US Government Seizes Torrent Search Engine Domain

Voulnet writes with this excerpt from TorrentFreak: "This morning, visitors to the Torrent-Finder.com site are greeted with an ominous graphic which indicates that ICE has seized the site's domain. 'My domain has been seized without any previous complaint or notice from any court!' the exasperated owner of Torrent-Finder told TorrentFreak this morning. 'I firstly had DNS downtime. While I was contacting GoDaddy, I noticed the DNS had changed. GoDaddy had no idea what was going on and until now they do not understand the situation and they say it was totally from ICANN,' he explained. Aside from the fact that domains are being seized seemingly at will, there is a very serious problem with the action against Torrent-Finder. Not only does the site not host or even link to any torrents whatsoever, it actually only returns searches through embedded iframes which display other sites that are not under the control of the Torrent-Finder owner."

Comments

Hoax

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a hoax. Whois the IP's involved.

Re:Hoax

[Anonymous Coward]

Confirmed: Not a hoax. NetSol (used to be) private registration leads to immixGroup IT Solutions, working for the public-sector (US Government) out of Virginia.

See also: SEIZEDSERVERS.COM registered two days ago.

This isn't a question of your country giving away your freedoms. This is a question of international responsibility, lack of it, and the impartiality and global importance of the DNS.

Now, states seizing their own domains is one thing and subject to their laws, and the US does own .COM, .ORG and .NET and unilateral actions without any form of apparent judicial warrant or oversight like this will shift people away from them. The old WHOIS data was deliberately invalid, so under the rules, they don't need notice. Even so, one of the affected sites is a .TV - I wonder what Tuvalu would have to say about this, diplomatically speaking? dotTV may be 80% owned by Verisign, but it's still 20% owned by Tuvalu. I wonder if this was cleared by them?

International reaction from this could be interesting - the host is only a little tier2. They are watching, and it appearing on the news is obviously making a bit of noise. They may get substantially more interest than they expected in the short-term, but it will wane unless they do something really stupid like target a high-profile site or, God help us, a fully-autonomous ccTLD on the DNS root - which, on their little power-trip, they might. One does hope they wouldn't be so... foolish: bullies get their toys taken away.

Re:Hoax

[hey!]

Well, it looks fishy to me. Here are the questionable elements.

(1) The domain registration information information still lists a private domain owner and and admin contact.

(2) The name servers ns1.torrent-finder.com and ns2.torrent-finder.com, as well as the torrent-finder.com ALL redirect to addresses in a private hosting company (74.81.170.108, .109 and .110 respectively), physically in Charlotte, NC. The picture you're greeted with is served from one of the hosting company's addresses.

(3) Whois reports the registrar to be Go Daddy, but the name servers ns1 and ns2.seizedservers.com whose IP addresses aremanaged by a private company called "wild west domains".

(4) The "seizedservers.com" domain is controlled by a company called "immixGroup IT solutions". The registrar is network solutions and the registrant is using network solution's privacy service to block his contact identity.

Notice what is missing here: any reference to a government controlled host, domain or name controller. All we have is a set of privately procured and managed name and web servers with anonymous administrative contacts. There is literally *nothing* to connect the picture you are seeing at the torrent-finders.com website to DHS, other than the picture's *claim*.

A little googling shows this exact same picture shows up in similar "DHS seizure" cases, with the exact same pattern of private servers and domains leading back to some anonymity service and NO government ip addresses, domains or contacts involved, although the *private* domains and servers involved are different. If this were a DHS seizure program, wouldn't the trail lead back to the same government contacts?

It looks to me like this is either a hoax or a case of private hijacking by a private individual or group who uses different domains and accounts to cover his tracks.

Re:Hoax

[Cylix]

Both godaddy and network solutions are reporting the create date as 11/24/2010 for seizedservers.com.

Everyone know the government does not move quickly. In fact, between purchasing and action I would be damned if they actually did something on time and on budget.

