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US Asserts Super-Jurisdiction Over Dot-Com, Dot-Net, and Dot-Org Domains
An anonymous reader writes "Michael Geist reports that last week State of Maryland prosecutors were able to
obtain a warrant ordering Verisign, the company that manages the dot-com domain name registry, to redirect the website to a warning page
advising that it has been seized by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The message from the case is clear: all dot-com, dot-net, and
dot-org domain names are subject to U.S. jurisdiction regardless of where they operate or where they were registered. This grants the U.S. a form of 'super-jurisdiction' over Internet activities, since most other
countries are limited to jurisdiction with a real and substantial
connection."
Won't this just encourage other companies, or even US companies, to switch to a national domain?
The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I think it has now become vital to remove control of the internet's root services from the US. I'm sure the process is now underway.
Last I knew, .com, .net, .gov, .mil, .edu, .org, and .us were all United States TLDs. For websites outside the US that want to keep all of their systems out of US jurisdiction, don't use a US-based domain name. Does this company also act surprised that the US government could access any US-based bank accounts it has?
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
This would be an excellent opportunity for Iceland, which has been working on become a haven for free speech, to drum up a few million dollars worth of business for their ccTLD.
Liberty in your lifetime
We invented it and we own it. Eat shit eurotrash. Make your own Internet and stop leeching if you don't like it.
that way we don't have an international super committee which will bow to every petty demand that is brought before it. However even national ccTLDs arent immune as the US and other governments are not beyond threatening other countries, even allies (see the recent witch hunt after swiss bank accounts)
Really think about it, an international group would most likely be within the domain of the UN and that would result is so many attempts to filter content that the internet we know now could never exist.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
"US Asserts Super-Jurisdiction Over [...]" seems to be rather standard.
Just dont get it though GoDaddy or any other US based company or they can probably close down your site anyway.
You should be aware that co is the ccTLD for Colombia, a country the United States enjoys a close relationship with. Well, it's a cozy relationship with one of their governments, anyhow. They've got the official government, the government with half the guns, and the government with most of the drugs. In any event, it's the official government that would be the issue if push came to shove over a domain.
Also, GoDaddy pimping anything is frequently a good reason to avoid whatever they're pimping.
Write failed: Broken pipe
While I'm sure that the feds managed to do something tasteless and possibly illegal with this power, I'm a bit confused by the summary:
.com pointing to it placed the site, server(s), or operator(s) under US jurisdiction would be rather more dramatic; but the DNS record that points FOO.com to your IP has always been under American jursdiction...
In order to 'have' a FOO.com/.net/.org domain name, you have to pay for the appropriate registration with Verisign, a US corporation, who handles those domains. If the feds secure the appropriate court order, they can direct Verisign to have your FOO.com point to a different IP.
Ok. Hasn't that always been the case?
Some sort of argument that a site having a
There used to be a site called QuickSilverScreen. It was essentially a lot of links to videos uploaded to Megavideo and the like (you were able to browse by category, by show, by season, etc...). When it began attracting attention, it switched TLDs. I'm not sure whether it was originally .com or .net or what but it switched to .im and continued for a while like nothing would've happened. Eventually it was shut down and I'm not sure what kind of threats/laws were used for that but I'm pretty certain that attacking the domains had essentially no effect at all.
I need to buy a few new domains soon and .com seemed like the obvious choice, but perhaps I'll go with .fi instead.
How is this different from like Libya exercising control over the sites being hosted under .ly domains?
"International law .ly domain in October 2010 to shut down vb.ly for violating Libyan pornography laws. Failure to predict such problems with URL shorteners and investment in URL shortening companies may reflect a lack of due diligence.[19]"
Shortened internet links typically use foreign country domain names, and are therefore under the jurisdiction of that nation. Libya, for instance, exercised its control over the
Not to say any kind of censorship is right, but at the moment, us treating the US based TLDs as, well, US based, is just the way jurisdiction has been being handled when it comes to domain names.
All your domain are belong to U.S.!
and the library of Alexandria still continues to burn
Let countries maintain their own TLDs and give jurisdiction over the international ones to a UN body.
That is a terrible idea. If you understood the simple fact that the UN does not, never has, and never will represent you or any other single, individual Human Being, you would understand the rediculousness of what you propose.
The UN represents GOVERNMENTS, most of whome are actively oppressing their own people to one degree or another. Cede control of key Internet infrastructure to that organization, and you cede control to an organization that represents the interests of REGIMES, not people. Censorship, filtering, domain seizures, etc. will follow the path of least resistence, and the lower common denominator. Governments will be pleased, and rarely will one stand up for you unless a specific political interest crosses enough borders, and gains enough attention (e.g. maybe Tibet, or Dafur, certainly not YOU, me, or anyone else on slashdot, in the EFF, the FSF, etc.).
You think American suppression of speech is bad? It is, but no where near as bad as it will be if we cede that authority "to a UN body."
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
How did we ever get to a point where suggesting a move from US jurisdiction to Russian jurisdiction to avoid abuses of government power actually sounds reasonable???
How sad a state of affairs this truly is.
These guys might not like that... http://www.parliament.uk/ But with this site they may be on to something... https://www.whitehouse.gov/
More amusingly the ssl is broken, so it comes up with the "This Connection is Untrusted" message. Truer words were never written...
They invented it, so they ought to have the right to control it.
I agree 100%. A Scotsman called John Logie Baird invented the scanviewing screen. Every single viewing screen in the world (computer monitor; TV; security monitor; infra-red main battle-tank target sighting system; space ship piloting screen etc. etc.) should be routed, at the owner's expense, through a centre in Scotland so that the Scots can ensure their control over what is viewed on those screens.
My only fear is what the Chinese are going to do with their right to control your use of toilet paper.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Perhaps it's time to move away from total dependence on domain names. Their value comes inherently from qualities that invite dispute.
With search services, it's quite possible to find hosts that have no domain name at all. I can't post my favorite example, because the server has insufficient power to handle lots of hits, but such things definitely exist. There's still some problem with control by the search companies, but there's a finer granularity of competition there.
Once you get to a given host, you can determine whether it's World Wrestling or World Wildlife. That doesn't have to be certified (very unreliably) by a DNS registrar.
Mike O'Donnell http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~odonnell/
TPB has also switched to an .se domain, that they forward to by default. But with TPB now being DHT-only and magnet-link-only, and even more easily mirrored, it would be stupid and pointless to take it down.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Seriously though, is there any doubt that the USA is fast becoming the schoolyard bully of the world? And we wonder why other countries hate us so!
The Oatmeal describes this phenomenon perfectly.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
It sounds to me as long as nobody gets killed, you think it's acceptable collateral damage even though you recognize it's wrong. I think it's unequivocally unacceptable anytime the government takes away somebody's property, liberty, livelihood, or reputation unjustly in its zeal to combat the boogeyman du jour.