US Government Seizes Torrent Search Engine Domain 305
Voulnet writes with this excerpt from TorrentFreak:
"This morning, visitors to the Torrent-Finder.com site are greeted with an ominous graphic which indicates that ICE has seized the site's domain. 'My domain has been seized without any previous complaint or notice from any court!' the exasperated owner of Torrent-Finder told TorrentFreak this morning. 'I firstly had DNS downtime. While I was contacting GoDaddy, I noticed the DNS had changed. GoDaddy had no idea what was going on and until now they do not understand the situation and they say it was totally from ICANN,' he explained. Aside from the fact that domains are being seized seemingly at will, there is a very serious problem with the action against Torrent-Finder. Not only does the site not host or even link to any torrents whatsoever, it actually only returns searches through embedded iframes which display other sites that are not under the control of the Torrent-Finder owner."
Hoax (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a hoax. Whois the IP's involved.
Alternative DNS (Score:4, Interesting)
I believe its time to support alternative DNS resolution that is outside of the governments control and possible a network of VPN's or Onion-like routing.
Collecting IP addresses... (Score:5, Interesting)
Also note that they are also collecting IP address information of people who visit the site...
try { var piwikTracker = Piwik.getTracker(pkBaseURL + "piwik.php", 1); piwikTracker.trackPageView(); piwikTracker.enableLinkTracking(); } catch( err ) {}
They also have google analytics turned on - UA-19806388-1
Re:Immigration and Customs Enforcement!? (Score:3, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hoax (Score:2, Interesting)
After reading TFA I found SOFTLAYER is the host of torrent-finder.com/ torrent-finder.info
So... how is this a hoax? Please explain your findings.
Re:Slippery Slope continues. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd suspect it won't be very long. The Internet was generally untouchable. With flexing new found power, they will expand the use of it until the people complain too much about it.
Consider air travel. It went from x-rays and metal detectors, to puff/sniffer rooms to detect for explosives, to full bodyscans and intrusive patdowns. When enough people started refusing to get more radiation on every flight than they get from normal medical screenings, it became a problem. And yes, I'm one of them. I refused standing in the machines, not for the sake of a political stand, but for the sake that it's not necessary. We, a people as a whole, are refusing to submit to the continued abuses, and they realize that they have to back down.
I guess the question then becomes, what action will the people take about this? Do they passively accept that the government did this for our safety? Then the actions will continue. Soon enough, people will see that sites like this are now directed to seizedservers.com, with two IP's and the web server on the same subnet at CaroNet Managed Hosting, Inc, and the domains are now "owned" by "immexGroup IT Solutions", a government contractor. Expect the DDoS to begin, but not without retaliation by the government.
Americans have become passivized. They may moan and groan about things that they don't like, but they won't take actions against it. Most likely, users of seized sites will just say "oh, that sucks", and move on to somewhere else, until they find that the other things they enjoy are gone also.
Slashdot is down the list a bit, but I wouldn't be totally surprised if some folks would like to see it go away. There are the trolls, who can just (and still) be ignored. There are those who preach passive acceptance, which is in the best interest of the government overreaching their powers. And finally, there are some who say "Stand up against what you believe are injustices". If there's anything the government hates more than those who mess with corporate America, it's those who try to suppress the government's uncontrolled powers. And I am one of the later. If you don't like it, stand up against it. Don't just make a little noise. Make a lot. If you do this, you may find yourself with a good number of followers, and you yourself may find yourself participating in government. What would we do with leaders who actually believe in and protect the freedoms of the individuals?
Re:Hoax (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a hoax. Whois the IP's involved.
I did. And torrent-finder.info resolves to 208.101.51.56, while torrent-finder.com resolves to 74.81.170.110.
On first inspection, those two IPs seems to be very distant from one another IP-block-wise, but you never know with the internet, so both got a whois, and apparently 208.101.51.56 is owned by Softlayer (as a poster prior to me mentions), while 74.81.170.110 is owned by Caroline Internet, Ltd.
