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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.
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~
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 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...
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??
The IP address provided above is the site they want them redirect it TO, not the "Criminal" site in question
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.
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.
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".