US Asserts Super-Jurisdiction Over Dot-Com, Dot-Net, and Dot-Org Domains 395
An anonymous reader writes "Michael Geist reports that last week State of Maryland prosecutors were able to
obtain a warrant ordering Verisign, the company that manages the dot-com domain name registry, to redirect the website to a warning page
advising that it has been seized by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The message from the case is clear: all dot-com, dot-net, and
dot-org domain names are subject to U.S. jurisdiction regardless of where they operate or where they were registered. This grants the U.S. a form of 'super-jurisdiction' over Internet activities, since most other
countries are limited to jurisdiction with a real and substantial
connection."
Switch away from .com? (Score:5, Insightful)
Won't this just encourage other companies, or even US companies, to switch to a national domain?
Re:Switch away from .com? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Switch away from .com? (Score:5, Insightful)
I imagine that someone thought this was a creative way to attain a short-term objective (shutting down a web site) without regard to the long-term impact (loss of trust in the US).
I sometimes think that's the difference between cleverness and wisdom.
I doubt this is good even for short-term objective (Score:4, Insightful)
There used to be a site called QuickSilverScreen. It was essentially a lot of links to videos uploaded to Megavideo and the like (you were able to browse by category, by show, by season, etc...). When it began attracting attention, it switched TLDs. I'm not sure whether it was originally .com or .net or what but it switched to .im and continued for a while like nothing would've happened. Eventually it was shut down and I'm not sure what kind of threats/laws were used for that but I'm pretty certain that attacking the domains had essentially no effect at all.
I need to buy a few new domains soon and .com seemed like the obvious choice, but perhaps I'll go with .fi instead.
Re:I doubt this is good even for short-term object (Score:5, Interesting)
TPB has also switched to an .se domain, that they forward to by default. But with TPB now being DHT-only and magnet-link-only, and even more easily mirrored, it would be stupid and pointless to take it down.
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I rememeber that site - used to watch reruns of some of my favorite sci-fi series while the CEO's of Virgin and Sky media were having ego-fights over syndication fees. Thanks to those butt-heads never got to see the first run of the new series of Battlestar Galactica - so just watched it online instead, and cancelled my cable subscription.
Re:I doubt this is good even for short-term object (Score:5, Interesting)
The Oatmeal describes [theoatmeal.com] this phenomenon perfectly.
US doesn't deserve the Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
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I wish you hadn't posted that anonymously; you deserve a bit of karma for that. The burning of the Library of Alexandria was a tragedy, and seeing all the lawyers and politicians scrabbling to get their stamp on the internet, it looks like they're attempting to repeat history. They probably won't succeed, but it's a painful thing to watch them running around manically with those matches and lighters.
Re:Switch away from .com? (Score:5, Insightful)
Its The War On Drugs or The War Against Terror again..
Thats so next budget they can say "Look we had a great year, we shut down X thousand websites but piracy is still on the increase so we need tougher laws and more taxpayer money spent".
Re:Switch away from .com? (Score:4, Informative)
Except it made no difference whatsoever, from what I hear from what I'm hearing Bodog's credit card processor hasn't seen much change in their processing rates. Bodog was well prepared for this.
Re:Switch away from .com? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Internet also decentralizes diplomacy. Right now, a state court is busy creating an international incident (how serious of one is another question). It used to be that diplomacy was handled at a high Federal level, and was overseen by people who are either competent to conduct diplomacy or powerful enough to influence the policies.
Re:Switch away from .com? (Score:5, Informative)
Just for sake of accuracy, this was a court ruling - and a state court at that, not legislation that passed.
Re:Switch away from .com? (Score:4, Insightful)
...just use the US .com domain...
Um, .com is an international domain for "commercial". The US domain is .us.
That is why this situation is so disconcerting.
Re:Switch away from .com? (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postage_stamp_design#Country_name
Jurisdiction is clearly under the control of the US. .com was originally made and administered by the US Department of Defense. Anyone can register and get a .com domain name but it's clearly under US jurisdiction.
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/legacy/ntiahome/domainname/agreements/summary-factsheet.htm
Re:Switch away from .com? (Score:5, Informative)
No the .com domain belongs to the US. .com, .net, .gov, .mil, .edu, .and org are ALL US domains.
