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Police Demand Summary Domain Takedown, Traffic Redirection
Stunt Pope writes "This morning, Toronto-based domain registrar easyDNS received a request from the City of London (UK) police demanding that they summarily take down a BitTorrent search site based out of Singapore — or else they would 'refer the matter to ICANN' — suggesting easyDNS could lose its accreditation. The police further directed easyDNS to point all traffic for the domain to an IP address that promoted competing commercial online music services based out of London, UK."
easyDNS raises some important questions in the blog post they put up after receiving the request. Quoting: "Who decides what is illegal? What makes somebody a criminal? Given that the subtext of the request contains a threat to refer the matter to ICANN if we don't play along, this is a non-trivial question. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought it was something that gets decided in a court of law, as opposed to 'some guy on the internet' sending emails. While that's plenty reason enough for some registrars to take down domain names, it doesn't fly here."
I summarily summarize this as an exercise in douchedom by dumb policemen.
I didn't know Jack Thompson was licensed to practise law in the UK.
The City of London is not the city of London (as if Britain vs UK wasn't confusing enough for foreigners). The City of London is about one square mile where a large number of big businesses operate. In the City of London, these businesses get to vote in local elections, normal people can't just run for political office, and the police are about as far away from publicly accountable as it's possible for law enforcement to get. When people in Britain refer to "The City" (compare with "Wall Street"), they're talking about this tiny piece of the capital.
In short, someone in big business has been crying to their rent-a-cop again.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
Go to the ip address in the complaint http://83.138.166.114/
It's got the message from the police, along with a bunch of logos of commercial companies, like the BPI.
So it's evident who they are working for.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
They have solid service, and not just the simple stuff, but the ugly bits as well (granted they did let a few porn/gambling sites go after a series of massive DDoS attacks, but they gave them time to move as I understand it, they didn't summarily boot them off). When picking a DNS registrar/provider make sure you pick one that won't just turn your DNS off if someone decides to send an angry email to the registrar.
Intellectual Property Crime Unit: London would be the worst crime drama ever. It would consist entirely of people sitting at desks, sending strongly worded emails.
The money decides what's illegal.
It looks like phishing to me.
Or we're telling on you!
Captcha: gaping
..but this looks like an obvious case of corruptitis.
If this is the way things are done, police should also be able to force makers of GPS devices to redirect you to a pharmacy if you enter the adress for a location where they might be selling illegal drugs.
that some of us programmers have sold out.
Don't be silly. Punishment after conviction is so old-fashioned. Today we've made the police far more efficient by allowing them to punish people before they're convicted.
Kill 1, 10 pops up alive and kicking back. Makes me think of my step mother.
They have no actual authority. Let them "send it to ICANN" and see if that international body doesn't basically shrug and say "Who gives a fuck. This is outside your jurisdiction." Even if ICANN doesn't, at least you will have your day in "court" so to speak.
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
it doesnt seem to be far off where the internet is split into many parts with no centralized registry.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Um, why don't they just contact the hosting provider or IP-block owner to takedown the site if they suspect illegal activity? The domain is just an 'easier' way for people to access the site. If EasyDNS succumbs to this I'll have to seriously think about moving to another registrar. Not that I'm running anything quesitonable but what if a user in one of my domains sends something questionable and is investigated by police and orders EasyDNS to takedown my domain... Food for thought.
Do these people have any concept of jurisdiction and courts of law?
So a police force in London demands a registrar in Toronto take down a site based in Singapore?
Me, if I got a request like that from a foreign police force, my response would be "fuck you, show me some paperwork from a court in my jurisdiction, until then, you don't matter".
This is no different than any piss pot country from trying to control the internet. It doesn't work like that.
If it isn't a .co.uk domain, the police force of the City of London have no standing.
Idiots.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Need the full public name and address of person making request.
That should end most of them.
In the UK and Canada that's about the strongest language you will find. It translates to American as "We demand. Or else!!!".
Read the actual police request. It says:
We request that you review your processes to see if you provide a service for the identified domain(s). If so, we would ask you to review the terms and conditions on the basis of which that service is provided and withdraw or suspend the service if you are satisfied that the terms and conditions have been breached
And the police helpfully highlight the relevant line from EasyDNS terms of service:
easyDNS Terms of Service: easyDNS reserves the right to revoke any or all services associated with a domain or user account, for policy abuses. What constitutes a policy abuse is at the sole discretion of easyDNS and includes (but is not limited to) the following: ... copyright infringement ...
