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U.S. Government Shuts Down 84,000 Websites, ‘By Mistake’
- DanielBMarkham 16y agoOh geesh. What an awful story. I worked as a subcontractor for a vendor servicing ICE back when it was INS. Nobody that I knew was very impressed with the quality of service that INS was providing, either internally or externally. Changing their name to make them sound better and then putting them in charge of something like this is just, well, very sad. (I don't mean to disparage an entire agency. All I have is my personal experience)
- nkassis 16y agoHaving dealt with the INS and then the Dept of Homeland Security. The changes were for the worse. I get that they wanted to integrate all the agencies now making up the DoHS for better information sharing but there is a point when departments get so big that it just doesn't function anymore. They should have kept them smaller to remove the bureaucratic cruft.
- nicpottier 16y agoAm I the only one that is amused that the site they redirect to serves a single gigantic GIF totally 205K in size? It is also exactly 1024x768, which seems even sillier, I guess people browsing child porn run their browsers in full screen mode all the time? http://74.81.170.110/ http://74.81.170.110/
- danohuiginn 16y agowhich, incidentally, goes against every accessibility law in the book.
- chopsueyar 16y agoInteresting point. No Section 508 compliance. 5th amendment violation - taking property without due process Libel - falsely accusing a domain name owner of peddling kiddie porn Any others I am missing?
- tibbon 16y agoI just sent an email on this. To Whom it May Concern: The Department of Homeland Security has recently seized around 84,000 domains, replacing their content with a gif image (can be seen at: http://74.81.170.110/ http://74.81.170.110/ with a backup at http://linuxhomebase.com/IPRC_Seized_2010_11.jpg http://linuxhomebase.com/IPRC_Seized_2010_11.jpg). This is part of "Operation: Protect Our Children" (more info at: http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/releases/pr_1297804574965.shtm http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/releases/pr_1297804574965.shtm) The entire source code to the page is now: <html> <head> <title>This domain name has been seized by ICE - Homeland Security Investigations</title> </head> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF"> <div align="center"> <img src="IPRC_Seized_2010_11.gif" width="1024" height="768" border="0"> </div> </body> </html> As you can see, this page being run by the DHS has no compliance with Section 508 and is completely inaccessible to citizens and users with disabilities. I find the lack of accessibility by a government office to be highly disturbing and hope that you can direct me in such a way that will help resolve this situation. This is email is being sent to the DHS and U.S. General Services Administration Office of Governmentwide Policy, IT Accessibility & Workforce Division in hopes that both agencies can work together to create an alternate site that is in compliance with the law.
- AndyKelley 16y agoFunny. But I'd rather they were getting email about and working on not shutting down any more domains.
- marshray 16y agoYou never know what is going to get through to these people. Three disabled people with canes and wheelchairs on the steps of a building in Washington DC may mean more in the media than 80000 people who are able to host their own websites.
- nightpool 16y agoMaybe they were thinking people wanted to use it as their background?
- graywh 16y agoI'm not sure I could find a working monitor that small...
- tibbon 16y agoWhile there are more important things in life (like being accused wrongly of child pornography), I wonder how that effects their Google rankings to suddenly have your entire domain ripped out from underneath you and pointing to a duplicate content site. Is there any recourse for this action? Seems that this would trigger unreasonable search and seizure.
- w1ntermute 16y ago> Seems that this would trigger unreasonable search and seizure. Oh, I think that boundary was crossed a long time ago. It's more a problem of the US government not giving two fucks about its own Constitution.
- tibbon 16y agoI don't know the entire process well, but wouldn't that be something that you'd presumably file in Federal District court and start there? Once/if it hits the Supreme Court, I don't think the government could really ignore it could they?
- w1ntermute 16y agoAs an example, let's look at the warrantless wiretapping that AT&T did on the behest of the NSA[0]. The EFF filed two cases in response that claimed it was a blatant violation of the 4th amendment: Jewel v. NSA[1] & Hepting v. AT&T[2], against the government & AT&T, respectively. Here's the latest news on Jewel v. NSA: > In April, the Obama administration moved to dismiss Jewel, claiming that litigation over the wiretapping program would require the government to disclose privileged "state secrets,” and that they were immune from suit. According to the documents on the EFF site, they appealed the ruling, but there hasn't been anything posted about the results of that. How about the case against AT&T? > In June of 2009, a federal judge dismissed Hepting and dozens of other lawsuits against telecoms, ruling that the companies had immunity from liability under the controversial FISA Amendments Act (FISAAA), which was enacted in response to our court victories in Hepting. Signed by President Bush in 2008, the FISAAA allows the Attorney General to require the dismissal of the lawsuits over the telecoms' participation in the warrantless surveillance program if the government secretly certifies to the court that the surveillance did not occur, was legal, or was authorized by the president -- certification that was filed in September of 2008. EFF is planning to appeal the decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, primarily arguing that FISAAA is unconstitutional in granting to the president broad discretion to block the courts from considering the core constitutional privacy claims of millions of Americans. 0: https://www.eff.org/issues/nsa-spying https://www.eff.org/issues/nsa-spying 1: https://www.eff.org/cases/jewel https://www.eff.org/cases/jewel 2: https://www.eff.org/nsa/hepting https://www.eff.org/nsa/hepting
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- yardie 16y agoIt's amazing that these operations and bills are intentionally wrapped in wording that makes them politically untouchable. I can see why lawmakers wouldn't want to investigate this. Who wants to be the congressman/woman that went against Operation Save our children?
