British Police Censor the Global Internet 228
judgecorp writes "A branch of the City of London police seems to be censoring suspected pirates worldwide, using threats. The Police Intellectual Proerty Crime Unit (PIPCU), acts on tip-offs from copyright owners to attempt to close down websites accused of piracy. the process involves cease-and-desist letters, followed by pressure on advertisers not to fund the site, and finally PIPCU uses threats to the domain registrar (not the ISP), all without any sort of court order."
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Corrupt City of London (Score:4, Insightful)
cops are, by modern definition, thugs for the rich and powerful.
see pete seeger's 'banks of marble' song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-o3CJytIPE [youtube.com]
the more things change, the more they stay the same. not much has changed and this seems to be a universal theme with cops world-wide.
think about who they really work for. when push comes to shove, its not you or I, that are their masters.
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Yes, songs are acceptable references. Yep.
Re: Corrupt City of London (Score:2)
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Funny enough, Emperor Bloomberg was replaced by God Emperor De Blasio.
Re:Corrupt City of London (Score:5, Informative)
It's a ceremonial position and its entire purpose since its creation has been to promote businesses in the City of London. The Mayor has no political authority whatsoever.
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Not quite. She's actually the chair of the local council.
The whole "City of London Corporation" thing is the last remnant of the state corporatism of the colonial era, where companies such as the Hudson Bay Company, the Dutch East India Company etc were either founded by royal/civil charter with a monopoly over trade and civil control in the colonies, or were started as private enterprise and sought a charter of monopoly.
I'm not aware of any other similar city "corporations" in the UK. I'm guessing this exi
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I'm not aware of any other similar city "corporations" in the UK.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Municipal_corporation [wikipedia.org]
"With the notable exceptions of the City of London Corporation and the Laugharne Corporation, the term has fallen out of favour in the United Kingdom, but the concept remains central to local government in the United Kingdom, as well as former British colonies such as India and Canada."
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I don't think the actual City of London has much of a permanent population.
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A square mile, and a square mile with a permanent population of 7000 people at that, a small, third rate town.
The courts and laws are still the Queen's, so they can't simply seize you and lock you up if they feel like it. Is this a toothless dictatorship or what?
If you cannot stand their silly "city", don't move there or invest there.
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You're the only with no facts. The City of London is not the same as London. The Mayor of the City of London is not the Mayor of London.
Re:No... (Score:5, Informative)
the City of London is a square mile business district, the Lord Mayor is the head of the City of London Corporation, and is Fiona Woolf at the moment. Boris is the Mayor of London - that is Greater London, and what Americans think of as London, not the City of London Corporation. It is actually the Livery Companies (like the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists) that elect the Lord Mayor. It is weirder than you think.
Re:No... (Score:5, Informative)
If you want it all summarised (very) nicely, checkout these videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc [youtube.com]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1ROpIKZe-c [youtube.com]
Re:Actually no (Score:5, Informative)
Boris Johnson, Mayor of the Greater London Authority is in charge of the Metropolitan Police. He is elected by the people who live in the Greater London Area, a region of England with a population of around 8 million people comprising two cities, London and Westminster, and 31 boroughs such as Camden, Southwark, Croydon and so on.
Fiona Woolf is Lord Mayor of the City of London. The smallest city in England with a population of around 10,000 people. She is in charge of the City of London Police, and is elected by the businesses that are based in the City of London.
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I didn't realize that there were even that many people. It's almost literally a ghost town on weekends.
Court order (Score:5, Funny)
all without any sort of court order."
Have you recently read of anything done by anyone WITH a court order? I wonder if the courts still remember how to write one.
The template must have been used for the last time with WordPerfect 4.2.
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Knowing the government IT contracts work/end up here in the UK, they are probably still using WordPerfect 4.2.
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Have you recently read of anything done by anyone WITH a court order? I wonder if the courts still remember how to write one.
