FTC Shuts Down Calif. ISP For Botnets, Child Porn

An anonymous reader writes "The Federal Trade Commission has convinced a federal judge to pull the plug on a 3FN.net, a.k.a. 'Pricewert LLC,' a Northern California based hosting provider. The FTC alleges that 3FN/Pricewert was directly involved in setting up spam-spewing botnets, among other illegal activities, the Washington Post's Security Fix Blog writes. From the story: 'Pricewert hosts very little legitimate content and vast quantities of illegal, malicious, and harmful content, including child pornography, botnet command and control servers, spyware, viruses, trojans, phishing related sites, illegal online pharmacies, investment and other Web-based scams, and pornography featuring violence, bestiality, and incest.' The story quotes a former Justice Dept. expert saying the FTC action may be a smoke screen for a larger criminal investigation by the federal government in 3FN's activities."

Comments

Paging all "first posters"...

[Anonymous Coward]

...with their links which are suddenly broken.

Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[eldavojohn]

Christopher Barton, lead research scientist at McAfee, said a number of 3FN domain name servers already have popped up at new locations online.

"The rats are running," Barton said.

Oh, that's a shame, maybe next time we should hand this matter over to the USAF or at least the FBI. You know, someone capable of exterminating or prosecuting the 'rats'?

Leibowitz said his agency would continue to pursue other ISPs that "provide a haven for Internet criminals."

"This is a signal that we're going to go after you, and you're not going to be able to hide behind the shroud of the Internet and be immune from enforcement action," Leibowitz said.

A signed copy of the FTC's complaint is available here (PDF).

Ahahah, is that a joke?

FTC Chairman Leibowitz: Let this very strongly worded complaint be a clear message to those that escaped yet again! We will not falter until we have lodged very strongly worded complaints against each and every one of you at least four times!
Botnet Leader: Jesus Christ, I think I just shit myself! My god, you just shut down one of like 50 ISPs we use! We might even have to go to another country to run our lucrative operations! Oh the horror of operating out of the Cayman Islands! Laying on the beach, raking in cash! Will you show us no mercy?!

So tell me, when will all the court cases be launched from the data you collected from the servers you confiscated in this coup de grace? They were operating out of Northern California, surely you contacted the appropriate law enforcement agencies, gathered a massive stack of warrants and cunningly orchestrated a perfect storming of all facilities to capture servers with juicy financial, IP, personal and foreign data? And then surely you froze the assets in these accounts and entered all this as evidence in a mounting trial against business and individuals foreign and domestic? Oh you didn't? Oh, you just warned their ISPs and strutted around waving a complaint and acting like you saved the day? Well done.

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[epiphani]

Oh, that's a shame, maybe next time we should hand this matter over to the USAF or at least the FBI. You know, someone capable of exterminating or prosecuting the 'rats'?

And this is what I was thinking. I'm very confused, but I'm also not an American. What does the Federal Trade Commission have to do with acting on illegal material such as the crazy stuff suggested by the article? Where are the criminal charges here?

Or is this a bit like the Environmental Protection Agency investigating a murder because... they feel like it....

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the body was found in a park ...

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[Ethanol-fueled]

I'm also puzzled as to why EldavoJohn mentioned the USAF, but it comes as no surprise to me that a seemingly unrelated government agency is going after these guys.

After all, what does Immigration and Customs have to do with this and this?

We might as well assume that any "Federal" agency can go after whomever they want, "compartmentalization" be damned. After all, what ever became of that whole illegal NSA wiretapping thing?

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[lordofthechia]

"What does the Federal Trade Commission have to do with..."

From the article, they were dealing with (among other things):

"illegal online pharmacies, investment and other Web-based scams"

and:
"the FTC's authority gives it the power to shut down companies that appear to be engaged in unfair and deceptive practices"

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[poetmatt]

It's got to be a joke, there are plenty of sections of the law that make ISP's not liable for such things. So unless some magic law passed that none of us knew about which would have been publicized worldwide, there's really not a whole lot of sense from the article.

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm also puzzled as to why EldavoJohn mentioned the USAF ...

You know to exterminate them ... with extreme prejudice ... with bombs?

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[harryandthehenderson]

but it comes as no surprise to me that a seemingly unrelated government agency is going after these guys.

The FTC has the authoring to go after people running "illegal online pharmacies, investment and other Web-based scams". That's part of their mission.

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 for letting the USAF bomb the botnet leaders' houses!

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[interkin3tic]

Oh the horror of operating out of the Cayman Islands! Laying on the beach, raking in cash! Will you show us no mercy?!

Jokes on them, I just delete the spam, and they'll probably get a melanoma from all that sun.

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[Z00L00K]

It makes sense if there is an economic criminality of considerable scale.

Pornography and money-laundering is not that far apart.

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[nurb432]

I think the FTC has less restrictive rules they operate under.

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[harryandthehenderson]

It's got to be a joke, there are plenty of sections of the law that make ISP's not liable for such things.

Sure if they were unaware of the activity, but that is not the alleged case here. In this case the company gone after is alleged to be directly involved in the illegal activity.

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[jollyreaper]

and:
"the FTC's authority gives it the power to shut down companies that appear to be engaged in unfair and deceptive practices"

Deceptive practices? Well, we've all heard about the crackwhore complaining to the cops about being sold bogus rocks. I can just imagine how this went.

perv: Dude, I paid mad money for this CP and it turns out the girl was 18. They ripped me off!

ftc: Gee, how awful. What was that url again? We'll look into this immediately.

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[gnick]

I'm also puzzled as to why EldavoJohn mentioned the USAF...

Nuke them from orbit - It's the only way to be sure.

Also, since this involves illegal trade, I could see involving the FTC at some level. But kiddie porn? FBI. Botnet control? FBI/CIA/maybe FCC. Illegal pharmacy? FDA/FTC/FBI(?).

This should certainly be an inter-agency operation, but for some reason they have a very poor record of playing nicely with each other...

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[ActionJesus]

Obviously you've never watched TV.

I submit exhibits A:

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=61

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[Curunir_wolf]

but it comes as no surprise to me that a seemingly unrelated government agency is going after these guys.

The FTC has the authoring to go after people running "illegal online pharmacies, investment and other Web-based scams". That's part of their mission.

Looks like somebody at the FTC found out that those penis enlargement pills don't work at all.

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[Shikaku]

Somebody was testing a new fertilizer but apparently they didn't know murdering is illegal.

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[Anonymous Coward]

They overstepped their bounds in regulating companies here in that they shut down an ISP. An ISP that was NOT behaving irresponsibly to its customers. The fact that their customer's customers were involved in criminal activities is NOT their problem beyond complying with legal orders. They are NOT responsible. Certainly you could go after the programmer here-but that would require evidence in a court of law with proper jurisdiction. Shutting down the entire ISP goes way beyond the authority of the FTC.

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[Coolfish]

Or is this a bit like the Environmental Protection Agency investigating a murder because... they feel like it....

Funnily enough, for crimes like negligent homicide committed by a corporation, they usually face insignificant penalties. So instead, the government might use the EPA and those various laws to go after the company. Frontline had a great episode on this with regards to a foundry that was polluting like crazy, and also killed a few employees by having extremely lax safety standards and negligent management. The death of the employee? Punishable by like a $7000 fine. Dumping crap in the nearby river? Millions.

Watch the program online: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/workplace/

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[harryandthehenderson]

They overstepped their bounds in regulating companies here in that they shut down an ISP.

They didn't shut down an ISP. They shut down a hosting company of these websites that is alleged to be directly involved in helping set up these illegal operations.

'Pricewert LLC,' a Northern California based hosting provider.

An ISP that was NOT behaving irresponsibly to its customers.

Sure, only if they aren't directly involved in helping to setup the illegal activity which is what is alleged in this case. Did you even read the summary?

The fact that their customer's customers were involved in criminal activities is NOT their problem beyond complying with legal orders.

Of course it's not. It becomes their problem because it's alleged that "3FN/Pricewert was directly involved in setting up spam-spewing botnets, among other illegal activities". Do you happen to see a difference?

They are NOT responsible.

If they were directly involved as it is alleged they are responsible.

Certainly you could go after the programmer here-but that would require evidence in a court of law with proper jurisdiction. Shutting down the entire ISP goes way beyond the authority of the FTC.

