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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.'"
I don't think you really understand what happened. Burst.net is a hosting provider. They found out that one of their thousands of customers was blatantly violating TOS, and shut it down. Bloggetry was that one customer, but they happened to resell what they bought to 70,000 other people, so when one Blogetery user violated Burst.net's TOS, all 70,000 got shutdown. Blggetery is clearly pathetic here, as they relied entirely on someone else's infrastructure, made no attempt to monitor what they were hosting, and had no backup. They had no "investors", Blogetery is one twenty something year old retard who had no idea what he was doing, and was just offering free blog hosting and collecting Adsense dollars. Burst.net has investors, and made the right and obvious call.
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.