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Whois Record Falsification Closer To Illegality
PipianJ writes "Reuters is reporting that the House of Representatives has recently passed the bill that would approve of penalties for those using fraudulent WHOIS records (H.R. 3632). Interestingly however, this does not directly outlaw it, instead extending the penalty by seven years for felonies performed using such fraudulent websites. The Senate has not yet passed their version (S.2242). The bill as originally written, however, focuses primarily on penalties for promoting counterfeit music, computer programs, and other media with identical labeling."
Fine spammers who use information in whois records, it might be more acceptable. As it is now, my choices are to do a domain by proxy or falsify (oops, typo!) some of my information.
providing "555-555-5555" as a phone number or "Small Wok Way, Chopstick Town, WI" as a street address.
I need to change my phone no. and move now.
..watching them try to enforce it. It appears that the U.S, like other countries, has still not gotten the idea it's going to be nearly impossible to legislate the internet. I have a feeling this is going to be used more as one of those charges they use when they need an excuse to do a raid, and dont have enough evidence for what they're going for.
Disagree? Lemme hear it.
Before you mod me funny, think, perhaps I was insightfully funny?
How are they going to enforce it when a large portion of those registrants are actually non-US?
I will confess that much my knowledge of federal penalties is second hand, having lived with two former federal agents most of my life, but what good does this do, really? The federal penalties for most crimes seem to already be aimed at simply "crushing the perp and ruining him/her forever" rather than anything resembling pursuit of justice.
Yet another good reason to vote for Michael Badnarik in November. He wants to move us toward a system based on restitution, not simply locking the perp away and throwing away the key.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
Interestingly however, this does not directly outlaw it, instead extending the penalty by seven years for felonies performed using such fraudulent websites.
So when you use false information to avoid SPAM or protect your privacy are you committing fraud?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
How about enforcing fines, penalties, and heck jailtime for all the fuckhead spammers (both V.AGRA and Register.com) who abuse the whois registry data? Or who want to charge you $10 to "protect your privacy" on top of your $10 registration per month? It's a shell game. I wish we still lived in some magical utopian internet bubble where only good geeks(tm) were on the net, but fact is we're up to our elbows in fuckheads and if I have to put in (555) because I don't want to be telemarketed.. well.. do something about the fuckheads and I'll put a good number in.
Mmm... now that's a mature reply.. "Congressmen, it's a principle of fuckheads. Take that to the floor!"
Some of us prefer to have our names listed as: Anonymous Coward on our website registrations
"The government must play a greater role in detecting those who conceal their identities online," said Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith, a sponsor of the bill.
With all due respect to the Representative from Texas, I call bullshit.
I can understand the problems deliberately fraudulent registration information can be when trying to track down the owners of a malfeasant commerce site, but what about the option to reveal no information to the public?
I wonder exactly what makes a record false. My registrar provides (free) forwarding accounts. For example, the record for foundonp2p.com is showing D-23108frrb@usersa3.domainsatcost.ca right now, but within a week or so, it will change. The email is forwarded to my real address, so it is a legitmate address to email if you want to get a hold of me.
Yes. You are depriving the company supported by the SPAM of revenue, according to the logic used by the RIAA, and, as a result, should be fine the sum total amount of all lost penis enlargement sales that would have resulted if you provided the correct contact information in your WHOIS registration and not committed fraud.
This concerns me more than even that. Lets say for the sake of argument that your business gets caught up in a customer complaint and it escalates to a civil suit, or you are falsely accused of spam or god forbid get caught up in an RIAA/MPAA random word search DCMA action, and you are 'hiding' your whois info. Well i can certainly see some overzealous DA go on a fishing filing these charges against you while all the other stuff is being cleared up (because they throw in the kitchen sink to see what will stick) and you may get nailed on this alone, as its the only "real" charge left over from the fishing expedition.
So when you use false information to avoid SPAM or protect your privacy are you committing fraud?
No. You are "lying" in terms of applying a masquerade, like when you wear a Holloween mask.
There is no crime in wearing a Donald Trump mask, or even in calling yourself Donald Trump while wearing one unless you do so with the actual intent to make people believe you really are Donald Trump in order to get money from them. That is the fraud, not the disguise.
