Firefox add-on circumvents SOPA blocking

Technical work around to proposed anti-piracy bill.
Developers have created a Firefox extension that exposes the futility of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) proposed in the United States.

The SOPA web blocking legislation – delayed until at least the New Year after a hearing into its future was postponed yesterday - is a controversial act aimed at reducing piracy by blocking websites believed to breach copyright.

As web giants from Google to Twitter have lined up to criticise the legislation, one software developer has released code that undermines SOPA’s technical measures.

According to the developer – listed as TamerRizk on the DeSopa add-on’s home page - the tool uses DNS evasion to circumvent the blocks.

“This program is a proof of concept that SOPA will not help prevent piracy,” the developer said in the release notes.

“The program, implemented as a Firefox extension, simply contacts offshore domain name resolution services to obtain the IP address for any desired website, and accesses those websites directly via IP."

“If SOPA is implemented, thousands of similar and more innovative programs and services will sprout up to provide access to the websites that people frequent.”

This article originally appeared at pcpro.co.uk