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Wikileaks Calls For Global Boycott Against eNom
souls writes "The folks at Wikileaks are calling for a boycott against eNom, Inc., one of the top internet domain registrars, which WikiLeaks claims is involved in systematic domain censoring. On Feb 28th eNom shut down wikileaks.info, one of the many Wikileaks mirrors held by a volunteer as a side-effect of the court proceedings around wikileaks.org. In addition, eNom was the registrar that shut off access to a Spanish travel agent who showed up on a US Treasury watch list. Wikileaks calls for a 'global boycott of eNom and its parent Demand Media, its owners, executives and their affiliated companies, interests and holdings, to make clear such behavior can and will not be tolerated within the boundaries of the Internet and its global community.'"
GoDaddy is another bad registrar, and has been mentioned on Slashdot many times, including here and here. I'm assuming Dynadot should also be boycotted.
First.
Perhaps it doesn't fit with what the wikileaks people intended when they started it, but I wish that wikileaks would let/encourage others to fight using their facts (however much is fact) rather than wikileaks themselves doing it. Somehow their active stance makes me more wary of the information on the site.
A very valuable thing to support this boycott is pointing out the risk of using e-nom. If your name is on E-nom, you have no way to know if it will suddenly be taken down because some hacker or employee of yours posts something against the US or Chinese Govt. on your site. That's not the kind of name service anybody should want, even if they don't care about politics.
i have dozens of websites registered thru enom
are there any other registrars that are not "evil"?
I know the concept of the internet being non-centralized, and with no real authority to oversee it, which is one of its strengths.
However, it stinks at times like these, when you want an authority to go to to punish actions for a registrar (an d I know some registrars have been shut down, but for more egregious actions).
However, in a case like this, where the "people" of the internet have felt wronged because a company went against the philosophies of the internet, Is there any other course of action besides a boycott (which may or may not be effective due to the terms of registrations, and companies going with what they think is the best price, not necessarily the best price and the right philosophy).
If there is no other course of action, what is the best way to get this out there (besides Slashdot, etc)?
Anyone want to create a step by step guide, howto, or link how to "escape" from a registrar? Is it possible?
Goatse!
You nerds love it.
You know it's the only solution. IP addresses are easier to memorize than domain names anyway.
They complied with a lawful court order issued as a result of due process. You don't have to agree with it, but its legal. The US is a nation of laws, not a nation driven by the whims of precocious fan-boys. What would you have them do? Throw abandon to the wind and defy it? The company might get shut down which would threaten their employees and customers. I don't see any other plausible action here. I would only hope my employer would have as much sense in such a case.
eNOM NOM NOM
standard procedure for which to handle domain shut down requests.
a take down request should be specific and start with a request to remove the offending material, not the whole site.
It could be done with laws but would need to be done in any country hosting.
Perhaps I'm wrong, but this is a hosting site issue, not a domain registry issue (or it shouldn't be a domain registry issue).
Registry is like an ID, messing with an ID is like identity theft or other wrongful manipulation of a persons ID. There should already be laws for this.
Anyways, there is the possibility to organize a standards group on the issue just as there is the OSI, linuxs standard base ,
etc.. and openly rate and publish hosting policies compliance level and even registry policies if that is indeed an issue.
There should also be recourse against those who violate. Or at least a bad mark on the open rating report.
Rather than cry about eNOM's vulnerability to the US Justice system, Wikileaks should be protecting their domain name with the same care as they do their content.
As I had posted in another thread about this case and how it proceeded, as anon probably b/c I can't find it...
The very fact that the domain registration was shut down, but the servers not taken offline just goes to show that the legal system (in the U.S. at least) is woefully uninformed regarding modern tech, and likely swarming with 'experts' who do nothing but spout popular buzz.
They've somehow managed to get away with making decisions about these things for the last, what? 20? 30? 40? 50 years? Okay so sure, a few lawyers are not technically inept, but all it takes is one attorney team and a judge who's willing to do what they want, and we can have all sorts of fun.