Again, they didn't shut down an ISP. They shut down a hosting company that was directly involved in helping to set up a whole host of illegal operations including illegal pharmacies and investment scams (which would fall under the FTC's regulating authority).

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[astarf]

The FTC's authority gives it the power to shut down companies that appear to be engaged in unfair and deceptive practices.

Whereas the FBI's authority gives it the power to investigate crimes and arrest people. And the U. S. attorney's authority gives his office the power to prosecute people and put them in jail.

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

"Pornography and money-laundering is not that far apart."BR>
Believe me when I tell you Pornography is a lot more fun than money-laundering.


I could tell you. But then I would have to kill you.
That said; Good for them taking a few of these scumbags down.

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[DragonWriter]

What does the Federal Trade Commission have to do with acting on illegal material such as the crazy stuff suggested by the article?

Well, the answer to that is found in the FTC's Memorandum of Points and Authorities in this case (available, here, along with other related documents):

Plaintiff, FTC, is an independent agency of the United States government created by the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. 41-58 (2006). The FTC is charged with, among other things, enforcement of Section 5(a) of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. 45(a), which prohibits unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce. The FTC is authorized to initiate federal district court proceedings, by its own attorneys, to enjoin violations of the FTC Act, and to secure such equitable relief as may be appropriate in each case, including restitution and disgorgement. 15 U.S.C. 53(b) (2006).

What does the Federal Trade Commission have to do with acting on illegal material such as the crazy stuff suggested by the article?

If the conduct charged wasn't against the law (which is all that "illegal" means), neither the FTC nor any other government agency could bring a case to stop it. You may be mistakenly using "illegal" to mean "criminal" (which some of the conduct alleged would also be), in which case I will note that an act can be simultaneously a violation of civil and criminal provisions of the law, and move on to...

Where are the criminal charges here?

Again, from the FTC's Memorandum of Points and Authorities:

It is the Commission's understanding that a parallel criminal investigation of the Defendant is underway. Although the Commission is not privy to the details of that investigation, the Commission is informed that a search warrant will be executed at the Defendant's data center on or about Wednesday, June 3, 2009. The Commission respectfully requests that this Court rule on the Commission's Ex Parte Motion for Temporary Restraining Order prior to June 3, 2009, so that - if the Commission's Motion is granted - service of the TRO can be effected at the same time the search warrant is executed.

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[Seedy2]

maybe blood is considered toxic waste? :)

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[Mister Whirly]

They were not an ISP, but rather a web hosing company. Big difference - ISPs have such immunities, web hosing companies do not. Plus the fact that the company allegedly knew about the illegal activities doesn't help their case much.

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[sbeckstead]

What illegal NSA wiretapping thing and where did you hear of such a thing? Where were you about an hour ago, we found this interesting file on your computer and we'd like to talk to you.

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[DragonWriter]

It's got to be a joke, there are plenty of sections of the law that make ISP's not liable for such things.

There are safe harbor provisions that protect ISPs from liability for some of those things when the acts are committed by the ISPs users (not the ISP itself), and the ISP complies with certain other rules (including, as a general rule, taking effective action when they become aware of -- on their own or by notification -- the violation being perpetrated via their network.)

But this isn't about things Pricewert's users were doing without the knowledge of the ISP; from the complaint which resulted in the order here:

14. Pricewert is fully aware that it is hosting huge volumes of illegal, malicious, and harmful content. Moreover, Pricewert actively shields its criminal clientele by either ignoring take-down requests issued by the online security community or shifting its criminal clients to other Internet Protocol addresses controlled by Pricewert so that they may evade detection.
15. In addition to hosting illegal, malicious, and harmful content, Pricewert actively colludes with its criminal clientele in several areas, including the maintenance and deployment of bot nets.
.
.
.
22. Pricewert's involvement in botnet activity is detailed in several Internet ICQ chat logs obtained by the FTC. In these logs, Pricewert's senior staff, including its Head of Programming, are observed directly participating in the creation and configuration of a botnet.
23. In one of the chats obtained by the FTC, Pricewert's Head of Programming is engaged in a conversation with a customer regarding the number of compromised computers the customer controls. The customer informs Pricewert that he controls 200,000 bots and needs assistance configuring the botnet. The head of Pricewert's Programming Department agrees to assist, but complains upon learning of the size of the botnet that it will require a lot of work.
24. In a second chat, a Senior Project Manager for Pricewert is told by a customer
that the customer controls a massive and rapidly growing network ofbots. Pricewert's Sales Director reassures the customer that "[w]ell, we know how to manage it."

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[CZakalwe]

Screw that! We've got to hammer these bastards really hard! We gotta send in.... Team America: World Police! With the power of Acting they will surely triumph.

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[QuantumRiff]

and along the lines.. how is

and pornography featuring violence, bestiality, and incest

illegal? I know they mentioned other things that are, but throwing things that many people are opposed to in with things that are actually illegal is a slippery slope towards censorship. Just think of the children..

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[Opportunist]

Possibly, but with the profits from money laundering you can buy, ya know, REAL women! Or men if that's more your speed. Or donkeys, hey, I don't judge.

Now if you excuse me, the corpse in my bed is getting stiff as we talk.

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[Opportunist]

When you think of the children when you think of pornography, I'm fairly sure that IS illegal and not censorship.

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[Anonymous Coward]

1) the first link is about human trafficking. Something that can and does cross borders, national and international.

2) the second link is about counterfeiting products. Related to customs because they arent paying import tariffs and the like.

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[Vu1turEMaN]

USDA is supposed to be incharge of all illegal online pharmacies....they work directly with the FBI to shut them down. IIRC.

I feel like the article has some made-up bullshit spewing from it.

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[mdwh2]

I agree. And I saw this happen in the UK. According to my Government, "violent" acts between consenting adults, even if simulated, are just as bad as child pornography. Many police forces submitted evidence to the Government consultation saying that people who start out looking at such material will end up abusing children.

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[Knara]

First you get da money...

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like somebody at the FTC found out that those penis enlargement pills don't work at all.

What?!? OMG, I gotta call Visa and dispute that charge... BRB

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[Anonymous Coward]

They were not an ISP, but rather a web hosing company. Big difference - ISPs have such immunities, web hosing companies do not.

Goddamn right! Those web hosing companies can't just hose anyone and get away with it! Why, think of all the havoc they could wreak on the Intartubes... it'd be chaos!

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[budgenator]

What does the Federal Trade Commission have to do with acting on illegal material such as the crazy stuff suggested by the article? Where are the criminal charges here?

Or is this a bit like the Environmental Protection Agency investigating a murder because... they feel like it....

The Federal Trade Commission works for consumers to prevent fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair business practices and to provide information to help spot, stop, and avoid them. To file a complaint in English or Spanish, visit the FTCâ(TM)s online Complaint Assistant or call 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357). The FTC enters complaints into Consumer Sentinel, a secure, online database available to more than 1,500 civil and criminal law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad. The FTCâ(TM)s Web site provides free information on a variety of consumer topics. FTC Shuts Down Notorious Rogue Internet Service Provider, 3FN Service Specializes in Hosting Spam-Spewing Botnets, Phishing Web sites, Child Pornography, and Other Illegal, Malicious Web Content

Actually fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair business practices is pretty much what these scumbags use as a business plan; the FBI can still get involved prosecuting specific frauds and deceptions; RICO charges are defiantly possible here.

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[budgenator]

there are two separate issues at work, first the illegal pharmaceuticals themselves is a FDA matter, the sales of the bogus drugs as legit is a FTC matter

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[shanen]

Your defeatist attitude is neither helpful nor constructive. The spammers love you for it.

We can make progress fighting against the spammers, and every little victory counts. Making the Internet work is a highly cooperative enterprise, and that includes the efforts to fight spammers.

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[budgenator]

In Michigan mother's milk was considered unfit for human consumption for quite a while, see Polychlorinated biphenyl contamination of nursing mothers' milk in Michigan.; so yes the EPA might be involved in spilled blood!

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[Puppet Master]

And the butler did it.

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[Anonymous Coward]

You tried, yet you failed. Poor boy :(

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[Hal_Porter]

And this is what I was thinking. I'm very confused, but I'm also not an American. What does the Federal Trade Commission have to do with acting on illegal material such as the crazy stuff suggested by the article?

I'm an American and what's really happening is this. The corrupt Obama junta is trying to silence its critics by falsely labelling them spammers and child pornographers.

BARELY LEGAL TEENS! CHEAP V1AGRA!

