Microsoft Takes Down No-IP.com Domains

An anonymous reader writes For some reason that escapes me, a Judge has granted Microsoft permission to hijack NoIP's DNS. This is necessary according to Microsoft to thwart a "global cybercrime epidemic" being perpetrated by infected machines running Microsoft software. No-IP is a provider of dynamic DNS services (among other things). Many legitimate users were affected by the takedown: "This morning, Microsoft served a federal court order and seized 22 of our most commonly used domains because they claimed that some of the subdomains have been abused by creators of malware. We were very surprised by this. We have a long history of proactively working with other companies when cases of alleged malicious activity have been reported to us. Unfortunately, Microsoft never contacted us or asked us to block any subdomains, even though we have an open line of communication with Microsoft corporate executives. ... We have been in contact with Microsoft today. They claim that their intent is to only filter out the known bad hostnames in each seized domain, while continuing to allow the good hostnames to resolve. However, this is not happening."

Comments

WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

Does not seem legal.

Re:WTF

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Does not seem legal.

It's legal if the law says it is. And when the lawmakers are in bed with Big Business, like they are in the US, anything goes.

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

He raises a good point, legality is just what a legislator has said is OK, it's really nothing beyond that.

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

And this is why we need Namecoin and other decentralized DNS solutions to take such matters out of the hands of the lawmakers.

http://namecoin.info/

Re:WTF

[Xicor]

but thats the truth... if the laws says it is legal, sadly it is legal. the only way we can change that is by revolting against the lawmakers.

let me ask you this, what is the difference between murder and assasination/war? you guessed it! in the latter, the government says it is ok, in the former, the government says it is not ok.

Re:WTF

[Dishevel]

I think you confuse legal with right or just.

I can understand your confusion. They do after all call it the Justice system. That though is a lie.

Re:WTF

[TemporalBeing]

And this is why we need Namecoin and other decentralized DNS solutions to take such matters out of the hands of the lawmakers.

http://namecoin.info/

It won't take it out of the hands of lawmakers. It may make it harder to regulate, but they'll find a way - even if it is requiring all ISPs and Back bone providers to block it.

It's naive to think that just because its decentralized it is beyond the reach of government (or even corporations for that matter).

Sue them for all they're worth

[Anonymous Coward]

This is their business the court decided to hand over to Microsoft. Lawsuits should be flying in all directions.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[DrJimbo]

Lawsuits should be flying in all directions.

Are you suggesting they sue the court? Good luck with that. ISTM the fundamental problem is that the US courts have become the corporations bitches. Who are you going to sue and where are you going to sue them?

The book Econned explains how people with a far right economic agenda have been stacking the US courts for years. The result is what you see, basically a feudal systems where corporations are treated like lords and everyone else is a serf.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft has way more money than whichever company that owns No-ip does. They can't sue and win. Microsoft wouldn't even need to bribe the judge, they can just use scorched earth tactics and let the lawyers suck more and more money until No-ip is dry.
Also, apparently No-ip didn't appear when summoned. Apparently, that's kinda of a big no-no. Maybe next time they will buy their domains somewhere with proper laws.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[Anonymous Coward]

Not showing up should not result in a suspension of justice and free reign to dispense outrageous judgements. Then again, it has been a long time since we had anything more than a pretense of justice. I say, let the corporate handouts continue; outsource the court system to ebay for optimal court proceedings. (While said in jest, from a strictly utilitarian point of view, putting all of those lawyers out of work may actually have a net positive effect, even if otherwise preserving the system of injustice.)

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[man_ls]

Since I'm replying to an AC post I don't feel a need to include citations, but there's been at least one case where the domains in question were purchased through registrars and registered to owners both outside the United States but because the domains themselves were .com domains and Verizon is the ultimate authority for .com domains, the U.S. simply ordered Verizon to update the global master registry to reflect the seizure and there was nothing to be done about it.

They'd have to use a non-U.S. TLD as well.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[compro01]

That's Verisign, not Verizon.

Though not all the domains in question were .com and .net. For example, no-ip.biz appears to be out and that TLD is run by Neustar, though they're also a US corp.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[DamnOregonian]

The liberal Justices nominated by Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton, and Bill Clinton?

Me thinks your world-view is distorted by the political fog you've immersed your brain in.

Beyond that, this isn't remotely a case of eminent domain. That case sets no precedent for this, or is even useful as a reference. I see you have been accurately moderated.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[Sun]

Also, apparently No-ip didn't appear when summoned. Apparently, that's kinda of a big no-no. Maybe next time they will buy their domains somewhere with proper laws.

IANAL. All of this is from following legal procedures.

Not showing up is a big no-no. A judge can, usually, assume that the party not showing up has nothing to say in the matter, and just accept the petition as is. This is, however, not what happened here. From the first link:

On June 19, Microsoft filed for an ex parte temporary restraining order (TRO) from the U.S. District Court for Nevada against No-IP.

Emphasis mine.

An Ex-Parte petition is filed without the other side being given a chance to answer. This is outrageous act by Microsoft. You ask for an ex-part hearing when there is danger that the other side, if given prior warning of your requested subpoena, will destroy evidence. Since Microsoft is claiming that no-ip are unknowingly hosting malware, this simply wrong.

Before you go to blame the judge, however, please bear in mind that he can only rule based on the petitions before him. Presumably, a two-party hearing will be held soon, and then things can, and should, go differently. Also, the judge should have ordered Microsoft to place some money in escrow, which no-ip will automatically get in case the temporary restraining order is found to be unjustified.

What I'm saying is that we don't have enough information so far to conclude that the judge did anything wrong, but the first link, written by Microsoft, clearly shows MS to be douche bags in this case.

Shachar

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[gl4ss]

but it's a company against company now.

the thing with countries which have established elite, surprisingly enough crimes done be elite to elite tend to get some kind of attention from the police, even if the elite can drive over a peasant and avoid jail.

Re: Sue them for all they're worth

[Ultra64]

Because creating an account on a website is a measure of how important someone's opinion is, duh.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, I do blame the judge. He caused major harm and he should have known he would. I also blame the US justice system, because obvious, easily avoidable injustice is a perfectly acceptable outcome in it as long as just all the is were dotted. We all know that making sure things are done by the rules is the real purpose of the courts!
Honestly, stop making up excuses for your legal system, no it is not acceptable for it to not only allow but actively encourage injustice like yours does, all the time!

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[buck-yar]

He is correct, doesn't matter who appointed them. A liberal is a liberal. Right wing is quite disappointed in their picks.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[Shakrai]

Not showing up should not result in a suspension of justice and free reign to dispense outrageous judgements.

Uhh, that's exactly what happens. It's called a default judgment. What exactly do you think the court should do if a party fails to appear in a civil case?

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[Anonymous Coward]

And that's one more reason why the US "justice" system is broken. The judge should collect his own evidence to determine if an ex parte is appropriate, and not rely on the incomplete or completely fabricated information from the plaintiff.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[Rich0]

Not showing up should not result in a suspension of justice and free reign to dispense outrageous judgements.

Uhh, that's exactly what happens. It's called a default judgment. What exactly do you think the court should do if a party fails to appear in a civil case?

The court should consider the validity of the arguments against them and the facts of the case.

The problem with the US court system is that it is basically like a game show. There are a set of rules and two competitors, and the judge is the referee. If you have a game of jeopardy and only one contestant shows up, they should naturally win. The problem is that this is rarely a just outcome.

Add to this the fact that courts rarely allow parties to participate remotely. If you're summoned to court you have to show up in person. If you aren't paid to be there, then you probably aren't being paid that day. If the court is on the other side of the country you get to choose between a default judgment, hiring a lawyer to represent you there, or airfare and hotel for a one day appearance.

Courts really need to be about determining the facts and applying the law, not letting the parties slug it out and declare a winner. If only one party shows up, then the judge can question the other party to determine the facts and apply the law.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[GodGell]

Microsoft has way more money than whichever company that owns No-ip does. They can't sue and win.

That sentence, combined with the lack of sarcasm or indignation in its presentation, would paint a pretty dystopic picture of any kind of fictional society a paranoid author would want to write about.

I wish this society remained fictional, and I wish I didn't have to live on the same planet.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[Rich0]

The problem is that we substitute "due process" for justice and define due process as whatever the rules of the court says that it is. Are court rules even legislated?

Ex parte petitions should only be used in the most extreme of circumstances and there should be a high burden of proof before a court grants them.

Also, even default judgments should work far differently. The court should examine the evidence itself to determine that there is a reasonable chance of prevailing. I'm not saying that the threshold has to be the same as for a summary judgment, but there should still be an examination of the evidence and arguments, and the judge should be skeptical of any evidence submitted. Ideally the court should just appoint an attorney for the side that didn't show up.

Also, in a country as large as the US we really need to get rid of this system that assumes that both parties will appear in person for everything. It is already a burden to show up to a local court. If you're summoned to a court on the other side of the country that is a huge expense, especially since it might just be for an hour long hearing. There is no reason that hearings couldn't be conducted via phone in many cases. Another option would be to have telepresence rooms at all courthouses so that you'd only have to show up at a local court. Heck, you could probably fit 5x as many courtrooms in a courthouse if instead of a big room you just had a bunch of individual boxes with a desk, a few chairs, and a screen/camera and the court linked the appropriate boxes together to create a courtroom, even if everybody was at the same facility. Also, for popular cases you could have as many people in the "gallery" as you have bandwidth to serve.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[Anonymous Coward]

What this *will* do is give Microsoft another black eye before the courts. Ex-parte motions are red flags for appellate courts: the party must be able to back them up.

P.S. To all those who whine about US courts. US courts may not be perfect, but they're better than 90% of what you'll find in other countries.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[Sun]

Ex parte petitions should only be used in the most extreme of circumstances and there should be a high burden of proof before a court grants them.

Again, IANAL.

Still, how can you have a high burden of proof? In an adverserial system, the only things you can prove need two opposing parties to present their case. As such, an ex-parte request does not contain proof at all (how can it?)

Instead, it contains claims backed by sworn testimony. The judge examines these claims in the light most favorable to the non-present party, but otherwise within the context of the claims presented by the moving party.

In other words, you cannot second guess the judge's decision without looking at what MS actually wrote in its TRO request. If (as likely happened) MS wrote that no-ip do not remove the offending domains, and that these domains are used on a daily basis to cause huge harm, then a reasonable judge (who, I might remind you, is not technically savvy, and may not realize the implications of granting this order are disrupting no-ip's business) might conclude that granting this Temporary Restraining Order is reasonable.

So, once again, I think MS were acting like douches. I have no idea whether the judge acted reasonably, and cannot know without looking at MS's petition.

Shachar

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[nctritech]

Ex parte petitions are how the Business Software Alliance (BSA) gets the local sheriff deputies and police to help them conduct jack-booted thug raids on businesses. I agree strongly: the standards for proof should be extremely high.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[AmiMoJo]

Hard to imagine how the money in escrow will undo the massive damage to no-ip's business. Everyone using the service is right this minute switching to alternatives, changing their DNS settings and updating their routers.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[synapse7]

I have no idea the extent of this, but if enough legitimate customers were denied access to their content would this be grounds for a class action suit?

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[sribe]

Before you go to blame the judge, however, please bear in mind that he can only rule based on the petitions before him. Presumably, a two-party hearing will be held soon, and then things can, and should, go differently.

