Slashdot Mirror
Blogetery Shutdown Due To al-Qaeda Info
Archness1 writes "Over the weekend we discussed news that blog host Blogetery.com had been shut down at the request of the US government. Now, it appears the site was shut down because some of the blogs it was hosting contained information on al-Qaeda hit lists and bomb making. According to the article, Burst.net shut down Blogetery of its own accord after the FBI made a request to the host for information on the people who made the posts. '[Burst.net CTO Joe Marr] said the FBI contacted Burst.net and sent a Voluntary Emergency Disclosure of Information request. The letter said terrorist material, which presented a threat to American lives, was found on a server hosted by Burst.net and asked for specific information about the people involved. In the FBI's letter, the agency included a clause that says Web hosts and Internet service providers may voluntarily elect to shut down the sites of customers involved in these kinds of situations.'"
shut down a bunch of blogs full of possibly useful information!
now we know what all those TS policy makers are paid for.
THL phish sticks
Yes, the hysteria is starting to fade a bit but in the meantime departments such as Homeland Security have grown into unwieldy beasts. I hope you Americans reclaim your civil freedoms soon: you know the ones that have been eroded in the "War on Terror." Terror to who? The occasional nut they do catch or the millions inconvenienced every day just trying to get on a plane? Secret lists... I could go on, the point is stop cowering and be Free again.
Shh.
...the agency included a clause that says Web hosts and Internet service providers may voluntarily elect to shut down the sites of customers involved in these kinds of situations.
The word voluntary has a markedly different meaning when used by law enforcement and government than by the public. As a recent example, the kidnapping of an Iranian nuclear scientist was reported as having left the country "voluntarily". Businesses aren't stupid: If you get a letter from the authorities saying your computer might have terrorist information on it, it's probably best to launch it into space now instead of risking the public hysteria or government's heavy-handed tactics that could land you, your family, and your friends all in jail on "suspicion" of one thing or another.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
If the FBI came to me and told me one of my hosts had bomb making info on it, I'd shut it down too regardless if it was foreign or domestic host, or just even a p0wn.
I can't see any reason to have that info on a web site. It's not like you're going to make a bigger bomb than the US has. You're just going to get some dumb-ass to blow his hand off.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
Huh, so the website went offline by the choice of the hosting provider? I guess we should say that the hosting provider is as bad as China and get moderated +4, Interesting? SquarePixel, care to comment on this now?
My work here is dung.
No WONDER this is front-page news. This level of adult, responsible self-policing is extremely rare in our "I've got mine fuck everyone else" feel-good culture.
I don't see what good all of this would make - so you cleanse sites hosted on US servers from bomb-making info. Stil leaves plenty of them around the rest of the world...
... reason for the shutdown, they were being "economical with the truth"?
I can accept that, perhaps they had a reason to shut down their client (although the reason seems very weak), but to lie about it? They deserve to have their clients move elsewhere and be forced into bankruptcy.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
I truly hope you and the folks who have thus far replied to your post will some day take the time to actually read some of the works that inspired our Constitution. Start with "Common Sense" - it was written so as to be understood by the commoners of the day; hopefully y'all have sufficient education as to be able to understand the work today...
Are you losing sleep for fear of terrorist cells that require instructions from a blog just to construct a potentially lethal incendiary or explosive device? It appears to me that your preconditioned, reflexive knee-jerk would be a greater risk to your personal health.
The occasional nut they do catch or the millions inconvenienced every day just trying to get on a plane? Secret lists... I could go on, the point is stop cowering and be Free again.
You're missing the New American Dictionary.
Promoting Democracy is invading another nation to impose your will on them. National Defense is giving up your liberties for the security provided by Promoting Democracy. And Patriotism is outrage at public money spent on helping your neighbors, unless it's for National Defense or Promoting Democracy.
Trust us. It all makes sense once you throw your principles out the window.
do NOT host anything with burstnet. leave aside a server on their infrastructure, not even a single site.
Read radical news here
There have been several totally bungled operations in other countries too.
