Slashdot Mirror
Libya Takes Hard Line On Link Shortening Domains
Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that Libyan government has removed an adult-friendly link-shortening service from the web, saying that it fell afoul of local laws in a crackdown that could come as a blow to other url shortening services such as bit.ly, which is particularly popular on Twitter where all messages have to be limited to 140 characters. 'Other ly domains are being deregistered and removed without warning,' says Co-founder of vb.ly Ben Metcalfe. 'We eventually discovered that the domain has been seized because the content of our website, in their opinion, fell outside of Libyan Islamic/Sharia Law.' Alaeddin ElSharif from NIC.ly, the body that controls Libyan web addresses, told vb.ly co-founder Violet Blue that a picture of her on the website had sparked the removal. 'I think you'll agree that a picture of a scantily clad lady with some bottle in her hand isn't what most would consider decent or family friendly,' says ElSharif. 'While letters "vb" are quite generic and bear no offensive meaning in themselves, they're being used as a domain name for an openly admitted "adult-friendly url shortener." It is when you promote your site being solely for adult uses ... that we as a Libyan registry have an issue.'"
Won't anybody stop this insanity and think of the adults who crave link-shortened pictures of "a scantily clad lady with some bottle in her hand"?
Seems fine to me. You don't have to play on their turf
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Won't anybody stop this insanity and think of the adults who crave link-shortened pictures of "a scantily clad lady with some bottle in her hand"?
I wouldn't even call her 'scantily clad' but you can judge for yourself here.
My work here is dung.
http://5z8.info/refugee-murder_g6m3x_cockfights
Depends on what you consider moral or immoral in your culture.
A lot of folk howled with laughter in Europe when middle America made a fuss about Janet Jackson showing off her body during Superbowl one year, in mainland Europe you'll see advertising hoardings promoting perfume, moisturisers etc with half naked models and nobody even blinks. While on the other hand a lot of Europeans freak out at aspects of US gun culture that pass without comment across the Atlantic. All over the world people have different opinions on what is right and what is wrong.
You want to use a Libyan DNS, I guess you have to abide by Libyan rules.... A classic case of a global economy confronting local norms and attitudes. Who is right and who is wrong? how do you decide? (wish I had the answer but alas I don't.....)
I always read NSFW as New South F'ing Wales.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
dastard.ly
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Why do these sites have to register in Lybia, of all places?
Why not .us? toysr.us, come2.us, go2.us, etc, are just as short.
Oliver.
Short domain names can be had on any TLD.
I fail to see what's so special about an URL ending in .ly, apart from the smug cleverness that some punsters might conceive.
No one is going to type in such an URL, and clicking works just the same across TLD's. And if you are complaining about 'all the good domains are taken' perhaps you could lobby for the squaters to be rounded up and shot.
The offending image
Really, I think we can all agree Libya made the correct decision! =D
While letters 'vb' are quite generic and bear no offensive meaning in themselves
He's obviously not a software developer.
If US states had top-level domains under their control, I can imagine quite a few that would try to do the same thing.
It's just conservative cultural mores, which come in all religious flavors. Libya doesn't want its domain used for sexual matters, Texas won't let you buy or sell vibrators, and I think some places still enforce the sabbath so that few businesses are open on Sunday. Connecticut doesn't allow take-out sales of alcohol on Sundays. Various localities in the US ban alcohol sales altogether. John Ashcroft covered up a public statue's boob with a curtain when he was AG.
Talking about sharia just puts it into "oooh, scary muslims! They're so alien and different!" territory.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
It is their domain and they can do anything they want with it, including saying no to people who want to give the terrorist state money.
But, since when does Qaddafi give a crap about Sharia?
Ah, good, thanks for the link, you'd think it would be something that would be incredibly obvious to include in the story, but apparently not.
I included it in my summary that I submitted a half hour before pickens but they selected his instead because mine was voted down to purple in firehose for some reason. Guess I wrote the wrong headline as I've got the same quotes he does plus the picture.