I refute this claim.
[.com .org .net .edu .int ] were classified as 'World Wide Generic Domains' while [ .gov .mil .us ] were US-only according to RFC 1591 [^1]
I highly recommend that you read the paper titled "WRONG TURN IN CYBERSPACE: USING ICANN TO ROUTE AROUND THE APA AND THE CONSTITUTION" by A Michael Froomkin. [^2]
In 1998, ICAAN was formed and given management rights of the [ .com .net .org ] TLD's by the USC. In 2000, ICAAN's rights were formally recognized by the DoC and separate (and conflicting) agreements were signed. U.S government retained control of [ .int .edu ] domains and set restrictive polices on both (against the RFC). Please note that ICAAN is required to comply to RFC 1034, 1035 and 1591 [^3][^4]
Today, we no longer have the 'World Wide Generic Domains'. These have been replaced with a different TLD system which specifies Generic Top Level Domains (gTLD) as domains that operate directly under policies established by ICANN processes for the global Internet community. [^5] [ .com .org .net ] are classified as gTLD's and thus are for the global Internet community. [^6]
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/legacy/ntiahome/domainname/agreements/summary-factsheet.htm
Nowhere in this factsheet does it say that [ .com ] etc belong to the US. This is simply regarding an agreement transferring management from the U.S government to ICAAN.
I'll see you're source and raise you 6
[^1] http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1591 [ietf.org]
[^2] http://personal.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/articles/icann.pdf [miami.edu]
[^3] http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1034 [ietf.org]
[^4] http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1035 [ietf.org]
[^5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-level_domain [wikipedia.org]
[^6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_top-level_domain [wikipedia.org]
Re:Switch away from .com? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.law.umn.edu/uploads/x9/zx/x9zxd7nnmzDMMwHVC-aRHw/Sonbuchner-Final-Online-PDF-04.07.09.pdf
Re:Switch away from .com? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Switch away from .com? (Score:5, Informative)
This affects only some "gray businesses"
You're making the assumption that the people handling this are responsible and well-informed.
They're not.
They took down the dynamic DNS domain mooo.com and replaced all 84,000 of its subdomains with a message insinuating that they had each been used for child pornography. They seized a totally innocent music blog called dajaz1.com for more than a year while filing sealed continuances in court and refusing to provide any information to the owners before giving it back without so much as an apology. They seized the domain for jotform.com, a site for making web forms, for no apparent reason with no notice.
They're unaccountable bureaucrats playing games with nuclear weapons.
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Re:Switch away from .com? (Score:4, Insightful)
Very Clear (Score:4, Insightful)
It sounds to me as long as nobody gets killed, you think it's acceptable collateral damage even though you recognize it's wrong. I think it's unequivocally unacceptable anytime the government takes away somebody's property, liberty, livelihood, or reputation unjustly in its zeal to combat the boogeyman du jour.
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Yet...
How many potentially life supporting systems don't sit behind a small hospital's domain? If one branch of a hospital can't resolve the main office because the US Guvmint decided to shut it down it is not only inconvenient but it may also delay or crash a lot of information processing systems which could potentially result in actual deaths.
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More like firebombing the Library of Alexandria. Would you be OK with that?
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More like firebombing the Library of Alexandria. Would you be OK with that?
If there's only 6 degrees or less of separation from anything at all to do with Rupert Murdoch, News Corp., or especially Fox News, I'm sure the answer for many would be "Where's the matches & gasoline?".
Strat
Re:Switch away from .com? (Score:4, Interesting)
the .com itself will only benefit as a legit business platform
For sufficiently restrictive values of "legit". As in, considered legitimate in the 100% intersection of all jurisdictions within the United States (demonstrably, State and Federal courts; via court action, possibly municipal and other bailiwicks).
So I suspect that .com will only be used for "mainstream" "wholesome" stuff that forms the lowest common consumer denominator, and anything with the faintest hint of controversy will vanish into clear air. Or other TLDs.