Generally, ex-parte hearings are exceptional, and to prevail in one you first have to convince the judge that it would proper. Only after doing that, does it proceed as if the other side hasn't shown up. I suspect that either the judge made a serious mistake here, or Microsoft seriously mis-represented the situation. If Microsoft filed an affidavit with knowingly false information, then owners of NO-IP should be hearing cash registers in their dreams...

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[tepples]

Are court rules even legislated?

Yes. The federal rules of civil procedure are written by the Supreme Court and take effect only if not vetoed by Congress.

If you're summoned to a court on the other side of the country that is a huge expense

From rule 45(b)(2) of the aforementioned rules: "Serving a subpoena requires delivering a copy to the named person and, if the subpoena requires that person's attendance, tendering the fees for 1 day's attendance and the mileage allowed by law."

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[NotSanguine]

Emphasis mine.

An Ex-Parte petition is filed without the other side being given a chance to answer. This is outrageous act by Microsoft. You ask for an ex-part hearing when there is danger that the other side, if given prior warning of your requested subpoena, will destroy evidence. Since Microsoft is claiming that no-ip are unknowingly hosting malware, this simply wrong.

Before you go to blame the judge, however, please bear in mind that he can only rule based on the petitions before him. Presumably, a two-party hearing will be held soon, and then things can, and should, go differently. Also, the judge should have ordered Microsoft to place some money in escrow, which no-ip will automatically get in case the temporary restraining order is found to be unjustified.

What I'm saying is that we don't have enough information so far to conclude that the judge did anything wrong, but the first link, written by Microsoft, clearly shows MS to be douche bags in this case.

Shachar

According to the Microsoft blog post linked in TFS:

...In a civil case filed on June 19, Microsoft named two foreign nationals, Mohamed Benabdellah and Naser Al Mutairi, and a U.S. company, Vitalwerks Internet Solutions, LLC (doing business as No-IP.com), for their roles in creating, controlling, and assisting in infecting millions of computers with malicious software—harming Microsoft, its customers and the public at large. We’re taking No-IP to task as the owner of infrastructure frequently exploited by cybercriminals to infect innocent victims with the Bladabindi (NJrat) and Jenxcus (NJw0rm) family of malware. In the past, we’ve predominately seen botnets originating in Eastern Europe; however, the authors, owners and distributors of this malware are Kuwaiti and Algerian nationals. The social media-savvy cybercriminals have promoted their wares across the Internet, offering step-by-step instructions to completely control millions of unsuspecting victims’ computers to conduct illicit crimes—demonstrating that cybercrime is indeed a global epidemic.

And:

No-IP domains are used 93 percent of the time for Bladabindi-Jenxcus infections, which are the most prevalent among the 245 different types of malware currently exploiting No-IP domains.

[Emphasis Mine]

So, Microsoft is alleging that No-IP is assisting (presumably knowingly) in the distribution of malware and that 93% of No-IP's domains are vehicles for malware distribution. Is this true? I don't know, but I kind of doubt it.

What's next, a RICO prosecution for the owners of No-IP?

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[tompaulco]

Not showing up should not result in a suspension of justice and free reign to dispense outrageous judgements.

Unfortunately, process servers can't be trusted to properly serve a notice. There are plenty of cases where people have lost their house because they failed to show up at a hearing of which they were completely unaware.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[tompaulco]

Judges should not be above the law. If they make a bad judgment which causes harm to another company, they should be liable for the damages. They should have to carry insurance or be bonded just like a professional in most other industries are. Even lawyers have to carry this insurance. But somehow we hold the people that we put in charge of making decisions immune from the consequences of their decisions.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[Dishevel]

To be fair. I think this country could use with a lot less legislation.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[Whibla]

And:

No-IP domains are used 93 percent of the time for Bladabindi-Jenxcus infections, which are the most prevalent among the 245 different types of malware currently exploiting No-IP domains.

[Emphasis Mine]

So, Microsoft is alleging that No-IP is assisting (presumably knowingly) in the distribution of malware and that 93% of No-IP's domains are vehicles for malware distribution. Is this true? I don't know, but I kind of doubt it.

What's next, a RICO prosecution for the owners of No-IP?

I'm not sure if you're interpreting that figure in the way that it was intended. It's certainly not the way I'm reading it, which is that of all the Bladabindi-Jenxcus infections that occur 93% of them originate within No-IP's domains, the other 7% originate elsewhere, unspecified. This is substantially different to 93% of their domains are being used to distribute malware.

Still very very suspicious though.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[cbiltcliffe]

I bet it's nothing to do with malware.
It's because there are instructions like this on Facebook, as well as other places.....

**Activate Windows 8 without using crack or patch***
1) Open your command prompt as administrator
2) Type exactly what you see below (Press enter after each line)
slmgr /upk
slmgr /ipk XXXXX-11111-XXXXX-11111-XXXXX
slmgr /skms lunar21.no-ip.org:80
slmgr.vbs -ato
3) Restart your system and enjoy your activated windows 8.
Note: This trick was tested on Windows 8 Professional Retail. Enjoy!!!

Once again, content providers and piracy take precedence over all other interests, business or otherwise.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[dunkindave]

No-IP domains are used 93 percent of the time for Bladabindi-Jenxcus infections, which are the most prevalent among the 245 different types of malware currently exploiting No-IP domains.

[Emphasis Mine]

So, Microsoft is alleging that No-IP is assisting (presumably knowingly) in the distribution of malware and that 93% of No-IP's domains are vehicles for malware distribution. Is this true?

While the wording is a little awkward, I think it says that in 93% of the infection cases No-IP was used by the infection author, not that 93% of No-IP domains are used for malware.

To use a car analogy (all statistics completely made up), it would be more like saying Dodge Chargers are used 25% of the time for drive-by shootings. This doesn't mean that 25% of Dodge Chargers are used in drive-bys.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[Bartles]

No, but it is a case of government seizing private property and giving it to another private entity, "for the public good".

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[Ecuador]

The 93% sounds serious, but it just says that these specific infections choose No-IP.com, which is a very common dynDNS service. You can counter with the fact that 100% of the systems targeted by Bladabindi-Jenxcus infections are vulnerable due to Microsoft software.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[Cederic]

No-IP domains are used 93 percent of the time for Bladabindi-Jenxcus infections,

If I set up malware on my home PC and use DynDNS then DynDNS domains are used 100% of the time to serve my malware.

So maybe Microsoft are saying that 93% of infections come via No-IP domains. That might be a tiny fraction of the overall No-IP domains.

What's next, a RICO prosecution for the owners of No-IP?

Or for Microsoft?

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[bill_mcgonigle]

If NoIP doesn't drain Microsoft's reserves significantly for doing this, then they'll just do it again. It's important to speak to somebody in their native language whenever possible.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[DrJimbo]

but it's a company against company now.

That is an inherent feature of feudalism. The result has nothing to do with justice or fairness, just who is stronger and it makes no difference what happens to peasants caught in the crossfire.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[DamnOregonian]

Got it, since he's left of the current right, he's left.

I suppose that makes Hitler Good because Stalin was worse.

6 feet above 12 feet under water is still under water.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[jakimfett]

Try reading a bit deeper. This from the TechNet article:

On June 19, Microsoft filed for an ex parte temporary restraining order...

ex parte : "a legal proceeding brought by one person in the absence of and without representation or notification of other parties."

Translation: Microsoft *never notified* No-IP. There was no summons. There was no notification. There was no chance to file for a stay of judgement or make an appeal.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[DamnOregonian]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...

About the only leg you have to stand on is that David Souter eventually became *less* conservative.
But voting with Scalia 85% of the time is pretty much as close to "Not Liberal" as one gets.
The right wing may be disappointed in their picks, because these specific Justices aren't quite cartoon-character right-wing ideologues, but they're definitely far from liberal.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[cbiltcliffe]

And:

No-IP domains are used 93 percent of the time for Bladabindi-Jenxcus infections, which are the most prevalent among the 245 different types of malware currently exploiting No-IP domains.

[Emphasis Mine]

So, Microsoft is alleging that No-IP is assisting (presumably knowingly) in the distribution of malware and that 93% of No-IP's domains are vehicles for malware distribution. Is this true?

I'm guessing that MS intentionally used vague wording for this, with the intent of misleading the judge, but without definitely being at fault for doing it. "No-IP domains are used 93 percent of the time" could mean either "93 percent of all No-IP domains are used for these infections," or it could mean "Out of all the domains used for these infections, 93% of them are No-IP domains." I'm willing to bet that the second is true, but the first is what MS wanted the judge to read into it, and of course, the 93% of malware No-IP domains could be only 0.01% of total No-IP domains.

I'm also willing to bet that MS wanted to do this because of the fact that various Windows KMS servers are set up on No-IP.com hosts, allowing unofficial activation of volume licenced versions of Windows without paying MS a cent.

If I'm right, I really hope the truth comes out in court, and Microsoft gets slapped, HARD, fined by the court, is required to issue a very loud public apology to No-IP, and give them a bundle of cash for damaging their business.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[david_thornley]

That isn't going to work. We don't want judges ruling on the basis of which decision is least likely to lose them their house if they're second-guessed.

In this case, the judge had to rule on what Microsoft presented, so Microsoft should be held liable for damages.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[sjames]

There is no need for the judge to take everything claimed at face value. They should at least make sure everything passes the smell test. The judge should be required to understand the implications of his orders or run it past a neutral party who does.

They should also consider if an ex parte hearing is even justified. For example, if the other party could easily delete evidence anyway and there would be no proof it actually existed before or that it wasn't destroyed in the normal course of business before the order came down, then the point is moot and so the hearing shouldn't be allowed. The party present should be on notice that there will be a hair trigger for perjury charges so they better be above board in every way.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[sjames]

They didn't fail to appear, they weren't invited to the party.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[Rich0]

Does that cover the defendant? And does it cover the entire trial, or just the first day?

Also, the daily rate is only $40, which will hardly cover a hotel and lost wages. The mileage isn't unreasonable, and you might come out ahead for a cross-country flight as long as the trip is short.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[sjames]

MS is elite. They have people who have golfed with presidents. They have billions of dollars. NO-IP is a nobody. A peasant that has done well by peasant standards but has no chance of a luncheon at the White House.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[Rich0]

Honestly, if it were up to me the court would bear the burden of investigating every case. The parties participation would be completely optional, other than responding to subpoenas/etc. The bill would be paid by the loser.

If one party doesn't show up, the court should still act as their advocate.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[Rich0]

I do realize that, but for whatever reason every patent case seems to still end up in East Texas. Those protections aren't really ideal.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[un1nsp1red]

How much of that malware is sitting on Microsoft's shitty operating system?

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[dnavid]

If only one party shows up, then the judge can question the other party to determine the facts and apply the law.

Not in the United States they can't. Judges are Constitutionally barred from introducing evidence in their own court, they are only allowed to decide cases based on the evidence presented to them. They cannot investigate matters on their own. You could argue that's nonsensical and contrary to finding the truth, but that prohibition was based on the reasonable assumption that judges cannot consistently remain impartial when they are basically finding their own facts. There are other court systems in other countries where judges are not required to remain neutral arbitrators, and can act more actively within their courts to ascertain the facts of the case. But they trade these issues for their own issues.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[Stan92057]

He shows the signs of being a plain old MS hater as most in the whole article repliers. All of them ignoringthe fact that NO-IP hasn't lifted 1 finger of evidence proving MS wrong in fact its not just MS pointing fingers of guilt at no-ip but the whole security community pointing fingers at no-ip as well. Hate only clouds/closes there minds about anything MS does.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[Rich0]

I fully realize that what I proposed was not the way things are done in the US. I was saying that this OUGHT to be what is done.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[Kalriath]

Which by the sound of what dnavid said, would require a constitutional amendment to achieve. Those are pretty rare, are they not?