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty sure the fact that this is interstate commerce gives them jurisdiction.

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Absolutely. Saying things like that could eventually become an erosion on our freedom of speech, and I think I speak for all of us here when I say that I want such phrasing to be illegal.

Oh god, it's started already!

OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work in?

[BitZtream]

Being that slashdot looks and acts differently in Chrome, Firefox and IE, could someone please tell which damn browser slashdot has decided to target so that I know which one is most likely to actually work when I click something.

As a second note, do you think it would be possible to roll your new changes out to something other than front page articles until you actually get them working properly?

Holy FUD Campaign Batman!

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

'Pricewert hosts very little legitimate content and vast quantities of illegal, malicious, and harmful content, including child pornography, botnet command and control servers, spyware, viruses, trojans, phishing related sites, illegal online pharmacies, investment and other Web-based scams, and pornography featuring violence, bestiality, and incest.'

What? There weren't any terrorists or WMDs? Won't anyone think of the WMDs?

Re:Holy FUD Campaign Batman!

[Emb3rz]

I love that they separated all of the other vile forms of pornography and put them at the end, while child pornography got first billing. It's amazing what being a poster-child (no pun intended) of online criminality can do for an activity's reputation.

Re:Holy FUD Campaign Batman!

[gnick]

The other "vile forms of pornography" belong at the end. Pretty much everything else listed that was being hosted by this company was illegal. Just being a pervert into violent/bestial/incestuous porn is (usually) OK (probably especially in CA, although I haven't researched CA weird-porn law). Hosting it is typically OK too, depending on where/how/to-whom you allow access.

So yeah, I'd say that stuff is properly segregated as an after-thought. Still, I'll bet that "child porn" would be the only thing necessary on a warrant application get it approved even if it made up only a tiny fraction of their illicit hosting.

Re:Holy FUD Campaign Batman!

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Unless it involves homosexual identical twins, how can you even know it is incestuous anyway?
Sure, someone can say it is incest, but that's just wish fullfillment on the part of law enforcement.

Re:Holy FUD Campaign Batman!

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Question: Is it considered incest if two siblings have sex with another person in a threesome (given they don't give each other... attention)? If so, is it considered incest if two siblings are naked in the same frame?

What the article leaves out

[MillionthMonkey]

'Pricewert hosts very little legitimate content and vast quantities of illegal, malicious, and harmful content, including child pornography, botnet command and control servers, spyware, viruses, trojans, phishing related sites, illegal online pharmacies, investment and other Web-based scams, and pornography featuring violence, bestiality, and incest.'

Yes but how much were they charging per month? It doesn't say. You probably get all this stuff with the "premium" package.

Re:What the article leaves out

[2obvious4u]

I'm lost... why is "bestiality" in the list of bad things? They have the donkey joke in the American Pie movies and its always behind the curtain, so I looked it up... does that mean I'm going to jail?

Re:What the article leaves out

[Anonymous Coward]

This stuff has to remain between a man and a woman or society is just going to disintegrate with everyone screwing donkeys.

Re:What the article leaves out

[Anonymous Coward]

For those wondering,

Bestiality is when mommy and daddy and spot are loving each other very much...

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to know too.
Also, why does following links require cookies to be on?

Smoking

[phissur]

may be a smoke screen
Forget the illegal pharmacies and scams. They're promoting smoking!
Think of the children!

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[MrMista_B]

I can tell you for sure, it sure as hell isn't Firefox. I'm about to give up, and my karma rating has been 'Excellent' ages.

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like the Slashdot clowns are "targeting" all browsers. Everything sucks.

Their Web 2.0 hard-on must be draining the blood from their brains. Slashdot is now slow, bloated, and fucked up.

Just try getting that asinine slide-bar to show ALL posts. No can do, because the script kiddies coding it up are too stupid to handle boundary conditions properly.

Quite a list

[Toonol]

Pricewert hosts very little legitimate content and vast quantities of illegal, malicious, and harmful content, including child pornography, botnet command and control servers, spyware, viruses, trojans, phishing related sites, illegal online pharmacies, investment and other Web-based scams, and pornography featuring violence, bestiality, and incest.

But what makes it different than any other ISP?

Re:Quite a list

[Farmer Tim]

But what makes it different than any other ISP?

Their bribe was late.

Re:Quite a list

[castironpigeon]

But what makes it different than any other ISP?

This one wasn't paying its dues to the local politicians?

Re:Quite a list

[harryandthehenderson]

But what makes it different than any other ISP?

You mean other than this quote from the second sentence?

The FTC alleges that 3FN/Pricewert was directly involved in setting up spam-spewing botnets, among other illegal activities

I'm pretty sure Verizon, Time Warner, AT&T, Comcast, Cablevision, Cox, Suddenlink, just to name a few ISPs, aren't directly involved in any illegal activities on their network.

Re:Quite a list

[cboslin]

Their bribe was late.

But what makes their lobbyists any different than any other telcos?

Re:Quite a list

[SydShamino]

I'm pretty sure Verizon, Time Warner, AT&T, Comcast, Cablevision, Cox, Suddenlink, just to name a few ISPs, aren't directly involved in any illegal activities on their network.

Except spying on their customers for the government... though I guess that's not illegal any more.

Re:Quite a list

[linzeal]

I still think we should lay siege to Comcast HQ for the crap they have pulled.

Re:Quite a list

[Farmer Tim]

But what makes their lobbyists any different than any other telcos?

"The bribe was late" doesn't answer that question?

Re:Quite a list

[Widowwolf]

No no its called being patriotic not illegal!

Re:Quite a list

[HTH NE1]

I'm pretty sure Verizon, Time Warner, AT&T, Comcast, Cablevision, Cox, Suddenlink, just to name a few ISPs, aren't directly involved in any illegal activities on their network.

At least, not knowingly directly involved.

Since when does direct involvement require knowledge?

Re:Quite a list

[harryandthehenderson]

At least, not knowingly directly involved.

Which would still make them non-analogous to the case at hand because the hosting company involved in this case was knowingly involved in setting up these illegal operations if the allegations are correct.

Incest?

[davidwr]

Um, how did they know that?

If these guys are as creepy as it sounds, you shouldn't take their word for it!

Re:Incest?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pics or it didn't happen.

Re:Incest?

[HTH NE1]

Um, how did they know that?

In a word: twins.

There's also the matter of recognizing previously investigated imagery for which participants (offenders and victims) have been identified.

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesnt work right in IE7 either lol

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[Neil Blender]

Slashdot doesn't work in any browser.

Also, they have a policy of launching new, untested, broken features mid week during peak usage.

In addition, they have a policy of "belittle and close" when you submit a bug to sourceforge.

Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't know 12chan had its own ISP.

Re:Heh

[lavacano201014]

I didn't know /b/tards of any sort had their own ISP...

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[harryandthehenderson]

Just try getting that asinine slide-bar to show ALL posts. No can do, because the script kiddies coding it up are too stupid to handle boundary conditions properly.

You used to be able to scroll the bar all the way over when the button to move it to the top middle also worked properly. Now when you hit that button in the top right it just gives it a border and nothing else.

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed.

When I am near the bottom of the day's list of articles, Firefox re-renders of a full 30 seconds every time I go back to the main page from reading an article.

PITA.

Only diff this will make is in some DA's resume.

[d474]

This is like removing a telephone from the street corner in an attempt to thwart phone scams: Endless supply of phones for the evil-doers to move to.

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[MooseMuffin]

What doesn't work? I've been using the firefox 3.5 betas and I haven't noticed anything overly broken.

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[harryandthehenderson]

Well the commment slider doesn't move when you click the "Toggle window location" button. White bars where the titles are so you can't see anything. Pages taking forever to render. That's just a few.

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[Anonymous Coward]

Just try getting that asinine slide-bar to show ALL posts. No can do, because the script kiddies coding it up are too stupid to handle boundary conditions properly.

You used to be able to scroll the bar all the way over when the button to move it to the top middle also worked properly. Now when you hit that button in the top right it just gives it a border and nothing else.

Meaning Slashtard "coders" broke it, and can't be bothered to fix it.

I'd honestly be ashamed to post code that bad to a public web site.

"Test" is what you do with software before you claim to be finished. It's not something that pairs with "Icles" and pops off after three seconds, even given your slapdash coding.

Re:Help me Rob Malda, you're my only hope!