BTW, I don't think anyone has formally espoused any kind of legal formulation providing rationale to seizing a .com domain administered from a foreign registrar, so I wouldn't feel too safe that there's some kind of logical or procedural safety in avoiding "default" TLDs. The US government could theoretically alter lookups of any specific DNS entry it wished to blacklist via its control of the world DNS root zones, and Verisign (yeah, them again) as the controlling contracted agent holding the root zones would probably act on such an order.
Of course, when that happens, the rest of the world will form one or more alternate root zones and the US will have to live within its Great Firewall. Sad, but since the DNS system is driven by consensus, breaking consensus breaks DNS.
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Just to irritate you. Edit hosts file under c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc and add the following
127.0.0.1 .mil .gov .edu
127.0.0.1
127.0.0.1
Now all your base are belong to 'us' ;D.
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I'm sure it will. Though I suspect most won't move away from .com but will add on other domains. So you might have a www.com and a www.es and a www.se. For an operation that is turning a profit (not your average website) it's not much of an additional cost or administration headache.
Re:Switch away from .com? (Score:4, Interesting)
Absofuckinglutely.
That's why you would have to point your browser to solarmovie.eu [slashdot.org] instead of .com if you wanted to watch movies for free.
But, of course, I do not recommend that, because it would presumably be illegal.
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Won't this just encourage other companies, or even US companies, to switch to a national domain?
You mean they haven't? I see more domains with .tv .it, whatever, every day. If there were a tld .bm I expect IBM would grab i.bm
Re:Switch away from .com? (Score:4, Informative)
If there were a tld .bm I expect IBM would grab i.bm
There is. .bm is Bermuda.
However, you need to live in or be an organization or corporation registered in Bermuda to get a domain.
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Re:Switch away from .com? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is probably a big reason why GoDaddy has started marketing the .co domain. The US can't assert jurisdiction over Columbia's national domain.
Of course, GoDaddy is the registrar that will just cut off your domain [seclists.org] just because a big company asked it to, so trusting GoDaddy would be like trusting your enemy with a gun at your head.
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Re:Switch away from .com? (Score:5, Interesting)
No, because most companies don't care to do illegal activity which will cause legal action to allow for this action against their domain. And if they don't fit into that category, chances are they are already on a different domain.
This was a Canadian website doing something legal in Canada. We have turned a corner where obeying the law is no longer protection from arrest or confiscation.
If you are the least big worried about it then you need to be working for legal reform rather than the stupidity which is this article. As if you have a problem with this, you have a problem with US law. Period. So please, let's stop having the dipshit of the week post more stupidity about a symptom that largely only creates problems for criminals. And if you disagree, then go fix the legal system rather than boo-hoo about how a legal system is doing perfectly legal things with the entities its largely created, nurtured, owns, and controls - as in, is clearly within its jurisdiction.
It also creates a problem for forums, blogs, independent companies hosted at a provider that also hosts forums and blogs, file storage providers, cloud services... But you are absolutely correct in that we do need to fix the laws, and the people that believe in global projection of law to independent nations. And I say this from the US.
Re:Switch away from .com? (Score:5, Informative)
Can you please cite some sites which do not participate in illegal activity who have suffered? AFAIK, the list is exactly zero. And in either case, can you please show where due process was denied?
dajaz1.com
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Mistakenly-Seized-Hip-Hop-Blog-Returned-to-Owner-After-One-Year-239685.shtml [softpedia.com]
Re:Switch away from .com? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, I have a problem with this. The US seem to be claiming jurisdiction over everything. ACTA anyone? Next thing you know I have to pay Uncle Sam taxes just because my site has a .com, .net or .org tld.
What if I published a music video of a song written and performed by me, on my site, but a RIAAA member claims it's theirs (very realistic scenario since they even claim copyright to bird songs)? I'll tell you what will happen, it will be shut down by removing it from DNS, even though the server is not on US soil and they have no jurisdiction over the song, the site or me whatsoever. What would happen if I wrote and published a program that "violates" a software patent in the US, while I live in the EU and the EU doesn't recognize software patents? Yes, they will shut it down.
The problem is US laws are getting more insane by the day, and then try to shove them down the throaths of the rest of the world. You bet I have a problem with this. If they want to have jurisdiction over the TLDs, they shouldn't sell them outside the US.