All this being said, sadly I can't see a solution. It takes so much just to understand how to work with the law, I can't possibly see these people having the time to become informed with regard to what they're asking for and how they go about it. I suppose it will just have to be documented into law through trial and error (no pun intended), feh.
Graduate students and most professors are no smarter than undergrads.
They're just older.
The successful Geek boycott seems to belong in the same Fantasyland where "Microsoft is dying" and "This is the Year of Linux on the desktop."
I was a customer of BulkRegister for quite some time before eNom came along and gobbled them up. BulkRegister wasn't that bad and so I stayed with them since my boss liked them.
However, after eNom took over everything took a sharp nose dive. Their whole user interface is horrible. Managing domains is extremely complicated and time consuming. What's worse though, imo, is that transferring your domains out of there is painfully slow and time-consuming. It took me almost 2 weeks and several phone calls finally retrieve all of my domains from them. The first round of transfers failed (for a reason that nobody explain).
I would never use eNom, and recommend anyone who might think about it to not use it either.
"What we need is a list of known good registrars..."
Any recommendations?
eNom.com is the real provider for many domain name resellers. For example, NameCheap is one of many who buy from eNom.com.
eNom.com has been competing with its re-sellers with eNomCentral.com. Note that eNom.com is now apparently doing what GoDaddy does. In my opinion, GoDaddy.com tries to get more money by confusing people who have little technical knowledge.
Some of the negative stories about GoDaddy on Slashdot:
GoDaddy Holds Domains Hostage
GoDaddy Caves To Irish Legal Threat
MySpace and GoDaddy Shut Down Security Site
GoDaddy Serves Blank Pages to Safari & Opera
GoDaddy Bobbles DST Changeover?
GoDaddy.com Dumps Linux for Microsoft
Go Daddy Usurps Network Solutions
Alternative Registrars to GoDaddy?
Other reasons not to buy from GoDaddy: NoDaddy.
The registrar was targeted by the court because California court (or any other court in the US for that matter) has no jurisdiction over the co-lo ISP or the publishers of the actual content, since they are overseas.
With Godaddy supplying Robert Soloway (rokso spammer) with gb of disk space they too are not trustworthy. If you look at Enom then it appears as if all spammers use them in some form.
One thing is sure Enom voted republican, perhaps they also contribute to the republican party as well?, on that basis all foreigners (all non us citizens) should avoid enom.
project CHANOLOGY /b/tards!=geeks?
So ... you're boycotting a company which is following the laws of the country it is based in rather than registering your name with a registrar in a country that doesn't have these laws.
Are they really that stupid?
WikiLeaks, thank you for making it obvious you're not a trustworthy source of information, by showing you would rather hold a grudge and use your influnce to damage someone else rather than fixing the problem yourself (a problem in which you created yourself and is due entirely to your ignorance). You can not even be trusted to provide rumors without the worry of bias and censoring of them yourself, very sad.
I don't like eNom either, of course, I'm also smart enough to USE A DIFFERENT REGISTRAR. Its not like they are the only players on the field.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
I understand Wikileaks sentiment here. They got a pretty raw deal from their registrar. However, a boycott won't amount to very much.
... assess your exposure, and cover your ass.
I would suggest the following instead:
1. Find a registrar with whom you can make a serious deal. A registrar with lawyers who will advise it and give you a call if they receive any notices. A registrar who will give you "wikileaked.org" and "blocked-wikileaks.org" for free (for some time) while the restraining order works itself out. A registrar who will submit these new domain names to Slashdot immediately in case of such a thing.
2. Find multiple registrars all over the world and build up other brand names. They can't hit *all* the countries and take down *all* the brand names at once, can they?
3. Encourage a few 'leaks' on unethical practices inside eNom. Conveniently, you have a popular website to expose that dirty laundry for the whole world to see. A few documents indicating pirated software (go BSA!), hosting pirate MP3s (go RIAA!), hosting bittorrent trackers (go MPAA!), etc could get their DMCA takedown notice department backlogged with work in no time. Not to mention all sorts of legal problems up their asses. Nothing quite so bad as being under a microscope.
