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Congress Eyes Whois Crackdown
Decius6i5 writes "The Washington Post is reporting on a Congressional hearing in which it was proposed that putting false or misleading information in your DNS whois record should be a federal crime. Texas Representative Lamar Smith is quoted as saying 'The Government must play a greater role in punishing those who conceal their identities online.' The article claims 'Smith and Berman drafted the bill after receiving complaints from the entertainment and software industries that much of their material is made available for free on Web sites whose owners are impossible to track down because their domain name registrations often contain made-up names.' Its funny, I don't recall the RIAA having any trouble tracking down P2P users whose IP addresses didn't have any DNS names associated with them at all. This isn't the first time the issue has been raised in Congress but apparently Congress hasn't gotten any more clued after several hearings."
So is my senator going to come over to my house and sort my spam email and junk snail mail that I get from my whois records?
- false WHOIS information
- false email headers
- spoofed IP addresses
- misleading web pop-ups
- spyware authors
- technomorons who install spyware
- coverage of mydoom by the BBC
- jj's boobs
Ceci n'est pas une signature
About 4 years ago. I registered "whitearyanresistance.com", org and net. I put a nice little cgi in place that sent people to random sites sites like blacksonblondes.com, algore2000.com, NAMBLA and so forth.
Next step was to modify the cgi to regurgitate the IP address where the user got a message that said..
Your IP Address: xx.xx.xx.xx has been recorded for forwarding to the proper authorities. Have a nice day
Then I got tired of picking on Tom Metzger and his retarded ilk and just donated the domains to another group (not the W.A.R.).
You bet your ass I used fake info in my WHOIS then.
I do wonder though if there are legitimate cases of where people run sites where it's best to not know the identity. Much in the same way that an abused woman could never call home from a shelter because her husband who beats her would know where she is thanks to caller ID.
Maybe the Chinese Communists would send goons to whack all the Falun Gong website owners or something (I'm sure you have better examples).
but you forgot to post as AC...
There's an old saying you still see on bumper stickers, "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." While that idea might be more accurately stated as "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will accidentally shoot their own kids," the original sentiment holds for WHOIS, that is to say, "When falsified WHOIS data is outlawed, only outlaws will falsify their WHOIS data."
By your measure, I think correctly it would be, "When falsified WHOIS data is outlawed, only outlaws will accidentally shoot their kids."
People on the Internet sometimes pretend to be someone they're not.
Anyone who is trying to conceal their identity for illegal activities will continue to do so.
Now we may just get more spam.
I wonder if we're on to something here
:-(
You WERE onto something, but not anymore.
Since you posted this, now the spammers will simply stop the filtering and the heck with rejected addresses
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I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
The spammers must use that system to avoid sending spam to each other :)
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
I'm doing 5-10 for typoing my name.
eskwayrd = m^2c^4
When Pud was getting sued by PrintCafe, he changed his WHOIS info. Funniest thing I'd read in a while.
Here's the link:
http://www.fuckedcompany.com/printcafe.html
To quote numerous t-shirts, bumper stickers, and coffee mugs - Fuck you, I'm from Texas.
If nothing else it'd be a great way to wrack up whoever is running the system's phone bills with calls to every number in every phone book in norway.