Web site? (Score:2, Insightful)
Which web site would that be? Bodog.com?
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I assumed they intentionally left out the name of the website in question to make it slightly more difficult for us to realize this is a dupe:
http://slashdot.org/story/12/03/01/0412241/us-shuts-down-canadian-gambling-site-with-verisigns-help [slashdot.org]
Not at all. Now, that Michael Geist weighed it, it's "news for nerds" instead of "stuff that matters".
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1. Write post
2. Make the mistake of ever looking at flawed post again
3. ???
5. Profit!
(Note to self: Proofread BEFORE hitting "submit")
Time to remove control from the US (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it has now become vital to remove control of the internet's root services from the US. I'm sure the process is now underway.
Re:Time to remove control from the US (Score:5, Insightful)
And give it to whom?
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ideally a decentralized service that no one country can have any authority over.
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Do we need to handle disputes centrally? (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps it's time to move away from total dependence on domain names. Their value comes inherently from qualities that invite dispute.
With search services, it's quite possible to find hosts that have no domain name at all. I can't post my favorite example, because the server has insufficient power to handle lots of hits, but such things definitely exist. There's still some problem with control by the search companies, but there's a finer granularity of competition there.
Once you get to a given host, you can determine whether it's World Wrestling or World Wildlife. That doesn't have to be certified (very unreliably) by a DNS registrar.
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And give it to whom?
Give it to Iran or China perhaps? That was it will be more likely that governments around the world will stand up for the rights of their citizens if those countries decide to start asserting control.
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Re:Time to remove control from the US (Score:5, Informative)
While only 13 names are used for the root nameservers, there are many more physical servers; A, C, F, G, I, J, K, L and M servers now exist in multiple locations on different continents, using anycast address announcements to provide decentralized service. As a result most of the physical root servers are now outside the United States, allowing for high performance worldwide.
The question is if the company running them us US based? RIPE (Amsterdam) is not. Nor is WIDE (Japan), or Autonomica (Sweden). Once they stop accepting updates from US DNS, things will get ugly fast.
Of course (Score:5, Informative)
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IMHO, ".us" is the US TLD, while .com, .org, etc are the "International ones". For example, google.com redirects to google.com.TLD (google.com.ar in my case). The same goes to all major international websites.
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> IMHO, ".us" is the US TLD, while .com, .org, etc are the "International ones".
You'd think, but that's not actually the case. .com, .org, .mil etc all were developed as US domains (the internet was almost entirely a US phenomenon at the time), and they were never "given away" to the international community. They've always been fully controlled by the US. The country domains were created for each country to control their own: the .ca, .jp, and so on that you see around.
The entire DNS system originated
Re:Of course (Score:5, Informative)
Not so much. Those were created while this whole Internet thing was a DoD/DoE/NSF (and other TLA) plaything. Anyone expecting that there would be a neutral, internationally managed jurisdiction was being idealistic and/or naive.
The problem is that governments have an established interest in and right to set the ground rules within their respective jurisdictions. For most of the internet, that comes down to boxes in their physical territory and the relevant CcTLD. The US has a first-mover advantage (or headache) in that they also created the .ORG, .NET, .COM, .MIL, and .EDU zones and can make a reasonable jurisdictional claim to them.
This is also why I think the open registration for TLDs is a bad idea. These jurisdictional issues are complicated enough (and will likely require a treaty or two to work out) without corporations in one country registering a TLD from a registrar in another to use for business worldwide. It's similar to the problem that had to be worked out internationally as corporate legal fictions became the norm in international commerce.
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I am in the US and google.com doesn't redirect anywhere. Your own logic proves that .com is a US tld.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Does this company also act surprised that the US government could access any US-based bank accounts it has?
I suppose it would be. By taking this aggressively authoritarian stance on global commerce, the United States is threatening its own interests: The financial power of the US is tied directly to its financial markets. The US signed treaties with many countries that, even if war were declared, their assets would be left alone. For this reason, many countries use the dollar as their only form of currency, store their assets in US-controlled financial systems, etc. As a result, the US government is the largest bank in the world, by far. The internet is fast becoming the major driver of economic power worldwide, and the fact that the US is not putting its internet connections on the same level threatens its status as a superpower.