4. Offer a free banner ad to your new registrar. Your web traffic volume is probably worth advertising dollars. Every time eNom sees they ad, they will be reminded of their cowardice and negligence. They will also be reminded when it's time to pay the advertising bills.
5. Relax. The kind of crap you went through says one thing: You're doing something right. -- This won't be the last time you see this problem, if you continue to do things right. Take a page from the Risk Management handbook; exposure = impact * likelihood
Sincerely,
Anonymous Coward
All domain registrar's are sketchy in today's world based on my experiences. That said, GoDaddy is a somewhat decent registrar ... relatively. And as far as the eNom boycott, i'll continue to never use their services.
You don't like enom, neither does WikiLeaks.
The only difference is WikiLeaks is saying "don't use them", and somehow you take that to be a really bad thing. Your response is "well, just don't use them". Which is exactly what WikiLeaks is saying too. Really. You're very odd.
Just a guess... does the world seem to work strangely to you? Like... things happen that, to you, seem unconnected with what happens before? Do you find yourself arguing with people a lot, and they keep saying things like "I don't understand why we're having this argument...".
I guessing you are puzzled a lot.
The Swedish government gave orders to pull a website offline. It did not contain illegal material.
The Belgian government has banned the Vlaams Blok political party.
The Spanish government has banned a bunch.
Germany routinely infiltrates political parties. Once they tried to shut down a political party for being 'racist', but it was found that the top leadership was so infiltrated that you could not say what was created by someone in the party and what was created by the government, so it failed.
Try to compare pulling a website offline to criminalising membership of a political party.
Should we boycott bees because they sting? For better or worse, eNom was merely complying with properly offered court orders with a valid jurisdiction. Any US-based registrar would have done the same.
If you're going to do business in the US, you have to follow US law. That means when someone sues you have to actually show up in court. If that's a problem for you, don't do business in the US.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Seriously, the boycott page lists ICANN.org as one of eNOM's reseller fronts?
I'd be much more interested if Wikileaks was boycotting someone who didn't just shut down one of their domains.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
Actually, its both. However, a domain owner has many choices for hosting - including of course doing their own. Thus hosting is really a difficult issue to go after.
On the other hand, registration is not something with so many choices, and the vast majority of internet users have no ability to register a domain without the aid of an internet registrar.
And while it may not be completely obvious or fool-proof, a registrar does have limited ability to shut down access to a site. If you look at the WHOIS data for a domain (pick any one you like), you'll see that the registration data includes nameserver information. Without those nameservers defined in the domain registration, there is no way to map the domain name to an IP address and actually get a response for the domain.
Hence, if the registrar removes the nameserver data, or replaces it with useless garbage, then users will not be able to resolve the domain to an address for a request, and will not be able to view the content.
Of course, this is not fool-proof. The domain owner could just tell all his friends the numeric IP address of their page, and those friends tell and their friends, and so on. And of course anyone who has already seen it would likely have the record cached on their computer. But it would stop anyone who hasn't been there before from getting to it, which would hinder the sites ability to disseminate its content to more users.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I'd say what we really need is a mechanism to get rid of bad registrars altogether. ICANN is so toothless in the matter its beyond disgusting. If you take a look at their list of registrars, you'll see it is pages long. And there is no shortage of fly-by-nights on there that nobody has heard of. Even worse there are many registrars in there that practice bad business tactics, or willingly cooperate with criminal spamming enterprises.
Yet good old ICANN, in their infinite wisdom, choses to leave all the registrars alone. I guess as long as the boys at ICANN are making money, then everybody is doing better, right?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
ever notice how when you typo a domain you seem to get some squatters page full of ads? I routinely whois these domains and they are always this eNOM company.
GoDaddy hasn't been EVIL bad yet that I've seen, but I'm not about to go testing the legal boundries.