Of course they do. Much like how the navy trains our sailors in rigging a traditional sailboat, it's a rich reminder of tradition and where they came from as well as a skill that many will practice as a hobby for the rest of their lives, despite the total lack of use in the modern day.
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all without any sort of court order."
Have you recently read of anything done by anyone WITH a court order? I wonder if the courts still remember how to write one.
The template must have been used for the last time with WordPerfect 4.2.
I appreciate the humour in your comment, but just can't help myself from posting this. Because what has been done with a court order is frightening enough:
From the ever entertaining and informative Ken White at Popehat.com [popehat.com]
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I appreciate the humour in your comment, but just can't help myself from posting this. Because what has been done with a court order is frightening enough:
From the ever entertaining and informative Ken White at Popehat.com [popehat.com]
I didn't have time to read the article. What did he do? Download an MP3?
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Ah, good question.
He pulled out of a WalMart in New Mexico without coming to a complete stop.
Then he looked nervous when pulled over. Allegedly appeared to be "clenching buttocks" when asked to step out of car.
Then, the officer got on the radio and heard from a colleague that the suspect had some previous drug related incident. Which the cop on the scene spun into "was caught with drugs up his butt".
The (uncertified) drug sniffing dog gave the signal, allegedly, on the guy's car seat.
Court gave search war
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Was this the guy who was then billed by the hospital for all of these tests?
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Was this the guy who was then billed by the hospital for all of these tests?
Yes.
Just too much outrageousness to easily summarize in one (or two) posts.
Popehat [popehat.com] does the usual excellent job, plus has links to other sources for anyone that wants a different take on it. Popehat's coverage is rather in-depth from the legal perspective (Ken was a former LA DA and now defence attorney with 1st amendment focus if I recall correctly).
UK (Score:5, Informative)
Re:UK (Score:5, Funny)
And Britain is welcome to fuck with their own civil rights.
When they start feeling like they have the authority and jurisdiction to affect the broader global internet, that's the point at which people need to start referring them to Arvell v Pressdram [nasw.org] and reminding them of where exactly their legal authority ends.
And the City of London has legal authority for an exceedingly small area, and precisely ZERO international authority.
Anybody being bullied into doing this is an idiot.
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This has led many in power in power to believe that that can do what they damn well please, and the threat that the powers that be are against you is sufficient to scare people into submission because they don't believe the law really protects individuals any more.
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The problem is that demanding censorship will make it harder for police globally to do work.
Right now, a lot of people are still going about their business directly from their IP to sites. Using an encrypted, offshore VPN is a matter of a few mouse clicks, or a couple taps on a smartphone or tablet. Once people start doing this as a matter of habit, then all goes dark.
The next step would be to block/censor/throttle VPNs, but because legitimate businesses use VPNs for secure remote communications, they wil
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Interesting to watch this exact same conversation occur, just with UK swapped in for US. We're "fighting" the same battle over here.
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Technically true, but as I mentioned in another post, the City of London police are one of the major authorities behind international money laundering laws. They put on an am AML database and any financial institution in the western world, because these lists are shared internationally, with find it very risky to do business with a listed entitity.I imagine this is the primary threat they
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And if police are going to start doing such things with no real legal basis, then the police deserve neither our respect nor our cooperation.
Because they've essentially become corrupt thugs who will do anything to achieve their own ends.
Once the police become simply the tools of corporations, they've lost their legitimacy.
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Tell this to the Iraq, they happily helped the US nuked them back to the stone age with 0 repercussion.
And anyone knows the reason? Oh, the suspected mass destruction weapons that were never found, lol. Did they even said "I'm sorry"?
We are all US/UK bitches.
Jurisdiction? (Score:3)
Do these people not realize they have zero jurisdiction outside of their own country?
If a police department in a foreign country is trying to exert pressure on you, the response is to tell them to go fuck themselves and come back when they have legal standing.
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You don't need to even accuse someone of something, just put them on a database, no-fly list, person of interest register, financial blacklists, etc. Threats from authorities do have weight even if there is no law backuping them up, it's disgusting.