My work here is dung.
Wait, why the hell are people registering domains in Libya to shorten URLs?
They don't exactly have a history as a nice place and they have been suspected in supporting terrorism.
WTF is Twitter doing running stuff through a domain registered in friggin' Libya?? Why not just run a couple through Iran or Myanmar while we're at it?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
This type stuff has been going on for years. It is nothing new! I used to own xg.nu, on it I ran a large anon server averaging 3.5 million unique hits a month and 500,000 messages a day. .nu domain notified me that Anonymity was not permitted and took the domain back. Point is, this happens a lot more than it is reported. There is no real recourse for this, you live, learn, and move on.
The island state of Niue Who owns the
Everyone make "bit.ly" shortcuts to places like pornotube,tube8,xvideos,etc and email them to the contacts found at http://nic.ly/contactus.php
I have to return some videotapes...
The funniest aspect of this whole thing is the ultra-cool black turtleneck set with a whole list of Ajaxy Web 2.0 gradient-fill, extra white-space, pastel color sites from here to Timbuktu getting smacked down by ... ultra uncool Libya.
Did anybody know Libya owned .ly before this?
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
It troubles me to no end the lengths people will go today in the name of religion. It's actually becoming common place for someone to have an extreme view and use the blanket of religion to protect them.
I have no problem with someone having beliefs, I too have them, but I base them off common sense, not because some book says I should do things. Questioning the institution is essential for growth. The middle east seems stuck in eternal infancy.
It troubles me to no end the lengths people will go today in the name of religion. It's actually becoming common place for someone to have an extreme view and use the blanket of religion to protect them.
It was always this way. Hell, arguably the USA was founded by a bunch of people who wanted to practise religion in their own way and didn't see how it was the governments' business.
If you think people will go to extreme lengths today..... emigrating on a sail boat two hundred and fifty years ago was no picnic. A journey that took months, a bunk not much longer (and rather narrower) than the desk I'm sitting at now, any disease had nowhere to go but infect everyone on board. And the food had to be stuff that would keep, being as there was no refrigeration. Precious little idea of what you had to look forward to at the other end, being as the most you'd have heard would have been the odd letter from friends or relatives who'd already gone over. You'd have to be really hacked off to go to that kind of extreme.
"I know! I'll run off and register up.kp for my new service! Surely Kim Jong-* won't mind if I toss out some links to starvation in the People's Democratic Republic of Nutjobs!"
Seriously? It seemed like a good idea to set up a business in the gTLD a country widely known for religious extremity, full well knowing that your business would never be physically tolerated, and that it can be shut down by clicking a checkbox without even having to call in police and bulldozers?
And perhaps I'd care more if this wasn't a stupid kind of business to be running in the first place. The "product" is useless outside Twitter and it adds an unnecessary single point of failure (homed in freaking LIBYA!) to an otherwise robust Internet. Well, you rolls the dice and you takes your chances.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Classic example of why URL shorteners should be considered harmful. Twitter is mostly to blame, I've had to shorten URLs for tweets before, but Twitter could employ better tactics than using the full url as the anchor text too.
So, the US and NL and BE and DE etc governments have NOT sought out such control over the domains for their countries BUT this means nothing to you. That LY HAS sought out the control and uses it, is just the same as western countries NOT seeking such control and not using it.
An Islam-apologist, you are doing it great.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Could someone please put a Burqa on that Gaddafi guy? The face is scaring the children!
Quite antiquated language - are Libya living in Dickensian times ?
while (true != false) process_more_stupid_code();
i think if you said what saddam hussein did was because of islam, any muslim would be equally insulted
you can't confuse what is done in the name of a government or a state with what is done in the name of religion and consider yourself a serious commentator on anything. you are merely demonstrating that you don't understand the subject matter
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Nothing of value was lost.
they are taking down a website which violated their TOS. Maybe we don't agree with their subjectivity but they are taking much more appropriate measures instead of getting all fundamental extremist over it.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
bite.me is still available.