Sadly, the conclusion must be that the terrorists are winning. They aimed to destroy the western way of life and they are certainly making progress at it.
Yet another potential source of useful intelligence shut down.
step 1: fill glass jug halfway with gasoline.
step 2: stuff dry rag in hole.
step 3: light and throw at one of the following acceptable Al-Qaeda targets:
- Al Franken
- the dumpsters behind the Pentagon
- New York City
- drones (any, unmanned aircraft can't possibly be kosher with the Koran)
Cool, so that means the current Department of Homeland Security alert level of yellow/orange actually means there's information out there regarding an actual threat, and not just a constant elevated paranoia to cover their asses if something bad actually goes down?
http://www.dhs.gov/files/programs/Copy_of_press_release_0046.shtm
When the threat is mitigated, do we finally get to reduce the threat level to blue or green? What are the criteria for actually reaching that? :P
It doesn't get any better than this..... They shut it down, they're pandering to federal government. The don't shut it down, they're supporting terrorists. They shut it down, they're giving in to Big Money over an independent 'net. They don't shut it down and they're aiding and abetting anti-American behaviour. They shut it down, they're Killing Free Speech. They don't shut it down and they're......well, to be honest I could go off on 101 diatribes. I've got great Slashdot karma, my comments have a pretty high average, hell...I don't even have to watch adverts or even give them money....and yet I have this weird feeling that I fundamentally disagree with both sides of Slashdot arguments, On both a mathematical and psychological level, this worries me.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
This has already been addressed above. . eldavojohn, care to comment on this post now?
In other news, both google.com and bing.com and 10s of thousands of servers behind those domains are scheduled to be voluntarily shut down later today due to the fact that they may have indexed and cached some of the offensive content.
What am I missing?
It was Qwest's choice not to participate in Bush's warrantless wiretapping... see where that got them?
"Voluntary" and "Choice" are words that mean something entirely different when the government can throw you in jail for not making the right choice.
I'm not sure why the above is considered trollish, though the tone might be snippy. It's true that US policymakers didn't shut down the blog themselves, but what are you supposed to think if you're a website owner and you get a letter from FBI advising you that material on your website threatens American lives and that you "may voluntarily elect to shut down the sites of customers involved in these kinds of situations." If anything the feds should be doing the opposite -- advise the blog owner to keep open a potentially useful source of information so it could be watched. The guys who want to blow things up are going to find a way to connect with each other and find whatever info they need to build bombs elsewhere; the question is whether they do it with or without their enemies watching.
This has already been addressed above. . eldavojohn, care to comment on this post now?
Sure, why not? The post you linked to I find quite humorous because if you actually read section 2702 it says nothing about voluntarily shutting down your server. It's talking about voluntary disclosure of communications. That's assuming that whoever sent them the notice had already found the messages in question.
Tell me, where in that code did you find the information that they should voluntarily shut down their server or face life threatening consequences?
The reason the server was shut down -- I assume -- is because they were notified that they were serving such information and they had two choices A) read every single blog posting and verify that no more of that information is on that server or B) shut it down and be safe.
Guess what they did? The guy that was collecting adsense dollars on a huge ring of blogs got shut down by the private company he was "in contract" to. Oh well, business sucks. I think it's disingenuous to blame all of this on the United States government or even imply they were threatening someone's life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
My work here is dung.
I assume DHS will be raiding libraries nationwide, removing books on bomb making, explosives, etc?
And of course many chemistry texts, especially those which focus on such experiments?
Then they can go and visit our colleges, universities, and technical schools, so that these institutions can discontinue any teaching of such dangerous and unacceptable subjects?
This is unfortunate and sad, that our Administration would stoop to such an infringement on our First Amendment. Ignore the futility of the act.
Let me repeat. This is a First Amendment violation.
Now the al-Qaeda stuff, if they were posting contact info and such, well, darn. Gotta stop that. No point in aiding and abetting.
But bomb-making by itself isn't a crime is it? I have a few friends that still live in the woods, and they have a bit of fun with blowing stuff up occasionally, like stumps and old cars. It's their property.