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[Kalriath]

What business? No-IP's paying customers are unaffected, as they use their own domain names on No-IP's platform. Microsoft only had No-IP's free dynamic DNS domains handed over.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[Kalriath]

How is it damaging their business? No-IPs paying customers are unaffected, because they use their own domain names with the No-IP infrastructure, and only the free domains were seized.

And if you actually read the notice of the lawsuit (which is publicly posted) you can see that Microsoft were actually quite explicit in the fact that they mean in 93% of cases where this malware was present, No-IP domains are used. They also point to Youtube videos where malware/RAT authors say "get a No-IP domain" (which No-IP has done nothing about, despite the fact that they should be very loudly decrying criminals pointing to their service). They also point to Cisco/OpenDNS/Symantec and others making the same complaints about No-IP for years and nothing being done.

No, it's pretty damn hard to fault Microsoft for their actions in this.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[Kalriath]

We grant them that immunity simply because it's the only way to ensure their impartiality and unbiasedness. You start making them liable (beyond what can already happen should they be found to be perverting the course of justice, an actual criminal offense) and you eliminate that impartiality. That's the dumbest idea I've ever heard.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[Kalriath]

Uh no, because Microsoft's security team don't give a shit about copyright infringement. That's another division's problem. I don't think you understand how big companies actually work. Hint: very dysfunctionally.

Of course, you'd never believe that, because your vision is too clouded by your blind hatred of Microsoft.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[Rich0]

Which by the sound of what dnavid said, would require a constitutional amendment to achieve. Those are pretty rare, are they not?

Absolutely. I doubt it would ever happen. I'm just saying that it should happen.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[Sun]

Its not the judges problem to collect any evidence but to judge based on written laws. NO-IP was a no show that's evidence enough for me and its law they can be ruled against. Honest people show up in court dishonest don't.

They were not told of the hearing. How could they possibly show?

Shachar

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[Sun]

Indeed. They claim, and you have to agree that there is some substance to that claim, that giving the victims prior notice will allow them to delete the pirated software from their computer, thus destroying evidence.

I hate the BSA and their way of operation, but within the framework they work in, I cannot refute that claim.

This is irrelevant to this case.

Shachar

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[crispi]

noip is just a text substitution of an IP address, and nothing to do with the actual traffic.

It's a meaningless quotation.

You might just as well say that 100% of abuse happens over IP.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[Stan92057]

Tell me, why would a sitting judge risk everything he/she has ever don't to make MS happy for no legal standing at all. Stop the MS hate, start hating the real criminals .The virus writer, the malware writers, the scammers, the business that turn a blind eye no-ip turned a blind eye that's why this happened . I report all spam I get to spamcop and I see the bad isps the bad hosting companies turning a blind eye and its making it bad for everyone.

I stand corrected no-ip didn't know about the hearing, ruling. What law was broken by the leagle maneuver that was done and the judge allowed please? NO-IP is the true bad guy here maybe because they had no business doing the business they were in that is no excuse.

Re: Sue them for all they're worth

[ScrewMaster]

Actually, I read that the proceedings were _ex-parte_ ... No-IP wasn't even informed that there were any proceedings. Consequently they had zero chance to defend against this forfeiture. And that's exactly how Microsoft wanted it. There's more going on here than malware. My guess is that Microsoft's big media buddies want to use Microsoft as a front for domain seizures under cover of "protecting the public", without having to get their hands dirty or take any PR hits.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[cbiltcliffe]

Uh, no. Because Microsoft's security team didn't put the ex-parte petition together. Microsoft's legal team did. And Microsoft's legal team most definitely gives a big, massive shit about copyright infringement.

MS Legal may have used a lot of information from the security team for their reasoning, but to say it's got nothing to do with copyright infringement because the security team doesn't care about it is incredibly naive.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[Mal-2]

I did not bail on No-IP, and within 24 hours they had made unaffected domains available for use as alternates. One of them happened to be serveminecraft.net, which is a quite valid description of what I'm doing with it. Now they've gotten all of their domains back, my old one is working again, and the new one remains in place for the places I've gone and changed it. No-IP wants to know what they can do to retain our good will, and I said, "Please let me renew both subdomains with one captcha, since I didn't want to have two in the first place. Also, if you could increase the time between keepalive captchas, that would be great." That's all they need to keep me happy, and neither one should cost very much at all.

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[stephanruby]

The suit was filed in Nevada. And the company No IP is in Reno, Nevada.

Granted, the suit probably wasn't filed in Reno, but still, that does not mean the court was "on the other side of the country".

Re:Sue them for all they're worth

[stephanruby]

Sorry. Please someone mod down my previous post. Apparently, No IP wasn't even summoned to show up to court.

Good judge

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

The best money could buy.

Re:Good judge

[Bite The Pillow]

I could explain it to you, but you seem like you're happy being ignorant as all hell.
Just remember this post next time you conclude that the only answer is bribery. Just maybe, you might look into the facts just a smidge before posting nonsense.

Re:Good judge

[bill_mcgonigle]

They'll need a more expensive one if NoIP seeks a claim for disparagement of their brand name.

only an excerpt

[JoeJohnson2175]

If a judge granted permission, I have feeling that a domain name service provider may have been guilty of alerting their customers to legal intentions. Which gives credence to locking it down before a new sub-domain is created to deliver the same traffic. While I don't side based on a brief, I don't make adverse statements. I can only surmise.

Re:only an excerpt

[guruevi]

I would hope that my ISP's alerts me to legal action. If you have ISP's just complying with every legal request as some already do with DMCA, you can forget about ever getting to anything.

Re: only an excerpt

[JoeJohnson2175]

This isn't just "some [old/regular] ISP."

There is just one domain that needs to be shutdown

[brodock]

And it's microsoft.com, the creator and perpetrator of Internet Explorer and Windows, the two biggest malwares ever invented. They should be shutdown immediately. Thanks.

Hotmail?

[Anonymous Coward]

So after decades of the community putting Microsoft on notice that HotMail is abused by spammers, can I sieze the domain name?

Re: Hotmail?

[m94mni]

As long as you try to keep it running from your basement as you sort out the bad accounts, sure.

Re: Hotmail?

[whoever57]

As long as you try to keep it running from your basement as you sort out the bad accounts, sure.

Why? Microsoft doesn't seem to think it necessary to resolve the subdomains that are not included in the list of bad subdomains.

Re: Hotmail?

[deroby]

Well, those I use still work well...

Re: Hotmail?

[squiggleslash]

Mine doesn't resolve this morning (a free noip.me subdomain) FWIW.

net neutrality

[ChadSmith4920]

In other news Microsoft has come out in support of preserving a free and open web

Bad software justifies bad actions...

[QuietLagoon]

Microsoft has pushed upon the world (literally, the world) software that has a history of security issues.

.
Now it appears that Microsoft is using their reputation for producing security-challenged software to badger companies for PR purposes. The headlines will all read, ~Microsoft takes down a company that is a security threat~. And Microsoft will look good in the headline.

But what has Microsoft really accomplished? Will Microsoft's reputation for software with abysmal security be changed? Or will a small company be crushed because a huge company is trying to look good?

Re:Bad software justifies bad actions...

[sosume]

Because all other vendors produce flawless secure software? Dream on..

Re:Bad software justifies bad actions...

[Tharkkun]

Microsoft has pushed upon the world (literally, the world) software that has a history of security issues.

. Now it appears that Microsoft is using their reputation for producing security-challenged software to badger companies for PR purposes. The headlines will all read, ~Microsoft takes down a company that is a security threat~. And Microsoft will look good in the headline.

But what has Microsoft really accomplished? Will Microsoft's reputation for software with abysmal security be changed? Or will a small company be crushed because a huge company is trying to look good?

Microsoft has no more bugs than any other software out there. Come to think of it, their bugs are fixed in many cases and only impact virus type exploits. Heartbleed was only exposed for what, 10 years? It was embedded in over half the web servers out there...

Legal Precedent?

[wisnoskij]

What is the legal precedent for taking ownership of a company's assets (without apparently even informing them beforehand) and randomly giving them to some other company to use? How is that even a legal possibility?

Re:Legal Precedent?

[TheGratefulNet]

as the kids, today, say, "its because of - well - reasons. that's why!"

you won't get any more explanation than that.

Re:Legal Precedent?

[Pinhedd]

property used to engage in criminal activity is subject to seizure and/or forfeiture. Domains have been seized in the past due to criminal activity but this has usually accompanied a criminal complaint by a law enforcement agency.

In this case, despite what the article may imply, Microsoft hasn't seized ownership of the domains. Rather, they used an ex parte temporary restraining order to seize control of the domains so that they may neutralize the source of the maliciousness. The ex-parte aspect is why no-ip wasn't notified. Microsoft managed to convince a judge to grant the order without informing the other party (most likely to prevent no-ip from notifying the malicious users). This will be followed up by a formal hearing, and full control of the domains will be restored to no-ip eventually.

If Microsoft abuses this, judges won't be so inclined to grant such requests in the future.

Re:Legal Precedent?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they seized control of the entire business -- the top-level domains, the second-level domains engaging in criminal activity, and all of the second-level domains who were not engaging in criminal activity. The right way to do this is to get a court order to seize the infringing addresses and leave the millions of customers who did nothing wrong alone. This is like the FBI seizing an entire rack or datacenter from AWS because someone served child pornography from a t1.micro instance, and then letting the accusing party respond in any way they want to all of the non-criminal traffic for the next six weeks. The collateral damage is completely unacceptable.

Re:Legal Precedent?

[Pinhedd]

Second level domains are controlled through top level domains. Do you know nothing about DNS?

Re:Legal Precedent?

[lister king of smeg]

property used to engage in criminal activity is subject to seizure and/or forfeiture. Domains have been seized in the past due to criminal activity but this has usually accompanied a criminal complaint by a law enforcement agency.

In this case, despite what the article may imply, Microsoft hasn't seized ownership of the domains. Rather, they used an ex parte temporary restraining order to seize control of the domains so that they may neutralize the source of the maliciousness. The ex-parte aspect is why no-ip wasn't notified. Microsoft managed to convince a judge to grant the order without informing the other party (most likely to prevent no-ip from notifying the malicious users). This will be followed up by a formal hearing, and full control of the domains will be restored to no-ip eventually.

If Microsoft abuses this, judges won't be so inclined to grant such requests in the future.

Most people I know that use no-ip are people setting up their own minecraft servers its not a hotbed of criminal activivty like MS claims. I use it for my ssh server/freeciv/cloud storage/retroshare and it has been inaccessibly today thanks to microsofts fuckery. claiming that they are a tool of criminal activity is like saying that the internet is a tool of criminal acivity because criminals use it, which is to say anything may be taken away and given to another with this same logic.
I wonder seeings as Microsoft has fucked with my servers traffic today thanks to this could I go after in court them for maliciously hijacking my sub domain and traffic and have their DNS entries redirect to me with no warning to microsoft.

Re:Legal Precedent?

[lindseyp]

I'm one of those Minecraft servers. Goddammit I ony found out why this was happening thanks to slashdot.

I know my own IP, but none of my users do.

Re:Legal Precedent?

[Pinhedd]

I'm sure that you're absolutely correct about that. The vast majority of no-ip's customers are using the service legitimately, I'm certain of this. However, no-ip has certain legal responsibilities as a service provider and if they don't meet them their legitimate customers may end up getting caught in the crossfire.