So maybe the guy changed the IP for his .com-address and bought hosting somewhere else? I don't know what this Caroline Internet, Ltd. But if he did buy a virtual machine at a datacentre, then I will say 'will played, good sir!' That is a lot of a bucks spend to fake a site takeover.
Re:Hoax (Score:4, Interesting)
CarolinA Internet - Lets get that name straight first.
They are in Charlotte, NORTH Carolina - Lets get the location right as well.
They are well know for hosting porn and other dodgy sites.
AND they are crooks. A lot of their equipment has been fraudulently obtained.
https://www.caro.net/about [caro.net]
There, just setting the facts straight.
But Americans *SUPPORT* things like this (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in September, I used the EFF's Action Center to send a letter to my senators expressing my concerns about COICA and and how much I was against it, (OK, I know it's a futile gesture, but it's something...)
and, about a month later I got this in reply.
"
Thank you for writing to express your support for the "Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act." I appreciate knowing of your support for this legislation.
America's copyright system is one of our most important economic engines, and giving artists and inventors the incentive to produce cutting edge works is vital to our country. The protection of intellectual property is particularly important to California, which is home to thriving film, music, and high-technology industries. I have worked in the Senate to curtail the theft of copyrighted works, and I believe copyright owners should be able to prevent their works from being illegally duplicated.
On September 20, 2010, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced the "Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act" (S. 3804). You may be pleased to know that I am an original cosponsor of this bill. This legislation would help address the growing problem of online piracy and copyright infringement by allowing the U.S. Department of Justice to shut down websites selling pirated materials. The bill is currently awaiting action in the Senate Judiciary Committee, of which I am a member.
Throughout my career, I have consistently supported strong intellectual property protection. I was an original cosponsor of the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 13, 2008. This bill strengthened existing civil and criminal intellectual property laws, increased the resources available to federal and local law enforcement agencies to combat the theft of intellectual property, and created the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC). The IPEC serves in the Executive Office of the President and chairs an inter-agency committee to produce and implement a joint strategic plan to enforce intellectual property laws.
Again, thank you for taking the time to share your concerns with me. Should you have additional questions or concerns, please feel free to contact my staff in Washington, D.C. at (202) 224-3841.
"
So I guess, according to her, I'm one of the majority of Americans who support the bill...
Re:Hoax (Score:2, Interesting)
If not a hoax, then it would seem that DHS/ICS may have overstepped it's authority or is outside it's jurisdiction and is stepping on the Secret Service's and especially the FBI's toes.
The FBI still has primary jurisdiction in copyrights violation cases, IIRC.
What may have happened here is that someone went to the FBI to shutdown the sites, was denied, then went agency shopping and found the DHS/ICS eager to make their internet bones.
This seems somewhat like the FBI and Secret Service inept & incompetent Keystone Kops actions from the 90's when the DMCA was enacted, up to and including going after innocent parties, without evidence, without investigation, based solely on hearsay.
If they are in fact acting outside their jurisdiction, I would hope that EFF and other attorneys give the DHS and ICS a justly deserved roasting in court. But the people who induced the DHS/ICS to do this would get off scot-free, even if they lied to DHS/ICS.
Re:Hoax (Score:5, Interesting)
Both godaddy and network solutions are reporting the create date as 11/24/2010 for seizedservers.com.
Everyone know the government does not move quickly. In fact, between purchasing and action I would be damned if they actually did something on time and on budget.
The other issue is there are lots of pretty graphics with all of the domains that are hosted with seizedservers.com. It's like one of those bad scams with information and pictures of pretty places. http://www.dailychanges.com/seizedservers.com/ [dailychanges.com]
In every take down instance they have simply flipped off the switch on the domain and took the folks to court.
It's either a hoax for traffic or someone snagged a domain.
Re:Slippery Slope continues. (Score:2, Interesting)
No.
Evade the Constitution by calling it a civil action and then rig the rules to make any defense difficult if not impossible.
Re:EXIF Info (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Slippery Slope continues. (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course not. But where is it published that the government can hijack the DNS?