We're in trouble.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I still don't understand why the FBI did not ask directly blogetery to shut down the couple of blogs involved, and why burst.net chose to shut down blogetery instead of forwarding the FBI request to them. It does not make sense and seems to be a very bad decision from burst.net. As well ask Verizon or AT&T to cut the Internet cables powering burst.net. Besides, it's only blogetery who knows the IPs of these blogs, not burst.net. Or am I missing something? The FBI did not seem to have contacted blogetery owner at all, as he stated in the previous article that the shutdown might have been caused by copyright infringement. He obviously had not clue why his blog hosting site was shut down. Geez, not only has slashdot home page the worst display design for articles, baring maybe The Register, but its design for comments are even worse. Somebody knows a way to expand all the abbreviated comments?
I'm not sure if the company was being responsible our of their own sense of morality, or if they just didn't want to deal with government pressure in the form of subpoenas and warrants later.
You win the Bad Analogy of The Day award.
If I was able to post the information on my Facebook page, would the US Government shut down Facebook, or would Zuckerberg agree to cooperate with the FBI? (Not that I have the information, btw)
So, the Burst.net guys get a request for information about a machine they host which has ~70k users, give or take. Instead of asking the box's sysadmin (who's their CLIENT), they pull the pin, then go on to mutter vague conspiracy-minded commentary such as "getting a refund is the least of his (the site owner/sysadmin) problems" on fora such as WHT (see http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=05a61aabdfcacdb369e1582aff4686a1&t=964013 ) Apparently the fact that he _received_ abuse complaints in the past was grounds to terminate his service; never mind the fact that he had SEVENTY THOUSAND USERS and acted on DMCA notifications and other abuse requests in a timely fashion, which is better than can be said about a lot of sites.
Had burst.net forwarded the request to the site owner (or even simply given the feds his name, and explained how he fit in) instead of disconnecting the machine, making borderline slanderous statements (such as 'he'll never get his data back' and 'a refund is the least of his worries right now',) they would have come out of this looking reasonably good. As it stands, you'd have to be completely brain-dead retarded to even think about giving them money.
You're doing it wrong.
I'm constantly told that information yearns to be free.
Where are the mirrors?
Oh, you didn't mean *really* free.
No matter which particular branch of government performs the action: We have always been at war with Al-Qaeda. Mr. Orwell was an optimist, he thought it would happen early.
Shh.
You sound like just another tool.
...al-Qaeda is not a single organized group but rather what ever any government wants to claim it is at any given moment. Be it a group of drug runners, arms dealers, mothers (if the giovernment so choses to call the group such... and the public will associate bad, as in organized single group to them. This way government drug runners, arms dealers and mothers can have a never ending war.
Magic word "al-Qaeda" to get public approval.
The reason the server was shut down -- I assume -- is because they were notified that they were serving such information and they had two choices A) read every single blog posting and verify that no more of that information is on that server or B) shut it down and be safe.
You're forgetting the third option:
C) The owners love their country and are pissed off that someone is using their service to host anti-American content.
Companies are owned by people, and people have opinions and the right to act on them. I would not be surprised if this were part of the decision making process (though money can get people to turn a blind eye to things they find distasteful).
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
More than likely they were not permitted to share the fact that the US Gov had sent the request until after a certain event or time period.
In other words, they could be completely truthful in both cases: They may have shut down the server directly because they received the request - maybe they didn't want to take the liability, or maybe they just love their country and hate these kinds of assholes and wanted them off their site. They may also have been prevented from divulging the request due to its nature and sensitivity.
This would lead to the situation where they shut it down completely of their own accord, yet could not divulge exactly why they took it down until well after the fact.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
The amazing thing isn't how much our society has let our rights be destroyed over the past 9 years, it's how little the people in power have taken advantage of it so far, as far as we know.
Fixed that for you.