[Anonymous Coward]

how are you able to call him with your phone up yer bum?

Props to NASA too, for this!

[AMuse]

Yet another thing that NASA has done to help society, that people don't know. NASA's Inspector General (IG) played a large role in helping shut this den of crap down.

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[eleuthero]

I went for six months using firefox 2 (the company I work for would not let us upgrade) with horrible broken page notices for half of slashdot. They recently lifted the ban and /. now works

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[greed]

Turn off the new crap. Then it works.

I forget how I did that, though. Classic Index in Preferences?

Re:Help me Rob Malda, you're my only hope!

[Anonymous Coward]

Precision flatulence.

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[lavacano201014]

I had it that way once. Then I accidentally clicked, and now I can't set it back

Turn off Beta!

[argent]

Turn off the damn stupid "beta" index.

I wish they'd just frozen the interface about three years ago, but at least you CAN disable most of the gratuitous Javascript crap.

Re:Turn off Beta!

[mcgrew]

That only works on the front page and in the stories, try going to one of your journals (depending on browser i guess). I tried to see one of my journals today and almost deleted the damned thing by mistake!

I tried getting to slashdot on my phone (Motorola i776) and couldn't get to a single subject - slashdot is too bloated for a phone (at least for mine). CNN works, though. Google's no problem. I can even get to Yahoo mail, but not slashdot.

The trouble with slashdot is the trouble with a lot of new tech - the designers are trying too hard to impress people, instead of designing a simple, useable, useful interface. It's the curse or the web 2.0 cloud (which is IMO a cloud of crack smoke)

Re:Turn off Beta!

[Taevin]

As long as we're having a Slashdot gripe-fest, anyone know why I seem to have "lost" the majority of my comments? I was trying to find a comment I made a long time ago and it seems like everything before January 8, 2009 is just gone. WTF?

Re:Turn off Beta!

[argent]

Try checking "low bandwidth", "simple design", and/or "no icons"?

"including child pornography..."

[Evets]

Anytime I see something referencing child pornography, I immediately think it's a smear campaign.

I don't know anything about 3FN.net, but generally...

ISPs don't host porn, they host websites. Some people put up websites that have porn or other content that someone might object to. Some websites have illegal content.

Sometimes people get frustrated because it's difficult to stop whatever activity it is they are trying to stop. Because an ISP provides its customers with anonymity, or because it doesn't log certain things, or because they are not cooperative with whatever branch of the government wants their cooperation does not make them bad. There are plenty of legitimate, good, positive-for-society reasons that anonymity or partial anonymity is necessary. There are ways of enforcing the law and bettering society that don't strip rights away from free people doing ordinary things.

Re:"including child pornography..."

[harryandthehenderson]

ISPs don't host porn, they host websites.

And by hosting those websites they also host the contents of those websites and in the case of it being a porn website they would be hosting porn. Your semantic game fails to work.

Re:"including child pornography..."

[flandar]

Yes, but by providing network connectivity to your home computer that is hosting a web site, the ISP is not hosting anything. Just acting as a gateway for your computer to connect into the internet. Now if we were talking about a hosting company. That might be a different thing. If they are talking about hosted computers, this is a different matter. But an ISP should be a communication provider not a content provider and it should not matter what I provide as content on their network. The content I provide is my responsibility.

Re:"including child pornography..."

[Xaositecte]

You think this might be one of those "sending a message" things?

Y'know, shut down one ISP under a justification that could, potentially, target any ISP in the Untied States? Start with a small one that nobody has ever heard of, and won't ruffle many feathers. Then, whenever an ISP is getting too uppity, politely bring up the topic of 3FN, and oh, wouldn't it be a tragedy if that happened to a larger ISP?

Re:"including child pornography..."

[harryandthehenderson]

Now if we were talking about a hosting company. That might be a different thing.

And they are. Did you even read the summary at all?

'Pricewert LLC,' a Northern California based hosting provider.

Re:"including child pornography..."

[tobiah]

Totally, I think if it was truly child porn, they'd do more than shut down the website. They'd find some names and throw them in jail. The fact that there is so little prosecution and so many accusations in this case makes me think there is little substance to the allegations.

Re:"including child pornography..."

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with the child pornography thing. However, I think you're letting the ISP off too easy. I don't know the details of this particular case, but generally there are quite a lot of smallish hosts with a high percentage of clients who are "doing bad things". They look the other way because the checks cash and the odds of getting penalized are low, and even if they do get penalized it will probably be minimal (i.e. cost of doing business); sometimes these scumbags are even willing participants in it. Now I know ISPs cannot be held responsible for everything that all of their users do, but it is often the case that the ISP is well aware of what is going on. I haven't read the article, but I suspect that was the case in this instance.

Re:"including child pornography..."

[drinkypoo]

The ISP will cough up the identity of customers under subpoena, which should be easy enough to get if some illegal activity is occurring. And if they don't, then you drag them into court to explain why not. We already have a process in place for allowing anonymity until it is abused.

Re:"including child pornography..."

[CatBegemot]

Just because you haven't heard of them doesn't mean nobody haven't. 3FN.net used to heavily advertise in Russia (I still saw their banners today on some Russian-speaking forums) as the hosting that is sustained to abuse reports. What this means is you can host any illegal content there and when *rights holders call hosting will send him to /dev/null.

Re:"including child pornography..."

[westlake]

Anytime I see something referencing child pornography, I immediately think it's a smear campaign.

Why?

Three stories from Google News, all dated June 4. There is nothing special about any of them, even the last:

Buffalo man gets 11 years for distributing child porn

Local man convicted for having child porn

Sex Offender Caught with Porn During Registry, Police

Brett Bartlett, 30, had gone to the Livermore police station for his annual sex offender registration.
He was convicted in 2005 in Santa Clara County for having oral sex with a person under 16 years old. That conviction requires him to register as a sex offender.
While Bartlett was in the police station, detectives asked if they could do a search of his vehicle.
Inside the vehicle, detectives found a computer that they say had numerous images of child pornography.

Re:"including child pornography..."

[stephanruby]

ISPs don't host porn, they host websites.

As much as I'd like to agree with you, this one sentence is not exactly true. Some ISPs do specialize in hosting porn content. I know because I looked into this myself when I looked into starting a porn web site. I did whois searches on a couple of popular porn web sites, and that gave me the name of their ISPs. And from those results, many ISPs did look like standard cookie-cut run-of-the-mill ISPs, but a few were advertising the fact that they were porn-specific ISPs (which was actually reassuring to me because they specifically addressed many of the concerns that a porn-site operator would have).

Re:"including child pornography..."

[tmosley]

I agree. They will be punished. However, I notice that your name violates numerous copyrights. Just stand where you are with your hands on your head while the *IAA paramilitary police come to get you, you filthy pedophile terrorist. What, you didn't know that violating copyrights was the same as diddling little babies while blowing up building with anthrax laden peroxide shoe bombs? Well, too bad. We're throwing you in the dock all the same. You and your little dog too. Also, we're seizing all of your property under civil asset forfeiture. Don't bother complaining that you never got a trial in front of a jury of your peers. Habeus corpus? What's that, a rock band? That's another count for you, mister. Not that it matters, since the punishment is the same for any of these types of crimes. Look on the bright side though, they say the weather in Syria is wonderful this time of year. Not that you'll ever see the sky again, you filthy pedorist.

Re:"including child pornography..."

[Anonymous Coward]

What twats modded this interesting? More like plain stupid, given that it's been repeatly pointed out that 3FN is *not* an ISP, it's a hosting company, and its own staff are up to their necks in their clients' criminality (botnets etc.).

Re:"including child pornography..."

[Jedi Alec]

Totally, I think if it was truly child porn, they'd do more than shut down the website. They'd find some names and throw them in jail.

If the owners of said names are out of your jurisdiction(read: in another country)...how do you plan on doing that?

I live across the globe and have a hosting account with a US provider. The US can shut my account down if I were to host materials that violated US law, but short of convincing my government to arrest and/or extradite me...wtf are they going to do? Put me on the no-fly list? :P

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks justfine in IE 6! Just have to enable Active X and set your security settings to "low".

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[harryandthehenderson]

Turn off the new crap. Then it works.

Yes, but then you get all the problems with the bad pagination that comes with the old style discussion.

I forget how I did that, though. Classic Index in Preferences?

Classic index, which I am using, doesn't fix the problems I mentioned which happen within the article comments themselves.