For the record, I'm not taking a side as I have no idea what evidence Microsoft presented to get the ruling. I'm just pointing out the legal basis for what occurred.

Re:Legal Precedent?

[rtb61]

Still wildly inappropriate for M$ to be doing this. You could argue that the FBI could do this and even contract to M$ to do it under FBI supervision but no way should M$ have been given carte blache vigilante powers.

It should have all been laid out. What access was allowed. What end user data was gathered. What is to be do with end user infected systems. What record will be required to be kept of all activities conducted. What recompense the innocent affected parties. How will evidence be preserved and a proper legal chain from source to court. How about some reasonable professionalism.

It should have gone from M$ to the FBI to the Court, back to the FBI and fully documented and only then under specific guidelines contracted to M$ under FBI supervision and all the data should leave M$ hands as they were only contractors and M$ can apply to the courts and the FBI for the data gathered after it has been vetted by the court and the FBI.

Not that I particularly love the Fucking Bloody Idiots but there is a right and a wrong way for doing things and the FBI should be questioning this and demanding all the data and direct supervision of the evidence obtained.

Re:Legal Precedent?

[Anonymous Coward]

And a court order could compel the company to make any changes to those DNS entries that needed to be made. Stop being a bloody idiot.

Re:Legal Precedent?

[Pinhedd]

I'd be incredibly surprised if the ruling was carte blanche as you describe. All that we have to go on is one press release and a news report, not the text of the ruling itself, so it's a bit premature to rush to judgement. Many of the stipulations that you suggest were most likely conditions imposed on Microsoft as a part of the ex parte TRO. Even if they weren't required to document some things they would be very wise to do so as it is sure to be brought up at the hearing. In any case, I find it unlikely that Microsoft would want to bite the hand that feeds.

Re:Legal Precedent?

[mysidia]

If Microsoft abuses this, judges won't be so inclined to grant such requests in the future.

What I'm looking for is a procedure where the public can alert the judge, that Microsoft has indeed abused this by causing serious damage to the public: in terms of disruption of internet infrastructure used by millions of Dynamic DNS users.

Re:Legal Precedent?

[compro01]

This comes under the general category of "absurdly overbroad".

It's like pitching an entire city of of their houses because you suspect that there's criminal activity going on somewhere in that city.

Re:Legal Precedent?

[DamnOregonian]

Or the liberal Presidents who appointed them! Like Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Bill Clinton.

This is also hardly a case of a municipality taking property by right of eminent domain and giving it to another private party for economic development.

That ruling has sets absolutely no precedent that applies to this case.

Re:Legal Precedent?

[Anne Thwacks]

It's like pitching an entire city of of their houses because you suspect that there's criminal activity going on somewhere in that city.

Ie standard US policy

Re:Legal Precedent?

[Rich0]

However, no-ip has certain legal responsibilities as a service provider and if they don't meet them their legitimate customers may end up getting caught in the crossfire.

What would those be? They're a DNS provider. Somebody tells them that domain A is IP B, and then somebody asks them what the IP for A is, and they say B.

They don't carry traffic. No attack would come from their servers.

I could see a court ordering them to lock an account or remove a domain being used to coordinate malicious activity, and then they'd have a duty to comply. However, that isn't what happened here.

Re:Legal Precedent?

[MrNemesis]

Most people I know that use no-ip are people setting up their own minecraft servers its not a hotbed of criminal activivty like MS claims.

I looked up this "minecraft" of which you speak, and it seems to be some crudely archaic simulation where you wander round indiscriminately smashing rocks together and killing animals - basically a terrorism simulator. I fail to see why anyone would support the use of this software.

Lots of terrorism-simulator apologists say it's something called an Indy game, but it bears absolutely no comparison with any of the Harrison Ford films (and in any case, an Indy game would require royalty payments to LucasArts which we can find no record of). It doesn't have a proper company behind it like EA or Zynga but only a nebulous cloud of anonymous people known as "notch".

Not only that, it seems that the hacker group "notch" had their paypal account suspended several years ago due to money laundering and other suspicious activities.

Frankly anyone who uses this simulator or supports the filth behind it deserves everything they get.

Richard Domingues

Re:Legal Precedent?

[qbast]

If Microsoft abuses this, judges won't be so inclined to grant such requests in the future.

Have you read the summary? MS is already abusing this. As another commenter mentioned, this makes as much sense as seizing all AWS equipment and handing it to Amazon's competition to 'sort problems out'.

Re:Legal Precedent?

[ray-auch]

Ruling is here: http://www.noticeoflawsuit.com...

There is a lot of it.

Re:Legal Precedent?

[ray-auch]

The Ex-Parte motion and TRO has to be fololowed by real court action. You should be able to file your own Amicus brief to the court if affected by this action - or maybe as part of a group e.g. through EFF if they are interested.

If several thousand individuals and businesses file briefs that their subdomains were not of the malware list and were not hosting malware and the MS ceased service causing them damage and loss... then the court might take some notice. might.

Re:Legal Precedent?

[DigiShaman]

That, and they're typically dynamic. Fuck-a-duck! Anyone know of a free dynamic DNS alternative? Or is NoIP still preferred after DynDNS dropped their free legacy accounts? Perhaps free is gone and I should just pony-up and pay for an account.

Re:Legal Precedent?

[sribe]

What is the legal precedent for taking ownership of a company's assets (without apparently even informing them beforehand) and randomly giving them to some other company to use?

Well, I'll give you an example--which does not apply in this case, but it is an example. Suppose that a company owes you money, suppose they got into that situation by deception (lying about their ability to pay). Suppose further that you discover that they intend to thwart any collection activity by moving their assets out of the country as soon as you go to court to get a judgment, because, say, they tell you exactly that: "if you try to sue us, we'll just move our assets out of the country!"

In that case, you can file for an ex-parte hearing to get a writ of attachment and have the sheriff show up at their offices with a moving van, completely unannounced. Now, the thing is, if you present false information to the court to obtain that order, you have put yourself on the hook for any and all damages you cause to the business by showing up and taking their stuff, so it's really not a wise idea to do this unless they actually owe the money, and you actually have the evidence that they intend to engage in hiding assets from the court.

Re:Legal Precedent?

[omnichad]

I use dnsexit.com - it's free, but it's not terribly great. Can be updated via script.

Re:Legal Precedent?

[Bartles]

I'd like to find the decision. The constitution makes no mention of eminent domain. I don't think Kelo was solely limited to eminent domain cases.

Re:Legal Precedent?

[eth1]

It sounds like every single individual like you needs to start filing small-claims cases against MS. Let them deal with several thousand of those, where the money imbalance won't matter so much.

Re:Legal Precedent?

[DamnOregonian]

It does actually. A single sentence, the 5th amendment, applies to the states via the 14th.

"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."
It's called "the Takings clause".

Kelo was limited to eminent domain cases. Specifically, eminent domain cases and the interpretation of "public use".

Re:Legal Precedent?

[Pinhedd]

Excellent find. Thank you

Re:Legal Precedent?

[Mal-2]

Most people I know that use no-ip are people setting up their own minecraft servers its not a hotbed of criminal activivty like MS claims.

For the record, this is exactly what I do with it as well. I sent out messages to some users, but I don't have other means of contact for a lot of them so they're shit out of luck. Also, if my IP address changes (the whole point of using dynamic DNS), they won't know what it is until I send out another message -- and first, I'd have to know.

This is really like saying that because criminals use cars to transport drugs, all cars will be seized until they can be inspected.

Re:Legal Precedent?

[sjames]

If you control it, you effectively own it, however temporarily.

I'm sure no-ip will be thrilled to get their sports car back after MS wraps it around a tree.

Re:Legal Precedent?

[awshidahak]

I believe No-IP should have emailed you as well. They emailed me. Check your spam filter?

Re:Legal Precedent?

[Kalriath]

http://www.noticeoflawsuit.com...

There you go, the evidence Microsoft presented.

That probably should have been linked in the article.

Oh. Wait. Slashdot.

Re:Legal Precedent?

[rtb61]

From the basis of the claim, the judge should have taken a step and said, whoa, this is criminal activity, not a civil matter and needs to be handled by the appropriate authorities. The whole 'malicious software' phrase should have been clarified and how the action the judge allowed impacts evidence of crime.

Re:Legal Precedent?

[riondluz]

allowed.org moo.com afraid.org

all work fine for me.

No customer notification

[Stealth Dave]

While I fully blame Microsoft for creating this mess, I'm somewhat dismayed that as a customer I'm finding out that my service is down from a news outlet rather than from noip themselves! I've been using their sub domain wildcard service for 7-8 years now and have just now found out that it's down. I'm none too happy about being thrown out with the bathwater!

Re:No customer notification

[itsme1234]

Even if you were using one or some of the affected domains still this is the type of service where most customers just won't notice any problem, even if they would be technically counted in the millions from TFA.

Such notification has less operational importance and more PR/image. They might send one eventually, once dust settles.

PLUS ... they might be having issues with the emails as well! They say now for me:

Alert: Email communications to your email address on file recently bounced. Please update your email address on file.

Re:No customer notification

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wondering... Considering that their main domain was hijacked. How would you expect them to send email?

Re:No customer notification

[jbrandv]

No email from them to me....

Re:No customer notification

[bananaquackmoo]

Funny, I got an email. Check your spam folder though. Gmail flagged it as spam for me.

Re:No customer notification

[rahvin112]

Would you believe an email from joe@hotmail.com? Their domains are gone, they could send email but without the DNS resolve a whole lot of email servers would refuse the email or trash the email, or feed it to a junk mail folder automatically. It would be treated as a forged header by your email because the DNS doesn't resolve correctly.

Re:No customer notification

[Kalriath]

Their corporate domains (no-ip.com and noip.com) were not seized. Their NS records still point to ns1.no-ip.com etc.

Re:No customer notification

[Voyager529]

Just wondering... Considering that their main domain was hijacked. How would you expect them to send email?

Using a Hotmail account.

Re:My stuff got hit by this.

[thygate]

I'd better write down the remote IP for my VPN connection before the session closes.

Re:There is just one domain that needs to be shutd

[Anonymous Coward]

I really can't see why this wouldn't be possible using the exact same logic that MS uses.

Affected me

[BenJeremy]

I don't serve anything important... but I usually post images through my local server and upload to imgur "through the web" - it took several retries when I tried to do this a short while ago, and now I know why.

Thanks, Microsoft.... you can't just take over no-ip and then run it through crap servers that can't handle the loads.

Re:Affected me

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, Microsoft.... you can't just take over no-ip and then run it through crap servers that can't handle the loads.

Did Microsoft increase everyone's TTL values so DNS caching would take over automatically, you know like DNS was designed to do? I guess not. No-IP deliberately uses ridiculously low TTL values because they're sooooo very dynamic, but they compensate by running beefy servers that can handle the extra load that low TTL causes. Microsoft knew what they were seizing, and they should have planned accordingly.

Re:Affected me

[Predius]

On the flip side, most ISP operated edge DNS servers ignore low TTLs below their desired threshold now as a means of reducing load, I've seen some force a 24hr minimum.

How about a home brew dynamic DNS system?

[Nethead]

I've looked a bit but never really found a package to do this, although it's been a few years. I've got a BSD box, a static IP and some domain names. How would I set it up so that other hosts could use this in a dynamic way to set forward DNS records if they were on an ISP's ever changing DHCP addresses?

In other words, how can I roll my own no-ip.com system without being a Vixie level hacker?

Re:How about a home brew dynamic DNS system?