But now the easyDNS got on his drama-queen high horse. Here's what he wrote:
Who decides what is illegal? What makes somebody a criminal? Given that the subtext of the request contains a threat to refer the matter to ICANN if we don't play along, this is a non-trivial question. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought it was something that gets decided in a court of law, as opposed to "some guy on the internet" sending emails
Well the answer's clear. From his own terms of service, HE is the one who decides whether easyDNS should terminate service, at his discretion. Not a court. The police's request was solely that easyDNS should themselves determine whether this user had breached their own terms of service.
The City of London police should be referred to the District Attorney for prosecution for the crime of extortion.
WTF? I'm in Finland, the site is in Singapore. Who is this "UK Police bla bla"? They have no jurisdiction here.
The distinction between the metropolitan police and City of London police is not really relevant here. The important issue is that a police service in a foreign country has attempted to order a foreign company around. The correct response is to politely let them know that Canada has been independent from the UK for a while now and that UK law not apply. Indeed it is somewhat surprising that they do not know this since many Londoners seem to think that anything beyond the M25 is in a foreign land. In addition, as a matter of courtesy, they should really have contacted the RCMP who I'm sure would be delighted to hear from their British colleagues and would love to explain the charter of rights and freedoms to them.
Has EasyDNS even actually contacted London UK police to verify this is legit? Could just be the "competing commercial online music services based out of London, UK" spoofing the police to drum up business. How could the police expect traffic to be redirected? Sounds phishy...
The Internet is decentralized. You will now either make DNS redundantly decentralized or die by your foolish decision to have it centralized in the first place.
This is the siths' time for your planet's organic womb to birth a world wide neural network, and we are exceeding efficient at harnessing it.
Do you know any two people who have the same first names? How do you tell them apart? That's the only hint I'll give you filthy disgusting, humans.
When they said all the organics were all full of crap, I thought it was only a euphemism!
Exactly. Police helpfully highlighted their own stupidity.
Using the raw IP address should bypass any DNS redirection but we STILL get the police message. Have they taken over the actual web server too or even worse, somehow got the routing changed? How the hell did they manage that??
I especially liked the part of the request that asked to redirect the domain to their local corporate sponsors in the content industry. As if commercial seizure of the domain is even appropriate.
DDoS Time, Peanut Butter DDoS Time... Peanut Butter DDoS Peanut Butter DDoS Peanut Butter DDoS with a Zombie Army!
They're just hoping the word "police" will make the admins wet their pants. Its all bluff and hot air, there's nothing they can do other generate more hot air. Eventually they'll get bored and move on to real crimes that are in their jurisdiction instead of trying to play world policeman.
I've used EasyDNS before and thought it was a decent DNS service. I I find it completely ironic that a few months ago I received a marketing email from them touting how they're not based in the US and therefore immune to draconian privacy invasion laws. This is the exact thing they were advising people to stay away from US services for.
All for one and one for all. I'm pretty sure those cops are doing something illegal -- they're protecting crooked capitalists after all.
from the article: "It would be appreciated if you would... Kind regards,"
Maybe you should read the whole letter.
"In respect of the information provided by us, we respectfully ask you to consider your liability and the wider public interest should those services be allowed to continue."
"We reserve the right to refer the matter to overseas counterparts/governmental organisations, and/or to ICANN."
To translate that into more plain language:
"Well, nice domain registry you've got here. Would be a shame if something... unfortunate happened to it. But don't worry, my friends and I would be happy to provide you with a little extra protection, as long as you would do us a favour first."
I think the proper response would be to have an attorney draw up a letter saying "We appreciate your concern, and will comply with all legal demands. We will redirect that domain immediately upon receipt of a copy of the court judgement or order directing such. We await your prompt forwarding of said judgement or order. We have also initiated an inquiry with ICANN regarding the propriety of a third party demanding control of a domain without having obtained it through a valid registration, dispute resolution or court judgement or order.".
The correct response is "You have not paid the processing fee. This action cannot continue until we receive your $10,000 payment".
And tell everyone whether or not London metropolitan paid.
Good capitalism demands all work performed has a fee for service, according to market demand. And their demands are very big.
