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Texas Company's Legal Troubles Hold .iq In Limbo
aducore writes "According to The Inquirer, the (American) company running the Iraqi .iq domain name .iq is under criminal indictment and cannot transfer control. So no Iraqi organization can get a .iq domain name, including the government. Iraq's National Communications and Media Commission and the U.S. administrator in Iraq are trying to get ICANN to free up the domain."
So does this mean that the Iraqi BitTorrent trackers won't be up? Now how am I supposed to download the latest episodes of "This Old Palace"???
Keep the faith, share the code
why is an american company running the iraqi tld?
eden.h4xx.com - whacky free for all image board
Why was a Texan company managing the .iq domains anyhow? Shouldn't have this been in the control of at least some kind of Iraqi authority in the first place?
The revolution will not be televised. It won't be on a friggin blog either
How about puppet.gov.iq
I am not quite sure what state the infrastructure of Iraq is in, but I guess that fresh water, electricity and roads comes higher on the priority list.
.iq!"
"Hey, someone is blocking
"Hey, someone is blocking our watersupply!"
If ICANN can remove control from Saddam and grant it to InfoCom, it can take it back as well..?
It's not as though they would have got permission to take it in the first place, so, why would they need it this time?
I've never shoed a horse, but I once told a donkey to piss off!
InfoCom got control of the domain because they sell computers and services to the middle east, but they are in trouble because they sold computers to particular countries in the middle east. On an aside, I have to stop myself typing iRaq - you can tell than I use Macs :)
Firstly, they were indicted shortly after 9/11... whether it was based on the fact that the US were targetting every possible arab owned company because of terrorist scares or whether they indeed committed crimes that included, (quote) "charges that they exported computer equipment to Libya and Syria and funneled money to a member of the Islamic extremist group Hamas. ", is a decision I leave up to you.. since there has been no progress or update on the case..
Second, "to a member of the Islamic extremist group Hamas" draws doubt to me. Ok, they were sending computer parts to Libya and Syria.. (oh no.. embargo.. and for, *GASP*, computer parts!) How is InfoCom supposed to know their customers background? How many customer(s) were involved in Hamas and how were they connected to InfoCom (if the money was funneled, why haven't we heard of any sort of medium or who/what the money was funneled through).. I mean.. an IT company based in Texas.. only just after 9/11 convicted of funding terrorists?
And why why why does the media never tell us the entire story? etc..
Again.. just my 2 cents.. and no.. i'm not unpatriotic.. I speak based on what I observe..
The full text of this article from The Economist follows. The original content is subscriber-only; it is reproduced here in the hope and expectation that you will find it useful.
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Rebuilding Iraq
Without peace, reconstruction stalls
May 13th 2004 | BAGHDAD
From The Economist print edition
Why it is proving so hard to rebuild the country
[Image]
IF THE Americans left Iraq today, their most obvious physical legacy, in the eyes of ordinary Iraqis, would be concrete blocks. The big slabs protecting administrators, soldiers and contractors from the 30-odd countries in the ruling coalition, which is due to be dissolved at the end of June in favour of an interim government run by Iraqis, jut into Baghdad's main roads and often reduce traffic in the capital to a standstill. Meanwhile, as the violence sputters on, the country's reconstruction--witness, for example, its communications system--is a shambles.
The insurgency, aimed at America's foreign and Iraqi contractors as much as the soldiers of occupation, is largely to blame. Last month 90 foreigners were kidnapped, prompting Russia, Portugal, Poland and France to urge their nationals to go home. Another bomb this week targeted a Baghdad hotel full of contractors. Kellogg Brown & Root, which has won the biggest building contracts in the new Iraq, has seen 34 of its staff killed, a higher toll than has been sustained by the military forces of any of America's allies bar Britain's.
Security squads and the protection of buildings, along with insurance and the soaring costs of transport on dangerous roads, account for as much as 30% of the costs of some of the companies trying to set up in business. The Californian building and engineering giant, Bechtel, which is handling contracts with the Agency for International Development (USAID) worth around $2 billion, has pulled half of its staff out to neighbouring Jordan and Kuwait and has assigned two Gurkha bodyguards to each of its 33 expatriates left in Baghdad. After last month's insurrections in Fallujah, to the west, and in Shia towns to the south, many of its key people have, for the time being, gone.
An official at the planning ministry, which oversees Iraq's reconstruction effort, says that productivity has slumped virtually to nil. When the militia of a rebel Shia firebrand, Muqtada al-Sadr, swooped through towns to the south of Baghdad, water, sewage-treatment and other projects were abandoned to scavengers, who stripped plants of machinery. Other than looters, the beneficiaries have been the 20,000-odd men working for security companies. They have blurred the lines between civilian and military contractors. Both are targets of the insurgents.