[Temkin]

I have a $10/mo VPS at a major datacenter with static IPv4 & IPv6 addresses that hosts the primary DNS server for my vanity domain. My house has plain old boring dynamic address DSL with filtered port 25, etc... I have a Raspberry Pi running light network services on the house net. It runs a cron job that runs pubkey ssh into a no-shell account on the VPS. When that happens, a script rips $SSH_CLIENT and does a quick compare to see if it changed. If it has, another cron job on the VPS fixes up a record in my vanity domain with a 60 second TTL.

OpenVPN gets me around the port 25 filter...

Why am I explaining this to a low four digit?

Re:How about a home brew dynamic DNS system?

[Nethead]

Because us lower 4 digits don't like to re-invent the wheel:)

Nice setup though, I'll keep those tips in mind if I need to roll my own. I'm looking for a client and server package that can be installed quickly on a client computer/router. A client end that could run on OpenWRT would be really sweet.

Re:How about a home brew dynamic DNS system?

[ThatsMyNick]

powerdns + powerdyn

Re:How about a home brew dynamic DNS system?

[ThatsMyNick]

GnuDIP (and BIND) is okay too.

Re:How about a home brew dynamic DNS system?

[stoborrobots]

MyDNS plus a custom-built sign-up form?

Re:How about a home brew dynamic DNS system?

[Nethead]

Okay, this seems like what I'm looking for, runs with named and has a Windows client. Much thanks!

Re:How about a home brew dynamic DNS system?

[rduke15]

If you already have a server with a static IP, it's pretty easy to configure bind to accept dynamic updates. See for example Set up your own Dynamic DNS.

I set it up like that, and have short scripts on my Linux and Mac notebooks to do the updates when the network comes up. On Linux, it's a short script in /etc/network/if-up.d/. On Mac, it's a script called by a LaunchDeaemon (a .plist file in /Library/LaunchDaemons).

Re:How about a home brew dynamic DNS system?

[deroby]

I have a D-Link router with DD-WRT running at a 'remote' location with rather 'sensitive' electricity. Whenever there is a thunderstorm I have a 10% chance that the electricity went down. As I got tired to drive up and down whenever we have bad weather in order to check if things are still up (freezer etc) I added a little cron job that simply WGETs a specific URL on one of the websites I manage. Said page logs the last 10 entries and thus whenever I think about it I can simply pull up the log and see if the router is still up. I wouldn't call it secure (anyone could spoof the call to the page if they found out about it), but for its purpose it's more than adequate.

Re:How about a home brew dynamic DNS system?

[fnj]

OpenVPN gets me around the port 25 filter...

You don't know how to set up and use port 587 or 465?

Re:How about a home brew dynamic DNS system?

[BitZtream]

Install bind, does dynamic dns out of the box. You'd need something custom if you wanted a pretty web interface to manage it but bind already does the heavy lifting.

Re:How about a home brew dynamic DNS system?

[Himmy32]

I registered my domains through namecheap and have my DNS hosted there and they support Dynamic DNS. If your register doesn't support it on their default DNS servers, you'll need to transfer your DNS to someone who does support it.

Re:How about a home brew dynamic DNS system?

[tepples]

If the Wget call is to an https URL including some sort of authentication, it should be secure provided the rest of the server is.

Re:How about a home brew dynamic DNS system?

[Noishe]

You should not be using port 25 unless you are hosting a mail transmission agent. If you are submitting email from a user agent, you should be using port 587.
Port 25 has been deprecated by the IETF for over a decade and is reserved for transmission, not submission.

Re:How about a home brew dynamic DNS system?

[Just Some Guy]

Exactly this. Your registrar probably already does this for you for free, so why not take advantage of it?

Re:How about a home brew dynamic DNS system?

[Temkin]

If you already have a server with a static IP, it's pretty easy to configure bind to accept dynamic updates.

I appreciate the setup example. I'll have to play with this. Ssh pubkey is pretty safe, but the roll-my-own thing becomes a maintenance issue.

Re:How about a home brew dynamic DNS system?

[Temkin]

OpenVPN gets me around the port 25 filter...

You don't know how to set up and use port 587 or 465?

Quite expertly actually... But, why should I suffer a telco's stupid filtering?

Re:How about a home brew dynamic DNS system?

[Temkin]

You should not be using port 25 unless you are hosting a mail transmission agent. If you are submitting email from a user agent, you should be using port 587.
Port 25 has been deprecated by the IETF for over a decade and is reserved for transmission, not submission.

Good advice for the unwashed masses, but... I have almost 20 years in email server software development... Unless you attend MAAWG, I'll keep my own council.

Re:How about a home brew dynamic DNS system?

[deroby]

True... although in a way it's overkill, it might be interesting to give it a try.

Re:How about a home brew dynamic DNS system?

[Noishe]

Cool, you're a professional, so you know which standards to follow and which ones to ignore.

Re:Microsoft takes on global cybercrime epidemic

[lister king of smeg]

i wonder if the same court would let you take update.microsoft.com and redirct it to ftp.debian.org using this reasoning

Time For Decentralized DNS

[Raystonn]

Using blockchain technology for decentralized consensus. Let's take the power from the corrupt and place it back with the people.

Re:Time For Decentralized DNS

[lister king of smeg]

Using blockchain technology for decentralized consensus. Let's take the power from the corrupt and place it back with the people.

I have looked into using namecoin to due just that but there are several problems;
Cost ----- every time I have my IP adress change I would have to spend more namecoin which can be often with dynamic IP.
No Docs ----- very little support or documentation,
Mobile ----- mobile device name resolution I can setup my own dns server on my pc's and servers to resolve namecoin if i really hack at it but not so easy for phones tablets and the like to run their own dns server
Accessibility ----- while I and three other cryptonerd out their could use it, my parent/grandparent/freinds/people i give shit about would not be able to access my server because its not easy nor ubiqutous to use namecoin dsn.

so while i support the concept it won't have work for most purposes without a massive change in peoples opinion so that they care.

Re:Time For Decentralized DNS

[kasperd]

Using blockchain technology for decentralized consensus.

If you are thinking about using bitcoin style proof of work, then I'd say that is a poor choice. It is an extreme waste of processing power, and it is not even needed for DNS. The purpose of the proof of work is to prevent double spending. But if you tried to perform a double-spending like action on a DNS system build on similar principles, the only damage you'd cause would be to your own domain.

But by all means, let's get data and hosting decoupled. DNSSEC provides the ability to validate records, wherever you got them from. But it still has the centralized authority. I'd rather see that once a zone hand over authority over a subdomain to a different public key, then a signature with that key has to be used to hand authority back or transfer it to a new key.

New definition

[Thanshin]

We should change the definition of Legal to "Backed by much money".

Re:New definition

[bill_mcgonigle]

We should change the definition of Legal to "Backed by much money".

It's better to study history than folklore, especially if he about whom the history is told is doing the telling.

Well, fuck you very much

[FuzzNugget]

So *that's* why my DDNS suddenly went dark today, with no apparent explanation.

Port 80 forwarding to the right LAN IP. Server daemons are running. I can access all the services directly by WAN IP (not very useful). Updater client running just fine. No firewall configs in the way. No-IP reports the correct IP. No news posting on No-IP's website about any sort of outage or technical issues.

Well, I was lost -- that was everything. ... and that was all because of this horseshit? Guess what... I'm not even *in* the US, so now the US courts think they have jurisdiction over countries? (OK, that's not new)

Fuck all involved. Hope they get their asses sued to hell. And this judge canned for such a dumbass decision.

Re:Well, fuck you very much

[Geeky]

Me too, in the UK. Figured it was a random glitch until I read this.

I use no-ip to provide an address back to a home server running ZoneMinder for a couple of security cameras. So as it stands I can't access my security system. Great. I went to no-ip because my ISP doesn't offer fixed IP addresses and for no good reason changes my IP address every few days. I also have it on a self-signed SSL cert, and if I access it via IP I have to add another exception to the browser every time it changes.

If it wasn't for the SSL aspect, I'd have a script on my home box identify the external IP address and email me when it changes.

Re:Well, fuck you very much

[ray-auch]

First check your sub domain is not on the list for which they are allowed to fail to return a response, see http://www.noticeoflawsuit.com...
- if so, they are accusing you directly of hosting malware, probably best check that out first...

Otherwise, if you are not on that list then it looks to me like they are violating the order if they are failing to return response for your subdomain. You would need to collect evidence (failed dns resolutions etc.), and evidence of your costs (alternative service provision, trips to check security manually, don't forget to charge your time at normal daily rate... etc.) and then you could sue them - since they have UK presence. Class action is not an option (usually in the UK) but small claims is, although it costs, but it may be worth it depending on how much damage they have done you. Remember you are not challenging the US court order but rather MS failure to deliver continued dns service to subdomains not on the court order (as it implies they will). If you are UK based and since MS has UK presence, UK court is probably correct venue. If (and IANAL) this is feasible, then it would be best if lots of affected people did it at once - since like most courts MS has to file defence / turn up, or they lose, and if there are a _lot_ of cases all at once...

Before small claims court you are supposed to try and resolve the issue and there are some rules (letter before action, http://www.justice.gov.uk/cour...) - basically you can start writing complaint letters to MS in the UK (where you may sue) and cc MS in the US, and you can start costing them lawyer time right now, for very little cost and essentially no risk to yourself.

Or maybe talk to the EFF, they might get involved in the US because if MS have ceased service to legit users not on the list in the order and not hosting malware, then they may be in violation of their own court order. EFF might want to get involved at next stage and submit Amicus Curiae brief on behalf of innocent users.

Re:Well, fuck you very much

[Somebody Is Using My]

Well, I was lost -- that was everything. ... and that was all because of this horseshit? Guess what... I'm not even *in* the US, so now the US courts think they have jurisdiction over countries? (OK, that's not new)

While I do not agree with the ruling, the comment above is ridiculous. Vitalwerks LLC is an American company, hosted in Reno, Nevada. The US Courts have 100% jurisdiction over it. Just because it does business with international customers in no way makes it exempt from US law.

There are a lot of things to complain about with the United States government overreaching its authority in areas where it should not. This is not one of them.

Re:Well, fuck you very much

[Geeky]

I'm on the free option, so it's mostly inconvenience at the moment. I'm not on the list, as I'd expect - all I'm running is port forwarding on 443 only to a centos box.

I'll see how it pans out over the next 24 hours or so before I do anything.

Re:Well, fuck you very much

[Tharkkun]

Yeah. Why the fuck is Microsoft, a company, allowed to seize *anything*!?

It's their security side of the business. You know the ones who have taken down many major malware and spam authors throughout the world...

Overdue

[networkzombie]

Why is anyone surprised about this? I've been reading articles for over a year about No-IP and the abuse that they seemingly allow. They say they are working hard to stop the malicious software plowing through their service, but obviously they are not working hard enough. No one contacted No-IP to tell them that their service was being used to spread malware?

Bullshit.

April 2013: http://labs.opendns.com/2013/0...

Sept 2013: No-IP is a preferred choice for other similar attacks for command and control infrastructure: http://threatpost.com/njw0rm-a...

Feb 2014: Even Cisco said their domains were being abusive and they posted to complain that Cisco didn't contact them. http://www.noip.com/blog/2014/...

Looks to me like they should have contacted Microsoft and asked them for help. I guess they waited too long.

Re:Overdue

[Anonymous Coward]

Not overdue.
1) Legitimate customers shouldn't be punished.
2) Companies shouldn't be able to seize *anything*. It should be handled by law enforcement, and if need be, they can *contract* a company to work closely with them, under close supervision.