Maybe it's easy to move your domains, maybe it isn't. But why not just work, politely (so to speak), with your domain manager to convince them to drop eNom as their source? For example, I'm quite happy with the service I get from domaindirect. They answer their phones, they have a "network status" page that's pretty accurate and up to date when something happens, and all the intarwebby things JustWork.
I'd rather join a mailing list to urge DomainDirect to switch than just apply a blanket boycott.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
People would still choose bad registrars for the same reason they would choose one OS over another.
They want me to boycott dailypuppy.com! That settles it. Wikileaks is evil. I'm training my puppy to take a wikileak on those people, and all their whistleblowing won't save them.
No matter who does it, no matter when, and no matter who is the victim. They are fighting the good cause, so WHO CARES if it looks a bit self-serving too?
Just because a judge did it?
There are at least two points here:
1. United States courts do not have authority over domains. This was hashed out recently over another incident, discussed at length on Slashdot.
2. Even if the court did have authority, the judge exercised PRIOR RESTRAINT against the free speech of third parties, by ordering that the domain be taken down because of the actions of a few. That is UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
Please tell me. I would like to know. Because right now, I sure as hell do not.
So, you are saying: "Closer and closer every day!"
Do you know with certainty that Gandi.net is not an eNom.com reseller? Many or most of the eNom hide the connection.
I would clearly recommend www.gandi.net as well. I have been using them for years exactly due to them declaring I am the owner of my domain and in charge of my domain, not them unlike most other registrars. The prices have increased over the last couple of years - they have been charging 12 Euro, which when I started clearly was among the best prices in the marked, but with the current strong Euro, you will be aware of the difference. The are now allowing payment in USD which is only $15/year now (thought the strong Euro would have cased higher dollar price). That said - I have used many registrars and I for one will select Gandi over the rest also for other reasons: I feel they are providing a much better overall experience than the rest. I once tried Godaddy as it was a bit cheaper than Gandi, and it seemed like a good provider... Not that I have ever had a problem such as this with them, but the services of Gandi are worth the difference for me, and Gandi do not spam me, or keep sending as much "renew your information" type messages and so on.
Some of the benefits I am using:
You are the owner of the domain name! : See https://www.gandi.net/contracts Section 1
Gandi includes DNS in its default service so you can edit directions of domains and sub domains without also paying for hosting!
Gandi allows you without hosting to have 5 mail boxes with 1GB mailbox space - again without paying additional for hosting!
Gandi also allow you to add wildcard mailbox aliasing og 1000 e-mail addresses, and may relay the mail to external mailboxes.
Lets boycott google, yahoo, msn, comcast, and anyone else that complied to a court order. OR we could talk about what horrid things they did, offer no real plan and get a bunch of attention by saying "boycott"
This name sure rings a bell. Don't they reject all spam complaints using the Barracuda filtering system? Accounts like abuse@ and postmaster@ just bounce, RFCs be damned. Or maybe some spammer ISP is using a similar domain name? Perhaps the .net or something?
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
That's not true! Look what happened with the bnetd boycotts: Blizzard hasn't been able to put out any successful additions to the "Warcraft" franchise this decade!
everything even remotely affiliated with eNom? That might mean we shouldn't buy anything at all. For sure their portfolio extends pretty wide, well beyond all things internet. Could leave us with this. Which may be a good thing.
What?
Survey: Are domain registrars free-speech friendly?
Personally, I prefer Gandi.net; they have an excellent reputation.
In general, it's probably not safe to host a controversial domain or registration within the United States.
Is the IraqBush.xxx on the list?
... it would significantly improve the global reputation of the USA People.
It is all about young women and girls showing Bush that they are not afraid to die for their cleric-politicians.
Just before they insert their activated bullet-shaped detonator in the perfect hiding spot, and strap on their suicide-corset to better hide the slightly noticeable baby-belly, they read from a script to help explain how Islamic abortion works to fulfill the will of others, and allow mass-murder for fornicating forgiveness.