I'm not sure if the picture of the chick on the parking page is sharia-compliant or not. (SFW, though).
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Interesting.
A while back, I posted something on a travel board asking about how easy it would be to clear customs and what sort of procedures I would encounter when I fly into Prague with a couple of pistols (coming from the U.S.). I didn't feel it was necessary to explain that a major shooting competition takes place in the Czech Republic every two years so I didn't mention the reason for the firearms.
To me, this seems like a perfectly innocent inquiry. Isn't it common to carry a firearm or two with you when you travel?
I expected to receive a couple of polite replies concerning the layout of baggage claims, etc. What I got was a firestorm of angry and scared-sounding responses from people who reacted as if I were trying to smuggle weaponized anthrax.
So, what's the deal, anyway? Are all Europeans (well, not all; some attend those shooting matches I was trying to get to) so irrationally afraid of firearms? Why?
As a guy who grew up where half the pickup trucks parked in the student lot at the local high school had clearly-visible rifles in the gun racks, I find the response I received utterly mystifying. I'd love to hear from some Europeans (or anyone else) who could give me a clue what's behind these attitudes.
and they act in an unauthorized manner in rare insances on behalf of their religion. and?
as if this in any way has anything to do with the official policy, intent, goals, and purpose of the us military. the us military is concerned with the interests and agenda of the us government. if you cannot keep that separate from religion, you are simply making a fool of yourself
you'd be laughed at just as hard as if you told a muslim that saddam hussein's actions were because of islam. just because a country is majority islam or majority christian, the actions of the state has nothing to do with that, and in fact, is often at odds with the religion of the majority of its citizens
state!=religion
if you can't keep that straight, you're just a ridiculous fool
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I find someone who needs the threat of eternal torment to justify ethical behavior to be of questionable character.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Sounds more lawyer speak than anything else to me..... check your local lawyers out and any legal documents you've signed of significance (mortgage etc).
i am merely destroying the idea that the problems with religion and state in the muslim world are the same as the problems with religion and state in the christian world. the problem exists in both worlds, but you are a fool or a liar if you don't understand that the problem in the muslim world is orders of magnitude worse
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
they are taking down a website which violated their TOS. Maybe we don't agree with their subjectivity but they are taking much more appropriate measures instead of getting all fundamental extremist over it.
Exactly right. In the end it IS their domain, a fact that seems somehow to be sneaking by most posters here.
#DeleteChrome
what's your point?
i am refuting the idea that the problems with fundamentalism in the christian world (right now, not 150 years ago) are same as the problems with fundamentalism in the muslim world. no: the problems are the same KIND, but completely different MAGNITUDE. namely, that the muslim world has a much, much larger problem
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Then choose a valid domain name from the start. That would be like if .ot was a country, this website would be hosted on http://slashd.ot/. The Internet is too much of a gimmick, all about the packaging, and less so about the product, your content. WTF do you want a domain name in Libya or another state you wouldn't even be able to locate on a map? Blame yourself, not the country you registered your domain in.
You know what, they're right to do this and should not be ridiculed. This is a perfectly legitimate thing for them to do in my mind. It's the Libyan national registry. They have their cultural standards just as we have ours. Why shouldn't they be able to deny registration under their TLD if it does not comport with their cultural standards?
It's their domain, they can do whatever they want with it.
Don't like it? Sucks to be you. Move on.
Exactly right. In the end it IS their domain, a fact that seems somehow to be sneaking by most posters here.
Well, that's just it... it's not their domain at all, they don't own it. Second-level domains belong to the person who registered the domain, the "registrant". There may be restrictions or qualifications to register a domain (for example, a requirement to have a presence in the country), but once registered, the registry has very little business asking what type of content will be hosted on servers listed in the user's DNS zone.