Countries are moving away from the dollar. The Chinese is divesting itself of dollars every day, growing larger economically while we grow weaker. Corporations based in this country are outsourcing at a record pace, even during the longest recession in history. Everyone is jumping ship because the public policy the US government has instituted is no longer beneficial to them economically, politically, or even morally. In ten years, the United States will no longer be the dominant superpower. They won't be able to maintain a vast military, their infrastructure will have finally reached a point of decrepitation that requires such enormous capital investment versus the (now substantially reduced) economic benefit, that large sections of infrastructure will be abandoned or scaled back.
In short, America is dying. And it didn't die because of a lack of natural resources, or because it was attacked by terrorists, or got hit with a natural disaster. It died because a select few people, perhaps less than 20,000, opted to raid the treasury, and then pass a bunch of laws to ensure the country never recovered.
So yes, to see the US killing its last viable resource that could be used to keep it in the game is a bit surprising. Without a free internet, there's no reason to choose US labor, good, or services, over that of its competitors who, while they may have a restricted communication network, offer better economic opportunities (read: China).
Re:Of course (Score:5, Funny)
We need a "+1 unintentionally hilarious" mod option.
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Go ahead. No one is stopping you.
Hmmm (Score:2)
Switching to a non-US TLD....
Well shit (Score:3)
Well shit, I only have the .com, .net and .org versions of my domain name. Maybe it's time to grab the .co GoDaddy keeps pimping as "the new .com".
Re:Well shit (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Well shit (Score:5, Interesting)
You should be aware that co is the ccTLD for Colombia, a country the United States enjoys a close relationship with. Well, it's a cozy relationship with one of their governments, anyhow. They've got the official government, the government with half the guns, and the government with most of the drugs. In any event, it's the official government that would be the issue if push came to shove over a domain.
Also, GoDaddy pimping anything is frequently a good reason to avoid whatever they're pimping.
*.is ? (Score:5, Interesting)
This would be an excellent opportunity for Iceland, which has been working on become a haven for free speech [guardian.co.uk], to drum up a few million dollars worth of business for their ccTLD.
Re:*.is ? (Score:4, Interesting)
I have a 3-letter ".is" domain. Oh, and jrax.is seems to be free....
America fuck yeah! (Score:5, Funny)
We invented it and we own it. Eat shit eurotrash. Make your own Internet and stop leeching if you don't like it.
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We do. It's called "the Internet". Built with our hardware, our cables, our routers, our servers, our providers, etc. etc.
Oh wait, you mean no matter how much we contributed, it is always the property of the one who invented it?
Seriously?
Ok, time to dig up all the stuff that Europe invented, say before the US ever existed, and ask you to stop using that. Start with toilets and cutlery while I look up the rest.
Which registrars now? (Score:3)
Currently I use OpenSRS but they are also based in the US so from the looks of it they'd be forced to break any Canadian privacy laws to give out domain name info. I've never had problems with them. Now obviously they might not be able to give out info past the .com/org/net domains but I don't want anything to do with a company doing business with the US.
Any one know of any registrars that have no business doing with the US? I still have an old Stargate/Resell.biz account that I can transfer all my domains to...
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www.joker.com
Oh, wait.. dang. At least their company isn't US-based.
Comapny disputes (Score:2)
OMG (Score:2)
Alllright, lemme just wait for the +5 insightful comments to clear this up before I get my rage on.
Simple solution. (Score:2)
I'm thinking of switching to Dot-FuckyoUS
Am I confused here? (Score:4, Interesting)
In order to 'have' a FOO.com/.net/.org domain name, you have to pay for the appropriate registration with Verisign, a US corporation, who handles those domains. If the feds secure the appropriate court order, they can direct Verisign to have your FOO.com point to a different IP.
Ok. Hasn't that always been the case?
