Some of the world's largest websites are planning a coordinated day of action on Thursday to oppose mass surveillance online.
The Reset the Net campaign aims to encourage direct action, urging visitors to install privacy and encryption tools on the 5th of June.
The sites, which include Reddit, Imgur and BoingBoing, will be taking part in the campaign, called "Reset the Net", in a number of ways.
Some will show a splash screen to all users, reminiscent of the one used in the successful protests against SOPA, the US copyright bill which many feared would damage the backbone of the internet. But rather than telling users to write to their electoral representatives, this protest will push more direct action, encouraging visitors to install privacy and encryption tools.
Other sites have committed to improving their own privacy as part of the campaign, by enabling standards such as HTTPS, which prevents attackers from eavesdropping on visitors. Such security standards are common in the world of ecommerce, but rarer for sites which don't think of themselves as holding sensitive information.
"We can take back control of our personal and private data one website, one device, one internet user at a time," said Reddit's General Manager Erik Martin. "We’re proud to stand up for our users’ rights and help Reset the Net."
Social news site Reddit, photohosting Imgur, humorous network sites BoingBoing and anonymous search engine DuckDuckGo and several other projects will take part in the campaign. It was supported by Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), human rights Amnesty International organization and the movement Demand Progress, created by Internet activist Aaron Swartz to stop SOPA.
The campaign is being co-ordinated by Fight for the Future, whose co-founder Tiffiniy Cheng said "Now that we know how mass surveillance works, we know how to stop it. That’s why people all over the world are going to work together to use encryption everywhere and make it too hard for any government to conduct mass surveillance.
Organizers urge everyone to join the campaign: website owners and application developers, students, pupils, politicians and non-governmental organizations, ordinary users. Besides the creating and implementing technologies for data encryption are invited to participate in the action spread calls to action.