.LY is the TLD set aside or reserved for the use by the internet community in their country. People / Organizations in the country don't own the TLD.
Indeed. The TLD is set aside by IANA for the Internet community in Libya.. that does not mean the TLD belongs to the country of Libya. That does not mean the TLD belongs to whoever "applied for it" first or whoever happens to operate the registry right now.
Some organization who is a trustee designated by IANA for the TLD operates the registry, and implements policies and procedures for registration and maintenance of domains, for the benefit of the Internet community in Libya.
Trustee != Owner
They have the internet in Libya?
The same goes for Nudoman/Nunames and the .nu domain, somewhat popular in Scandinavia.
I had an attractive and short .nu domain, registered and used according to Nudomain rules for more than 10 years.
However, Nudomain didn’t give any reason for taking back that domain from me, they just patched their billing system making it impossible to pay for that domain.
The current CEO of Nunames, Mr Lars-Göran Forsberg, boasts that “It is entirely appropriate that. .nu choose not to renew a contract”.
We need ICANN to take action on this. Now.
Until then, stay away from crooked ccTLDs like .nu from Nunames and choose regulated domains .com.
Companies like bit.ly just move the domain to the Cook Islands' commercial TLD and rename the company to something like "big" or "fat". In case you didn't already know or didn't want to look, the tld would be .co.ck (ie big.co.ck). They could also protest Libya by registering libyasucks in the same TLD.
It is sort of justified if you look back at what they were fleeing from.
Alas today politicians are oh so keen on ruling one nation under GOD.
I don't think most of them have even read the constitution.
Although, while not scantily clad, I think she is someone I'd still prefer to see in a Burqa.
Many women who dress in skimpy clothes shouldn't, whereas many of the women you'd like to see dress in skimpy clothes don't. :)
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Thankfully, ana.ly still works. :)
-Ed Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.
And the first-century longhair, and the 20th century potheads who think Haile Selassie was the Second Coming thereof, and the Israeli pioneers in monotheistic synergy-leveraging innovation, and this ... http://www.magiccards.info/od/en/320.html
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
there's an entire range of variables in there that you aren't considering
you don't win moral arguments by appealing to simplicity. simplicity is for fundamentalists. are you a fundamentalist? real morality is complex, its about subtlety and nuance, not brutal categorization. and if your thinking isn't complex, you have no right talking about morality at all
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The delta between Lady GaGa's outfits is a lot wider than the difference in US religious beliefs from 1910 to 2010.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
...I have often heard the argument that armed civilians would cooperate with/be a backup or reinforcement to military personnel who remain amongst the "good guys" if the shit hits the fan.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
"Amendments to this Constitution ... shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution" - Article Five
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
That was my first thought as well - the other CC TLD's are just as short, and certainly some three-character names are available somewhere else if necessary
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
I don't think most of them have even read the constitution.
I think it might be more that none have studied history. The whole point of "separation of church and state" was that the government has no right to dictate how people practise their religion.
Religion isn't the only reason that causes people to be upset by porn. Some people feel it objectifies women, for example. (I'm not one of those people)
'Nuff Said!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Let's look at Germany. Germany is much less warlike than the USA because you beat that nonsense out of us. We won't need guns to invade another country because we won't invade another country*. A defensive army gets less of the ultra-cool high tech stuff so our equipment tends to be more on the ...rustic side. So we're a bit less enamored with army equipment.
Let's look at day to day gun ownership. What are the two main reasons for owning guns in the United States? Self defense and the ability to overthrow the government if neccessary. Self defense is actually something where guns are a self-fulfilling prophecy: If everyone has guns then everyone has guns. In a country where gun laws have always been strict (such as Germany) most criminals won't carry them because a) getting them legally means getting the police's attention, b) getting them illegally is expensive and/or difficult and c) if the cops notice you have a gun you can be sure of their full attention; if they notice you do so illegally you're screwed.