- joeybaker 16y agoMeh… it's semantics, they'd vote against Operation Save our Children if they were voting for the Internet Bill of Rights Act
- tjmaxal 16y agoYou and I may know that but your average voter probably doesn't, and they certainly wouldn't two or three years later when it come back up out of context, in a attack ad.
- glhaynes 16y agoThis seems a key failing of our system: people that try to be moderately informed (the best you can reasonably expect - the vast majority can't/won't be political wonks) may end up even less informed in part because the relationship between voting record and the appearance of that record is radically distorted by this kind of thing. So what can be done about this? It's hard for me to imagine a structural remedy.
- ajays 16y agoThat is the idea! They know that people only pay attention to the title, so they deliberately give titles which make 'em hard to vote against.
- jdp23 16y agoor the PATRIOT Act ...
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- joeybaker 16y agoI can think of two questions I'd love to see a journalist track down: 1. What's the legal process for banning a book? 2. If it's not equally as hard (or harder) for the government to take down a website, why?
- tibbon 16y agoFrom my understanding, there are no 'banned books' in the US, but rather ones that are blacklisted by library, teaching and bookstore groups making them difficult to come by. I'm personally unaware of any book that the US Government has banned, although I'm always willing to be wrong :)
- joeybaker 16y agohmm… you appear to be right: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-commonly_challenged_books_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-commonly_challenge... That brings me to my second question: why don't we have a similar process for websites?
- peterwwillis 16y agoThe book Bridge to Terabithia (of which a 2007 film was adapted) was at number 8 on the ALA's list of frequently challenged books because: "The censorship attempts stem from death being a part of the plot; Jess' frequent use of the word "lord" outside of prayer; concerns that the book promotes secular humanism, New Age religion, occultism, and Satanism; and for use of offensive language." Maybe it's better we don't have a similar process.
- joeybaker 16y agoFair point, but the merits of the book banning system: are that it appears to be relatively difficult to implement or enforce, and that it's restricted to localities instead of a whole country.
- 16y ago
- tomjen3 16y agoI have said this before I will have to say this again until we can get a good answer: What the fuck is the government waisting time doing this crap when they have a war on terror to fight? Concentrate on what is necessary for the war effort, dammit.
- aw3c2 16y agoThe solution to terror is not war, but understanding and working towards a future where all mankind can live peaceful and happily. Not exploiting each other and respecting each other's believes and religion.
- ajays 16y agoOf course war is not a solution to terror! Everyone knows that. The "war on terror" is a convenient windmill to keep tilting against. It'll keep this country in a perpetual state of war; making it easier to deny the individuals' rights (while the rich folks get tax breaks, the corporations get more powers). Why doesn't anyone (democrats, repubs) bring up 'war on terror' when the taxes are being discussed? Because they know that that is not the desired goal of this so-called 'war'; it is to make it easier to govern, and keep the citizens down. This is what you get for voting R or D, people. STOP voting along party lines.
- to 16y agoits not a war, its a peace mission. otherwise they wouldve lowered the drinking age in the army to 18. which they didnt. therefore the US is not at war. (seriously, this is a fact, with the drinking age)
- axod 16y agoI assume you're being sarcastic. How about the government concentrate on reducing the massive debt or getting a decent healthcare system setup? Waging war and pointless internet censorship aren't high on my list.
- marshray 16y ago
- swombat 16y agoI don't really understand how come, in the lawsuit-happy US, there isn't a class action lawsuit in place already to sue the government for the damage caused by this sort of error.
- blakeweb 16y agoMy first thought when I saw this was that it wasn't possible to bring civil claims against the federal government. But looking it up, I found the Federal Tort Claims Act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTCA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTCA) which changed that in 1946.
- jusfacts 16y agoThat bill was passed after the b-25 crash on the empire state building in 1945 to allow for exceptions to soverign immunity in only very specific and sometimes hard to define cases. In 1947 there was the texas city disaster where 581 people died. The largest industrial accident in us history. Under the FTCA legislation the case was taken all the way to the supreme court where they ruled the government wasn't liable for claims of damages.
- jrockway 16y agoPretty sure that's why they added the Second Amendment to the Constitution. (Not saying you should go shoot up the government whenever you have a minor disagreement, but the only reason why guns are legal at all these days is because the Framers thought that this would help keep the government honest. Not sure that this actually works in real life though.)
- knieveltech 16y agoIf you're fuzzy on this allow me to provide clarification. A truckload of assault weapons, bunker full of food and a couple of dozen like-minded compatriots are a hand-written invitation to get raided by the Feds. It's not possible for a citizen or group of citizens to arm themselves sufficiently to provide any kind of real check on the government.