Some sort of argument that a site having a
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Well, there's been a bit of naivete about ".com". Specifically, the idea that if you "buy" your ".com" from a non-US registrar, somehow that makes the ".com" immune to US interference. People haven't realized up until now that the US allows everyone else to play in their ".com" playground under US sufferance and by US rules, since the US registrar (Verisign) owns the whole megilla. So the shock of "I never had nuffin' to do wit' da US" is not really justified, but pretty shocking nonetheless, I guess.
That's
Might makes right, eh? (Score:2)
So, any country can declare a global legal jurisdiction, and pass laws directing everyone on the planet to comply? Or only those countries with very large militaries, indicating that might not only makes right, but assures authority over legal matters outside the nation's boundaries.
I don't think so, fascist state.
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How is this different? (Score:4, Insightful)
How is this different from like Libya exercising control over the sites being hosted under .ly domains?
"International law .ly domain in October 2010 to shut down vb.ly for violating Libyan pornography laws. Failure to predict such problems with URL shorteners and investment in URL shortening companies may reflect a lack of due diligence.[19]"
Shortened internet links typically use foreign country domain names, and are therefore under the jurisdiction of that nation. Libya, for instance, exercised its control over the
Not to say any kind of censorship is right, but at the moment, us treating the US based TLDs as, well, US based, is just the way jurisdiction has been being handled when it comes to domain names.
godaddy.com (Score:2)
There's no "superjurisdiction" here. (Score:3)
Verisign is inside the USA and that is where all .coms are registered. The "registrars" are just sales agents. Get youself a .ru domain.
Re:There's no "superjurisdiction" here. (Score:5, Insightful)
How did we ever get to a point where suggesting a move from US jurisdiction to Russian jurisdiction to avoid abuses of government power actually sounds reasonable???
How sad a state of affairs this truly is.
Not a big deal. (Score:2)
The problem becomes if we ever think that we own any of the national levels other than
Sadly, I can see this coming that some idiot will scream that we do.
Now, the question is, who owns the new ones coming up?
What? (Score:5, Funny)
The real problem isn't jurisdiction. Seizing is. T (Score:3)
Let's face it, the .com domain registry is in the US and the the US does have jurisdiction by the logical extension to the Internet of old case law.
US servers are being told to resolve domains.
Courts, prosecutors, the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security (and other things) being able to arbitrarily seize domains IS the problem.
The only purpose for seizure as it was intended to be used when restrictions on search and seizure were added to the Constitution was to gather and preserve evidence.
That is its only LEGITIMATE purpose still, unless someone has been convicted of a crime and it is part of their sentence or to stop a terrorist attack.
And if they don't have the Department of Homeland Security STOP worrying about bullshit and just deal with actual homeland security, I'm afraid another 9/11 is extremely likely. Having them involved in the War on Drugs and the War on Piracy and the War on Gambling is going to make us lose the War on Terror (the only one WORTH fighting).
And FreeNet is easy to take down.
Try, convict and then sentence node owners to 20 years in prison. The rest will shut themselves down.
You don't even need to convict people. Here in Las Vegas, someone was accused (not even yet tried) of possessing child pornography. Rather than try the alleged pervert, they assigned him a cellmate in the Clark County Detention Center (*) who was an accused murderer of a child (killing his own nephew!), who, get this, ended up killing (BEAT and STABBED to death) the alleged pervert. Imagine that.
That was a hit.
So now people know that just being accused can result in an indirect death sentence. Even those innocent could die.
And guess what one running a FreeNet node could be accused of trafficing in? They could be set up with bogus/planted evidence, arrested, set up in prison and brutally killed with in a week! No need for a trial where someone could be found not guilty.
Talk about a chilling effect!
(*) This jail is way out of control. Maybe not as bad as Rikers Island in NYC, but close! Some years back they put someone accused of marijuana possession in with hardened criminals and he got raped in the shower. I don't think that was an accident.
Sam Donaldson of Stop Prison Rape (now Just Detention International) was set up in the DC jail to get raped - read the story. (**)
http://www.8newsnow.com/story/15175310/inmate-murdered-at-ccdc [8newsnow.com]
http://www.lvrj.com/news/inmate-kills-roommate-in-clark-county-detention-center-126413548.html [lvrj.com]
http://www.bravemantherapy.com/articles/prison.htm [bravemantherapy.com]
"In 1997, Robert was arrested for possession of marijuana and taken to the Clark County detention center in Las Vegas where three men raped him in the shower. Now, 18 months out of prison, he is still trying to come to terms with the experience."