So yes, strong gun laws from the beginning do create a society where non-gun defense methods aren't automatically outclassed. Plus, people aren't as likely to shoot you if they don't assume that you're going to shoot them. I lose the ability to deal as much damage (unless I get a permit and even then it's heavily restricted) but so does everyone else. Yes, organized crime does have guns but they're dangerous primarily because they're organized crime, not because of the guns.
As for overthrowing the government: One of the things the allies have taught us when they built modern Germany is that overthrowing the government is evil. If you intend to do so you're evil. Well, and we are fully aware that any insurrection not involving most or all citizens will probably be squashed anyway as modern armies have equipment modern civilians can't even dream of owning, gun laws or not. It's unlikely that a sympathizing billionaire would just happen to have a hundred air superiority fighters or state-of-the-art surface-to-air missiles in his bike shed.
Plus, what can you use guns for besides killing (or at least maiming)? Not much. I mean, a knife can double as a useful tool but if you use a gun as a tool you fully deserve the accident that will likely happen to you. Oh yeah, and hunting, which is just killing again. Since "KILLING IS BAD" is deeply ingrained in our minds we're not too keen on doing it. We do play violent video games but that's comparing a shooting range to running amok.
I guess the answer in a nutshell is that we place a very high value on human life. Taking it is something you do when you have absolutely no other option**. Thus devices with the primary purpose of killing people are something that doesn't belong in the hands of anyone but trained professionals (= soldiers, the police and permit holders; you don't get a permit easily over here).
Of course that also means that any gun not inside secure storage is presumed to be out of storage because the wielder intends to use it. Outside of a shooting club or a forest that pretty much means that the wielder is ready to kill someone. Since we're generally not ready to kill someone we tend to get nervous around someone who is.
Note that I don't see the situation through rose-tinted glasses. Strict gun control isn't automatically good. I was present when a burglar shot my brother in the leg and the strict gun laws worked against us - the gun looked kinda fake and it was much more likely to be a blank pistol***, thus we assumed it wasn't a threat and tossed the guy out the front door. Had we handled that guy differently my brother wouldn't have a metal plate in his leg today.
Then again, the burglar ran away after we tossed him out and he only shot when my brother took up pursuit; had he assumed we were a threat, he might have shot sooner. Such as when his gun was pointed at me. I'm really glad he found me non-threatening.
Every stance has its up
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
It's not common to carry firearms generally in Europe, and less so when travelling. I'd be very interested to hear the figures for the number of people who fly with firearms here: I'd imagine it's incredibly minuscule if you discount police and military and the suchlike who carry weapons for duties of state.
We have a different philosophy of society in many countries here; it's not so much an irrational fear of firearms rather than a rational philosophical stance that differs from the US approach. I suppose the lesson for us both is that we should remember that just because somebody does something differently from us where they live, it doesn't mean that it's irrational and driven by fear.
You'll find higher gun ownership in countries that have larger rural areas and stronger traditions of hunting, less so in more urban cultures. I don't think carrying guns for self-defence is seen as legitimate in any European country (though I welcome being corrected). The general approach here is that outside of hunting or tightly regulated sporting environments there is no need for anybody to carry guns, and by there being less guns around less people will be hurt by guns. Given that some criminals have guns, we're happy that some of our police have guns so can respond in these situations. But I think there's less fear of gun crime here than in the USA overall.
> > >... the definition of scantily clad is region dependent.
> >... the definition of scantily clad is religion dependent.
> FTFY.
Bullshit. Gobs and gobs of it.
In Europe, showing a nipple on TV results in a nipple being shown on TV. In the USA, showing a nipple on TV results in a massive public outcry, months of news coverage and politicians and regulators falling over themselves trying to Protect The Public. Yet, both are mainly Christian.
you know what i am talking about, you know what the other guy is talking about. be intellectually honest or shut up
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
or better yet, politician
but if you want to have an intellectually honest conversation someday, you are far from that ability
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it