Feds Seize 130+ Domain Names in Mass Crackdown

http://torrentfreak.com/feds-seize-130-domain-names-in-mass-crackdown-111125/

by nextparadigms • 15 years ago

121 97 15 years ago

droithomme2• 15 years ago

I'm not a fan of domain name seizures, but, looking at the list of 131 domain names they have there, these ones probably aren't going to be missed.

glimcat• 15 years ago

I think that's what they call "establishing precedent."

droithomme2• 15 years ago

Yep, that's why it's so clever. Make the first cases either against someone everyone hates, on that no one cares about. Child abusers in the first case, counterfeit handbag salesmen in the second.

Precedent established, then the net widens.

zavulon• 15 years ago

It's really stupid to register domain names with "louis vutton", "NFL" or any other obvious trademarks in the name if you're planning to make money on it. Even if you're not planning to sell unauthorized goods by that company on that site, they'll still come after you within weeks, if not days. I've learned that the hard way ...

axiak• 15 years ago

http://nissan.com - http://nissan.com/Digest/The_Story.php

res0nat0r• 15 years ago

The difference is Nissan.com is not selling knockoff Nissan cars.

grecy• 15 years ago

While you are correct, there is due process that is supposed to happen for the trademark owner to claim that domain name back. That's part of what ICANN does.

The US government simply taking them by force is not the way these things are supposed to go down.

feralchimp• 15 years ago

When they came for the serial registrants of bootleg sports jersey and fashion merchandise domains, I said nothing...

animal2• 15 years ago

I want to make a difference. What can I say, and to whom?

jrockway• 15 years ago

I think we need a new Internet that the government doesn't know about. They move slowly and we can get another ten years of freedom if we plan this right.

(Many other posts recommend overthrowing the government. I don't think this will work because it doesn't guarantee that the new government won't be corrupt; the kinds of people that want to be politicians will always exist and will always act in the same interests.)

code_duck• 15 years ago

This is after 20 years of them coming after assets of accused drug traffickers, just to note. Since the dawn of the Reagan-era forfeiture practices, federal and local authorities have been seizing cash, houses, automobiles and any other assets they can get their hands on, not only pre-conviction, often without even an arrest!

pantaloons2• 15 years ago

First they came for the fake merchandise sites...

> The fact that the authorities have once again launched a large crackdown on “rogue” websites begs the question why this legislation is needed in the first place.

Isn't the difference that SOPA allows them to mandate blocking of non-US domains by service operators? I think it's pretty clear TLDs owned or operated in the US are a lost cause at this point unless other governments oppose the TLD sovereignty claims.

njloof• 15 years ago

What a waste of government time and resources.

refurb• 15 years ago

Ok, I'm going to take the other side of this issue.

Private property rights for commercial use is one of the reasons why developed nations are developed. If I start a business in the US, I generally don't have to worry about someone else taking my trademark and selling fake versions of my stuff. From the viewpoint of a business owner, that's one reason why you'd setup a company in the US/Canada/Europe vs. China/Russia/etc.

I don't agree with the lack of due process, but I do think that securing economic rights to private property is a pretty dam good use of government resources.

icebraining3• 15 years ago

Of course, they can simply buy a new domain for $10, so this didn't actually stop anything.

yummybear• 15 years ago

I find it disturbing that as a non-US citizen, US restricts my access to these sites.

k-mcgrady2• 15 years ago

The FBI is allowed to seize domains which are US based (e.g. dot com). If you setup your site with a domain from another country (e.g. dot co dot uk) the FBI can do nothing.

From what I have head they want SOPA to fix that by allowing them to block the domains they can't seize from being viewed within the US via a system like the one China uses.

So if you set up your site right the US government cannot stop anyone outside the US from viewing it.

dangrossman2• 15 years ago

This isn't the FBI, it's customs enforcement (which was moved under DHS).

gwright• 15 years ago

Yet another example of why generic top-level domains (gTLDs) are a bad idea. Country code domains align domain ownership with legal jurisdictions while gTLDs create jurisdictional conflicts.

nkassis• 15 years ago

Well that's one way to look at it, the other way, and the one I favor, is that the internet is a global thing and thus shouldn't be ruled by multiple incompatible jurisdictions.

epoxyhockey2• 15 years ago

Last year: 82 domains seized This year: 130 domains seized ..waiting to see if this game goes exponential..

The funny thing is that a large percentage of those domains contain trademarked names. Can't the trademark owners go through normal channels (get court judgement, then file with ICANN) to grab the domains?

redthrowaway4• 15 years ago

>Can't the trademark owners go through normal channels (get court judgement, then file with ICANN) to grab the domains?

