US Gov't Mistakenly Shuts Down 84,000 Sites 296
Chaonici writes "Last Friday, the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) seized ten websites accused of selling counterfeit goods or trafficking in child pornography. However, in the process, about 84,000 unrelated websites were taken offline when the government mistakenly seized the domain of a large DNS provider, FreeDNS. By now, the mistake has been corrected and most of the websites' domains again point to the sites themselves, rather than an intimidating domain seizure image. In a press release, the DHS praised themselves for taking down those ten websites, but completely failed to acknowledge their massive blunder."
This raises an interesting question... (Score:5, Interesting)
Can... (Score:4, Interesting)
These people sue the government for loss of access and libel?
Or is it just one of those oopsie moments which will never be resolved?
presume victimhood (Score:5, Interesting)
After this, I figure the only safe assumption when I see someone accused of child molestation or possessing kiddie porn, is that they are innocent.
Re:Let's just forget (Score:5, Interesting)
...the fact that they've done damage to all those websites of businesses...im sure potential customers aren't at all put off seeing that domain seizure image.
If you're running your business' web presence through freeDNS, you have bigger issues than this my friend.
Come again? Care to elaborate? I might be dense today, I can't imagine what issues an organisation may have, issue bigger than to be falsely painted as a child abuser in public?
Any NGO which is happy to save every dime in costs and use that dime for the goals of the NGO has suddenly "bigger issues", eh? Yes, I can see they do have issues, except that the issue is not caused by them, but by incompetence...
What's scarier: the issue was caused by the active incompetence of those in power.
Even more, this also reveals there are not enough checks in the system to prevent such actions, no matter the cause/intent: incompetence, malice or corruption.
Re:WHOAH Nelly (Score:5, Interesting)
There was a point last year when the total number of DHS warrented searches (you know, the ones where an actual judge goes through all those silly processes from the constitution), had been aimed at 6 actual suspected terrorists and over 5,000 suspected drug dealers since the program started. Homeland security was never about actually stopping terrorists, it's always been about how all the money we spend openly on the war against drugs isn't producing results, so lets covertly spend even more and see if that helps. Why do you think there's all those efforts to track money flow in the program, all the requirements to show current ID to take out a loan and such? . it's hard to actually catch terrorists by tracking any spending except possibly that aimed at actual bomb components, chemicals, and maybe biological support. No one is going to figure out a plot from tracking a terrorist renting a car or opening a regular checking account. But drug dealers need to do a LOT of money laundering. .
Re:Welcome to the USA (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:WHOAH Nelly (Score:4, Interesting)
Fun Fact!
Although the anthrax mailings were played up in the media as a possible example of Hussein's use of WMDs in the lead-up to Iraq-super-fun-time, they were actually sent out by a US Federal Government scientist, from stock held at a US Government lab. When the "investigation" closed in on this bio-medical researcher, he suffered a misfortune: It was reported that he commited suicide by overdosing on acetaminophen. The drug where an overdose causes a slow, painful liver-failure death. So everyone packed up the "investigation" and went home.
Look it up; I'm not exaggerating, lying, or joking.
Those guys you refer to, with bombs and anthrax... they're closer than you think, they don't yell "Allahu Ackbar," and you're required to sign their paycheck every April 15th.