In my state you don't even have to go to court to change your name. Simply start using any alias you want and it defacto becomes your identifier, so long as you don't do so with intent to hide who you are for the purpose of fraud ( such as to evade legitimate debts or court action).
This law is perfectly inline with American legal philosophy, case law and existing code.
It is the crime that is the crime and we don't need any more laws making more crimes where there never were any before to "reduce crime."
Go after the 419 scammers as best you can, but don't make the people hiding themselves from them criminals.
KFG
as it stands, 1st of all, it is _not_ illegal to use fake WHOIS records, even under the provisions of the legislature being discussed. All this does is to add jail time (up to 7 years according to the wording of the bill) to those that then go on to use the fraudulent domain for spamming,fraud,con activities. It just makes the punishment for those that are already doing illegal things worse.
/.
i run an internationally political website, and if I used my real name, phone, address, etc, I would have been physically attacked, at best. This law does not affect me in any way as I am not doing any fraud, spam, con-games, nigerian emails, or what have you.
I would add that other laws that have been struck down HAVE made what I am doing illegal, fortunately nothing like that has stuck. In summary, the discussed law is not a problem for anyone, as long as they are not spammers, fraudsters, nigerians, etc.
Agreed, its a step in the wrong direction. But as for now, as long as you are not engaged in other illegal activities, you (should not) dont have to worry.
this merely adds penalties onto already illegal activities if you fake your WHOIS records.
I am not a lawyer, but I play one on
The WHOIS records aren't a legal declaration of your True Name, True Legal Domicile, Phone number you agree to be reached at 24 hours a day by anyone who wants, ICBM address, Subpoena Acceptance Address, Mother's Maiden Name, Fingerprints, and RIAA pre-approved guilty plea that you give The Authorities in exchange for permission to speak on the Internet. They're simply administrative contact information people can use to try to reach you if your system is having trouble. There's a billing address there so that the Registrars can reach you if they want more money. There's a technical address to reach you if things are broken. There's an administrative address for general administrative requests. If somebody can't reach you because your information is out of date or incorrect, that doesn't mean you're an evil miscreant, it just means that you won't get proactive billing notices, and if your DNS isn't working right, people can't reach you to let you know.
It is possible to give the registrars fraudulent information - if you're impersonating someone else who really exists, but that's adequately covered by existing fraud laws. But if you give your name as "Johnny Smith" and put your address as "111 Main Street, Bogustown, USA" or "1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington DC 90210", that's nobody's business, that's just not a very useful contact handle you're giving somebody. If your payment to the registrar works, it works. And here in California, it was common-law right to use any name you wanted to except for purposes of fraud, though apparently the DMV got that changed a decade or so ago and insists that you need papers from some government or other to have a name.
ICANN seems to have been one of the early prime movers in True Name Whois Information, in spite of the damages to privacy that it causes (e.g. spammers hitting your published admin address.) The "IP" that they're interested in has always been "Intellectual Property", not "Internet Protocol", and they're really grouchy about the concept that anybody could ever use a domain name without agreeing to provide an always-updated True Name and Legal Process Server Address so that trademark owners can find you and sue you if they think they've got a claim on a domain name you're using. More recently, though, the RIAA/MPAA have taken up the cause, because they want to be sure that if you ever even think about sharing copyrighted music on line, they want to be able to drop handcuffs on you. If there's a dispute about domain name ownership, and your Registrar is unsuccessful in contacting you using the contact information you provide, for some reasonable period of time, it's reasonable for them to bounce your domain name.
On the other side of the argument, while I strongly value privacy, most of the time when I try to track down spammers using whois records, the information is bogus, which is annoying, and it's almost always either obviously bogus or else some foreign address that looks hard to track down. The main exceptions are in-your-face spammers like Spamford or Scotty Richter, and spammers with corporate shells to hide behind (e.g. one spammer had a mailbox at the street address of The Company Corporation, which is in the business of setting up cheap Delaware corporations), so they're effectively untraceable.
Meanwhile, if you're a "hardcore libertarian", you need to think about what rights mean. Saying somebody doesn't have the right to do something isn't just a statement about ethics - its equivalent to saying that you have the right to beat them up if they do it. Falsifying your personal resume is attempting to deceive somebody about your skills so they'll give you something that they wouldn't if you'd been honest, and of course that's wrong.
But "Trav
Bill Stewart
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