Its worth noting that the bill’s backers – the MPAA, RIAA and a host of union thugs – are known for their persistence, whether its prosecuting unwitting grandmothers for Internet music “theft” or protesting Wisconsin governors who are trying to rescue their state’s financial well-being, and Americans should not expect them to back down any time soon. And with the amount of money and the future of Democratic party rule at stake in this next election, the MPAA’s, RIAA’s and unions’ deep pockets and ability to write huge campaign checks probably won’t be put at risk for something as silly as the rights of the American people.

And, in fact, if rumors are to believed – and in DC they often are – the SOPA and PIPA comeback might come sooner rather than later. Washington whispers say that the bills will likely come up under different names – not surprising – and that the bigwigs behind the SOPA and PIPA efforts have already hired DC communications powerhouse Hillary Rosen to lead the resurrection effort.

So, like a zombie rising up from its grave to wreak havoc over the American heartland in a low-budget Hollywood Halloween money-maker, SOPA and PIPA look to be rising again to attack your freedoms. Be vigilant.

Most conservatives understand that Rep. Blackburn is one of the more reliably intelligent and sober figures in contemporary politics.  That’s particularly true when it comes to technology policy.  While most political leaders speak in simplistic talking points, Rep. Blackburn is known for developing real knowledge about, and applies her steady conservative principles to, the issues.

As the most prominent example, Rep. Blackburn remains one of the most steadfast and informed opponents of so-called “Net Neutrality,” which truly will launch governmental micromanagement of Internet service.

So it’s especially odd and ironic that some conservatives suddenly slur her.  Said RedState’s (and CNN’s) Erick Erickson, “I am pledging right now that I will do everything in my power to defeat her in her 2012 re-election bid.”  His rationale?  Erickson has joined the likes of MoveOn.org, Demand Progress, the Marxist group Free Press and others on the left in fanatically opposing legislation to stop foreign Internet piracy, H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).  In doing so, he and other generally reliable conservatives are promoting lawlessness and outright theft by foreign pirates over constitutionally protected property rights.

So what is SOPA, and why all of the fuss?

First, a personal observation:  I have never witnessed an opposition campaign characterized by such misinformation, ignorance and outright dishonesty as the one waged by opponents of the legislation.  To be clear, I have never met Mr. Erickson, I respect him generally and have absolutely zero ill will toward him personally.  He provides, however, a perfect example of misinformation by making claims such as, “The Act intends to stop online piracy. The way the Act goes about doing this is, in large part, allowing Eric Holder to take control of the internet and shut down websites he does not like.”  That is flatly, horribly false.  Anyone who has actually read the bill knows how preposterous that comment is.  Unfortunately, it’s all too typical of the anti-SOPA coalition.

In previous commentaries I have addressed and corrected the main anti-SOPA myths more fully, but here’s the essence of the truth people should know about it.

First, the bill targets foreign rogue websites dedicated to the theft of American intellectual property that would already be subject to seizure if located within the U.S.  Such websites currently pirate hundreds of billions of dollars worth of American intellectual property, which accounts for an enormous portion of domestic jobs, exports and output.

Second, the bill incorporates exhaustive due process protections for all parties involved.  This is critical, because opponents falsely claim that the Attorney General or rights holders would somehow possess arbitrary powers against innocent actors.  Quite the contrary, the bill explicitly incorporates the same Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that apply to all litigation. Relief can only be granted upon such prerequisites as notice to adverse parties, specific facts that “clearly show that immediate and irreparable injury, loss, or damage” will occur, specific details justifying relief and opportunity for adverse parties to present their rebuttal.  The bill also punishes false claims, protects defendants against impossible or unreasonable burdens, allows courts to modify relief in the interests of justice and allows damages (including legal fees) for wronged defendants.

So when opponents of SOPA claim that it deprives anyone of due process, they are speaking either dishonestly or ignorantly.  That is a simple fact.

Opponents of SOPA also falsely claim that it somehow constitutes “censorship” or a threat to “free speech.”  Setting aside for a moment the sham that foreign thieves operating outside the jurisdiction of the United States somehow enjoy any First Amendment protections, otherwise illegal activity does not magically achieve sacred status or legal immunity simply because it occurs on the Internet rather than on a street corner.  Moreover, this legislation and judicial orders pursuant to it would remain subject to the same judicial review applicable to any other statute.

Compounding the irony, Google, no friend to the conservative cause, constitutes the primary corporate interest driving opposition to the bill.  That’s no surprise, since Google profits handsomely from the theft of others’ intellectual property online.  Just last August, the search giant admitted wrongdoing and agreed to pay a $500 million fine to avoid criminal charges that it had padded its bottom line for years by knowingly accepting advertising by foreign pharmacies preying on American consumers, which led to the illegal imports of unsafe prescription drugs.

In other words, it’s no coincidence that the largest corporate interest fueling the misinformed opposition to giving domestic rights holders the tools necessary to protect their property against foreign theft online is also the company that stands to gain the most financially from SOPA’s defeat.  Indeed, the legislation’s defeat should be viewed for what it is: the ultimate policy bailout for Google.  And lest conservatives forget, Google furiously supports “Net Neutrality,” which actually does constitute toxic governmental encroachment against Internet freedom.

So shame on so many SOPA opponents on the right, who have curiously joined the online equivalent of Occupy Wall Street to put the interests of foreign thieves ahead of the constitutional rights of American property owners.

The fact that they can’t oppose the bill on honest, genuine bases speaks volumes.  As does the fact that they demonize proven champions of freedom like Rep. Blackburn, who is among the staunchest defenders against actual threats of censorship and improper government expansion.