Our government is so obviously bought and paid for that it's apparent they're not even trying to hide it.

Re:Overdue

[countach]

Why blame the DNS service for illegal activity? Are we going to blame GoDaddy for every domain it issues to someone who infringes the law? Are going to blame Verizon for hosting it? IANA for issuing them an IP address? Microsoft for selling them an OS to run on their server? It seems to me the DNS host is the least likely port of call for assigning blame. And if there is blame to assign them, then it should go through proper channels, just like I wouldn't ask a judge to shut the doors at Redmond because someone abused their products, and they are refusing to patch windows XP.

Re:Overdue

[aaaaaaargh!]

First, malware is primarily spread by Microsoft Windows. And secondly, I want to access my home server, which does provably not spread malware, and Microsoft and some US court have just cut down the dynamic IP system I need for this.

One more evidence that using a .com domain is insecure. I'll be sure to only support business with a .eu domain in future.

Re:Overdue

[mythosaz]

No-IP punished their legitimate customers by allowing their service by failing to take action against those who abuse their service.

Re:Overdue

[mythosaz]

Because no-ip had been called out for providing name-services for malware distributors countless times before - and they don't do fuck-all about it.

That's why the DNS service is being blamed.

Re:Overdue

[russotto]

No-IP punished their legitimate customers by allowing their service by failing to take action against those who abuse their service.

Begs so many questions.
1) Did they have a duty to take action against those distributing malware via their service?
2) If they did have such a duty, what actions were they required to take?
3) If they were required to take actions they failed to take, was seizing their entire domain an appropriate remedy?

But nobody even got to ask these questions, because the order was ex parte.

This is like the MPAA shutting down a mall because they claim pirated DVDs are being sold there.

Re:Overdue

[mythosaz]

If you're going to use a dumb analogy, at least include the relevant parts:

It's like a mall getting shut down for some of the stores automatically selling black market guns, after the mall owners had been repeatedly contacted, asking them to do something about the gun stores.

Issuing the order ex parte gives the new owner of the "stores" the chance to intercept those automatic orders and take action on them before the roaches scurry away with the lights on.

Re:Overdue

[Kalriath]

Actually, they don't. Malware authors use No-IP because all you need to sign up is an email. Registering a domain with Godaddy, Enom, NetSol, etc requires you to hand over to that company your name, address, phone number, credit card details... hardly anonymous. The problem with No-IP is it's anonymous, so malware authors use it.

WTF?

[doghouse41]

So my email and VOIP system has been subject to an attack by Microsoft (as they rely on *paid for* no-ip domains.).

Can we have microsoft.com domains taken down, as they are clearly causing a huge amount of damage to the fabric of the Internet.

What a bunch of w******s

Re:WTF?

[Kalriath]

Uh, No-IP has a pool of domains which are specifically for paying customers only (which were unaffected, as malware isn't hosted off the paid domains). Why were you not using one of those instead of the free pool?

Re:WTF?

[cbiltcliffe]

MS should be glad CISPA hasn't been passed and come into effect. They are definitely, no question, making information "less available" with this action, which means Microsoft, and possibly even the court, would be classed as cyber threats.

Wait a second...

[FuzzNugget]

So, Microsoft's argument was that they needed to hijack thousands of computers, secretly redirect them and put people in financial strain... so that someone else couldn't hijack thousands of computers, secretly redirect them and put people in financial strain?

Great plan, fuckwits!

Re:Wait a second...

[AHuxley]

You would think this could be fixed at an OS or application level vs the only fix been reaching out to fix the 'internet'?

Take them to court over Windows

[future assassin]

If it wasn't for the all the holes in WIndows then there's would't be as many people trying to distribute malware. MS themselves are the first in line as the root cause.

Re:They're not kidding (I've seen it 1st hand)...

[lgw]

Well, fuck. No-IP going down? A million basement virgins lose access to their favorite minecraft server, and nothing of value was lost.

But, dammit MS, you proved APK right about something. That karmic burden is on you guys now. That bell can't be un-rung. You've got to carry that forever now.

Self appointed judge

[ruir]

USA and Microsoft the self-appointed police of the world strikes again... Two comments. If it indeed no-ip has virus problems, it would be FBI, CIA or NSA, or whatever national agency and not the fuckwits from Microsoft. Second point, if we are talking about malware distribution points, are we disabling hotmail.com and microsoft.com too?

Re: My stuff got hit by this.

[gigelu]

It's not about a real domain, it's about dynamic IP.
I have a "real" domain but I am still using no-ip.org to connect to some VPNs on ADSL with dynamic IP addresses.

Re:They're not kidding (I've seen it 1st hand)...

[lgw]

I'm sure there's some ISP out there that ridiculous, but I've never seen one that would change your IP unless you rebooted your Cable/DSL modem (or they had some sort of outage to the same effect) - how would they even know you rebooted your server? There was a time when many people reached the Pirate Bay by hitting a forum for this week's IP address. There was a time when most gamers reached their server by checking a forum/BBS for the server's current IP.

But, hey, if the only ISP with service to Mom's basement is that evil, I understand, this must really suck for you! Just remember to be careful if you get so bored that you wander out into the Blue Room - remember, the Day Star will burn unprotected skin!

Re:Here's a hint:

[Chas]

So articulate!

Can you provide a 35 page thesis on this by Friday?

Malice? more like incompetence...

[DarkHelmet433]

A quick skim of the motion for the court order gave me the "boilerplate" and "cut & paste" feeling. There is a lot of sloppy line blurring between actions and complaints directed at the Malware authors and the no-ip folks. Sometimes they refer to the "Malware Defendants" and other times the generic "Defendants" when they meant the former. Really sloppy legal work.

There are some real gems in there:

From section 7:
"There is good cause to believe that immediate and irreparable damage to this Court’s ability to grant effective final relief will result from the sale, transfer, or other disposition or concealment by Defendants of the Internet domains at issue"
Say what? How is that related anything? Its not like the TRO will actually prevent people from being able to hit 'delete' via the control panel. Given that everything's busted by their own doing, the bad guys got a huge head start.

From section 8:
"... and the interest of justice require that this Order be Granted without prior notice to Defendants ..."
Wow ...

The full motion text: http://www.noticeoflawsuit.com...

It seems to me that regardless of what good intentions that Microsoft may have had, they've really fouled up the execution. They'll be remembered more for taking out millions of legitimate users than the malware they *might* be able to take down.

Re:Malice? more like incompetence...

[DarkHelmet433]

I also suspect they've managed to botch the technical aspect of it as well.

Presumably the plan was to put their caching name servers in front of the real no-ip servers, and gather the mappings for the malware suspect sites and then blackhole them after getting what they want. The problem was that Microsoft's side appears to have melted down, thus taking everything down. They won't be getting logs, behavior analysis or anything, because its all a pile of wreckage in a crater. Meanwhile, all the "bad guys(TM)" have now had hours head start to delete their C&C node registrations while microsoft's servers are down. And now they've ticked off the no-ip folks, so I wouldn't expect them to be in a cooperative mood to try and help.

Bone headed all round. There's no other way to put it.

Re:embraced, extended and extnguished

[lister king of smeg]

Well as Google runs their own public dns servers and is branching out in the being a registrar that could be very hard to enforce as Google could just say we are our own registrar additionally Microsoft would find them selves on the loosing end of the biggest lawsuit and damages claims you have ever seen if they tried that. It is one thing to pick on a small company it another to take on a massively powerful well financed very much more popular equal.

Now move to azure

[bombman]

I suggest all scammers, spammers and malware coders immediately move to azure. My developer friend tell me .NET is the shit :)

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[account_deleted]

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[account_deleted]

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Re:Microsoft takes on global cybercrime epidemic

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows is an easy target for cybercriminals

So... How come they shut down no-ip instead of Windows sales?

Taking over government functions

[AxeTheMax]

So MS has a 'Digital Crimes Unit' and the US courts allow it to carry out law enforcement duties. How long before they have their own policemen, courts and prisons? It goes together with the Microsoft tax I suppose.

Re:Taking over government functions

[0xdeaddead]

well swat teams are now 501(c)(3)'s so why not?

Re:Taking over government functions

[dave420]

Slippery slope fallacy is slippery!

Re:Taking over government functions

[bill_mcgonigle]

Do you want the justification that invokes 'child pornographers', 'terrorists', or just generic 'boogey men'?

Re:Anyone have the actual ruling?

[DarkHelmet433]

The motion is here: http://www.noticeoflawsuit.com...

Re:The reason is power.

[DamnOregonian]

Wrong again. But if you keep posting it, maybe 1 or 2 people will take your word for it instead of reading what that actually is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K...

No-IP Address?

[Rah'Dick]

So when Microsoft hijacked the DNS, the IP addresses of No-IP services should still be running, no?

Does anyone have a list of their (old) IPs?

Re:No-IP Address?

[wolfmanx]

Works like a charm, if you have your own nameserver:
zone "no-ip.org" {
        type forward; forward only;
        forwarders {50.31.129.129; 69.72.255.8; 69.65.40.108; 69.65.5.122; 83.222.240.75;};
};

zone "no-ip.biz" {
        type forward; forward only;
        forwarders {50.31.129.129; 69.72.255.8; 69.65.40.108; 69.65.5.122; 83.222.240.75;};
};

zone "no-ip.info" {
        type forward; forward only;
        forwarders {50.31.129.129; 69.72.255.8; 69.65.40.108; 69.65.5.122; 83.222.240.75;};
};

More Info...

[Guy From V]

Microsoft's anti-malware crusade knackers '4 MILLION' No-IP Users

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...

My router's auto-dynamic IP setup still has my "no-ip.biz" alias as current, I just refreshed it and got a renew, I barely remembered I used this service until I read this. I'm not going to keep using it until I know WTF.

Re:My stuff got hit by this.

[gl4ss]

well, I'm pretty sure the judge didn't ask no-ip.

and MS portrayed it to the judge in the way that they must do it in haste, no time to waste.

so two things, MS mislead the judge and the judge didn't give a shit about ASKING THE FUCKING COMPANY WHO OWNS the DOMAINS. there's of course the trouble that hey, the fucking system allows that you can do that with a court order. now MS could have done this with any domain they chose.

Re:They're not kidding (I've seen it 1st hand)...

[Geeky]

BT in the UK.

My IP address changes every week or so, and I'm not rebooting my modem.

I don't think it's all bad intentions

[viperidaenz]

If this was one of their "we're taking over domains to kill a botnet" plans, that explains why no-ip was not informed. If word got out. how many seconds does it take for the botnet controllers to update the host names?

I still think it's shit though. Can't access my home VPN.

Security cameras

[Ecuador]

Security cameras is another common usage. A low cost installation has some IP cameras on a residential dynamic IP internet service, so you use no-ip for access. I can't access my vacation house feeds today. For all I know there might be gnomes partying around the premises right now. Thanks MS.

Re:Security cameras

[tompaulco]

We also used no-ip for security cameras as well. I have a friend who also uses it for managing some remote backups. I know of no one that uses the service illegitimately, although, like any tool, there are undoubtedly people who use it for illegal purposes. If that happens you prosecute the person who performed the illegal act, not the person who provided the tool.

Re:Security cameras

[modi123]

For all I know there might be gnomes partying around the premises right now.

On the scale of one to ten, how hot are your average gnomes that party at your vacation house?

Re:In before

[marcomarrero]

The coincidence is that DynDns stopped offering free service a while ago. Maybe Microsoft made them an offer they couldn't refuse...

