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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.
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.
Yes, but what would distinguish it from other potential shows featuring strongly-worded email-at-desk action is that the people doing it would be completely fucking unbearably obnoxious self-entitled arsebuckets. Or, at least employed, by them. So it'd really be more like a reality show.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
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.
I used to get all kinds of demand letters while working at a registrar based in Canada. I just told them to go get a Canadian court order and we'd be happy to oblige. Never heard back from a single one.
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.
This is the correct reply. Force them to work in the proper jurisdiction of action.
some karma... and kinda lukewarm about it.