- benihana 16y agoI have a great idea: Let's give these people more power!! You know, for like, Net Neutrality and stuff.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- webXL 16y agoThat was my first reaction, too. What could possibly go wrong?! While I can't definitively say the free market is more intelligent than the USG, at least its actions aren't backed up by force.
- callahad 16y agoThis is one of the reasons I host my DNS outside of the US. Hopefully there would be a few more hurdles to jump over before a mistake like this could happen.
- __david__ 16y agoBut it wasn't the DNS providers for those domains, was it? I'm pretty sure they got it changed on the master .com dns. So unless you mean you avoid all the US top level domains, you are still vulnerable.
- eli 16y ago"Even at the time of writing people can still replicate the effect by adding “74.81.170.110 mooo.com” to their hosts file as the authorities have not dropped the domain pointer yet" What's a "domain pointer"? That IP address serves up a seizure notice no matter what hostname you request it with.
- AlexTahan 16y agoYes they have wildcards set up, but the server displays a copyright warning on random names you try. The server displays a child porn warning when you add mooo.com. 74.81.170.110 reallyfakehostname111.com 74.81.170.110 mooo.com See the difference?
- davidu 16y agoIt's not obvious what technical solutions exist that are practical to combat this. I feel like a lawsuit against DHS / ICE and related parties is an unfortunate but necessary step.
- sudonim 16y agoStart with that their seizure notices are not 508 compliant. They should be accessible to americans with disabilities.
- davidu 16y agoI'm talking about technical solutions, perhaps in the DNS.
- TillE 16y agoDon't use domains subject to US law. That means COM/NET/ORG.
- davidu 16y agoSee COICA. Makes your point moot. Next idea? :-)
- spoiledtechie 16y agoIt begs the question, is anyone currently building an OPEN DNS?
- marshray 16y agoI know of people and groups who are talking about it, the kind of folks who actually do stuff. The problem is that the single point of failure in this system is the registrar operating in some legal jurisdictions. Registrars do provide a useful service some large percentage of the time.
- waterlesscloud 16y agoI feel much better about the Internet Kill Switch now.
- marknutter 16y agoAm I right in assuming that even if a domain name is seized, the IP address will still work? If this is true, couldn't there just be a hosted index of all IP's and their associated domain names so that people could get to these sites by referencing this information? Hell, it could even be a browser plugin, so that if you type the domain name in and it happens to have been seized, it will be redirected to the proper IP address. Is this feasible?
- th 16y agoDNS is really just a huge peer-to-peer network with a few central nodes, so this shouldn't be too difficult. You can already use an alternate primary nameserver, such as Google's 8.8.8.8. You'd just need your alternate nameserver to maintain a different cache than all of the other servers.
- marshray 16y agoIt's distributed, but not really peer-to-peer. It's almost completely hierarchical.
- dustingetz 16y agodoesn't matter if nobody uses it.
- russell_h 16y agoMany (most?) web server configurations require a 'Host' header specifying the domain to be accessed (which allows multiple domains to be hosted on a single IP). So in a lot of cases just typing the IP into your browser won't be enough, but thats pretty easy to work around. The greater difficulty is ascertaining where a domain should point to once it has been seized. One solution is to grab the old records from a DNS cache, but then there is no way to update them should the IP ever change.
- polynomial 16y agoIs there some reason I can't select just the title of this article without also selecting half the elements on their page? Ugh.
- alecco 16y agoIf affected you should do this ASAP: http://torrentfreak.com/google-helps-seized-bittorrent-site-to-regain-lost-traffic-101231/ http://torrentfreak.com/google-helps-seized-bittorrent-site-... It seems .com is no longer safe for business on top of being ridiculously expensive for no good reason and already filled with domain squatters.
- incant 16y agoSo does this render DNSSEC effectively moot? It's not much good for authentication if the government can change the authoritative name servers for any .com/.org/.net domain and then sign that change. But perhaps I don't understand how DNSSEC works. It seems unlikely that its designers would ignore that concern. Edit: Or were they only concerned cache poisoning? There's been much talk of using DNSSEC to authenticate websites and even people. If I'm understanding DNSSEC correctly, it seems terribly misguided, even worse than the idea of "government key escrow".
- marshray 16y agoMy understanding is that DNSSEC neither helps nor hurts in this scenario. It mainly enforces the accuracy of the registration database, which in this case is being modified at the request of DHS.
- code_duck 16y agoIt sure would be nice if the government just didn't know about the internet.
- knieveltech 16y agoBack when the government didn't know about the internet it was very nice. Then a bunch of folks decided this could be a great new method for selling stuff, distributing porn, etc, and now you see where we are.
- bugsy 16y agoWow, it's not just that they shut them down, but the US government put a big label on all the sites for all the users to see which basically says it was a child porn site, even though it wasn't, it was all some sort of error and most of the sites were small business sites doing normal ordinary things. Their customers are going to assume that the government would have done some sort of investigation, got a warrant, there was a trial, etc, so they will believe that the claims are true. Some people might be angry enough that they track down the owners of the site or business and kill them. What has happened is criminally negligent and outrageously dangerous. But the out of control government is not responsible for any of its actions, therefore these abuses will not only continue, but get worse.