The new way the feds take over websites

by quellhorst • 16 years ago

51 34 16 years ago

quellhorst• 16 years ago

Details: http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-and-megaupload-escape-dom...

This is actually quite disturbing, as it seems to ignore due process in every way, shape, and form. (Side rant: I really wish I could figure out how to get the US Government down to about 1/20th its current size.)

It is also seems obvious to me that there will be a solution to this very soon: Underground DNS. Since only the DNS addresses were taken and it was facilitated by ICANN, I can't imagine that somebody else (I could even picture it being the Pirate Bay, once upon a time) saying "I'll play root for the sites that can't trust ICANN anymore."

dzuc• 16 years ago

http://distributeddns.sourceforge.net/

mistermann• 16 years ago

> I really wish I could figure out how to get the US Government down to about 1/20th its current size.

The US always likes to talk about the founding fathers. I wonder if the founding fathers ever envisioned the government, under the framework they laid down, commanding 40% of the economy. I doubt it.

In my opinion, and I like to assume that was the goal of the founders, the decisions of the government should not carry that much weight. But as it is, as they've taken over so much of the economy, and the money supply, and setting interest rates, this is no longer the case. Specific measures were laid down in the constitution to prevent this, which is why they never considered it I suppose.

cabalamat• 16 years ago

> (I could even picture it being the Pirate Bay, once upon a time)

Why "once upon a time"? Why don't you think they'd do it now.

Maybe the Swedish Pirate Party will host an alternative DNS from the Swedish Parliament :-)

slmichalk• 16 years ago

Note to self: use fake names for whois data.

nmftt• 16 years ago

Fake whois data will probably just speed up the process for anyone who wishes to take you down. What you want to do is register your domain to an "anonymized" offshore company.

aw3c2• 16 years ago

fake whois was the reason why oink.me.uk once lost that domain and had to be oink.cd.

codingthewheel• 16 years ago

Can somebody explain why these unilateral Big Brother actions always seem to originate from or be attached to the state of New York or jurisdictions within New York?

atlbeer• 16 years ago

I'm not a lawyer but, there is probably favorable case law in NY State on the issue.

dmix• 16 years ago

Most media companies are headquartered in NYC. These sites were mostly movie sites.

_ouxp2• 16 years ago

This web page is in contravention of Section 508 (29 USC § 794d). It's just an image with no alt-text. Here's the markup:

ovi256• 16 years ago

The fence is for the sheep.

WALoeIII2• 16 years ago

Its a movie site.

ajaimk2• 16 years ago

Hmmm. Someone needs to let them know that computers these days have higher resolution than VGA. MY PHONE has higher resolution than VGA!!!

_ouxp2• 16 years ago

Also, blind people exist.

WALoeIII2• 16 years ago

Yeah but they probably don't watch movies.

sorbus• 16 years ago

It gets the point across. Looking good is a secondary concern.

ajaimk2• 16 years ago

This violates all concepts of the FREE Internet.

hdx• 16 years ago

What does ICE have to do with taking down websites is what I wanna know... anybody?

wmf• 16 years ago

I guess they're foreign sites, so preventing their bits from getting into the US falls to Customs.

StrawberryFrog• 16 years ago

Their bits aren't getting into England either. What's it got to do with us?

sbov• 16 years ago

The more this happens the more the UN will argue that the role of ICANN should be in their hands. Meanwhile the US government will continue to shoot itself in the foot for stupid reasons.

tpinto• 16 years ago

What? No HTML5? No CSS3?

Oh boy... these feds never learn...

raintrees• 16 years ago

I'm thinking of saving the graphics and putting it into my 403 page...

jessor• 16 years ago

So the basic formula appears to be this – the US Government felt the sites in question were illegal and since they were accessible from the US, they should do something about them. On its part, ICANN has no problem cooperating with the Government and is happy to act on terms of use violations either by domain owners or domain registrars.

That's quite disturbing.

(source: http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-and-megaupload-escape-dom...)

igravious• 16 years ago

Another page I, uh, stumbled upon recently.

http://www.movies-links.tv/index.html

Niten• 16 years ago

I think it's even more disturbing that they'd use this power to take over a domain in a TLD sponsored by another country. I can't imagine the EU would be happy about this precedent...

todayiamme2• 16 years ago

What happens when someone makes a distributed client to query an index of links to torrents hosted on legitimate file storage sites like dropbox? If everything becomes distributed how will they be able to kill it?

IMHO the long term solution would be to compete with pirates instead of trying to shut them down. There is a simple reason why piracy exists, because there is a demand for it. As long as the demand exists someone will try to fulfill it. Since, you can't sue millions of people in different countries and jurisdictions maybe it is time to sit down and reflect on what is the best course forward.

If I were the RIAA then I would use torrent networks to my advantage. They're ideal to transfer data at negligible cost. You only need to seed the file initially. So you don't have to cough up a lot of money for a high bandwidth server. They could come up with a system which takes money for a download pass within their platform. Don't put up any locks, instead put in a competitive price which will be far lower than iTunes due to the lack of a huge central server.

I genuinely believe that no one wants to be a thief people can't afford to buy media at the audacious prices they charge so they turn to such ways and means. If they can proactively cut this off then they'll be able to make far more money than they can even imagine.

encoderer2• 16 years ago

I think you just invented Gnutella.

todayiamme2• 16 years ago

I feel like an idiot right now. I am sorry. I should have checked if I was rehashing some old thing. I just got really excited and wrote this down. Sorry.

Should I delete it?

DanielBMarkham• 16 years ago

And so begins the story of how a second DNS was set up.

Right now, most file sharing is being done on top of a normal stack. I'm not advocating breaking the law, but economics are economics -- I can't change reality for Hollywood and make it 1980 again. I can point out that future file-sharing does not have to be limited to a normal stack. There are all kinds of fun games we can play in this area. It may have been a legal and proper thing for the feds to do, but strategically it was really a bad idea.

The tighter you squeeze your fist, the more that slips through your fingers. True for tax law. True for file sharing law.

The new way the feds take over websites

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