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State of Kentucky Seizes Control of 141 Domain Names
ashmodai9 writes "In a rather interesting (read: insane) decision, a district judge in the State of Kentucky has awarded control of 141 online gambling domain names to the governor of the state. Most of these are hosted offshore, and very few are registered under US domain name registrars, let alone registrars in the State of Kentucky (are there any?). You can check out the press release here, and confirm that the Commonwealth of Kentucky does in fact now 'own' these domain names by performing a WHOIS search on any of the domains listed here."
ICANN will be handed over to U.N., resulting in whole lot of mess.
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What I'd really like to gain control of are those 11 secret herbs and spices.
window.location.replace('http://pwned.ky.us/');
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
Live in one country, host in a second, DNS in a third. Preferably non-contiguous ones that don't share languages.
[sarcasm] for posting a link to gambling911 in the article. Not like anyone reads Slashdot at work or anything. [/sarcasm]
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
I WHOIS'ed about a dozen of these domain names, and not a single one showed up as having anything to do with Kentucky.
How would the State of Kentucky "seize" a domain name registered in the Isle of Man anyway?
Arn't the offshore sites and registars a little out of the juridiction of the state? I could understand(well not really even then) if it was the government of the United States doing this. But the state being able to take things from people over seas just because they accept american gambling? How is that different then shutting down a store in Africa because they run a store that is illegal by american standards and accept US currency? By a state no less.
I am just completely flabbergasted that this can occur. By this logic, China could sue every website that posts anti-government information and seize all of their domains. Including something like google. This is really blowing my mind- can someone smarter than me explain what the judge was smoking, and why this isn't actually going to happen?
what's the over/ under on how many days before kentucky reverses itself?
and what site should i go to to get a piece of that action?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Seriously what is the issue here? Given that the biggest gambling Mecca in the western world is in the US (Las Vegas) which has the biggest gambling sporting events (Boxing) what is the issue with online gambling?
I'm a Brit, our issue was that we couldn't tax it so they went offshore. Our solution? Change the tax rules so they want to come back onshore. So far society hasn't collapsed and it appears that doing online poker is less risky than trusting your money to a bank right now anyway. I have friends who work in the sector who get nervous when they fly to the US even though they are developers, its just madness that the US seems to thinks gambling is a massive evil, in a country that things gun ownership is a right.
Given the current banking collapse and the way the Fed have clearly gambled on things (house prices going up for ever) it is ranking up there with a Kim Jong Il moment as weirdest things that a government could do.
The scary bit is I don't see anyone pushing back on it, not McCain, not Obama, not congress and certainly not the President. So please someone tell me
What the hell is so fundamentally wrong with gambling?
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
ixwebhosting's parent is Ecommerce, Inc. in Kentucky, USA and Austria, Europe. With them you can host, register a domain, and get a credit card merchant account.
It's a big state with roads, universities, and ... actual cities. Just because there are parts of the state that are isolated and backwoods with people who are isolationist and backwards doesn't mean nobody in the whole state has an Internet connection.
In related news, not everyone in the state of New York is a tough Italian mafia soldier or Jewish writer with an overbearing mother. Not everyone in California is a beautiful, sexy, wine-making goddes under 50 or a Silicon Valley millionaire.
The same applies to people descended from different places who have immigrated. Not all Germans are engineers, and not all Persians sell rugs or drive taxis. Not all Mexicans are illegal immigrants, and not all white men are rich or powerful.
So does this mean that the state of Alabama could seize the domains names of all vendors of on-line sex toys?
Next we'll see China seize 141 illegal democracy websites, such as whitehouse.gov.
The judge included this line in his order:
"The domain names' configurations shall otherwise remain unchanged."
So - the state is not permitted to use the siezure to shut down the sites.
What's also interesting is that the title of the case is Commonwealth of Kentucky v. 141 Domain Names.
In other words, they didn't sue the companies and owners, they are doing a "civil forfieture" type of case. Nobody affected by this case was notified or served process.
This case is going to be really fun to watch. You can bet that it's going to be removed to Federal Court very quickly.
Didn't the WTO rule that online gambling is legal, and doesn't that trump this? Also, isn't the domain name registrar outside the law? I could be wrong, but this ruiling is rediculous.
Here you go, sir, the court order.
So the most significant problem with online gambling, in Kentucky's eyes, is that it decreases the pool of money available to the horse track. Of course, they can tax that. They're really whining about the drop in tax revenue.
The last point is a good one, but it's as applicable to internet shopping as to internet gambling. Anytime you give someone money over the 'net, do it with a credit card. Any problem with the transaction, for any reason, call your card issuer and issue a chargeback. It's that simple, and it's the only thing that works. Government hasn't figured out a better way to deal with e-commerce yet, and they aren't likely to anytime soon.
The others are just a state who can't deal with new technology -- they're whining about how the Internet works, for chrissake. Welcome to the 21st century, Kentucky. Can we move forward now??
russia, perma member of the council, and has veto power. and, run by a mafia mob.
And if the UN controlled ICANN you just *know* decisions on domain names would be brought before the Security Council.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
I checked a few random domains and noted some very recent updates... noone would really think this would stick?