Go to the Martyr Gallery for great Bush shots (they use an AK47 on the target, in many pornographic ways) before the thrilling last shot with a red-hot barrel placed on their sin-target they are circumcised, cauterized, and ready to enter heaven forgiven for fucking and/or family rape.
Well it may not be humor, but it is as sick as the Puppet-Master DChaney with his fist up GWBush's ass speaking very positively about war crimes, atrocities, and crimes against humanity. I hope we deliver them to the International Criminal Court in Hague when the war crimes warrants are issued. After the last seven years
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-iIkmt-eco
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
It's not mis-information. I'm asking a question, and I don't know how to find the answer, and I don't see that you have provided an answer.
I've had pretty good luck with http://gopedro.net/
The guy runs a small shop so you don't have to deal with the big company BS.
Looking for Book Reviews? Check out Literary Escapism.
1 - Get the transfer authorization code (EPP code). At most registrars it is available at the same place you unlock the domain, but it is critical to the transfer.
2 - Some registrars don't let you transfer for 60 days if you update your ownership info on that domain (account holder, email address, whois admin details, legal name change). This is SOP for Godaddy (and probably most others), and to be fair I do see how this can prevent serious abuse. Check before you update, and if you must, call the registrar.
Ok, color me ignorant, but why then did a Swiss bank file in California, again?
Graduate students and most professors are no smarter than undergrads.
They're just older.
I'm not quite sure, the only thing I can speculate is that the US based portion of the company filed, not their headquarters in Switzerland. Anyone have any info on this?
There needs to be some monitoring/control/responsibility at the domain level, as of now they are ignoring responsibility for domain name abuse with fast-flux botnets.
All domain registrar's will fall victim to our over litigous society and have to comply with court orders. Based on how poorly the court orders are written, eNom may have had to expand what they thought was to be in compliance (courts don't have a clue about technology). I can't trust the wikileaks site as they seem on a vengenence to slander and defame and I hope they get sued for it. What they should really be asking the public for is a change to laws that prevent massive shut down of websites and domain names just because they are in a lawsuit. I like the idea of removing the content, but that should be done by the website owners, not the company that hosts it. Maybe after non-compliance with court order could they go to hosting company. One false move by a company like eNom or GoDaddy and they could be in a world of hurt by our court system.
eNom with 10 million and GoDaddy with 30 million domains registered, you have got to recognize the probabilty of the courts orders happening and that if you have a domain that doesn't have slanderous or offensive content you do NOT need to move to another registrar, it would be a waste of time as court orders will only increase as there are too many crooks out there that all registrar's will have issues like this as time goes on.
Change the Laws, not the people trying to comply with them!
Thanks. I didn't know how to access the list.
There is a lot I don't understand about the system of registratoin. For example, the registrar Oregon URLS says it charges $100,000 per domain. There are a lot of registrars listed which have names not designed to get respect.
Why not buy 5 years at a cheap registrar, and transfer to a more expensive registrar, buying only one extra year?
GoDaddy disabled my website (www.jlist.com) once because an email address I had registered with was bouncing. A major website, down for hours because of a bouncing email address. It sure got my attention right away, that's for sure -- and I'm in the market for a better registrar.
You've got a friend in Japan: http://www.jlist.com
NoDaddy was founded after the seclists debacle. It has a listing of good and bad registrars with comments by satisfied and unsatisfied customers: http://forums.nodaddy.com/index.php?board=3.0
Something to be aware of: Many registrars have fronts and resellers so you might think you're buying from someone different, but you're not. You *must* read the terms and conditions before choosing one. Be careful of registrars (like eNom) that reserve the right to cancel your domain without reason. For example, some will accept anonymous reports on their webform that you are spamming and lock down you domain and charge you an "unlocking fee" to cover their "investigation". Make sure you choose a registrar that will only shut you down with a court order. Wikileaks was particularly bad because the US judge who ordered them shut down completely stuffed up on freedom of speech: Do you reckon he would have shut down a newspaper over a controversial article? You really need to do your research before picking a registrar. Finding out too late is too late!
Lots of sharks. Be careful out there.
But last in the game of life.
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"