Shutting down a last bastion ISP

[k-zed]

... because "pornography featuring violence, bestiality, and incest" is very illegal, right?

ISPs that don't do the mandatory spying on citizens, storing of logs, keeping tabs on the copyright-protection evading, crippleware-breaking terrorists, they have to be eliminated! For the sake of our civilization and of our children.

Re:Shutting down a last bastion ISP

[harryandthehenderson]

... because "pornography featuring violence, bestiality, and incest" is very illegal, right?

Nope, but botnets, illegal pharmacies, child porn, spyware, viruses, trojans, and phishing related sites (you know those other things listed beyond the snippet you posted) are.

ISPs that don't do the mandatory spying on citizens, storing of logs, keeping tabs on the copyright-protection evading, crippleware-breaking terrorists, they have to be eliminated!

Actually this was about the ISP being accused of being directly involved in the illegal activities on it's network. Not because of the nonsense you posted.

Re:Shutting down a last bastion ISP

[twidarkling]

Actually, I'm fairly certain that bestiality is illegal in a few locales. Also, incest, if it's first degree affinity or consanguinity. YMMV.

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[harryandthehenderson]

That's because you were never able to scroll the bar all the way to the bottom if it was on the left-hand side. You could only do it when it was at the top middle position but since the toggle position button no longer works you can't do it anymore.

So we get child porn, where is terrorism?

[Seth Kriticos]

No, really, if they did something illegal (proven by court) and got shut down: fine!; but come on, most of you read (blah) ISP (blah) shut down by FTC (blah) child porn (blah) incest . WTF?

Please, anything you say, "child porn" and "terrorism" == "censorship" in current times. Any article that has it as topic is either BS or Troll (or both).

Now I'm open for argumentation, but please use contemporary English and proper establishment / critic slang if you do so.

Re:So we get child porn, where is terrorism?

[Seth Kriticos]

Oh, sorry, I hate to reply to myself, but I forgot another thing. Pricewert is nor English, nor British nor proper German. If you want to make a British Nazi reference, the please use the proper German grammar and say "Preiswert".

(I just see my Karma dropping, but what the hell, it's irony, can't help it. You could also argue that criminals suck at grammar)

Re:So we get child porn, where is terrorism?

[mcgrew]

Now I'm open for argumentation, but please use contemporary English and proper establishment / critic slang if you do so.

Ewe muss bee knew hear!

Re:So we get child porn, where is terrorism?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I'm open for argumentation, but please use contemporary English and proper establishment / critic slang if you do so.

Suck muh balls

Have you ever been to any chan site? Fucking pedo central imo.

Re:So we get child porn, where is terrorism?

[twidarkling]

I don't think it's a British Nazi reference. It's in TFA itself, not just the summary.

"In its civil complaint, the FTC names 3FN and its various monikers, including Pricewert LLC -- the business entity named on the 3fn.net Web site registration records. "

Unless you meant the company was making a Nazi reference, in which case, carry on.

Except for the nitpick that it shouldn't be "English, nor British," that should be "American, nor English," the way you're using it. Remember, it was England's language first.

Reckless language?

[DoofusOfDeath]

From the summary:

... and pornography featuring violence, bestiality, and incest ...

Isn't that particular stuff still considered legal? And if so, does it have an rightful place in an appeal by the government to a judge?

Re:Reckless language?

[castironpigeon]

From the summary:

... and pornography featuring violence, bestiality, and incest ...

Isn't that particular stuff still considered legal?

Depends who you ask. Oh, did you say illegal? I thought you meant immoral. I forget sometimes what we're persecuting these days.

Re:Reckless language?

[Anonymous Psychopath]

From the summary:

... and pornography featuring violence, bestiality, and incest ...

Isn't that particular stuff still considered legal? And if so, does it have an rightful place in an appeal by the government to a judge?

In most places no, those acts are not legal. Simulating those acts is legal. Maybe some wiggle room on the "violence", depending on what exactly they mean. Incest laws, like sodomy laws, are rarely prosecuted, or at least I've never heard of such prosecution. Rape and bestiality are. IANAL

Re:Reckless language?

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn PETA making a fuss over allowing people to love animals. I mean it's not like the government and big business hasn't been running a donkey show of the american public for the last 8-16 years.....

Re:Reckless language?

[DoofusOfDeath]

From the summary:

... and pornography featuring violence, bestiality, and incest ...

Isn't that particular stuff still considered legal? And if so, does it have an rightful place in an appeal by the government to a judge?

In most places no, those acts are not legal. Simulating those acts is legal. Maybe some wiggle room on the "violence", depending on what exactly they mean. Incest laws, like sodomy laws, are rarely prosecuted, or at least I've never heard of such prosecution. Rape and bestiality are. IANAL

Yeah, but we're talking about whether or not it's illegal to show those acts, not commit them. For example, if they were committed outside of the relevant jurisdiction(s).

I realize that child porn is in its own class in this regard, since even possessing the material is illegal. So I'm just talking about the rape, incest, etc.

Re:Reckless language?

[mdwh2]

Indeed - "violent" porn means porn between consenting adults, and anything that seems too extreme is probably simulated anyway. Same issue with "rape" porn. Many consenting adults are into BDSM - like many other adults, some of them may enjoy either taking photos of their acts for their own pleasure, or looking at sites with such images on. It's sad that it's now considered fair game to treat such people as comparable to those who commit non-consensual acts such as child abuse.

In the UK, simple possession such material is now illegal, punishable with up to three years in prison, and being placed on the Sex Offender register.

The bottom line is if it's abusive, it's illegal anyway, and if it isn't, it shouldn't be seen as a problem in the first place. But not a single example of people being forced into making "violent" porn has ever been discovered. Even the Government's own biased "research" had to admit that none could be found. Why would anyone produce it anyway - why risk breaking the law, the risk of getting caught, the difficulties of finding a continual supply of victims, when it's much easier to simulate it. Much like the snuff films / video nasty scare, it's just a myth used to scaremonger.

ISP != Hosting Provider

[schwinn8]

Since when does "ISP" = "hosting provider"?
I thought they actually shut down a SERVICE provider... not just some dumb web host.

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[Anonymous Coward]

Before, you used to be able to enter your login information with a reply when you are not logged in. Now, it just gives you a link above your reply section to "log in now" and when you click on that it takes you to a different page and when you finish logging in it takes you back to the main page and you have officially lost the post that you intending to reply to.

This is long and far the most annoying thing about new slashdot. Frequently I just don't even post a reply that I may otherwise want to. Or I post as Anonymous Coward, as I'm going to do right now.

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[paazin]

Slashdot doesn't work in any browser.

Also, they have a policy of launching new, untested, broken features mid week during peak usage.

In addition, they have a policy of "belittle and close" when you submit a bug to sourceforge.

So they're pretty much like everywhere else, then.

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[FudRucker]

i recently got ahold of an old laptop with low specs and i have been trying various browsers, firefox-2.0.0.20, dillo-2.0, lynx, links, and i am afraid that 99.9% of the internet does not care for anything other than the top two or three browsers = IE, mozilla's firefox & seamonkey and opera, yeah it sucks to see decent but older hardware obsoleted like that...

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[MooseMuffin]

My toggle button now either pins it to top of your screen, or just leaves it at the top of the comments and lets you scroll past it. It used to go over to the left, but I guess they tossed that out. No problem with white title bars or rendering speed.

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[harryandthehenderson]

Mine is now stuck on the left-hand side and when I click it I just get a black border around it.

Wack-a-mole?

[oldhack]

Or is this more than that?

Re:Wack-a-mole?

[bughunter]

Considering the amount of kinky pr0n allegedly being served up, I'd say more than the moles will be getting whacked off...

Re:Wack-a-mole?

[sexconker]

Whack-a-kitty

Dear Slashdot,

[Anonymous Coward]

+----------+
| FIX YOUR |
|  FUCKIN' |
|   CODE   |
+----------+
    |  |
    |  |
  .\|.||/..

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[Red Flayer]

Read between the lines.

Slashdot doesn't render properly on ANY browser.

The reason for this is because slashdot doesn't have a proper webdev writing their site. The may have a webdev, but obviously the person they have is not capable of meeting their needs.

Since the corporate overlords are cutting back on expenses, there is no room in the budget to hire a proper webdev. So the slashdot team has decided to purposely bork the site, keeping it just-good-enough-for-content-to-be-available, in the hope that some skilled webdev will offer their services for free to fix the site.