Sure you can probably win in court, but not before massive financial expense and being fucked with for a few decades.
City of London Police != Scotland Yard (Score:2)
The correct response by all companies (Score:2)
The correct response by all companies to a request "without any sort of court order." should be to send t directly to /dev/null - I don't care if it is the NSA, FBI, or the London Police issuing the request, unless it is accompanied by a court order, why are companies bending over backwards to help the government - the government sure is not bending over backwards to help them.
(Yes I realize the problem is larger than this with FISA warrants and secret courts, but I don't think the London Police Department
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or to be blunt "We refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram"
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government sure is not bending over backwards to help them.
Sure it is. It's us that is left out in the cold, not companies.
So all crime in GB..... (Score:4, Insightful)
Is now gone? no killings no robberies, All real crime has been taken care of so they have to move to IP enforcement?
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In the CIty of London (pop 11,000) the Police probably don't actually have a lot to do.
It's a small area in the center of London with it's own semi-autonomous government dating back to at least before William the Conqueror. It started out as a Roman trading post.
It has it's own Mayor elected by a bunch of guilds.
I shit you not.
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Of course not, Murder is a minor crime and not even a crime if done to a poor person. but oh dead god, share a mp3 and deprive a rich person of their royalties? The police should be killing whole families as a message to other down loaders.
Tax Funded Investment (Score:2)
By owning the intellectual property one gains rights but also duties to protect the intellectual property. It is in fact the burden on shoulders of IP holders that is specified by law. :-) This is a very nice example of businesses delegating their duties to people (I mean tax-funded police). Definitely smart way to lower the costs of intellectual property ownership and thus increasing the profit margin.
I am sure that ordinary British will not like it. I am interested to see what will they do about it (to kn
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Absolutely nothing. Copyright issues aren't even on the public debate radar here.
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If this happened in America, the police would send the legal bills (cost of paper, envelopes, hourly labor, etc.) to the owners of the IP for payment, due on receipt, just like with hospitals, ambulances, courts, and towing company. Right?
Bitch please! (Score:2)
Court orders are so 21st century.
Who needs laws (Score:2)
When you have companies above them?
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I suppose it depends on your definition of extensive.
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"independently" being the key word. The UK government does not have control over those other countries. The Queen as an individual is head of state of those other countries. As for power, didn't the Queen's representative dissolve the Australian parliament some years ago? [wikipedia.org]
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he said majority share, not majority.
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Re:I will point out... (Score:4, Insightful)
Can you explain why this paleolithic institution is allowed to survive? Are the British people daft?
Re:I will point out... (Score:5, Informative)
IIRC the British monarchy brings in more revenue than it costs. Those most critical of the monarchy put the annual cost of maintaining it at 400 million GBP (more conservative figures peg that as much lower), but the royal family generates 500 million GBP / year in tourism revenue. I'm sure one can poke holes in this argument, but based on these two figures alone, it sounds like the monarchy is worth it.
Citation [theatlantic.com]
Re:I will point out... (Score:5, Informative)
IIRC the British monarchy brings in more revenue than it costs. Those most critical of the monarchy put the annual cost of maintaining it at 400 million GBP (more conservative figures peg that as much lower), but the royal family generates 500 million GBP / year in tourism revenue. I'm sure one can poke holes in this argument, but based on these two figures alone, it sounds like the monarchy is worth it.
Citation [theatlantic.com]
The Royal Family certainly doesn't generate £500M/year. The top place given following the reference on your link is the Tower of London, which no longer has anything to do with the Royal Family, except they "own" it.
Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle would bring in much more money if the Queen would fuck off. They could be permanently opened as museums.
http://republic.org.uk/What%20we%20want/In%20depth/Royal%20finances/index.php [republic.org.uk]
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IIRC the British monarchy brings in more revenue than it costs. Those most critical of the monarchy put the annual cost of maintaining it at 400 million GBP (more conservative figures peg that as much lower), but the royal family generates 500 million GBP / year in tourism revenue. I'm sure one can poke holes in this argument, but based on these two figures alone, it sounds like the monarchy is worth it.