As the summer heat rises, many essentials are getting scarcer. The schools are still open and exams held on time. But after months of regular electricity at night, long power cuts have become frequent again, plunging the capital into darkness and increasing crime. Promises that by next month the country's output would have risen from 4,500 to 6,000 megawatts (the amount a biggish American town consumes) look unlikely to be kept, especially since all of Siemens's specialists and most of General Electric's have left. This week another Russian engineer was killed and two more kidnapped at a power plant, prompting a further flight of foreigners.
In their effort to achieve as smooth a handover as possible to Iraqis at the end of June, the American authorities are letting their generals make deals with the rebels to get the show back on the road. In Fallujah, the hottest cauldron of Sunni hostility, the marines have lifted their siege, leaving the insurgents to run the town's security; they have even staged a joint patrol. In Shia towns, including the holiest, Najaf, General Martin Dempsey has offered to tur
And Bush just registered low.iq for his website.
This space left intentionally blank.
I was as pissed as you were when goatse.cx was taken down. Especially since it was a fellow australian who complained. God some of my countrymen/women are such absolute assholes.
Think nothing is impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.
I don't understand, so what the company has been indicted.
Just move the domain. They don't need to physically move anything, heck they claim that domain names aren't even property.
We should invade ICANN HQ with a squad of Marines!
Meanwhile the new government, national institutions or regular Iraqis are having to register themselves as ".com," ".org" or ".net".
.us
Dagnabbit! Those domains belong to God's Blessed America! Not the international community! Give em a TLD of their own that won't infringe on our territory. Perhaps
"To lead the people, you must walk behind them"
I am waiting to register high.iq.
......Stephen Hawking
This is surprising, considering how smooth and flawless the rest of the Iraq operation has been.
It seems to me that investigators could subpoena whatever hardware is necessary to make their case, while Iraq can start using the .iq legitimately.
It's not as if someone's going to walk into court with a plastic bag labeled "Exhibit A" with the letters ".iq" in it, right?
Why doesn't the Iraqi government just use .gov? I mean, let's be realistic here...
This has got to be one the least of the problems the new Iraqi government is facing right now.
.org domain somewhere instead of .iq
Let's see: the new gov has a legitimity problem, a lot of people want to blow them up, neighbours are considering making things even harder, they have to justify a continued US presence to a skeptical population, they have to organize free elections in a country racked by terrorism, and hmm, oh yes, their web site is on a
Jeez, which problem should they tackle first?
At least there's some comfort in knowing that ICANN's incompetence transcends political, economic and social barriers.
Well now hold on a second... dangerous path, or common sense ?
Hicksville, population:2000.
A woman gets raped.
The police, after a long investigation, are at a loss.
They decide to run a wide-scale voluntary DNA test (can't force them anyway, at least not here).
700 of the men fit in the age group that the woman could at least identify the rapist into.
699 cooperate and have a DNA sample taken.
1 does not cooperate.
No matter what excuse this 1 person comes up with (civil liberties, slippery slope, dangerous path, yadda yadda), please tell me how the police should just say "Okiedoke, your fair right" and not have a closer look and see if maybe there's a different/another reason for him not to cooperate ?
And that is the police, who at least have to live by some form of rules, however arbitrary they may seem sometimes.
In the case of people saying "We shouldn't block websites that are arbitrarily judged to be child pornography websites", you better understand that a vast majority of the population is going to at least raise an eyebrow. It is in the best interest of those people to state that they explicitly don't condone child pornography, and are only trying to point out that there will be unjust collateral damage. Though that will only offer a partial redemption.
And it doesn't help that people like Hugh Russ Campbell have used these same arguments before, and then get convicted (on a guilty plead) of not only owning and distributing child pornography, but creating it as well.
With such circumstances - well, I'm sorry, but I too would be suspicious of such people.
The difference between suspecting a person and doing something about it is the 'vigilante' aspect. If one is worried about vigilantes, deal with them - but you can't blame a person for having a pretty reasonable opinion for this day and age.
Just my 2 cents.
Screw that. The entire state needs a good Baghdading.
Cheers,
Craig
Corollary to Clarke's Third Law: Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
In other news, the next installment in the Zork series has been delayed.
(sorry, somebody had to make that reference, grin..)
Can't we just invade ICANN?
The Iraq chapter of Mensa is going to have a real field day.