Re: My stuff got hit by this.

[fnj]

I think CoolVibe means "get a real VPS with a static IP and real DNS".

Instead of being cry babies

[ruir]

Hit them where it hurts and boycott Microsoft products. There are not many enterprises that can have the luxury of hurting millions of clients.

Re: Instead of being cry babies

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. I can just imagine "millions of users" ditching Windows and installing linok (what a shame, I spelt it wrong) and giving up all of their games and productivity software. Get a grip on reality, won't you: the public does not give a shit.

Re:Instead of being cry babies

[RecycledElectrons]

That will not hurt them.

Writing software to wipe all Microsoft installs will hurt them...too bad it's illegal in some places.

Re:Let's sure Microsoft over Windows insecurities

[gnasher719]

Perhaps Microsoft should be enjoined from distributing a OS that is responsible for most the the malware and spam that everyone's firewalls and filters are defending against.

Surely it's the creators of malware and spam that are primarily responsible?

Thanks a bunch, Microsoft

[thrill12]

[grudge mode]I will be sure to claim damages for this, as I am using no-ip for my own server which is perfectly valid and runs no Microsoft software whatsoever (nor will it ever). What judge is so stupid as to do this ???[/grudge mode].
Did not hear anything from No-ip though ; when I logged in yesterday to find out what was wrong, and why my domain was not resolving, there was no information whatsoever.

Re:Take down Windows!

[aprdm]

Why don't you fix it?

Upside?

[RandomFactor]

I got the MS Notification on the activity at work.

There were 200 different items of malware being served across 22,037 separate malicious domains. If there are 4 million customers, and 1:1 customers to domains, that is about 180 innocent domains for every one malicious one.

I'm all in favor of shutting down botnets and i can see the results (for a while) in spam volumes hitting us when actions like this are taken, but this much collateral damage seems likely to hinder future efforts.

Microsoft's new business plan

[Culture20]

1. Extinguish

Re:In before

[cmdr_tofu]

The grandfathered in existing customers. I paid them like $90 in the 90's and still use their free services (in addition to the services I paid for only once)

Re: My stuff got hit by this.

[cmdr_tofu]

I made quite a few "real domain" cnames to my dyndns.org and was doing web hosting from a dialup. My stuff still works for the moment :)

Re:Let's sure Microsoft over Windows insecurities

[qbast]

Microsoft does not think so - they went after no-ip after all.

ever heard of emanate domain?

[GoChickenFat]

emanate domain, sometimes also called condemnation - is what government uses to do the same thing and almost always now to give to another company "for the greater good". Ever been forced to allow an easement, usually for some cabling or piping company to make a profit through your land? We've had land taken around here for a city owned bike trail and at least one of the property owners was not contacted before they took his land and built the trail without his knowledge - condemnation later took care of that problem when he didn't want to sell them what they already took.

err... imminent not emanate :(

[GoChickenFat]

another victim of bad spell check selection. the US education system and auto correct have failed me again :( I blame Microsoft.

Re: My stuff got hit by this.

[Predius]

There are ways to do VPNs from dynamic endpoints that don't require dynamic DNS. IPSec supports xauth for just this purpose.

Re:Take down Windows!

[Culture20]

As GP clearly stated: what it replaced wasn't broken. It's change for the sake of change which is rarely good.

Re:Devil's Advocate

[Culture20]

This is like nuking Nigeria to stop Nigerian scams.

Lawsuits will fly

[Anonymous Coward]

IAAL (but this isn't legal advice). I noticed that it was an ex parte hearing, which is why this whole mess occurred. They're useful for preventing domestic violence, but ripe for abuse in all contexts. NO-IP should be moving for an emergency hearing and the whole issue should be resolved within hours. Beyond that, NO-IP should follow-up with a suit for damages (I suspect MS will pull the we-got-a-court-order card and NO-IP gets to respond back with you lied to the court. It all goes nowhere and they settle).

The more interesting aspect is the disrupted users. While MS moved against NO-IP ex parte, they apparently made assertions that they would keep the service functioning properly. They've failed there and suits are now possible for those failures. More interestingly, however, is whether MS was recording, manipulating, or in any other way playing with the traffic. If so, there are some excellent wiretap statutes waiting to be had.

I, sadly, didn't have an NO-IP account, but if I did, I'd be heading to the court house this afternoon. This is what happens when you skip due process, let a to-big-to-fail corporation do whatever it wants to private corporations through the guise of the courts. Corruption at it's finest. MS should be bludgeoned thoroughly enough to at least think twice before attempting it again.

Re:Lawsuits will fly

[ray-auch]

Amen (and mod parent up).

There is another interesting thing for disrupted users - service was only supposed to be stopped for sumdomains on the court list or subsequently found to be hosting malware. So if your service is now stopped, MS are effectively publicly asserting that you are a malware host (and hence possibly a Doe defendant in the suit). If you aren't hosting malware, looks like potential defamation by MS as well...

Re:Lawsuits will fly

[Bob9113]

Nice post. Thank you!

Well, fuck you very much

[aaaaaaargh!]

As someone who is also affected by this sudden outage, I have to agree with you. Noip was the last free service that my home router supports. Thanks to Microsoft, I can now log into my computer, curl the external url, note it down, and adjust my remote access scripts every day.

I cannot believe that this is apparently legal. In my book this proves beyond any doubt that the US legal system is totally fucked up and that we need international treaties to protect non-US users and customers from this system. This is also the first time I am seriously considering taking a lawyer and press charges against Microsoft and/or the court responsible for this. It is probably not going to happen, though -- much too expensive and not many chances of success.

Is there anything else that can be done about this?

Incredibly heavy-handed

[Just Brew It!]

Hmm... Microsoft behaving like a spastic bull in a china shop? Who would've thought it was possible...

All well and good that they're trying to fight the good fight against malware; but taking out millions of legitimate users as collateral damage is simply unacceptable. Somebody really botched this operation. I hope there's some sort of accountability (but I'm not going to hold my breath).

Trojan horse programs

[tepples]

I see no practical way to close the "users are willing to install software that turns out to be malware" hole without either A. banning free software or B. actually following the money to find the parties who benefit from the use of malware. Apple's iDivision and the major game console makers choose option A, but I don't think it'll scale to computers used for actual work

No-IP should open up their nameservers

[Lord Duran]

No-IP has nameservers that they block for outside domains.

I think that, at least until this nonsense is over, they should open up access to everyone for resolving no-ip domains. That way at least the nerds could access their machines - using

nslookup <your-domain> <no-ip's dns>

(this works both on Linux and on Windows!)

Re:No-IP should open up their nameservers

[Lord Duran]

Turns out you can do this - their nameservers are at
nf1.no-ip.com
nf2.no-ip.com
nf3.no-ip.com
nf4.no-ip.com
nf5.no-ip.com

so

nslookup <your domain> nf1.no-ip.com

should give you your IP.

Re:No-IP should open up their nameservers

[LinuxIsGarbage]

Turns out you can do this - their nameservers are at
nf1.no-ip.com
nf2.no-ip.com
nf3.no-ip.com
nf4.no-ip.com
nf5.no-ip.com

so

nslookup <your domain> nf1.no-ip.com

should give you your IP.

Mod parent and grandparent up!

Though I only got a response from nf3.no-ip.com.

Re:Richard Domingues is wrong in every way

[GlennC]

I'm sorry, I couldn't understand you over the WOOOSSSSHHHHH.

Re:My stuff got hit by this.

[currently_awake]

If No-IP was actively helping the malware guys then giving them notice would mean all the bot-nets would have been re-hosted instead of getting cut off from their control servers like they are now. Microsoft is getting a name for actively hunting down bot-net networks and shutting them down. It actually makes a (small) dent in all the harm they caused by not securing Windows in the first place. They could make a huge dent in that harm by swapping Free-BSD for the OS that lurks under Windows, but I'm not hopeful.

My video game's cloud storage got hosed

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

My game got released on Kongregate on June 30th, 2014, and less than a day later, NOIP got hijacked by Microsoft.com. I knew the environment is bad for the little guy, but I didn't expect Microsoft to hose my game within a day of release.

Re:My video game's cloud storage got hosed

[Kalriath]

And even No-IP has paid services that were completely unaffected, because only the free domains were cut off.

Releasing a game with cloud storage (no doubt for a fee) and relying on a free service to provide core infrastructure? Sounds pretty irresponsible.

Re:My video game's cloud storage got hosed

[neminem]

Unless you started off free, then decided to pay but kept your free domain because you were already using it. Like I did.

Two days later... still down. This is kind of absurd.

Re:My video game's cloud storage got hosed

[Kalriath]

Ah, that makes sense. If I were you, I'd be planning to get a real domain - that way you're in control and you have more resilience to this sort of thing. I know that doesn't really help you now of course.

Re:My video game's cloud storage got hosed

[neminem]

Eh, it was mostly just for myself anyway. If it were anything even remotely professional, I would. I mean, it runs a web server that's technically locatable on google, but only if you're googling for it exactly; I expect most of its visitors were pointed to it by me directly. So it wasn't a big deal.

Re:My video game's cloud storage got hosed

[Kalriath]

Fair enough. Don't really blame you in that case. Check out Amazon Route 53 if you haven't already though. Super reliable, and once you get past the clunky interface it's pretty good to use.

Re: My stuff got hit by this.

[omnichad]

Have you heard of CNAME records? You still need a hostname for your dynamic IP.

Collateral damage

[spasm]

Like many slashdotters, I have an old box under my desk which grabs mail from several external accounts via pop and serves it up via imap. No smtp though. And having home DSL with no static IP, I use No-IP to provide a stable domain for that machine. So this morning I wake up and discover that the domain has disappeared and my mail client can't connect. And I'm out of town, so have no physical access to the box, which is still happily grabbing my mail from external accounts.. Fortunately the no-ip website is still displaying the dynamic ip address the domain was last pointing at, and my ISP hasn't changed it (and probably won't until I next reboot) so I've been able to log in just using the ip address, but now I need to waste a morning switching it to another domain. Seriously, wtf microsoft!

Re:Devil's Advocate

[omnichad]

This is more like shutting down all email to stop Nigerian scams.

Re:They're not kidding (I've seen it 1st hand)...

[ruir]

It is not the modem, but the equipment/router connected to your modem, unless your cable modem is a combo of cable modem/wifi router.

Re:The reason is power.

[Bartles]

I entirely disagree that Kelo is not applicable. This is what O'Connor wrote in her dissent.

"Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."

That's exactly what happens. One side of the story

[raymorris]

> The court should consider the validity of the arguments against them and the facts of the case.

I've won two default judgements and that's precisely what happens. Of course, judges are not investigators. They consider the facts _as_presented_by_the_parties_. If one party doesn't show up, the judge doesn't hear their side of the story. The party who does show up still has to make a "prima facie" case, meaning that they briefly explain why they should win. The judge then considers the facts they present and their arguments and makes a decision. It's not too unusual the only party who shows up doesn't get EVERYTHING they want. They'll probably "win", meaning get most of what they want, though not always.

In one of my two cases, I showed the judge that what I was asking for was completely fair to the other party, that they would probably agree to it (which in fact they had, but we needed the court to make it official). The judge was interested in seeing that it was fair - he wasn't going to give me a default judgement that was clearly unfair to the party who didn't show up.