Citation [theatlantic.com]
The Royal Family certainly doesn't generate £500M/year. The top place given following the reference on your link is the Tower of London, which no longer has anything to do with the Royal Family, except they "own" it.
Oh, they only "own" the tower of London.
So clearly they have nothing to do with it what so ever. Glad you cleared that one up.
I guess I wont drive my car any more now I've found out I only "own" it.
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In the UK, the Royal Family keeps at least three different newspapers alive and is responsible for at least 60% of the content in most popular magazines.
It's not easy being the stars and writers of the world's most popular soap opera.
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In the Netherlands our royal family are business people who make deals for our large corporations and open up trade negotiations with other countries. Our royal family works for their living and earn the Netherlands a lot of money.
In the United Kingdom our Royal Family include a racist old man and a homoeopathic nutter. Their main economic output is selling trashy newspapers.
I'd prefer to choose trade ambassadors, it's much easier to get rid of them if they turn out to be corrupt. Is your Royal Family also exempted from any efforts to improve political transparency? (e.g. for here, Freedom of Information requests.)
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He is also a massive tax dodger.
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Yes, but the Crown Jewels would still exist as a relic if the monarchy was disbanded.
In fact, the Crown Jewels are one of the monarchies biggest costs historically. They are owned by the realm, not the Crown Estates, and every monarch or two the realm (ie taxpayer) has had to pay to have them replaced, cos the previous king or queen has decided to flog them off to pay a gambling, drink or drug habit. This is technically theft, but no-one's ever prosecuted the royal household for their incredibly huge crimin
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IIRC the British monarchy brings in more revenue than it costs. Those most critical of the monarchy put the annual cost of maintaining it at 400 million GBP (more conservative figures peg that as much lower), but the royal family generates 500 million GBP / year in tourism revenue. I'm sure one can poke holes in this argument, but based on these two figures alone, it sounds like the monarchy is worth it.
Citation [theatlantic.com]
From the citation:
The British tourism agency has reported that the royal family generates close to 500 million pounds, or about $767 million, every year in tourism revenue, drawing visitors to historic royal sites like the Tower of London, Windsor Castle, and Buckingham Palace. The country's tourism agency says that of the 30 million foreign visitors who came to Britain in 2010, 5.8 million visited a castle .
So if there were no Queen but some actors dressed up like Henry the 8th, people would stop coming to see the castles? I don't buy that. They come to see the historical sites, not to have tea with the Queen.
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Why shouldn't anyone be ashamed that the best-paid public sector worker in the UK is employed on grounds of accident of birth to do nothing more than rubber stamp government decisions and shake people's hands?
Seriously, what ever happened to earning your place in society? I would happily do the Queen's job for 20 grand a year, as long as there was a sufficient training allowance for me to actually learn the languages spoken by the foreign dignitaries I was meeting, rather than expecting them to use English.
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Seems like DeVry have started a course on international politics & civics, and it looks like the first cohort just graduated.
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Royals can be fired (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Civil_War [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_revolution [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_revolution [wikipedia.org]
js
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There are civilized means of removing a monarch, starting with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorious_revolution [wikipedia.org] and the modern example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_VIII [wikipedia.org]
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Yet they receive tax money.
It equates to something like a pound or two per taxpayer per year. Given how much they (indirectly) bring in via tourism, I'd say it's a bargain. Plus we get the day off work when one of them gets married :)
Re:Actually (Score:4, Funny)
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Royal Royalties (Score:2)
That's not a pun, it's the origin of the word.
Re:I will point out... (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of us would rather have the Queen as head of state than any recent prime minister.
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Exactly this. Mrs Queen is not a member of any political party. We don't know what the rules for a president would be, but it's pretty certain they'd build the same old party political self-interest into them.
