Critics slam feds for 'unprecedented' domain seizure
A vocal chorus of lawmakers and policy wonks are decrying the US government's practice of seizing large numbers of internet domain names without first giving the owners a chance to defend themselves in court. The latest installment of Operation in our Sites came last week with the seizure of 10 addresses for websites accused of …
We don't need no stinkin' judicial review!
Yes sir, in the good ol' U.S. of A., you get the best justice that money can buy.
1) Don't use US or Chinese controlled TLDs
2) Don't use US- or China-based registrars
3) Don't use US- or China based hosting
4) Start agitating for the development of non-US or China-based alternatives to paypal, amazon etc.
5) Start developing an internet that doesn't have a big switch that allows it to be controlled by the US or Chinese (or Egyptian) government.
..and so 'the internet' routes around yet another problem with just a few lost packets.
When will they learn? ever?
Not that the operators of these sites mind. The value of the publicity they get probably amounts to 50 year's worth of their marketing budget.
Perhaps the chap in the icon could have a word and teach them a thing or two.
Might need a wikiDNS or somthing soon
If you would be happy with user autogenerated network names with sufficient entropy within them to guarantee uniqueness to a sufficient value of guarantee, you'd be better off using IP addresses in terms of the memorability or usefulness of using names instead of addresses. You might want to check research into distributed hash tables, but these object names are not memorable in the way DNS names are.
If you want globally unique and simple names on the Internet then you need a delegated naming space with a centrally controlled DNS root. Better for this to be under the control of the United Nations through the ITU if you prefer international law as opposed to a US world policeman acting through a private company in California. That is how country telephone dialling codes are allocated. Most of the players seem not to want to fix something they don't see as being that badly broken yet...
Shurely©, it can withstand a couple of feds changing couple of bytes.
So not only is this whole operation stupidly overreaching the boundaries of what should be allowed, but it's also completely futile because sites just move to non-US hosts? See icon.
Whilst US Senator Ron Wyden is to be congratulated on bringing this up officially (I wrote about it here on the same grounds last week) you have to question U.S. moralities.
Imprisonment without trial: OK
Rendition: OK
Torture: OK
Spying on Americans against The Constitution: OK
FBI 'dial up' telephone monitoring anywhere in USA without warrant: OK
Copying contents of any U.S. computer: OK
Authorising Executive murder of American citizens: OK
Shooting Kent University students: OK
Seizing InterNet domain names: PROBLEM
...so many Americans defend their right to bear arms.
The right was originally to give the populace the means to deal with a despotic government.
Perhaps its original purpose is getting closer.
It also explains why the idea armed civilians is such anathema to our benevolent altruistic overlords...
>It also explains why the idea armed civilians is such anathema to our benevolent altruistic overlords...
Really?
I thought it was all the murder that you guys commit.
1) I've never committed a murder (been tempted to, a few times)
2) I'm English
3) I'm resident in England
4) "Overlords" is a reference to the reptilian denizens of Westminster, Whitehall, and Town Halls throughout the country!
is such anathema to our benevolent altruistic overlords...
Really?
The kind of people most keen to "defend their right to bear arms" are suckers for the very despotism that has patronised their ignorance, exported their jobs, and seized all the extra wealth created in the past 30 years for a tiny percentage of super-rich individuals and corporations.
If I were a despot, I would look fondly upon such people and feel a deep sense of security, safe in the knowledge that they will never wake up!
Is _ANYONE_ surprised that a federal LEO of the USA believes in their right to remove a person's, or organisations, property without giving them a change to defend themselves?
In the free world this sort of behaviour is usually called theft.
It's not even going to matter if the (former) holders of this property are operating legally in the jurisdiction that they're based in. Now who can these victims appeal to for redress?
No one.
Even if there was a world court, and the USA had signed up to be bound by that courts judgments, they would ignore such irrelevancies. See the WTO for precedents.
Perhaps now really is the time to end this _special_ relationship between the US & UK. Maybe then the UK would regain some of its former standing in the international communities.
...just don't use .com, .org, .net, .us (along with hosting and DNS services in the US) etc etc. Problem is, once other governments see how easy it was for the US to do it this way, I'm sure that they will follow suit.
it seems now every one can "walk like an Egyptian"
Buy European or Japanese, Korean wherever possible instead.
Divert your money away from these countries' companies. Always buy a .co.uk (fr, de, es, etc) companion domain
Simples (ish)
serious mind-engage time what, chasps ?
With vocal European support, in 2008 the US elected its first barely cloaked Marxist President. Of course his administration is following Marxist policies.
You didn't see these kinds of seizures under the dreaded BushCheneyHaliburtonHitler now did you? Elections have consequences. Some of them are even foreseeable.
"You didn't see these kinds of seizures under the dreaded BushCheneyHaliburtonHitler now did you?"
No, we didn't - only saw a couple of illegal invasions, few hundred thousand hapless non-Americans killed and few hundred other kidnapped and tortured, oh, and a global financial meltdown. Other than that - nothing. I'm making a note here - huge success.