The US investigative agencies have a long history of abuses that only make it to the public perception decades after the fact. This produces a perpetual state of plausible deniability: "Well, yeah, 'way back then there were some systematic abuses - by people long since retired or dead. But it's not like that anymore." Then another twenty years later you find out about what was going on THEN. Rinse and repeat.
One thing that's different now is that the Internet makes any conspiracy of silence among the commercial media visible in something close to real time. But even the bloggers have problems finding out about such abuses and bringing evidence of them to the public attention - above the endless background clamor of baseless accusations and government attempts to shut them, or their access to outlets, down. This is especially difficult given the current laws that make it a felony to even mention that certain abuses are occurring - ESPECIALLY if they're happening TO YOU.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Can somebody please post al-Queda hit lists and bomb making info here
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
When a government "suggests" you do something to avoid an unpleasant government intervention upon you (or your company) and you cave to that suggestion to avoid the response of the suggester; you become an agent of the government in censorship. A private company of its own volition, without any notice from the government turns off a site that violates TOS? Fine, that's barely acceptable C2P censorship, but as soon as the government makes a suggestion? No. Sorry. Unacceptable.
See the fine distinction?
Clues cost a quarter eldavojohn and you get this one gratis.
on those guys. or they wouldn't have made the request, including the little line at the end that basically said, "you have a pistol. you know what to do for esprit de corps. we will be back in 15 minutes."
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
So... if you had 70,000+ accounts, and the government came to you and said a relative few of them might have terrorist material, you are going to voluntarily shut everybody down?
If they were that concerned, why didn't they server a warrant or National Security Letter? Certainly they could have gotten a warrant in less than a day, and a National Security Letter would not take even that long.
In the EU, the host's actions would have been illegal. And I think it should be here, too. Not the shutting down of the server, necessarily (although I think that was a gross over-reaction and irresponsible on the part of the host), but releasing information to the government.
Just read the linked thread by affiliateplex. Are slashdot commenters usually so hateful?
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=964013
Burst.net clearly takes no account of its own contract if it does not consider his customers responsible for handling the situation:
Paragraph 4.5 states: "Client shall be solely responsible for all content available on or through its site"
Many commenters said that burst.net had no choice in the matter, but I beg to differ. Burst.net should have redirected the FBI to the rightful contact, the owner of blogetery.
Many also accuse affiliateplex of having broken the law. If so, Facebook and Google Blogger have broken the law thousands of times for child porn. Were they shut down? Of course not, only the individual illegal/infringing blogs were shut down, not the whole service.
Others also say affiliateplex should monitor every post in every blog he hosts. What a stupid nonsense. Again, Facebook and Blogger don't monitor their blogs. Instead, they have a "Report this blog" button for readers to signal potentially illegal blogs. Only then do they take action to verify if the claim was justified.
I really feel sorry for affiliateplex, he certainly did not deserve both the shutdown of his hosting site and the hate comments, and he has all my sympathy and support.
Back over 10 years ago I worked at a porn hosting company, a big one. It was adult content only.
If a customer posted a picture of someone under 18, even fully clothed, we would shut the site down. Period. No refund. Was it illegal to post a picture of a minor in a non-sexual context? No, but we would not allow it on our servers because of the context of our business. Our servers and network, our call.
If the image of the minor was in a sexual context then hard-drives were pulled and put in the company lawyers safe and the FBI called.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
If this is really about terrorist info, then it would seem like a useful thing to do would be to grab the IP address of the person who's doing the posting and allow them to give up as much information as they like, while blocking anyone else from reading it. You might not get much, but you might get something useful. Oh, and keep hold of the access logs to see who's frequenting the site.
But since they didn't do any of the sorts of things that would be useful for actually tracking down the bad guys, this looks an awful lot like they wanted to hit something else hosted on the same box but needed a good excuse.
I am officially gone from
There are a thousand ways to say it but our government is simply wasting effort and money with this bomb nonsense. Anyone who ever took a decent chemistry courses or even courses in other sciences surely knows how to make bombs. If they are such mental midgets that all science education somehow missed them then going to a library and studying a bit of chemistry would teach them all that they would need to know.
