US Gov't Mistakenly Shuts Down 84,000 Sites

Chaonici writes "Last Friday, the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) seized ten websites accused of selling counterfeit goods or trafficking in child pornography. However, in the process, about 84,000 unrelated websites were taken offline when the government mistakenly seized the domain of a large DNS provider, FreeDNS. By now, the mistake has been corrected and most of the websites' domains again point to the sites themselves, rather than an intimidating domain seizure image. In a press release, the DHS praised themselves for taking down those ten websites, but completely failed to acknowledge their massive blunder."

Comments

This raises an interesting question...

[Senes]

How many people now have friends or family thinking they're pedophiles because of this little 'oops' from the government?

Re:This raises an interesting question...

[betterunixthanunix]

The followup question is more important: how many people will be willing to believe that it was all a mistake, as opposed to simply assuming that if the government calls someone a pedophile that person should be treated like the devil incarnate? People who are accused of anything related to child pornography can find their reputations tarnished years later, even if they are acquitted or if the charges are dropped. No rational thought it applied once the magic words are spoken.

Re:Welcome to the USA

[Garridan]

Indeed. If I were among these 84,000 site owners, I would be talking to a lawyer about a very large libel suit.

Re:Welcome to the USA

[ugen]

Quote:
"As with previous seizures, ICE convinced a District Court judge to sign a seizure warrant, and then contacted the domain registries to point the domains in question to a server that hosts the warning message. However, somewhere in this process a mistake was made and as a result the domain of a large DNS service provider was seized."

You may not like this, but a warrant signed by a judge *is* due process.

presume victimhood

[Anonymous Coward]

After this, I figure the only safe assumption when I see someone accused of child molestation or possessing kiddie porn, is that they are innocent.

Re:Let's just forget

[mywhitewolf]

and since when was it ok for the government to put a sign on a front door of a shop saying "closed due to pedophile investigation"

Re:Welcome to the USA

[nedlohs]

No it's not. Judges sign invalid warrants on occassions, law enforcement does more than the warrant specifies on occassions, law enforcement lies in their applications for a warrant and gets it signed on occassions. All of those involve a warrant signed by a judge, but both are violations of due process.

WHOAH Nelly

[TiggertheMad]

I was reading the comments and it just hit me: everyone commenting is missing the elephant in the room. Yeah sure, there is some problem with the process making sure the correct sites are taken down, but WHAT THE FUCK IS DHS DOING CHASING CHILD PORN PEDDLERS?

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't that the FBI's jurisdiction? I was working under some sort of obviously fucked up thinking that DHS was protecting us from, oh I don't know, ....FUCKING TERRORISTS. You know, the guys with bombs and anthrax who want to kill us in droves. Does DHS have so much free time on their hands that they are chasing common criminals to kill time? (Rhetoric, I think this question has sort of answered itself..)

If any DHS personel happens to be reading this, please pass this on to the people running your little knitting bee: Hey DHS, you fucking nazi retards....FOCUS ON THE GUYS WITH THE ASSAULT RIFLES WHO WANT TO BUY DIRTY BOMBS.

Re:WHOAH Nelly

[Artifakt]

There was a point last year when the total number of DHS warrented searches (you know, the ones where an actual judge goes through all those silly processes from the constitution), had been aimed at 6 actual suspected terrorists and over 5,000 suspected drug dealers since the program started. Homeland security was never about actually stopping terrorists, it's always been about how all the money we spend openly on the war against drugs isn't producing results, so lets covertly spend even more and see if that helps. Why do you think there's all those efforts to track money flow in the program, all the requirements to show current ID to take out a loan and such? . it's hard to actually catch terrorists by tracking any spending except possibly that aimed at actual bomb components, chemicals, and maybe biological support. No one is going to figure out a plot from tracking a terrorist renting a car or opening a regular checking account. But drug dealers need to do a LOT of money laundering. .

Re:WHOAH Nelly

[billcopc]

PROTIP: If you want to be safe from terrorists, the DHS can't help you. Not unless its mandate is immediately changed to "removing troops from hostile soil and ending all military and trade-based international extortion schemes".

But that would be unamerican, right ? God forbid your government would let people be.

Re:WHOAH Nelly

[hairyfeet]

Actually they were pissed about their heads getting cracked by Saudi guns with "Made in the USA" stamped on it, but don't let that stop a good rant.

You know, I hate to say it, and this is probably the ONLY time this will EVER be true, but I actually have to go with Glenn Beck on this one: He said "Look at our history in the middle east, for all our talk of freedom and democracy we have propped up one monster after another. The Shah, the trouble in Egypt, all because we pay billion of dollars to truly evil scum. So it is time for us to be Switzerland. it is time for us to walk away and let them sort it out for themselves. Because all we are doing is wasting money we don't have propping up monsters that foster ever more hatred towards us."

And you know what? he is 100% correct. We have propped up one "el presidente" after another because he kisses the right corporate ass and have bred legions of peasants that would be happy to slaughter every single one of us, and for what? So some multinational can get cheaper bananas? Fuck them, it is time to be Switzerland. Hell we don't have the money in the first place, and the last century has shown NOT A SINGLE SUCCESS and a whole host of failures, one dictator after another after another. Why the hell shouldn't they hate us when the boot stomping their face and kicking in their door has the American flag on it?

Re:Welcome to the USA

[Anonymous Coward]

If someone's JOB is to investigate things on the Internet.... If they have a months-long SPECIAL TASK FORCE to SPECIFICALLY exert extraordinary control over the DNS ROOT SYSTEM.

Did you seriously just claim "it is too much to expect" for them to understand the system they are directly targeting with international scrutiny aimed at them?

Srsly?

We're fucked!

Re:Welcome to the USA

[sjames]

For the judge, making sure he's not about to tar 84,000 innocents with the kiddie porn brush is all part of due process. That's why they get the big bucks and respect. If he can't handle that, perhaps he should go get an easier job.

Same deal for the investigators. They're supposed to be experts and supposedly did enough investigation to be quite sure of what they saw and who was responsible. It's their JOB to make sure and to know how the net works. Surely they should have investigated these issues. There's always walking a beat if investigation isn't their cup of tea.

They have just made perhaps the most inflammatory possible accusation against 84 THOUSAND people because of their carelessness. People get killed over accusations like this.

Note here that they didn't HAVE to put the accusation on that page. They could have just put "under construction" (innocent until proven guilty!) but they couldn't resist crowing about it.