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Ask Slashdot: Best ccTLD To Avoid Confiscation?
First time accepted submitter Pete McCann writes "Given the recent spate of domain seizures by the U.S. government, it seems that registrations in any U.S.-hosted registry (like the gTLDs .com, .net, and .org) aren't stable places to put content that the U.S. government might find objectionable. I am wondering, are there any ccTLD registries out there that have an open registration policy and are willing to stand up to censorship demands from the USG? There is this list of ccTLDs with open registration policies, and the current MAFIAAFIRE redirection list looks very Tuvalu-heavy. Where would you register a site for maximum resistance to confiscation?"
It's not a free speech issue. You're still free to say what you want, it's just that people have to locate you by IP address rather than domain name. A problem which really needs to be remedied.
As for the topic, none of the ones people use in a browser are going to be safe as long as ICANN is responsible ultimately.
My understanding is that the domain seizure by the U.S. government works by requiring DNS servers to resolve the domain name to a government IP address in cases where the domain is registered/hosted outside the U.S.. I really don't think it makes much difference what tld you use.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
.I2P
http://www.i2p2.de/
You apparently haven't been paying attention to what is actually going on.
Here, educate yourself.
http://www.techdirt.com/search.php?cx=partner-pub-4050006937094082%3Acx0qff-dnm1&cof=FORID%3A9&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Puerto+80
From the page
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110906/15132515831/puerto-80-responds-forcefully-to-dojs-claims-concerning-domain-seizures.shtml
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Puerto 80 Responds Forcefully To DOJ's Claims Concerning Domain Seizures
While Puerto 80 has already appealed the rejection of its attempt to get back its domain names (the two rojadirecta domains that Homeland Security seized), the separate case, involving the permanent forfeiture of those domains, continues. As you may recall, Puerto 80 put forth its motion to dismiss, noting that the government appeared to be wholly making up a legal standard that doesn't exist, while also showing that Puerto 80 did not break criminal copyright law. The government responded bizarrely by trying to argue that Puerto 80's actions don't really matter, because it's not about Puerto 80... and then spent most of its brief explaining why Puerto 80 did things that broke the law.
Now Puerto 80 has responded, and this time it's coming out even more forcefully against the government, explaining how its theory for seizure and forfeiture is absolutely ridiculous, and would effectively allow the government to seize all sorts of property if it so chose, including any search engine domain, any telephone network infrastructure, any electrical company's infrastructure -- just because such tools could be shown to have been used by someone, somewhere, possibly for illegal purposes, even if the company in question had nothing to do with it:
The government’s view of its powers under the civil forfeiture law, articulated for the first time in its opposition to Puerto 80’s motion to dismiss, is breathtaking. In the government’s view, it doesn’t need to allege that Puerto 80 violated any law, or even engaged in any civil wrong, in order to seize and shut down its Internet domain name. As long as the government thinks that someone, somewhere in the world, is engaged in copyright infringement, it believes it is entitled to seize any asset that might be connected to that infringement, whether or not the owner engaged in any wrongdoing, and whether or not that asset in fact “facilitated” the commission of any crime. And it further believes it is entitled to seize Internet domain names and shut down protected speech without ever having to prove that the speech was, in fact, unlawful, much less that the owner of the asset was responsible for any crime.
On the government’s view of its powers, it is entitled to seize the Google, Bing, or Yahoo web site, because someone, somewhere, has used those sites’ search engines to find infringing content. It is entitled to seize Verizon’s telephone network for the same reason. It is entitled to seize the power company, since numerous crimes are “facilitated” by the use of electricity. And the only reason the government lost the Pentagon Papers case, New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971), is that it asserted the wrong statute. Had the government simply seized the New York Times’ printing presses, pointing out that they were being used to “facilitate” the disclosure of government secrets, it would have been able to block the disclosure of Daniel Ellsberg’s secrets.
As the filing notes, "this cannot be the law." And, almost certainly, it's unconstitutional.
The full filing (embedded below) is fantastic. It no longer dances ar
NameCoin is a non-centralized, peer-to-peer DNS using the .bit TLD. It cannot be confiscated unless the entire p2p DNS network is shut down.
Why bother with a domain name at all? Just use an IP address. Yes, unglamorous and looks uncredible, but it will stay up, right?