That involves tiresome due process.

lanstein• 15 years ago

Flashback to javanco.com... (search 'Javanco sun' if this doesn't ring a bell)

epoxyhockey2• 15 years ago

Thanks for that. It does seem like Javanco would have prevailed in court had Sun insisted on pursuing the domain. It does make me wonder, if that exact situation arose today, whether the outcome would have been different!

cpeterso• 15 years ago

Why seize the domain names when they could nab the people behind the domain names selling counterfeit merchandise?

wmf2• 15 years ago

Those people are probably not in the US, and presumably their crimes are not serious enough to interest local (possibly corrupt) law enforcement.

InclinedPlane2• 15 years ago

Recent legislation allows the seizure of domain names effectively by fiat, without any tinge of due process. Arresting a physical body and putting them on trial is still burdened by such ancient, outmoded traditional ideals, and so is rather more difficult.

tomkinstinch• 15 years ago

Does anyone know the citation of the statute they used?

snowwrestler• 15 years ago

Because the people are outside the U.S. and thus outside the U.S. government's jurisdiction.

The domain name is registered through a U.S.-based registrar so it is subject to U.S. jurisdiction.

dangrossman2• 15 years ago

The people are in China, while their domains are purchased and controlled in the US.

wavephorm4• 15 years ago

The United States needs to be stipped of DNS root privileges immediately. This regime is completely out of control, and when SOPA passes the internet is going to require some new infrastructure to route around the US.

gscott• 15 years ago

China agrees with you. Take down counterfeit websites but not political ones? Congress over reaches so that it can hit a middle ground, getting most of what they want... which is to take down more sites that hurt those who give them donations.

yaix2• 15 years ago

The DNS has to stay being controled by one or more democratic countries. As much as I like international organizations within the UN framework, but giving control of the DNS to a UN committee would make it too easy for China to just give a number of poor countries some more money to by their votes for whatever China wants to see banned from the net. Not paranoia, that is common practice, Western countries are doing it too. But at least Western governments are controlled by their populations to some extent.

rasur• 15 years ago

Switzerland seems the only sane choice, IMHO. ;)

bluedanieru• 15 years ago

Why does it have to be controlled by anyone? If you mean to keeping the existing infrastructure as-is sure, but I think that's not such a great idea anyway.

nirvana• 15 years ago

I find this extremely alarming. I don't engage in piracy or serve files or anything like that. But I consider domain names to be a form of property, and to see the US government taking property without giving he owners recourse is extremely troubling.

The US system is founded in innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. The requirements for this proof have been laid out and refined over 200 years. I think those requirements are not strict enough, but these seizures don't even include an actual trial, and thus deny the victims the right to defend their position, or make their case before a judge.

Earlier this year I heard about a hip-hop blog that was seized which engaged in no piracy... though it did offer songs that the record companies had given him as a form of promotion.

So, not only is this being done without due process, but it is being done incompetently to boot!

I have zero expectation that this won't become-- like the "drug war" and the "war on terrorism" -- an ever widening net to where it effectively becomes seizure of politically-incorrect domains (e.g.: write a post critical of the government on your blog? have no blog the next day...)

This is literally a form of government censorship of speech. Even if some speech is "illegal" (I don't think even pirate spreading domains are illegal, though there is a good civil case against them) the act of speaking is protected, and this right is acknowledged by the first amendment.

InclinedPlane2• 15 years ago

Indeed. Where's the due process? Where's the right to a trial? The right to face ones accusers and see the evidence presented?

wmf2• 15 years ago

You can sue to get your domain back, but that doesn't seem like a fair process.

adestefan2• 15 years ago

They're seized pursuant to a warrant issued by a Federal court. The owner is more than welcome to challenge the warrant, but why would you? A DNS name is cheap and challenging a Federal warrant is not.

adestefan2• 15 years ago

> This is literally a form of government censorship of speech. Even if some speech is "illegal" (I don't think even pirate spreading domains are illegal, though there is a good civil case against them) the act of speaking is protected, and this right is acknowledged by the first amendment.

No it's not. It's analogous to the police acting on a warrant to close a store front selling counterfeit goods. This is something that occurs constantly in large cities all over the country.

If a judge would ever issue a warrant to remove a DNS name based upon speech, and it's upheld, we have bigger problems than seizing DNS names.

18pfsmt• 15 years ago

I'm not sure what a "DNS name" is exactly. DNS stands for Domain Name Service, and I can't figure out for the life of me what it is you are referring to.

