Gabon Suspends Me.ga Domain, Dotcom Says "We Have Alternative Domain"

hypnosec writes "Kim Dotcom's plan to launch a 'bigger, better, faster, stronger, safer' Megaupload successor, Mega, is already in peril as Gabon's government has suspended the domain me.ga . Announcing his decision, Gabon's Communication Minister Blaise Louembe said 'I have instructed my departments... to immediately suspend the site www.me.ga' in a bid to 'protect intellectual property rights' and 'fight cyber crime effectively.' Dotcom revealed through a tweet that he is in possession of an alternative domain name and that the recent suspension 'demonstrates the bad faith witch hunt the U.S. government is on.'"

Comments

Witch-hunt

[agentgonzo]

I know that he is trying to sound extreme and provocative, but for Gabon to shut-down a domain name of a yet-to-be-launched service that has only said that it plans to store things online is very-much a Witchhunt. Nothing is really known about me.ga and so the only reason they have to shut it down is because it's a 'successor' to megaupload and they have a vendetta against Kim Dotcom.

Re:Witch-hunt

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe it's simply the easiest way to avoid lengthy and annoying conflict with the USA.

Re:Witch-hunt

[gl4ss]

Or maybe it's simply the easiest way to avoid lengthy and annoying conflict with the USA.

..which is what the open conspiracy is.

too bad it makes the gabon government seem like a joke. too bad they are a joke.

Re:Witch-hunt

[Nerdfest]

Strange, I thought the US were supposed to be supporters of that whole "innocent until proven guilty" thing.

Minority Report

[scotts13]

Wow. PreCrime is here. Apparently, you don't even have to be open for business or host any files to be a 'cyber criminal' who violates 'intellectual property rights.' Once you're accused by the US governments masters, you're done for, worldwide.

Re:Minority Report

[ledow]

If you had a legal right to a domain name, you might be right. But you don't.

Similarly, you don't have a legal right to enter random countries, and they are quite welcome to tell you to go away (whether on the basis that they think you're there to work contrary to your visa, or you have previous convictions, or whatever)

It's not illegal to deny someone a domain name. No more illegal than denying them a trademark, or a particular phone number (or even phone access at all!).

The whole DNS system is a collection of private contracts to hand out naming rights within a virtual space. Hence why ICANN etc. can get people to pay them more money just by saying "Okay, let's have a new TLD!". Nobody is FORCING them to pay them money. Nobody has a legal obligation to buy those domains. And nobody has a legal obligation to fulfill those demands for domains if their contracts say so (and it hasn't been established to the contrary in a court of law).

This is like saying that me not giving you an email address at my domain is just as prejudicial. Er, no. It's my domain, my rules, and you either agree with them or not. Unless you have it in writing that I *guarantee* you those services, you can't do anything if I don't allow you to use them and/or stop you getting them in first place.

So let's not be stupid here. If you try to register a *car* with a rude number plate (licence plate to the Americans), it will get blocked in most countries (and they pre-filter those lists, but still will take yours away if it's deemed to be rude and they missed it!). Hell, some countries decide what you can put on a birth certificate. And places like Italy, it's almost impossible to get a domain name without a certified business presence in the country itself.

In comparison, a copyright infringer being denied a domain name in a country he has ZERO affiliation to is nothing.

I actually find it hilarious that people think that the US has involvement, if I'm honest. Chances are Gabon just doesn't want his type around. If he applied for a .uk, for instance, it would be denied the second he announced his intentions for it without even bothering to wait for the Americans to ask - it's a breach of Nominet policy.

Say what?

[Mr_Silver]

Wow, preemptively shutting something down on the basis that it might be used to infringe copyright before it's even launched?

Philip K. Dick and (to some extent) Scott Frank and Jon Cohen must be proud.

Re:Rich Gabon

[maroberts]

Wow, it's nice to see Gabon is in a great economic position, has eliminated all poverty, improved education, public healthcare, great mass transit systems, and can afford the luxury to turn down an offer to host what's sure to become one of the most popular websites on Earth, which will generate millions in ad revenue.

That would be all well and good if Gabon was likely to earn millions in revenue from it. It's more likely to earn only a small fee (less than $25?) for the domain name registration.

Not withstanding that, it seems fairly obvious that this is due to US pressure.

Re:Rich Gabon

[Shoten]

Wow, it's nice to see Gabon is in a great economic position, has eliminated all poverty, improved education, public healthcare, great mass transit systems, and can afford the luxury to turn down an offer to host what's sure to become one of the most popular websites on Earth, which will generate millions in ad revenue.

Holding the TLD of the domain name and hosting the site have nothing to do with each other. First of all, the site was to be cloud-based, so as not to have a single hosting location that can easily be taken down. Second of all, absolutely no cloud services vendors have hosting facilities in Gabon. Gabon would gain nothing from hosting me.ga except diplomatic and economic pressure from North American and European countries, and I'm quite sure that such pressure is what led them to take this action. If they had anything to gain at all, that'd be one thing, but they had a lot to lose, and nothing to gain whatsoever.

This goes to Kim Dotcom's problem...that no matter how he scatters and fuzzes his infrastructure, he will still have to contend with single points of failure that can be attacked through procedural means. I don't know how to deal with it, frankly...all completely decentralized systems for content distribution and sharing that I know of (like Freenet) are somewhat awkward and a real pain in the ass. If you need to use a domain name, you've got a point of vulnerability where the powers that be have an undue procedural advantage. This doesn't even take into account the other challenges of payment processing, financial basis (gotta pay your bills from an account somewhere), hiring of personnel (what if the operation is deemed a criminal activity, and they go after the employees under RICO or an equivalent law?), and other things I probably haven't even thought of.

Re:Welcome to obamaworld

[Anonymous Coward]

If you really think Romney would have been as "big government's going to tell you how to live" as Obama, you're either REALLY in denial, or you are really gullible, or ... (anything but an intelligent, honest evaluator).

HAHAHAHA man, if you had chosen any words but "going to tell you how to live" this would have been nowhere NEAR as hilarious as it was, and could have been modded up +1, sad but true. But seriously? Republicans are the masters of telling people how they're going to live. Republicans are entirely about being free to live the way they want you to live. That's what they DO, that's what "social conservative" MEANS.

Mr Fox denied access to the hen house

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr Fox objected to the ban, saying "I don't intend to eat any hens this time! I just want to visit the hen house. My business there is totally legitimate. Judging foxes for what they did in the past is just fascism, man."

Re:Welcome to obamaworld

[poetmatt]

hahahahha. Why is this not moderated +5 funny?

Nobody in the US government anywhere on the political spectrum has shown they have any intentions to end the copyright/IP witchhunt except for SCOTUS and maybe 5 senators. The entirety of congress is at fault for this travesty and the damage this copyright/IP farce is causing to our economy.

Re:Welcome to obamaworld

[crypticedge]

I know, it's too bad that Romney didn't make it so we can have the government legislating fucking, the right to be with someone you care about, robbing everyone to give to the rich so they can get the highest score and privatizing profits while nationalizing their debt. Instead we have a president that wants to tax the robber barons, legislate people owning property they created, and making sure people are treated when they get sick instead of dying in the street due to a toothache.

Fuck Romney, he was a failure of a man, and would have ruined this nation. Anyone who doesn't see that is a horrible person that needs to learn what it's like to be human before hurt themselves