Or, possibly, the slashdot editors are playing passive-aggressive with the corporate overlord's demands that slashdot become more like a social networking site, and less like a news aggregator with comments. I think this has been hinted at by Rob & Jamie in the past.

Finally, the third possibility -- it's summer, which is kind of like the Septembers of yore on usenet. Maybe they're hoping to preserve the community by driving off the shambling hordes of idiots who belong on Fark or 4chan instead of here, while the slashdot core sticks around, knowing that things will simmer down in October. But that's probably wishful thinking.

What's left?

[argoth]

Is there any other content on the internet apart from those items listed?

Re:What's left?

[the_fat_kid]

well, my mom has a myspace page...

Re:Only diff this will make is in some DA's resume

[__aaclcg7560]

You do realize that the reason why you can't find public phones was to discourage drug dealers with pagers from doing business? Not that that matters anymore since evil-doers have cell phones.

ISP?

[nurb432]

Or web hosting service?

Seems like a hosting service to me.

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[nmb3000]

Being that slashdot looks and acts differently in Chrome, Firefox and IE, could someone please tell which damn browser slashdot has decided to target so that I know which one is most likely to actually work when I click something.

Classic Index + Classic Discussion = works great.

Sure you miss out on the few worthwhile features they've added, but I'd much rather be able to read the summaries and comments (never actually tried reading the articles -- do they work?) than have shiny new (broken) widgets all over the place.

One caveat though: even classic views are broken in IE6 now :(

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Way too much of Slashdot 2.0 seems to be designed by people who only use/test slashdot in one specific manner. Its as if they've forgotten that there are many ways to skin a cat.

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[Sethus]

You mind if I borrow your signature?

bastards

[binaryseraph]

Really I could care less what kind of content was found on the drives of the server- On the fact that they were running Botnets alone, these guys should have their balls put on display at the local batting cage.

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[Shikaku]

It looks fine with Adblock.

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[shentino]

I'm using browsers that get 100/100 on Acid3 and those don't have trouble.

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you referring to the thing where pages 1-6 of a discussion will be the same, then finally on page 7 you get page 2? At least that seems to be what is happening.

Alex Kozinski

[Doug52392]

Well, if you ask Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (United States v. Issacs), I'm sure he'd have a few words to say about this.

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[harryandthehenderson]

Are you referring to the thing where pages 1-6 of a discussion will be the same, then finally on page 7 you get page 2? At least that seems to be what is happening.

Yep. It's a well-known bug that has plagued Slashdot for years that they now refuse to fix since they went to the new Web 2.0 dynamic discussion.

Crap

[Anonymous Coward]

Another boring evening with the family.

The Federal Trade Commission and You

[westlake]

Oh, that's a shame, maybe next time we should hand this matter over to the USAF or at least the FBI. You know, someone capable of exterminating or prosecuting the 'rats'?

Federal Trade Commission [Home]

A Brief Overiview of the Federal Trade Commission's
Investigative and Law Enforcement Authority (1) [1995]

Statutes Enforced or Administered by the Commission [Home]

"AN ACT To enhance Federal Trade Commission enforcement against illegal spam, spyware, and cross-border fraud and deception, and for other purposes."
U.S. SAFE WEB Act of 2006 [Final - Full Text]

It's about gathering evidence.

[Forge]

To go into an office and get all the information needed to prove a criminal charge you have to provide evidence to convince a judge to give you a warrant. At least that's how it was before the new rules allowed Federal agencies to just say "terrorism" and skip past the middleman.

As a regulator, things are a little different. This guy has a license to operate and you are authorized to walk in and search his stuff just to see if he is complying with the terms of his license. If he isn't (virtually all licenses forbid criminal activity), you can just shut him down. In doing all of this you get to rifle throgh his files, interrogate his staff etc... Enough to gather the kind of evidence you can then pass on to the FBI or the local sheriff to say "Hey don't you have a cell reserved for people like this?"

This is just an extension of an old strategy. Just review the case of Al Capone if you are in doubt.

Re:It's about gathering evidence.

[lgw]

At least that's how it was before the new rules allowed Federal agencies to just say "terrorism" and skip past the middleman.

The old rules allowed Federal agencies to just say "dru dealer" and skip past the middleman. The PATRIOT act continaed almost no new ploice powers - it was effectively just s/drug dealer/terrorist/.

We gave up the 4th amendment a lng whil eback, for drunk driving checkpoints. It's sad how little people actually care about their rights.

Re:It's about gathering evidence.

[JackieBrown]

it was effectively just s/drug dealer/terrorist/.... It's sad how little people actually care about their rights.

Unless they're terrorists, apparently. :)

Re:It's about gathering evidence.

[rtb61]

By far the most important part of this incident "Northern California district court judge approved an FTC request to have the company's upstream Internet providers stop routing traffic for the provider". So no matter to which country they shift their criminal operations that action can still be applied locally to block traffic from a illegal enterprise masquerading behind the façade of a legal ISP, where there is sufficient evidence of the direct involvement in criminal enterprise.

The only tricky part is, should all legitimate customers be warned of this action prior to it occurring so that they can relocate their services because the legal action is also attacking innocent third parties and disrupting their services and that is no really appropriate.

Re:It's about gathering evidence.

[Anonymous Coward]

This guy has a license to operate

In the United States no license is required to be an ISP.

He may or may not have a "business license", but that's merely about locating the facility in an appropriately zoned location.

He isn't using chemicals or industrial machinery or anything like that, and the Internet is not regulated. (Newspapers in this country don't require licensing, either.)

It's not clear at all what the FTC has to do with this, unless they are claiming that the ISP is somehow not protected by the common-carrier-like provisions. It's a very peculiar thing for the FTC, rather than other agencies like the FBI or maybe even the FCC to be equally involved here. Much as they seem to be the scum of the earth, there's no legal basis for shutting them down at all, unless there is an accusation of some kind of criminal conspiracy.

Re:It's about gathering evidence.

[jon3k]

"It's sad how little people actually care about their rights."

I never understood statements like this. How do you know you care more than me? Did you stage a violent revolt all alone or something when the rest of us weren't paying attention?

Re:It's about gathering evidence.

[ultranova]

He wrote a strongly worded complaint on Slashdot. If it's good enough for the FTC, it's good enough for him ;).

no surprise here

[Indy1]

They've been trying to hammer on the mail server for some time. I firewalled all of their ip blocks as a result.

/. not broken - just block fsdn

[Anonymous Coward]

I blocked all traffic from fsdn.com and slashdot works perfectly!

Re:Only diff this will make is in some DA's resume

[e2d2]

But they are trying to imprison the criminals also. It's hard to setup a botnet out of a federal prison.

 

Though I must admit...

[argent]

I've been blindsided by things too

This seems to have been a bug that ONLY bit you if you selected "classic view" AND "low bandwidth".

I resemble that remark!

[Anonymous Coward]

...pornography featuring violence, bestiality, and incest.

Hey, some of the BEST pornography out there features violence and incest! (Not into dating outside my species, though). Since when is that illegal?

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[hurfy]

more OT but at this this is more informative than the most of the other comments...

Now i know i am not the only one that can't always see the post title and rating on the 1st 6 pages of page 1....sigh

and for all the fools trying to whine....these guys were putting up RUSSIAN ads on very dubious sites. Now what clientele do you suppose they were seeking? The one white hat guy hanging out there or the 10000 black hats?

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[OolimPhon]

What's Javascript?

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[Red Flayer]

So, you're suggesting that slashdot is simply taking the hard line on standards compatibility, and builds to the standards regardless of the experience of their users?

Kind of admirable, if true, but in my opinion, maybe not in their best interests... that's a lot of eyeballs they are choosing to alienate.

Re:Only diff this will make is in some DA's resume

[Grishnakh]

I don't think so. Public phones were privately owned, so as long as they turned a profit, their owners wouldn't care too much what they were being used for.

The thing that killed public phones was the ubiquity of cellphones. Now, unlike 15 years ago, cellphones are cheap and everyone has them. It's simply no longer profitable to buy a public phone and pay for its service, when so few people are going to pop a quarter in one to use it.

Even drug dealers are probably happy about this, as they were a little obvious sitting around pay phones all day, and now they can just get a cheap prepaid cellphone and be completely anonymous and do their business from anywhere.