The burden of proof for these seizures was far less than a judge-issued warrant, which is the problem with which most of _us_ are concerned. Slowly eroding constitutionally protected rights reminds me of the boiling frog that never jumps out of the pot as the temperature is raised ever-so-slightly.

wavephorm4• 15 years ago

  It's analogous to the police acting on a warrant to 
  close a store front selling counterfeit goods

There is no warrant. This is not a civilian police force acting legally. This is an arm of the federal government acting unilaterally implementing authoritarian control over public communications and information.

I'm amazed that Americans are comfortable with their leaders going down this road. It's been done before and has rarely ended well.

GHFigs7• 15 years ago

This is something that occurs constantly in large cities all over the country.

From the horse's mouth: http://www.ice.gov/doclib/news/releases/2011/110316washingto...

19,959 seizures in FY2010, with an average value[1] of $9,425. In addition to things you might expect (footwear, pharmaceuticals, watches, optical media) this includes things like cigarettes and ball bearings. The report cites a 42% increase in seizures at express consignment/mail facilities due to "continued growth of websites that sell counterfeit and piratical merchandise", which goes some distance toward explaining why these domain seizures are being brought.

(Incidentally, there's plenty of ammo for "government gone wild" arguments in the report, but people that expect it to be about torrents will be surprised and/or bored. There's more to the world than the Internet.)

[1]:"Domestic Value", by which they mean the something like the street price, rather than the MSRP of the non-counterfeit good.

billpatrianakos4• 15 years ago

I don't know how to feel about this. I really wish I could get people from both sides of the issue to educate me.

From what I see and read it seems piracy is running pretty rampant. In light of that, these efforts to stop it (except SOPA, which I strongly disagree with) don't bother me. This list of domains makes it pretty obvious what they were up to. And I'm one of the few who still believes that content creators (including more than just music and movies but also software) should be able to choose how they distribute their work and how much to charge, if anything. Piracy is taking these creations and distributing them freely or for your own profit while the creator is getting screwed out of the money they should get for their work.

I also see how this sets a dangerous precident and law makers are heading down a slippery slope. There's obviously much room for abuse and cronyism.

So my question is, are we framing this the right way? The torrent sites seem to be bringing up these issues in an effort to deflect, distract from what they're doing, and sometimes even excuse it. Their actions and the actions of other illegal operators are what is causing the crackdown and creating a space for large companies and law makers to exploit with overreaching laws.

So while this stuff is definitely dangerous, how come we don't talk about making the pirates irrelevant so we can remove their excuse? If piracy wasn't so prevalent online then we could strengthen our argument while weakening theirs. The post would be more credible from any other site but coming from torrentfreak it comes off as propaganda even though I agree with them (just not what they do)!

TruthElixirX2• 15 years ago

The government should not be able to take things without a trial in a court of law.

redthrowaway4• 15 years ago

That's the essence of it, right there. This is especially troubling, for those of us who aren't American, because the US is claiming ownership over all .com, .net, and .org TLDs, and thus considers it just fine to seize the domains of foreign sites. So as a Canadian, with no say whatsoever as to what laws are passed in the US, I am nonetheless bound by them and can have my business property seized if a foreign government doesn't like what I do, with absolutely no ability to defend myself in court or seek redress for wrongful seizure.

That's horseshit.

GHFigs7• 15 years ago

How do you feel about arrests?

Zirro4• 15 years ago

I was strictly against piracy a few years ago. Nowadays it's a daily activity. What happened?

I realized what the media companies were actually doing, how DRM hurts the people who actually pay for the product and all these enormous sums they force people to pay for a few cases of infringement.

I don't want my money to go to these corporations, that's why I'd choose to pirate over buying today.

That said, my 6 terabytes of content contain no illegal music and just a few large American-produced movies. It's mostly anime, documentaries and Swedish TV. The anime and documentaries I have because I simply can't buy them here. There's no way for me to consume this content legally in a way that I prefer. The Swedish TV I store so that I, one day, can show my favourite shows to my future kids (I'm doing backup on backup), and I'm not even sure if that's illegal, considering I pay TV-license and all.

Well, that's my case, I'm not sure which kind of pirate I am, but I know that as long as the media companies take a large slice of the money that's supposed to go to the artists, and use it to fight against the public, I don't want them to get a single penny from me.

billpatrianakos4• 15 years ago

I get that. I have heard of how DRM hurts people and I do know that artists get screwed by their labels. But is piracy really a solution? Are you really protesting or are you using that as an excuse to make yourself feel better? Though the artists do get screwed by labels, piracy also hurts them. I admit that a few years ago I acquired a large collection of movies of music through piracy. These days I feel differently.