Guess they taught him a lesson for daring to possess the "evil reefer"!
(**)
http://www.jimgoad.net/pdf/prison/donny.pdf [jimgoad.net]
Don't like it? We'll drop an A-Bomb on you! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Fast becoming??? Where have you been for the last 20 years? Under a rock somewhere?
The U.S. has always been a bully. From Iran and Iraq to Brazil and Bolivia, it has always stuck its hands, nose, and sometimes more nefarious parts into other countries' businesses.
Countries have hated us since the end of WWII. You're probably only just noticing this bcause we've just about finished spending all of the political capital we amassed during the Cold War. Where before, countries will sit there quietly and take it
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How is this news? (Score:5, Insightful)
"US Asserts Super-Jurisdiction Over [...]" seems to be rather standard.
Re:How is this news? (Score:4, Insightful)
In this case the US is just making clear with words what they had already made clear with actions.
Re:How is this news? (Score:5, Interesting)
leave each country to run its own (Score:5, Insightful)
that way we don't have an international super committee which will bow to every petty demand that is brought before it. However even national ccTLDs arent immune as the US and other governments are not beyond threatening other countries, even allies (see the recent witch hunt after swiss bank accounts)
Really think about it, an international group would most likely be within the domain of the UN and that would result is so many attempts to filter content that the internet we know now could never exist.
That's a terrible idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Let countries maintain their own TLDs and give jurisdiction over the international ones to a UN body.
That is a terrible idea. If you understood the simple fact that the UN does not, never has, and never will represent you or any other single, individual Human Being, you would understand the rediculousness of what you propose.
The UN represents GOVERNMENTS, most of whome are actively oppressing their own people to one degree or another. Cede control of key Internet infrastructure to that organization, and you cede control to an organization that represents the interests of REGIMES, not people. Censorship, filtering, domain seizures, etc. will follow the path of least resistence, and the lower common denominator. Governments will be pleased, and rarely will one stand up for you unless a specific political interest crosses enough borders, and gains enough attention (e.g. maybe Tibet, or Dafur, certainly not YOU, me, or anyone else on slashdot, in the EFF, the FSF, etc.).
You think American suppression of speech is bad? It is, but no where near as bad as it will be if we cede that authority "to a UN body."
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Giving control of DNS to a U.N. organization is not a bad idea, actually. The U.N. is known for its inability to do anything, precisely because there are so many stakeholders involved. The countries squabble over all sorts of things (look at Syria), and in the end, it's just a lot of talk and very little action.
Inactivity is the best way to keep countries from shutting down parts of the Internet. Libertarianism does have its merits, just not necessarily in tangibles (i.e. information).
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The really annoying thing is that many, many technical gurus were against international control of the Internet and for US control of it in order to "protect the freedom". Yeah. Right. The rest of us have been posting for a long time now that all this was to be expected and that, whatever the faults of the UN and other international bodies, they're still better at safeguarding things like freedom.
ICANN should be dismantled completely and all control transferred to a quasi-independent international body. THA
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Silly ferriner, the world IS our back yard. Go find your own.
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Dear England,
Last time we played this game you got your ass beat.
The last time you played this game the British Army burnt Washington DC to the ground.
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Re:I've been getting several emails (Score:5, Funny)
More amusingly the ssl is broken, so it comes up with the "This Connection is Untrusted" message. Truer words were never written...
Re:Is anyone surprised? (Score:5, Insightful)
They invented it, so they ought to have the right to control it.
I agree 100%. A Scotsman called John Logie Baird invented the scanviewing screen. Every single viewing screen in the world (computer monitor; TV; security monitor; infra-red main battle-tank target sighting system; space ship piloting screen etc. etc.) should be routed, at the owner's expense, through a centre in Scotland so that the Scots can ensure their control over what is viewed on those screens.
My only fear is what the Chinese are going to do with their right to control your use of toilet paper.