$ whois casinoextreme.com
Updated Date: 23-sep-2008
Creation Date: 15-feb-1999
Expiration Date: 15-feb-2010
$ whois casinoextreme.com
Updated Date: 23-sep-2008
Creation Date: 15-feb-1999
Expiration Date: 15-feb-2010
$ whois inetbet.com
Updated Date: 23-sep-2008
Creation Date: 15-jan-1999
Expiration Date: 15-jan-2012
does that look like a nice picture ?
That's entirely dependent upon whose brand of pig-headed nationalism you want to subscribe to and whose you want to take a giant shit on.
#1 Link for us who are at work Try Here #2 The article that I linked notes that it was requested that access to these sites be blocked to persons inside the Commonwealth, or lose access to the domains. It seems the site owners were unwilling to comply.
"Highrollerslounge.com" is currently registered to "Commonwealth of Kentucky Justice Cabinet" and not currently resolving. The registrar was eNom, a favorite registrar of bottom-feeders. Enom is behind "Club Drop", with dozens of dummy registrars to pick up expiring domain names; they're a bulk registrar. Since Enom deals with many slimeballs, their policy is "If we are sued or threatened with lawsuit in connection with Service(s) provided to you, we may turn to you to indemnify us and to hold us harmless from the claims and expenses (including attorney's fees and court costs). Under such circumstances, you agree that you will, upon demand, obtain a performance bond with a reputable bonding company or, if you are unable to obtain a performance bond, that you will deposit money with us to pay for our reasonably anticipated expenses in relation to the matter for the coming year." So, unsurprisingly, that domain was transferred to Kentucky.
On the other hand, "Bugsyclub.com" is still connected to a gambling site. Their registrar is "Fabulous.com PTY LTD." "One of the leading domain monetization programs". "Fabulous.com" tries to be anonymous on their web site, but they're incorporated in Brisbane, Australia, and hosted in Santa Clara, CA. They used to be "Domain Intellect Pty Ltd", in Melbourne.
"sportsbook.com", once a major gambling site run from the UK, now a lesser site run out of Malta, is still up, and registered with Network Solutions. Sportsbook had some previous problems with the state of New Jersey over similar issues.
Apparently gambling911 took a shot at using Drupal and have lost.
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The MySQL error was: Too many connections.
Currently, the username is bohearn and the database server is localhost.
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Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
Sure, but no one petty dictator has all that much influence over a given UN agency. A system subject to the whims of some random county judge can't be significantly better than a system subject to regulations reached by international consensus, even if a lot of the countries reaching that consensus (most of which, really, probably don't really care much about domain name squabbles) aren't all that admirable.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
Speaking about PETA, check out this article from today's Dallas Morning News:
PETA asks Ben and Jerrys to use human breast milk in ice cream
PETA asks Ben & Jerry's to use human breast milk in ice cream
09:37 AM CDT on Thursday, September 25, 2008
Associated Press
MONTPELIER, Vt. -- Ice cream made from breast milk?
That's what the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wants Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream to consider making.
The Virginia-based nonprofit group sent a letter to company co-founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield on Tuesday asking them to use human breast milk instead of cow's milk in their products.
PETA says the health of consumers and cows would benefit from the switch.
Ben & Jerry's spokesman Rob Michalak said the company applauds PETA's creative approach to bring attention to an issue, but believes that a mother's milk is best used by a child.
What? ®
Neocon ideology is not tied to Bush and Cheney, or even to the GOP. It's an expression of US nationalism and superpower mentality. Many Russians will argue that Clinton administration with Albright's "new world order" was a far more potent realization of neocon ideology, while Bush represents a limited - albeit more militaristic - form of neo-conservatism. Historically, USSR and later Russia found it easier to establish common ground with Republican administrations in the US. Not to mention that Bush with his idiotic foreign policies probably was more instrumental to Russia's economic recovery than Putin, who just provided political stability while aptly exploiting America's numerous foreign policy flops.
Maybe someone should charge the owner of that address with spreading malware. The Commonwealth of Kentucky I believe.
russia is run by a REAL mob. analogies dont hold. cia, bush et al would look like a brutal bureaucracy compared to the back alley mob that is ruling russia.
anyone raises their voice, even in some positive tone of criticism, they GET KILLED no later than 6 months or so.
in contrast, michael moore is still going around the country without getting clubbed to death accidentally by a lone police officer in usa.
that should tell you the difference.
Read radical news here
The US has already been punished for interfering with offshore gambling. I believe one country was given the right to ignore US copyrights as repayment for actions by the US... This is definatly going to get pulled to federal court and dismissed.. the precedent here would be disasterous
This is why Slashdotters should be encouraging this, not criticizing it!
Imagine the WTO ruling that no member country had to honor US copyrights as retaliation/punishment?
Free proprietary games, free proprietary software & operating systems..music..books...plus, so many countries doing this at once that the US wouldn't have near enough bombs, missiles, ships, or soldiers to dare trying strong-arm tactics!
What a circus that would be! As an added bonus, maybe it would keep politicians busy enough for a while to not be able to pass more stupid crap to remove more freedoms and money from the people.
Go, clueless Kentucky courts!
Cheers!
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Hey the UN put China on the Human Rights Counsel so what could wrong?
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.