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Yeah, but at the moment you can't pick either the PM or the head of state. One is picked by the ruling party and the other is hereditary. We don't have an elected second house either, so there is no effective way for us to balance our government.
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Honestly, living in the US, I'd be content with just the occasional break from the partisan lunacy, even if only the moment of silence.
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Well, if you'd have listened to any of his critics back then, done any research, read his readings, seen his "voting record", etc...you'd have known you were getting exactly what you were voting for.
One problem was..so many people were enamored with getting the first black president voted in, they (media included) completely ignored much of Obama's teachings,
Re:I will point out... (Score:5, Informative)
Can you explain why this paleolithic institution is allowed to survive? Are the British people daft?
For the same reason /. keeps recycling old news. This tempest in a teapot has already been beaten to death here, months ago I think. At least the original date of the blog from easyDNS is dated back in September.
The summary is: the City of London police cover a small area in London, dealing often with IP and financial issues. They asked a DNS provider to look over their AUP concerning a certain website to see if action was appropriate. They asked the DNS provider, if they thought an AUP issue merited action, to please do certain things that would protect the ability to bring the matter to justice in a court (freeze DNS records to prove ownership, etc.) They left the decision up to the DNS provider. They then dared to ask the DNS provider to respond either way.
This is, of course, on /., an attempt at censoring the global internet. Just as I've attempted to censor the global internet by reporting spam factories to their DNS hosts/ISP to deal with.
Must be a slow news day.
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You are missing two important points.
Firstly the police deal with criminals, not civil matters. There is no alleged or prosecuted crime here. They are basically providing legal services and hoping their victims are scared of the police.
Secondly we are not the World Police. There is plenty of stuff on the internet that is illegal here but legal where it is hosted. Too bad for us.
Re: I will point out... (Score:2)
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To pull out a colloquialism, Horse of a different colour and all that.
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Not quite.
A President is directly elected to that position, whereas the Prime Minister is not. What actually happens is the leader of the majority party (or the leader of the largest party in a coalition) is invited by the reigning monarch to form a government (a formality, but we Brits love our little formalities). Said leader then becomes First Lord of the Treasury a.k.a. Prime Minister.
Obviously the party leader is elected in his/her constituency, but only members of the party can vote for their party le
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It certainly was NOT without reason.
Anonymous Coward, are you new to Slashdot ?
Re:You get how English works right? (Score:4, Funny)
Anonymous Coward, are you new to Slashdot ?
Nah. He's been saying stupid things since slashdot first opened its doors for business.
Re:You get how English works right? (Score:2)
Touché
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The population might, but our government thinks they still do.
Our government and their owners think they still do.
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Actually, no. The CoLP are very heavily influenced by corporate pressures, but not those ones. They work for a number of British corporations, most of them financial.
So this action is at the behest of the British record and film companies. There is some overlap, with a lot of them being multinational.
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It's /. you illiterate and cowardly moronic cipher, not ./
Thanks for correcting me dude - i see my original comment is rated -1 now... i think it was because i offended the usual ./ crowd by misspelling "slashdot"!
1) You just repeated exactly the same error.
2) Tip: if you don't post anonymously, I think you will find the civility of the responses will rise. I definitely have two modes. One for real people, and one for anonymous posters, who it is by definition impossible to insult. I am dead serious.
3) As for substance, with respect I believe it is undeservedly respectful to an overweening authority and begs the real question.
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Exactly what is the property you think was stolen?
What was the due legal process used?
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Intellectual "property" is not property and it cannot be stolen. Theft involves a tangible item (which this is not). The damage is that the owner is deprived of the use of said tangible item. This owner is not deprived of the use of any tangible item. Copyright is not a human right. It is a legal grant. There may be a copyright violation or they may not; it has certainly not been duly proven; but there IS NO THEFT here.
Somebody has been deprived of his website though. Due legal process would require proof t
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i think it was because i offended the usual ./ crowd by misspelling "slashdot"!
Oi, back to dotslash.org with you, you naughty troll you!
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Why IS it /. Inztead of ./