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[Anonymous Coward]

So wait, trying to drive off farkers and 4channers with a terrible layout and broken site, and keep the old regulars?

Does not compute.

Sad consequences of a Tizer addiction

[Anonymous Coward]

TROLLKORE HEAD, I'M IN YOUR BED
I'M FIZZY FIZZY WIZZY, I'M OFF MY HEAD

WTF is this? Slashdot troll parodies the "classic" Tizer sponsorship of CD:UK? Hmm.

So we know that (a) you probably live in the UK and (b) you're old enough to be getting nostalgic about that early-2000s minutae, and still young and immature enough to be posting drivel like this to Slashdot. :-P

(BTW, spot the Nokia 3310 with its anonymous replacement case- both of which date the video quite a bit now).

Huh? Did they forget to pay the bribes?

[Opportunist]

I was kinda amused when I read this. How did they fuck up? Did they refuse to hand over customer data without a warrant, did they forget to pay the kickback or why are they being singled out?

They're anything but the only ISP or hosting provider that hosts botnet control servers or other shady deals. No, I'm not even talking about the RBN or other "services" where our authorities claim they're "out of reach" because they are in countries that have better problems than to go on a wild goose chase and roll stones uphill.

So what's special about them?

Re:Huh? Did they forget to pay the bribes?

[DragonWriter]

They're anything but the only ISP or hosting provider that hosts botnet control servers or other shady deals.

OTOH, they may be the only one that got targetted for scrutiny after being the source of a hack into NASA in which, in the course of the investigation (among other things) federal authorities captured ICQ conversations in which senior officials of the provider were discussing their active participation in botnet management with customers.

Re:Huh? Did they forget to pay the bribes?

[sexconker]

Shit.
Put them in jail for using ICQ.

I bet they still have the client from the 90s with those fucking sound effects that haunt me to this day.

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, I'm not going anywhere.

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever it is, we don't want it!

Re:Only diff this will make is in some DA's resume

[MarkvW]

Keep on thinking that you're completely anonymous when you use a prepaid cellphone.

Think why you might not be . . . ..
Come on now . . .
Think . . . .
You'll get it . . .

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[lgw]

Slashdot looks and works fine with IE. Seriously. No, I don't understand either.

Re:Only diff this will make is in some DA's resume

[Grishnakh]

Sorry, but I'm not a drug dealer, and I've never gotten a prepaid cellphone, so I really wouldn't know why not.

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[Anonymous Coward]

You mind if I borrow your signature?

I'm sure he won't mind, but you should probably spell "javascrpt" correctly. :-)

I call photoshop!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just sayin'

Re:I call photoshop!

[HTH NE1]

It's still pretty hard to get shadows to fall properly from two poses superimposed on each other unless you have mapped out all the lighting and have an accurate 3D model of everything to pose identically to the two images of the single subject. And then there are the little differences life experiences make between even identical twins (slight variations in haircuts, healed injuries, diet) that would be difficult to completely fake using only one person, especially across a series of photos over time, let alone full motion video.

legitimate content

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the "legitimate content" owners? If I was running a business, which provided my family income (6 dependents), and supported a customer base with services, the FTC just killed it without warning or justification.

You don't shut down a phone company (e.g. AT&T or Sprint) if someone is commiting crimes using a phone. If a local phone company or branch telephone office is "directly involved", again, the FTC does -NOT- kill phone service to the customers and businesses in the area.

"Sometime on Tuesday, more than 15,000 Web sites connected to San Jose, Calif., based Triple Fiber Network (3FN.net) went dark." How many thousands of those sites were legitimate businesses or customers who have been seriously hurt by the FTC exceeding its authority and requesting that upstream providers breach their contracts with 3FN.net. When one of these businesses goes under, or the soldier in Korea can't get the streaming video of his childs' birthday party, who do they call? The FTC?

The government is proud of itself for not doing its job. Actually prosecuting the criminals. If there haven't been any crimes, they had no right. If there have been crimes, they have a responsibility to prosecute. Either way, this action was both wrong and irresponsible.

Re:legitimate content

[Soko]

...and the answer is "Didn't you do a risk analysis of the provider you hosted your income bearing site with?".

Darwin, dude - if you didn't know that your provider was seriously at risk of being taken out by the feds due to the actions of whom you were sharing space with, then your stupid ass starves as does your family's. Just Darwin at work.

Re:legitimate content

[DragonWriter]

You don't shut down a phone company (e.g. AT&T or Sprint) if someone is commiting crimes using a phone.

They didn't shut down the hosting company because third parties were using it to commit crimes, either. The temporary restraing order cutting off the hosting company was based on information that the hosting company itself was using its systems to actively commit crimes with some of its customers.

When one of these businesses goes under, or the soldier in Korea can't get the streaming video of his childs' birthday party, who do they call? The FTC?

If they think that the TRO is improper and that they are harmed as a result, they probably ought to contact the Court that issued the order.

The government is proud of itself for not doing its job. Actually prosecuting the criminals. If there haven't been any crimes, they had no right.

Not all unlawful activity that the government is responsible for taking action against is criminal, nor is the government limited to criminal processes in taking action against unlawful activity even where it is criminal. Of course, the activity alleged here is, at least in part, criminal activity, and the FTCs request for the TRO include an explicit request to issue the order in time to coordinate with action in the criminal investigation.

Re:Only diff this will make is in some DA's resume

[Swanktastic]

Keep on thinking that you're completely anonymous when you use a prepaid cellphone.

Can't you buy them with cash?

Or put it on your clients' credit card in exchange for a discount?

Or have a friend buy it?

I'm not using my cell phone for illegal purposes, but that's what I'd do if I were.

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Classic Index + Classic Discussion = works great

Until the article takes you from slashdot.org to .slashdot.org and the subsidiary domain's servers don't honor your login and switch you back to the default settings.

(Or did they fix that? I've got enough manually-installed cookies for the baby domains that I don't see it much any more.)

No decrease volume of spam.

[Neanderthal Ninny]

Unlike the take down of McColo, I see no decrease of volume of spam at all. In fact, since April 2009, my spam level has gone back to and within the last week, above the level of spam since the before McColo and my mail server statistics follow Spamcop.net statistics.
http://www.spamcop.net/spamgraph.shtml?spamyear
IMHO, the botnets masters have dispersed themselves to multiple locations around the world so now taking down on an ISP will not affect them like McColo. On my mail server, most my spam comes from the Central and South America IP addresses and I think those systems are controlled by some bot master somewhere else.
However, IMHO, creating and hosting child porn is punishable by torture like waterboarding or worst. Dying is too good for those people.

Re:No decrease volume of spam.

[theCoder]

I'm sure everyone's spam problems are different, but I think this drastically reduced my volume of spam. My spam levels haven't been that high lately, maybe a dozen a day. But for the last couple of days, it's been practically zero. I don't know if it's related, but almost all the spams I got were spams with just an image (that contained a URL and drug prices). Lately, they seemed to switch to RTF attachments, but now they aren't coming in at all. I actually thought my email server might be broken :)

I'm sure that in a few more days the spammers will regain control of their botnets, but at least I have a few spam free days.

Re:No decrease volume of spam.

[Areyoukiddingme]

Aye, same here. One of my e-mail addresses gets an average of one spam per month because I use greylisting, but another of my accounts get 150 every night. Last night I got 52. Volume is WAY down.

Fascinating that other people report no change. It appears that the various botnet owners don't have perfect overlap of their e-mail lists.

Actually, it's because part of the content was ...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Looks like the Slashdot clowns are "targeting" all browsers. Everything sucks.

Naw. Part of the content was hosted on 3FN and the FTC just took it down.

(It's a joke. Mod it "funny".)

Whoa, Hold the phone

[popeye44]

Did they say bestiality was illegal?

Crap.. I was having so much fun sending Elmer the octopus to my unsuspecting friends.

coincidentally

[z-j-y]

on the same day China shuts down a lot of illegal/distasteful websites too, like twitter.

Give it time.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

The fact that there is so little prosecution and so many accusations in this case makes me think there is little substance to the allegations.

Give it time. The government JUST went public that they're going after 'em.

This sounds strange but..

[Anonymous Coward]

For some reason this scares me.

I don't know much about what really happened and am in the process of reading the article but the idea that the gov can go and shutdown an entire web hosting company for content that is dubbed illegal seems bad.