And it gets even funnier. I watched a TV show last night on Secrets of the CIA. One of the items was the making of bomb fuses in occupied areas. They were talking fuses designed to go off hours or even days after the bomb was set and they did not use clocks.
Frankly I can not fathom any reason for not letting information about bomb building being in books or on the net. One huge issue in chemistry is that a student may very well make a fairly potent explosive by accident. It actually happens and real injuries take place even though the samples made by accident are usually very small. They very way that you teach a student how not to create explosives auto instructs them on just how to build explosives. You can't create a safe lab environment without some training in how not to blow up the lab.
So save our tax money and chase a more worthwhile goal. And while doing so keep in mind that if we are ever occupied by a foreign enemy making bombs is a really handy skill for large numbers of the population to be able to implement.
FTFA:
The Burst.net employee who handled the request erroneously believed that the FBI would want to seize the customer's server and thus the employee cut off service to Blogetery. Marr said the FBI, however, never asked for the server.
Well, that could clear up some of the shitty posts here.
Also FFTA:
Sources close to the investigation say that included in those materials were the names of American citizens targeted for assassination by al-Qaeda. Messages from Osama bin Laden and other leaders of the terrorist organization, as well as bomb-making tips, were also allegedly found on the server.
Now, just my speculation here, but obviously there's a lot of "terrorist" crap all over American servers that the Gov doesn't give two shits about. So maybe in this case the FBI concluded that the information was actual communication from the organization, etc, and not just drivel. If so, good for them for removing it. Removing a "hit list" doesn't violate free speech that I care for. Either way, burstnet made a mistake and one that is probably an honest mistake. Shit happens.
Of course that is not what happened. The government went to Burst.net and said ONE of your thousands of customers might have terrorist material, and Burst.net (a privately held company) turned off that ONE account. The fact that that one customer was reselling the service to thousands of other people is not Burst.net's concern. The fact that that one customer was running their business in such a manner that allowed the actions of one customer to jeopardize all the other customers is not Burst.net's concern.
Yes, it was one account from their perspective, but it was 70,000 accounts from other peoples' perspectives.
Try to look at it from a different point of view. What if Burst.net had servers co-located somewhere else? And what if the owners of that server farm had found out about this same thing? Would they then have been justified in shutting down Burst.net? After all... it's just "one account".
There were other possible ways to handle the issue. I do not believe that burst.net's actions represented the most responsible option they had available.
Source links?
The only "mistake" made was when an employee inadvertently let out that it was a "federal matter", when he was not supposed to tell that much. Burst.net official statement states that the take down was a conscious decision made after reviewing the blogs referenced by the FBI, not an "honest mistake": https://www.burst.net/news/blogetry.shtml
Plus I wonder how happy the FBI is with burst.net's decision and all the publicity: It might have wanted to infiltrate the terrorist blog(s) or at least track which IPs were posting or commenting on it. The FBI was only asking burst.net who the blogetery owner was.
Instead of closing down these blogs, why not impose fine on print & electronic media, if they're publishing lies.
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
Search "how to make a bomb" with Google. Not only do you get videos and diagrams, Google is very helpful in coming up with additional information:
Searches related to "how to make a bomb":
It's not like it's difficult information to find. A Justice Department report says "the DOJ committee has determined that anyone interested in manufacturing a bomb, dangerous weapon, or a weapon of mass destruction can easily obtain detailed instructions from readily accessible sources, such as legitimate reference books, the so-called underground press, and the Internet."
Y'know, now that this particular website has been closed down, we now have only the word of the FBI, and MAYBE the website operators that such subversive info was actually being hosted there. Whatever evidence existed is now effectively removed from the view of any without a security clearance.
While this would be a pragmatic approach in the hands of an honest agency conducting honest work, given the prior history of the DHS under Bush, and now Obama, can we actually say we have honest work being done by an honest agency anymore?
On the other hand, leaving such information out there definitely constitutes a considerable security risk, assuming it really is for real.