This is tricky because I see your point but there also has to be a better solution. I feel like these reasons stifle progress that may solve your problems. Do you think if piracy were curbed a lot then maybe some company would take advantage of a space In the market and somehow let you get content you can't in the US? Maybe even these companies supporting SOPA may do it? Maybe I'm naive. Ive got some reading to do for sure on this. Thank you for honestly answering my question.

dusing• 15 years ago

I tend to buy music and movies where available, then if it's too locked down (blu-ray) I "pirate" a clean copy. The one they should have sold me in the first place.

bigiain2• 15 years ago

Sorry, but while I understand the intention, I don't buy the argument that your dislike of the corporations gives you a moral right to have the stuff they've got rights to without paying.

You won't change "the system" by making their "we need stronger laws and stiffer penalties" arguments stronger.

If you don't like the system, refuse to participate in it - even if that means you don't get to listen to the music they sell. There's an enormous amount of legal nonDRM music available, either at "regular market prices", much less expensive than that, or completely free.

I _strongly_ recommend magnatune.com for a strongly artist supporting yet still inexpensive music resource.

Bandcamp, Soundcloud, there's many many ways to get free music online legally.

Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber have every right to choose to sell ownership of their "creative output" to the traditional music industry for whatever deal they can cut - and the new owners really do have every right to control and profit from the subsequent distribution of that music. If you don't like their business model, great - don't buy from them. But don't pretend that makes it ok to download that music.

The more people who buy into alternative music distribution channels, the more likely it is that either a) the traditional music industry will change into something you can choose to support, or b) more musicians will choose better alternatives (where "better" here means "more aligned with your personal ethics/morals/preferences)

nitrogen• 15 years ago

The prevalence of piracy is a separate issue from any damage caused by piracy. Even if piracy is rampant, the damage caused by it isn't enough to prevent the entertainment industry from showing record profits. Some comedians' careers have been made by people uploading bootleg videos of their performances to YouTube. As such, I don't believe the entertainment industry's vicious and destructive response to piracy is at all warranted.

A similar, but weaker, argument can be made in the case of counterfeit jerseys. A sports jersey is meant to show affiliation and identification with a particular group of people. Maybe people should be able to demonstrate that identification "unofficially."

icebraining3• 15 years ago

Study finds pirates 10 times more likely to buy music: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/apr/21/study-finds-pira...

Wisely, the study did not rely on music pirates' honesty. Researchers asked music buyers to prove that they had proof of purchase.

pnathan• 15 years ago

IANAL, and am not familiar with the procedures of law. I do know that the courts can seize property in an entirely legal fashion via due process. So this would seem to me to be analogous to seizure of a business building being used for selling counterfeit clothing.

I suppose (to my mind) the real question here is the due process.

nextparadigms2• 15 years ago

What happens to FBI if SOPA doesn't actually pass and this kind of thing is found illegal?

icebraining3• 15 years ago

This has nothing to do with SOPA or the FBI. This is done by ICE, an agency under the Department of Homeland Security, and by the DOJ, and it's been happening for over a year now: http://torrentfreak.com/u-s-government-seizes-bittorrent-sea...

hughesey• 15 years ago

Most of the seized domains end up hosted on the Feds 'seized domain' server at 74.81.170.110.

As such, it's possible to see a list of all seized domains using a Reverse IP tool - e.g. http://viewdns.info/reverseip/?host=74.81.170.110

maeon3• 15 years ago

The Internet is under attack. We need Eben Moglen's freedom box:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgu8NUm5Zxk

Forcing a website off the internet is like snatching my vocal chords out of my neck when they are about to vocalize something objectionable.

zotz• 15 years ago

This safely falls under the idea of "legal plunder".

Could you imagine the screaming and wailing if a .gov domain got jacked?

ck2• 15 years ago

Lack of due process is the new bully government.

Warrantless everything, seizures without oversight, treat everyone like a criminal when they travel, simply live or go near the border and lose many constitutional rights, heavily arm law enforcement under the guise of "anti-terrorism" but instead use those weapons against peaceful protesters etc. etc.

What's strange and counterintuitive is that under democrat leadership it gets worse than republican because they are always afraid of being perceived as being "weak" so they overcompensate and are even more aggressive.

What's more ironic is we are critical of other governments who do these things.

yaix2• 15 years ago

Surprise! I did WHOIS lookups on some of the domains, and ALL were from China. Sometimes there is no name or address data but a phone number, and that is Chinese of course (+86...).

Feds Seize 130+ Domain Names in Mass Crackdown

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