Do you think its possible that the gov one day could take down a legitimate web hosting company that it says is hosting "illegal content"? Or that maybe someone could start setting up illegitimate content on a webhosting company that hosts legitimate sites they want to take down and get the gov involved?

Maybe i'm just a bit paranoid.

Smokecreen? I think not...

[DragonWriter]

The story quotes a former Justice Dept. expert saying the FTC action may be a smoke screen for a larger criminal investigation by the federal government in 3FN's activities.

Really? A smokescreen -- as in "An action or statement used to conceal actual plans or intentions" -- for a larger criminal investigation? No, clearly not. If it was supposed to conceal the actual plan or intention of a larger criminal investigation, the FTC probably wouldn't have announced the existence of such an investigation in a court filing on the case, specifically requested the timing of the order to go along with the the service of a search warrant in the criminal investigation, and then published the document detailing that on its website, on a page linked from the page with the press release about the injunction.

The FTC press release is here. The link on the case under "related items" takes you here. From that page, you click on the Memorandum of Points and Authorities and you get this document that was filed with the court, in which the FTC says (footnote, page 1):

It is the Commission's understanding that a parallel criminal investigation of the Defendant is underway. Although the Commission is not privy to the details of that investigation, the Commission is informed that a search warrant will be executed at the Defendant's data center on or about Wednesday, June 3, 2009. The Commission respectfully requests that this Court rule on the Commission's Ex Parte Motion for Temporary Restraining Order prior to June 3, 2009, so that - ifthe Commission's Motion is granted - service ofthe TRO can be effected at the same time the search warrant is executed.

The "larger criminal investigation" is hardly a secret for which the restraining order serves as any kind of "smokescreen".

Violence and Incest Porn?

[Bob9113]

"Pricewert hosts very little legitimate content and vast quantities of illegal, malicious, and harmful content, including child pornography, botnet command and control servers, spyware, viruses, trojans, phishing related sites, illegal online pharmacies, investment and other Web-based scams, and pornography featuring violence, bestiality, and incest," the FTC said.

Pornography featuring violence or incest is illegal? Even if it is consensual? Or is the FTC just saying they don't like it, and the average joe would find it repugnant, which makes it a good marketing weapon?

I can understand that bestiality may cross the line of cruelty to animals (yes, insert joke here, but you get the point), and maybe there are some blue laws in individual states about incest. But is the FTC saying those things are "illegal", "malicious", or "harmful"? And under what law?

Don't get me wrong, I don't find that stuff appealing, but I don't find gay sex appealing either. That doesn't mean it's wrong -- it's just not my thing.

Re:Violence and Incest Porn?

[mdwh2]

It isn't illegal in the US (unless it falls under obscenity laws, in which case it would be illegal to publish).

It is illegal to possess in the UK, as of January this year, if it falls under one of their rather vague definitions that they made up in the law (see http://www.backlash-uk.org.uk/ , http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/24/extreme_pron_law_live/ ).

When the UK Government first started thinking "Something Must Be Done" (because some murderer happened to have previously looked at a website featuring porn that the murder victim's mother didn't like), their first response was to try to get the sites shut down. That didn't work, because the sites were legally hosted in places like the US (well, actually, some were also hosted legally in the UK). So instead they decided to criminalise UK citizens themselves for just looking at naughty pictures (it even applies to entirely private personal pics).

Don't get me wrong, I don't find that stuff appealing, but I don't find gay sex appealing either. That doesn't mean it's wrong -- it's just not my thing.

Exactly. If only more people could get this. With this law, it was depressing to see how many people - from lobbyists to politicians - giving the "But it's disgusting" response as their justification.

Re:Only diff this will make is in some DA's resume

[iggymanz]

paid cash for my phone, paid cash for the card with pin for minutes, used an email address and provided some personal info with my web account with the provider....but if someone wanted to provide bogus info how would anyone know?

Re:Only diff this will make is in some DA's resume

[__aaclcg7560]

The police in my area about ten years ago was cracking down on public phones in out of the way spots.

Gas station at a well lit corner? No problem.

Dark corner inside a hole in the wall pizza joint? Out, sometimes along with the liquor license.

Re:Only diff this will make is in some DA's resume

[Grishnakh]

Back in 1995, I used to live in Newport News, Virginia, in an apartment complex across the street from a gas station, which had some pay phones located out front a good distance away from the building. There were constantly cars parked in front of these pay phones. I wonder what they were doing there... Police? I never saw any. This wasn't a complete ghetto, either, although there were a lot of military people in those apartments who worked at the Army base (Ft. Eustis) nearby.

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[shentino]

It might be a bit of minor suffering for the greater good.

According to Tragedy of the Commons, everyone pursuing their own self interest often leads to net global harm.

I commend slashdot for sticking to their guns and not caving to the pressure to cruft.

I guess it didn't occur to you...

[macraig]

... that it's a sting operation, and that other agencies are actually watching to see WHERE the rats scurry to next? That possibility was already hinted in TFA, was it not?

Re:Help me Rob Malda, you're my only hope!

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, I just checked and 4chan is still up and running. The /b/tards are safe .... this time.

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

You mind if I borrow your signature?

I'm sure he won't mind, but you should probably spell "javascrpt" correctly. :-)

Yeah, what he said.

How can they tell?

[jrockway]

They claim the porn sites they shut down featured "incest". How can you tell that from looking?

Oh, I get it... this is just something that sounds nice in sound-bite form.

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[budgenator]

Probably so they can tell if moderaters actually go to the article before moderating

just that isp?

[Anonymous Coward]

"hosts very little legitimate content and vast quantities of illegal, malicious, and harmful content, including child pornography, botnet command and control servers, spyware, viruses, trojans, phishing related sites, illegal online pharmacies, investment and other Web-based scams, and pornography featuring violence, bestiality, and incest"

thats the best description of the internet ive ever heard

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[Anonymous Coward]

Whileread ingyou rpo st, Itr iedto ignorey ourty pos,et c.bu tIcju stcan'tdo tha tany more . Bythe way , whyis thi shap pening....??

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[UnixUnix]

> knowing that things will simmer down in October

Ah. October 1, 1993 never comes :(

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[TempeTerra]

Try using the classic index and classic discussion system from your user preferences. It turns slashdot into a mere web page instead of a web 2.0 monstrosity.

Do you trust the FTC?

[Brian Ribbon]

"from the child-porn-world-needs-more-suicides dept."

Several people who I know have been victims of child porn laws, despite not having paid for or traded anything and having therefore not encouraged or facilitated production. Rather than making assumptions about child pornography, you may consider researching the issue. You should also remember that visiting websites which are alleged to contain illegal images - without loading the images (by disabling images in the browser) - is not illegal and can provide significant insight into the issue.

I'd also suggest a critical consideration of the FTC's statements. The war on child pornography is often used as a cover for wars on slightly more popular content which happens to offend the state. I find it rather bizarre that so many people who are critical of the state tend to believe whatever the state and its subsidiaries says about child porn.

I KNOW I'll be modded down for this but...

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Or, possibly, the slashdot editors are playing passive-aggressive with the corporate overlord's demands that slashdot become more like a social networking site, and less like a news aggregator with comments. I think this has been hinted at by Rob & Jamie in the past.

I think that wouldn't be so bad, provided it's done tastefully. You could still have the news and comments, but you could also have the social element running concurrently. Hell, they could even make it possible to opt out of the social networking part, and have a news-only account.

It'd be nice to have the ability to talk to like-minded people, not just in the context of a specific topic specified by the article.

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[Sethus]

Slashdot. The one place where you get modded offtopic for posting with a title starting OFF TOPIC (duh, you didn't think I don't know that? Friggin asshat modder)

Thanks thanks, I've just been going crazy at how difficult it's been to browse Slashdot the last few days. I suppose it's their way of saying "DON'T DO THIS AT WORK!"

Dude, you saw what just happened to 4Chan...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just this Monday...

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[BitZtream]

Okay, I'll hand in my geek card since I'm not sure which one that is today.

Which browser are you using?

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[shentino]

In order of preference

1. Chrome
2. Opera
3. Firefox
4. IE

I only use an alternate browser if every browser above it in the previous list is unavailable.

Ok this is how I know its Bull.

[mr_java66]

I call B.S.

"pornography featuring ... incest"

Really?!?

So each person showed an ID, a copy of their birth certificate and THEN they had sex.

I'd like to see what it really was.

Just make it up as you go along Mr. G man. Nobody listens critcally anyway. :-(