The "police page" at 83.138.166.114 may be fake. That address resolves via reverse DNS to "S82574.clubonside.dk". But "clubonside.dk" isn't in DNS or the .dk registry. It was live in 2006, and was a site for soccer fans, then moved to "clubonside.com", and is now defunct.
The IP address is hosted by Rackspace in London.
Also note that on the page, there are no links to any law enforcement organization. All the links are ads for "safe and reliable online content". A domain actually taken over by the Serious Organized Crimes Agency in the UK looks like this. No ads, links only to a UK government site.
This looks like some private "IP protection" company impersonating a police agency.
Who the hell do they think they are? Their laws do not extend into other countries, and if ICANN goes along with it, then they will be subject to a response.
Tell them to stick it.
It should be fixed as follows: police get's a court order along with IP addresses of every user under courts jurisdiction.
easyDNS redirects all requests under courts jurisdiction as requested.
Not quite. In the UK prefacing any request with the word "kindly" is roughly equivalent to adding "or I'll break both your kneecaps you fucking prick" at the end.
All those Yes, Minister quotes the other day reminded me of another gem:
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
[quote]easyDNS Terms of Service: easyDNS reserves the right to revoke any or all services associated with a domain or user account, for policy abuses. What constitutes a policy abuse is at the sole discretion of easyDNS and includes (but is not limited to) the following: ... copyright infringement ...[/quote]
Right, and interestingly enough the site in question is not serving copyrighted information. It's a torrent site. It hosts information on copyrighted content, but has none itself.
If they want easyDNS to take it down, then they need to show that actual infringement has occurred.
We need an international police force!
I come here for the love
One easy answer is for easyDNS to say "We have not investigated whether they are violating our terms of service, and have no plan to investigate. We note that the terms of service grant us the RIGHT but not the OBLIGATION to revoke service for a violation of our terms of service."
Another easy answer, as you say, is for easyDNS to write back and say "we have investigated the matter but have not been able to determine whether the owners of the site are engaged in copyright infringement. If a court finds them to have engaged in copyright infringement, we will take that as a clear determination."
This has the ring of being a scam to me. The police have a lot wrong with themselves, and are corporate tools, but I still find it hard to believe that they would threaten a business, half a world away, into redirecting traffic to a specific COMMERCIAL website.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Legal is as legal does.
Something can be legal/illegal on the books according to the letter of the law, but not be followed. This then leads to the question: what is the law? Is it the words passed by legislature, or is it the practice that will determine outcome?
The following quote is the best I've found to date on the topic of jury nullification. It was written by John Jay, the first Supreme Court justice in Georgia v. Brailsford. In other words, this is case law as close to the founding fathers as it can possibly get:
In other words, if law is unconstitutional, the jury has a right to hold it invalid. I would take it a step further and say they have a responsibility to do so. That is what a jury is for, ultimately. It is a last ditch mechanism to defend individuals rights against oppression. Otherwise, every case could be decided by a small panel of judges.
(There is an open question here as to the enumeration of individual rights, and to the spirit versus letter interpretations of the constitution. I hold that individual rights are not enumerated, rights of the government are.)
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
Not just content with controlling the world with your dying little Empire, but now you're content on controlling the Internet too.
You country makes me sick.
The Metropolitan police force (London police force) are a major problem - they have been for many years now.
I may be wrong, but I think the riots a couple of years ago were mainly due to pent up anger with their policing methods.
When the G20 protests occured, the police force used deliberate and planned violence to attack the protestors; they were "kettled", blocked into one area, not permitted to leave - including diabetics who needed insulin - kept the protestors there until it started to become dark and the press had gone, removed their identifying numbers *and then attacked them*, both themselves and with police attack dogs.
The chap who died, Ian Tomlinson, was attacked entirely at random at a different time, just walking down the street, and the police attempted to cover it up, with a bent pathologist and by fabricating a story. The truth came out because some people had filmed the event - they eventually came forward when it was clear nothing was going to happen. The policeman who killed him, Simon Harwood, was aquitted - but nothing even happened with all the other policemen who were attacking people.
And that's the Metropolitan police.
GCHQ has recorded this post and should the police find out my views, I'm sure they won't be very happy with me, but I'm unimportant, so I can be ignored. It does however in general discourage people from speaking up.
So tell them to go pound sand and see what happens. Your only other choice is to kiss there ass and do as your told.