The losing party who didn't show up can then appeal. I had that happen with an insurance company. Their insured hit my car and it was his fault. When they didn't answer phone calls or letters, I sued. They didn't show up, allowing me to get a default judgement. I guess they were hoping I wouldn't show up either, because the very next day they filed an appeal - meaning they WERE paying close attention to the case. It's entirely possible they even had someone in the courtroom to see me win the default judgement, choosing to see if I would blow my own case in the default hearing before they paid their attorney to show up.

How about a home brew dynamic DNS system?

[Noishe]

Just setup a CloudFlare account and host your dns through them for free. Then use their api on your server whenever your ip changes.

An example of using the API is as follows... taken from https://www.cloudflare.com/doc...

curl https://www.cloudflare.com/api... \

    -d 'a=rec_edit' \

    -d 'tkn=8afbe6dea02407989af4dd4c97bb6e25' \

    -d 'id=9001' \

    -d 'email=sample@example.com' \

    -d 'z=example.com' \

    -d 'type=A' \

    -d 'name=sub' \

    -d 'content=1.2.3.4' \

    -d 'service_mode=1' \

    -d 'ttl=1'

Re:Internet

[mythosaz]

When you install Malware on my machine, you have two choices, you can give it an IP to contact, or you can give it a DNS name.

If you give it a static IP address, it's easy for the good guys to contact your provider and squash you.
If you give it a DNS address on a provider that doesn't do fuck all about malware hosts using it, then you can survive the whack-a-mole game for a long time.

Re:The reason is power.

[DamnOregonian]

A dissent does not set precedent, and I fully agree with her dissent.
That said, it *still* does not apply to an ex parte TRO. What MS did has been done for a long time in many jurisdictions. This may be the biggest profile questionable application of the ex parte TRO, but it's not the first or last of its kind, and it's in no way relevant to an eminent domain ruling.

unbelievable

[SkunkPussy]

You can't just mess with people's stuff like this, or potentially destroy a business. Fucking unbelievable that microsoft got a judge to permit this.

Meaning of the abbrevation?

[mcrbids]

No Intellectual Property?

Hijacking Business

[ONOIML8]

After calling Microsoft technical support many times today, it is obvious they had no clue how many legitimate users No-IP has. They were completely unprepared for the calls to restore service and they were given no information about No-IP. Many times I was referred to their legal and corporate affairs office (425-706-7863). They don't know anything either. Eventually I was transfered to some Azure department where I was told they would offer to sell me a replacement service.

Re:Hijacking Business

[BenJeremy]

Try finding the damn tech support number at Microsoft... for those who are affected, call this number and ask for "Operator": 800-642-7676

At least voicing our angry concerns, and failing any resolution (that won't really happen, but perhaps we can overload their ticket system), call their legal and corporate affairs office (425-706-7863, in the parent post).

I was directed to the "Pro support team" - if they try and sell me Azure services I am going to freak. That's just outright illegal - hijacking and shutting down a competitor to sell business?!?!? I don't care if that is the unintended effect - it is still incredibly unethical and illegal.

Re:Hijacking Business

[herbierobinson]

Write down your experience (the offer from Microsoft to sell you a replacement service), get it notarized, and send it to the No-IP folks. M$ probably didn't do that on purpose, but it sounds like something that would really piss off the judge that issued that restraining order.

Great move alienating tech savvy people

[CptJeanLuc]

Our company has found evidence there are people driving cars while under the influence of alcohol in and out of the city, every single day. In order to safeguard our customers who frequently travel the city streets, we move to block all roads accessing the city.

Come on Microsoft ... if you want to be the hip guy who are just as cool as Apple and Google, you need to stop doing this kind of stuff. If you want to steam ahead as you are currently going, with draconian initiatives with questionable legal base that mess up the infrastructure of mostly tech savvy users (you know, the people who give advice to others what they should buy) who will tell their friends exactly what they believe people should expect from your company, then here is a free suggestion for a new company slogan, "Microsoft - because we can".

How on earth did you get that result?

[SplatMan_DK]

I don't know where you went to school, but you should ask for a refund. Or read up on basic percentage calculations.

Microsoft claims that 93% of the malware traffic is traced to No-IP. But that says nothing about the total amount of traffic for No-IP, nor does it say anything about the total volume of legitimate domains. Malware traffic could be as little as 1% on No-IP's infrastructure while still accounting for 93% of malware DDNS traffic.

It is completely wrong to state that 93% of No-IP domains are hosting malware. A large number of legitimate customers are being affected by this, and Microsoft is not resolving their DDNS domains correctly (as promised). The actual percentage of legitimate vs malicious domains is unknown, as is the distribution of legit/malicious traffic.

Also, Microsofts claims are disputed by No-IP, so we should not take them at face value. No real evidence of malice has been proven (yet), which makes it extremely questionable that this was conducted ex parte.

Finally, the fact that No-IP was a favorite for malware is not (or should not be) in itself sufficient to take control of the domains like this. I sincerely hope Microsoft can prove No-IP did not respond properly to requests. Or that they can document that an extremely large portion of total traffic on No-IP was malware (which we know nothing about at this point).

Simply quoting the 93% number is a pile of BS. I can't stand by itself. I can say with certainty that at least 93% of the Nigerian scam mail I have received the last year has used a hotmail.com or outlook.com account. But surely this does not prove that Microsoft is willingly aiding Nigerian scammers and that their domains should be seized?

Re:The reason is power.

[Fjandr]

The applicability is in the logic behind the majority ruling, which is spelled out in the dissent. This situation is very much akin to what O'Conner was worried about given that the ruling allows forany property to be seized from one private entity in order to benefit another private entity.

Judge Jackson

[ratsg]

Judge Jackson, where are you when we need you most?

Who is next? Dropbox.com?

[vpnsecure]

I wonder if the folks at Dropbox are worried about the same fate after all of the Cryptowall malware hosted by their service.

Re:The reason is power.

[DamnOregonian]

Again, no. That is not what this ruling allows.
It's far more narrow than that.
The ruling allows a government to take private property with just compensation for the benefit of another private party where that private party's good coincides with the public good.
This was an ex parte temporary restraining order. An order where a single party asks for relief from the judiciary under extreme circumstances temporarily without the other party having to be present.

I fully understand the similarities you are trying to point out, but they still *do not apply*.

Anyone who has been in an unfortunate business partnership has probably seen their private property temporarily controlled by another party under the order of an ex parte TRO, or at least an attempt at it. A common use is to seize assets before someone can wipe your data off of them.
Basically, any injunction that a judge has the power to grant on a retraining order can be done ex parte, where law allows.

Re:Here's some I know of... apk

[Kalriath]

Those aren't the domains Microsoft seized. APK merely listed No-IPs ccTLDs, which is wrong. Microsoft seized all the domains associated with all the No-IP subdomains listed in http://www.noticeoflawsuit.com... - all the documentation can be read at http://www.noticeoflawsuit.com....

a center of excellence

[k2r]

From the article:
> This is the third malware disruption by Microsoft since the November unveiling of the Microsoft Cybercrime Center
> —a center of excellence for advancing the global fight against cybercrime.

How clueless do you have to be to reach that level of excellence in Microsoft?

I mean, where do you live if you don't know that no-ip has a huge customer base and that tampering with their DNS just might be a difficult thing to do? You have no place in IT if you don't know this.

Re:Microsoft should takedown Hotmail.com & Liv

[Kalriath]

Why? AWS hosts far more malicious stuff than Azure does (probably because AWS has a free tier, and Azure does not).

Re: They're not kidding (I've seen it 1st hand)...

[Kalriath]

Then use one of the unaffected paid-customer-only domains. Sorted.

Re:Arrogant, lying bastards

[Kalriath]

Yes there would be viruses, malware, and a multi-billion dollar a year AV industry, because the criminals would actually be writing malware for OS X and Linux.

Re:The internet - not the US' plaything

[russotto]

All parties involved -- Microsoft, NoIP, and NoIPs registrar -- are in the US. What court would you expect to have jurisdiction? The problem is that the court went batshit crazy in issuing this order, not that it was in the US.

Re:Can we get a lawyer to assist?

[Kalriath]

Well, no. Since what they claimed is that they only SEEK to block traffic to the malicious domains. For example by blocking the bad ones and recursing the other ones. Now, they failed to do that, but it wasn't intentional. You certainly wouldn't be able to claim bad faith.

Re:They're not kidding (I've seen it 1st hand)...

[Kelxin]

Well, fuck. No-IP going down? A million basement virgins lose access to their favorite minecraft server, and nothing of value was lost.

Actually, I've got over a dozen businesses running No-IP using them to create VPN's across dynamic IP addresses. This has created QUITE a bit of financial loss and headaches for a large number of businesses that utilize this.

Re: My stuff got hit by this.

[riondluz]

Hi:

This is what I have done for my dynamicIP issue:

Register a subdomain with Allowed.org or Moo.com or afraid.com
e.g. myhome.allowed.org

Next goto your real domain registrar or edit your own DNS server and create a CNAME for a subdomain that points to what you registered.
e.g. myhome.mydomain.com -> myhome.allowed.org

Just be aware that it has no rDNS.

Next, create a script that updates your IP whenever you notice it changes using this script:
wget http://freedns.afraid.org/scri...

So, for my purposes: I heavily restrict ssh on my C5 servers to specific domains/IPs using shorewall.
Whenever my IP would change i risked getting locked out and had to resort to a jump host.
Now, instead I have a shorewall param that sets some var to myhome.allowed.org and a rule that permits ssh using that var.

Then just run a cronjob to update the IPaddress on a regular basis.

Hope this helps.

Is this what you wanted?

[SeanQuaint]

People said years ago they wanted their governments run like businesses. Well. Here you are. And they've done you a level better: government isn't run like a business; it's run by a business.

Back to their old tricks again, looks like.

[doccus]

Shades of BeOS. Or "Internet Explorer is an operating system".. or manufacturers that offer multiple boot are blocked from OEM Windows.. or Aaah "Doesn't the "crunch" of bones being broken by that steamroller sound so goood"..

Re: My stuff got hit by this.

[gigelu]

Thanks, I'll look into it, I have to see if I can do this on a dd-wrt router.

Re: My stuff got hit by this.

[gigelu]

Just checked now, dd-wrt knows about freedns.afraid.org and also it seems that my no-ip.org domains work again.

Re:"Wrong"? Prove it... apk

[Kalriath]

Hey fuckwit, I didn't say anything about your fucking hosts files. I said your list was wrong because it included a bunch of domains which aren't seized, which is correct.

There's a reason people resort to profanity when dealing with you: because you're a contemptible trolling cunt who needs to fuck off and stop acting like a 5 year old. If you actually read my comment history, you'd see that on occasion I have even agreed with you, where you say things which make sense.

Re:Hey stupid - prove they're not bad

[Kalriath]

APK, for the love of all that's holy... I don't give a shit about your hosts files. They aren't even relevant to this topic. And I post days later because I don't troll Slashdot day and night looking for perceived offenses to take umbrage at and scour comment histories to spam up with irrelevant bullshit.

Re:LMAO - @ 8:24 pm ES Time I caught you

[Kalriath]

Moron, I don't even HAVE mod points. And even if I did, ACs can't moderate, so logging out of my account wouldn't allow me to downmod your post anyway.

Have you considered seeking help? You ave all the signs of paranoid schizophrenia.

Re:HOSTS files = QUITE relevant

[Kalriath]

What are you sniveling about now? no-ip.com wasn't seized. The authoritive NS records for the domain still point to Vitalwerks' servers. Ditto for the other no-ip ccTLDs - all of which you listed. Face it, your list is wrong, and RANDOMLY capitalising and bolding WORDS doesn't change that fact, or that hosts files are irrelevant to this discussion.