back to article Terror bomb victims demanding Iran's .ir will appeal US ruling

A US judge's decision that Iran's internet registry cannot be seized by victims of an Iranian-backed bomb attack will be challenged on appeal [PDF] in Washington DC. The decision last month by Judge Royce Lamberth that the .ir country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is not "attachable property" was the latest twist in a decade- …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Seizing domain name

    I think the idea seizing a domain name would lead to ridiculous cases like suing a company for damages and demanding their web address too as compensation without closing down the company. Overweight people getting compensated by seizing the domain of junk food companies? What next, demanding the name of "Iran" too?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Seizing domain name

      And I can think of many countries and groups of people who would have a legitimate claim, based on this thinking, for taking over the US TLDs...

      1. fearnothing

        Re: Seizing domain name

        Mind you that's a bit different from any other country as the US government, clearly being better than the rest of us tin pot democracies, doesn't have much use for the .us TLD.

        ... more power to anyone making such a claim, say I.

  2. tkioz
    Unhappy

    I have little love for the Iranian government but I honestly hope nothing comes of this, for the simple reason that domains are already a bloody mess, having people take over entire top level ones would make it worse!

    1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

      Different reasons

      TLDs should not be subject to a single country law, period. International law, international treaties - yes. Single specific country - no.

      And I am not even going to comment to applying hillbilly village (aka US State) law to this.

      In any case the correct precedent is elsewhere - maritime. You can put _ANY_ ship under arrest for unpaid bills. You however are _NOT_ entitled to confiscate the ship's flag or all ship flags of a particular country of registration. Similarly, you cannot just go and confiscate let's say the Liberian, Panama or other small country ship registry either (despite the fact that a lot of them are actually operated mostly out of New York and London, not out of their countries).

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I have little love for the Israeli government but I honestly hope nothing comes of this, because if it did then Israel would certainly lose it's TLD for it's terrorist attacks on Palestinians, British and Americans.

  3. jake Silver badge

    More daftness by clueless idiots.

    Domain names aren't actual IP addresses (Thank you & kudos to the original DNS/BIND folks, especially Jon Postal[RIP] & Paul Vixie). Judges (in any country) can seize any domain name they want, but until they come up with case law allowing actual IP addresses to be seized/blocked, seizing the common name is absolutely pointless.

    And even then, it only applies in their own territory ... and can't cover proxies outside that territory. The only way to control information available on TehIntraWebTubes[tm] is to shut down international access at the borders for TheCommonPeople. See North Korea.

    I don't really think the free world wants to go there ...

    EOF

  4. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Paris Hilton

    Just buy ".IRANSTRONG"

    Can anyone furnish citation needed about those "1997 Jerusalem bombings" apparently financed by Iran. It is western S.O.P. to accuse Iran of being behind any and all nefarious action, even 9/11. Are we talking about these: 1997 Mahane Yehuda Market Bombings? These, however, were Hamas, which are of The Other Muslim Sect (as opposed to Hezbollah), so I'm not entirely sure.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Can we have .com & .gov then please

    As the IRA was mostly funded by citizens of the USA, I want all US domains to go to victims of their murders.

    Also I believe citizens of Cuba, Grenada, Iraq, Afghanistan, Guatemala, Panama, Nicaragua, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Vietnam, Cambodia and many others also would like a quiet word...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Can we have .com & .gov then please

      Based on the downvote, you are clearly not supposed to point out US hypocrisy or that the US isnt the kind of shining beacon of truth, hope & beauty it sees itself as.

      1. Grikath
        Pirate

        Re: Can we have .com & .gov then please

        Well.... There's a fair share of hardcore USA-ians amongst the commentards who dislike anything that critisises the nation of Freedom, Truth, Justice and etc..

        This would be one of the topics where a well-crafted inflammatory post could land you the Stick of Fail or the Dropping of Excellence.