Jack of all trades,master of none
That easyDNS refused to rollover and instead called their bluff with, "nope, you're full of shit, kindly fuck off," is refreshingly satisfying.
The AUP is an agreement between a service provider and its customers. That's it. So the only two entities who have any say in whether there's an issue with the agreement are the two parties to it. Somebody else wants to shoehorn their own agenda into that, get a court order or go to hell.
That's why easyDNS can and does say that they are the arbiters of what constitutes a violation of the AUP.
Or as George W Bush would say, "We're the deciders".
maybe you should read the whole dictionary.
a statement of fact inferred as a threat is far from a demand.
from someone who seen easyDNS in action = they got domain owner's back!
thanks easyDNS! This is another +. Keep it up.
so someone who says they are the UK police emailed and asked for a domain to be redirected to a UK music selling site.
have you not had your coffee yet ?
whoever holds the domain 83.138.166.114 sent the email
...I obey the laws of physics....
It's both.
The request was from the City of London Police, not the regular metropolitan London police. The City of London is effectively a tiny semi-independant country embedded within London, in much the same way as Vatican City is a tiny semi-independant country embedded within Rome. The City of London is mostly governed by corporate interests - mostly financial, but media too. There's no secret backroom conspiracy in this - that is openly how it is run, entirely legal because the City of London is largely outside the authority of the UK government proper for historical reasons. So this is a legitimate message from the City of London Police, but the City of London Police are representing those competing commercial services because those services are actually their constituents.
Decentralisation for DNS is impossible. Because the names are human-meaningful, some names are going to be worth a lot more than others. That means some sort of authority has to exist to determine who gets what name.
A decentralised DNS database is achieveable, but someone still needs to make that decision. The only way around it would be to make the DNS names meaningless to humans, which defeats the purpose.
RIIAA shills posting AC these days? Tsk, tsk.
1) Torrent websites DO NOT engage in copyright infringement, though their users might. Metadata (cryptographic hashes, file sizes, whatever), which (in most cases) is what is hosted and/or provided by torrent websites is, by definition, un-copyrightable (since metadata does not consitute a creative work);
2) Read what you wrote again, particularly the part that says "What constitutes a policy abuse is at the sole discretion of easyDNS";
3) Even if you consider torrent websites to be contributing to or profitting from copyright infringement, they DO NOT engage in it themselves; also, since the website in question is not even hosting torrents, but is simply a torrent SEARCH ENGINE, even the whole "contributing to" argument is debatable;
4) You talk about "drama queen", but, as far as I can tell, the City of London Police DID threatened the registrar with an ICANN complaint AND implied (wrongly) that the registrar has some form of liability.
Need more clarification?
Which is technically the same person.
Yes, that *was* the joke...
So If google allows people to search for torrents, we should send a summary request to google's registrar to redirect all of google's traffic to a site of our choosing.... hmmmm.
We've seen this before, they believe they can get their way through intimidation because they can not do it through the proper legal procedures. They believe that many people can be frightened into complying by including threats of legal action. The truth is this is an act of terrorism and should be considered as such, as it presents a serious threat to the openness of the internet and the freedom it provides.
if you put the ip address "83.138.166.114" in your browser ... i don't think the website @ http://83.138.166.114/ that i'm visiting directly is illegal. anyways.
for all this dns redirects one should really SAY that one has been redirected. one cant just blatantly claim that "You have tried to access a website that is under criminal investigation by the UK". "you have tried to access DOLLARsignA website. this website is under investigation and you have been redirected here." is maybe better?
If you're not doing anything wrong, then you should not have any problem surrenduring all your rights and dignity, correct? Will you please bend over , now?. I reiterate.. Just because criminals might operate torrents sites, that does not make all torrent site operators criminals. Anyone who supports this move is someone you would never have before found on /., IMHO
Well the answer's clear. From his own terms of service, HE is the one who decides whether easyDNS should terminate service, at his discretion. Not a court. The police's request was solely that easyDNS should themselves determine whether this user had breached their own terms of service.
They make the request, and then make the veiled threat of going to ICANN and having their registrar status revoked.
The first part is reasonable, the second part is not.
It should also be noted that the police are only making an allegation, and that it has not been proven in a court of law. So perhaps the police should lay charges and get a conviction before calling someone a criminal. Otherwise they're telling EasyDNS to cutoff service to an innocent enterprise (which it is, until a judge says otherwise).