Catch-22's like this are PRECISELY the reason any government that even pretends at democracy MUST be accountable to its citizens at some level, because without that, any legitimacy, moral or otherwise, is little more than an obvious sham for all the rest of the world to see. A lack of legitimacy is, arguably, a FAR greater security risk than any terrorist's weapon ever could be, as it invites attack from not only without its borders, but also from within amongst its own people. Got doubts? Ask Manuel Noriega how he likes his vacation.
I truly hope that some semblance of sanity can be returned to the governing powers of the U.S., whatever and whomever that may now be. I can't say I have much confidence in that outcome anytime soon, however.
"The letter said terrorist material, which presented a threat to American lives"
Only American lives? So if 'teh terrorists' had been talking about bombing England or Canada, the website would have been let off?
Maybe the guys at Burst.net are neither villains nor tools.
As I understand it, when the Stasi want something removed from the net, they typically send a National Security Letter demanding said removal, and forbidding disclosure of their demand. One convenient way to bring light to a secret removal order is for the hosting company to comply with it in a way that maximizes inconvenience to the internet community at large. It's a nice alternative to quietly silencing a blog without due process in open court -- who does that anymore? -- that probably (probably...) won't get anyone from Burst.net thrown into the Gulag, sued into destitution, or disappeared off to Guantanamo for some "enhanced interrogation".
Although I'm aware that Al Qaeda does exist and most probably does have some knowledge, understanding and ability in using the web for communication, there are still questions about this case that persist. These questions are simply some that I'd personally want answered in order to understand more about Al Qaeda and how that network of people operates.
For instance, if it's possible that CNET had a somewhat reliable unnamed source close to the investigation who willfully provided the name of the online magazine from which the apparent threat originated, how is it that no more than the name of that online mag. was provided? Why not make that information available as well? Say for instance, why not provide as much information about a given URI associated with that web / blog site in order that other web users may see the site and help combat the threat? This is especially true if the site recently debuted.
I simply would like a more technical explanation, beyond what that clause the FBI used, suggests is appropriate.
The story is just really bizarre. Not in a funny, entertaining kind of way either.
That's because you don't know enough to come to a decision.
If the sites were there and listed you would go look at it, and see for yourself.
Imagine two scenarios.
A) The site is a list of individuals, home addresses, times they go to work, security around them, best kill times and how to get the munitions or explosives.
B) It is a comment similar to "America's most wanted" with general discussion on why a fertilizer bomb explodes.
See without the ability to see the info you cannot make up your mind yourself. If it's B) that's not a lot different to any other discussion blog, or indeed the US government terrorist "hit lists".
So most of the slashdot think it's B) because the DHS has a vested interest in exaggerating threats to justify its budget, and a few will think it's A) because they trust American government implcitly.
IMHO, I'd like to see the sites (even if a few names a blacked out and a few critical technical details removed), and judge for myself.
OK, Im confused now.
When a black hat releases information about US military operations, it's shut down to stop it being known about by anyone other than the US military.
When a website releases information about Al Quaida military operations, it's shut down to stop it being known about by anyone other than Al Quaida.
Is this proof that the US military is working for Al Quaida?
Or add an innocuous ingredients that will act as a tip off. Like 25Kg of UltraBrite tooth paste. Then work with the retailers to detect a spike in these honey-pot tip-off ingredients to watch fewer number of people instead of all the 330 million people in the USA.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
if a farmer has to grind a stump and another guy has to use a snow shovel, i really don't see the problem with locking explosives from the general public. if stumps and snow removal is the best argument you can offer for keeping explosives easy to access, then i'm sorry, explosives should be illegal, because those arguments are miniscule
and jackboots you say? we're talking about EXPLOSIVES. not dirty pictures on the internet or political dissent. you simply don't fucking need explosives in ordinary civilian life. if this inconveniences a few rednecks in the woods who want to blow dem stuff up real goodie like, who fucking cares, inconvenience the fucking rednecks. its not the march of jackboots. really. find a more convincing argument
talk about hyperbole and hysteria
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It was just a request to the company, not a legal demand for action.