The other issue is there are lots of pretty graphics with all of the domains that are hosted with seizedservers.com. It's like one of those bad scams with information and pictures of pretty places. http://www.dailychanges.com/seizedservers.com/

In every take down instance they have simply flipped off the switch on the domain and took the folks to court.

It's either a hoax for traffic or someone snagged a domain.

Slippery Slope continues.

[Tovias]

How long before the government takes control of sites that hosts or links to information that the government just doesn't like or deems "unpatriotic"? What kind of oversight is involved before the government can just take down a site? I'm not pro-piracy or advocating it in any way, but I'm definitely all for due process.

Re:Slippery Slope continues.

[Monkeedude1212]

What kind of oversight is involved before the government can just take down a site?

Thats the thing - apparently there isn't any! The site owner didn't know what was going on, and even his web host had to do some investigating to figure it out. If neither of them were adequately informed about whats going on - that suggests some serious inbalance in power. People worried about an Internet Kill Switch? This demonstrates they already effectively have access to such a mechanism.

And given that the site doesn't hosts the files themselves, only links to other sites - NONE of this should have happened. This is no different then me going "Hit Movie Torrent" in Google and clicking on a link that takes me to the sites with Torrents. Why hasn't Google been taken offline? In fact I'm sure most people who want to get into Torrenting go use Google to find the Bittorrent application. Then they use Google to find a torrent site.

It's injustice, they aren't blindly applying law as it should be - they're picking and choosing who they want. And the laws they've posted on the Torrent-finder aren't even relevant! Wilful Copyright infringement: Torrent finder isn't infringing on the copyrights. They are not hosting or distributing them either. Trafficking counterfeit goods - not only is a direct copy of the data not counterfeit but again, they aren't the ones trafficking the data.

Re:Slippery Slope continues.

[Ethidium]

It is, and it's a fair question. Assuming that this is a real seizure and not a hoax, the due process works like this:

0) Somebody allegedly uses property for an illegal purpose. By law, they are deemed to have transferred title to the United States Government by dint of the illegal activity (if in fact the illegal activity can be proved).

1) The government files for a seizure warrant in US District Court. The owner of the property (here, the domain) does not get a say, nor any notice that this is happening.

2) The government seizes the property and provides notice to the owner, if known, and any person who might have a claim on it. For example, if the property is a car with a bank lien, they must notify the owner and the bank.

3a) The government files a complaint for forfeiture in US District Court (or in state court). This is called an "in rem" action--meaning that it's not a lawsuit against an individual, but a suit to determine title to property. The United States claims that it owns the property because of the transfer-by-law that occurred at zero, supra. Anybody who disagrees can stake their claim. The judge determines who gets the stuff.

3b) The government doesn't file anything, and the owner sues the government for a civil rights violation by unlawful taking of property without due process. The suit proceeds as above.

===

The cases determining whether due process has to occur pre-seizure or post-seizure are complicated, and beyond the scope of this author's knowledge or this post.

For reference, I am a lawyer and have posted this explanation based on my legal study, but it should be considered scholarship (information for general knowledge) and not legal advice (information specific to an individual's problems). If you are in need of legal advice, you should consult a qualified lawyer in your jurisdiction.

Homeland Security...

[TheLink]

Good to see the US Gov has its priorities right.

I'm sure everyone in the US can sleep easy at night, knowing that Homeland Security is keeping a vigilant eye over torrents and other similar threats to the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.

Not the hope and change you're looking for

[Anonymous Coward]

$9 million of campaign contributions buys you a lot I guess.

Collecting IP addresses...

[Low Ranked Craig]

Also note that they are also collecting IP address information of people who visit the site...

try { var piwikTracker = Piwik.getTracker(pkBaseURL + "piwik.php", 1); piwikTracker.trackPageView(); piwikTracker.enableLinkTracking(); } catch( err ) {}

They also have google analytics turned on - UA-19806388-1

DAMN YOU GEORGE BUSH!!!

[Vinegar Joe]

I can't wait for Obama to be inaugurated!