        [grabs popcorn]

    2. vagabondo
      Headmaster

      Re: Can we have .com & .gov then please

      ".us" is the ccTLD that belongs to the USA.

      1. Paul Kinsler
        Joke

        Re: ".us" is the ccTLD that belongs to the USA.

        ... hmm... anyone want to try to raise enough money to register .them, then??

    3. Joe User

      Re: Can we have .com & .gov then please

      And while you're at it, the citizens of Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Serbia, Argentina, Ireland, Indonesia, Egypt, India, and many others would like to have a word with U.K. officials....

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Meh

        Re: Can we have .com & .gov then please

        ...and the UK citizens / falkland Islanders with Argentina. And so on and on and on

  6. Graham Marsden
    Thumb Down

    The US citzens' lawyers believe they have a strong case for...

    ... making more money out of this...

    FTFY.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Carp

    If this carp carries on and de-stabilizes the network, network operators who actully host and pay the costs of the roots can just fork the file and co-operate elsewhere.

    1. dahlellama
      Joke

      Re: Carp

      Carp huh... you mean the big, smelly, brown variety found lying on the banks of rivers and streams in the in the fall? Or the golden Japanese koi variety?

      1. Old Handle
        Alert

        Re: Carp

        No, the kind that used to eat you alive in Dwarf Fortress.

  8. thames

    It's like a dog chasing a car

    I would be fascinated to know just how they plan on collecting on their claim. I doubt that anyone outside of Iran uses a ".ir" address, and I also doubt that anyone in Iran cares what some judge in the US thinks about their register. The Iranian networks will simply set up their national network DNS ignore any DNS updates from outside Iran that would change their own registry, and go on using it as before. As to how ".ir" resolves in the rest of the world would be pretty much irrelevant to most people except to people who want to read Iranian news releases. In that sense it would affect foreign journalists and Iranian expats, but no-one else.

    As to who would buy an ".ir" domain from someone other than Iran's official registrar is another good question. People in Iran couldn't see it since their own national DNS wouldn't recognize it. There's loads of low value national TLD name space now. The only real market that I could think of would be for dodgy domains (spammers, pirates, etc.) that no other registrar would touch.

    There's also no guaranty that any country outside of the US would recognize the change of "ownership" either. Probably some would, and some wouldn't. The non-changing ones would be doing so out of self interest rather than sympathy for Iran, as they wouldn't want the same thing to happen to them in another case. Some of Argentina's creditors tried to seize one of their naval vessels not long ago. They would definitely have a go at the ".ar" name if they thought they could grab it.

    Some multinational companies may individually ignore it as well, if they do business in Iran or have Iranian customers.

    The end result could be just exactly what the US has been desperately trying to avoid in their manoeuvrings to retain control of ICANN. A group of countries outside their control would set up a working relationship to decide how the Internet works outside of the US. Once they did that, they could decide to auction off their own ".com" and "dot whatever" names as they pleased on this second internet. There would be gateways between the two (or three, or more) Internets, which companies could bridge provided they pleased the powers that be on both sides of it. It would be rather like back in the days with the proprietary networks such as Compuserve with their walled gardens.

    The "Internet" as we know it today exists only because it's convenient for everyone concerned. If a US court went in like a bull in a china shop and broke that consensus, I doubt it would come back together in the form we have now.

  9. DJO Silver badge

    US lawyers in money making exercise. Again.

    Surely this would affect all internet users in Iran so it would count as "collective punishment" which is illegal in international law so how did it even make it to court?

  10. William Donelson

    Given that Cheney et al lied about Iraq, used torture etc, caving in to this might see US domains taken.

  11. MrDamage Silver badge

    Let them set the precedent

    And then we'll see how they like it when the oppressed residents of the Gaza strip are able to claim Israel's TLD in compensation for the human rights violations they have endured at the hands of Israel's expansionist policies.

  12. Roj Blake Silver badge

    Flag

    Why don't they go the whole hog and demand ownership of the Iranian flag and national anthem as well?

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