If your country's legal authority **requested** that you perform something to help with the capturing terrorists, wouldn't you do a little research then take appropriate action?
Here's what I would do (I do run servers, but not hosting).
1) I'd carefully review the federal request.
2) I'd look at the specifics of the request to determine whether it is general or specific. If it is general and we can't find the offending articles, we wouldn't do anything.
3) If it is specific AND points directly to the blog entries AND those entries are suspicious, then we'd talk with our lawyers, but prepare to help the authorities in the way they request.
4) We would not publicize any involvement and we'd limit the number of internal people involved and remind them of their non-disclosure agreements.
We'd like to avoid taking down a complete domain, but if that was really requested, then the specifics of how it was done would be discussed. We'd probably force some corruption on their DB and claim a HW failure. "Taking down a domain" can mean many things. Change the DNS record, prevent the website from loading, or delete the registration record. We'd want to migrate any other clients on the same hardware to different servers if we can.
Seriously, what would you or your company do?
Source:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20010923-261.html
"In the FBI's letter, the agency included a clause that says Web hosts and Internet service providers may voluntarily elect to shut down the sites of customers involved in these kinds of situations. The Burst.net employee who handled the request erroneously believed that the FBI would want to seize the customer's server and thus the employee cut off service to Blogetery. Marr said the FBI, however, never asked for the server."
"The current standard composition for the black powders that are manufactured by pyrotechnicians was adopted as long ago as 1780. Proportions by weight are 75% potassium nitrate (known as saltpeter or saltpetre), 15% softwood charcoal, and 10% sulfur." ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackpowder#Black_powder )
Wikipedia is next I guess...
Hey, all you terrorists out there! Looking for a new kind of attack? Want to freak out a good part of the US population? Here's a little tip: just go and get yourselves accounts on all major blogging sites and start posting about bomb making and stuff...
I'm currently evaluating datacenters to host a new application. Burst.net was on the short list, but they aren't any longer.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Why not let it keep going, and monitor the traffic. Wouldn't this simplify the gathering of Intelligents? Instead you force the people you want to monitor to other site(s). And now you have to find them. It just like cleaning up bad neighbourhoods in cities. Drugs & prostitution are always going to exist. By cracking down in an area, it simply displaces the problem.... potentially closer to your own neighbourhood.
"Consumers everywhere want to have confidence that the internet companies they rely on will provide comprehensive search results and act as responsible stewards of their information."
"Censorship should not be in any way accepted by any company anywhere," Clinton declared. "American companies should take a principled stand."
-- US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, referring to Chinese internet censorship.
Source links?
Holy shit, how stupid are you?
FTFA:
The source links are in the damn summary.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Also FFTA:
I once got a STD FFTA.
And yet another hate comment... No need to insult people, and don't forget that not everybody is a native English speaker who can easily understand that FFTA stands for FTFA, which is a stupid acronym anyway. "Farking", really?
Yes, I know, you also wrote the correct spelling in the first instance, but I didn't see both had different spellings, and when I tried to understand that "FFTA", I thought maybe it was the name of the blogger or site you referred to, hence my natural question for sources.
And none of the excerpts you mentioned earlier are taken from the article's "damn summary", they are from one of the 3 links in the article (CNET). Anyways, I just wanted to react when you defended burst.net by saying their decision was an "honest mistake", it was a mistake indeed, but there is nothing "honest" in it, their official statement says that it was a conscious decision. I don't think such a professional business would kill a whole blogging platform without due consideration of all the implications.
Thanks, @Ano. I know where the citations were from, I was merely asking @Liquidrage to make his post more readable.
For the same amount of letters, "CNET:" would be more understandable than "FFTA:" incorrectly spelled, confidential and cryptic FTFA acronym.
Acronyms are evil!
*you => read @Liquidrage
http://cryptome.net/Inspire.zip
The 1st amendment will not be pwned.
Note the hitlist based on cartoons, and
the sneakers-graphic p 18 for US blacks.
So assuming its the FBI is not right and might not be the case.