14 ms·

FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

880 points by bjonathan 15y ago

thehodge 15y ago
They all show for me apart from absolutepoker.com but that could be DNS related
- bjonathan 15y ago
  I have the FBI message currently for UB.COM and Absolutepoker.com so yes I think it's DNS related. edit: confirm for PS and FTP also, you can check with that webproxy: http://www.fasterthree.info/index.php http://www.fasterthree.info/index.php
redorb 15y ago
http://www.whatsmydns.net/#A/fulltiltpoker.com http://www.whatsmydns.net/#A/fulltiltpoker.com Shows the propagation is underway.
- seiji 15y ago
  Beautiful: <HTML> <TITLE>WARNING</TITLE> <IMG SRC="banner7.jpg"> </HTML> I'm surprised they don't have text and audio for ADA compliance.
  - knowtheory 15y ago
    for a site the don't want anyone to see? ;) But perhaps you're right and the FBI can be sued for non-compliance.
    - bmelton 15y ago
      If they really didn't want anyone to see it, they would likely have just replaced it with a blank page. The banner image that's there is meant to send a warning. It would have taken considerably less effort for them to put a blank message, or serve a 404 page than what I'm sure involved a committee of at least 4 people and 2 ranking executives to craft, create, get approval for, and implement the banner image that is currently in place.
  - napierzaza 15y ago
    Yes, because if Richard Stallman was wget'ing his daily webpages, he would have a lot of trouble interpreting that site without going into xwindows.
    - blocke 15y ago
      "Yes, because if Richard Stallman was wget'ing his daily webpages, he would have a lot of trouble interpreting that site without going into xwindows." Your indifference to the Blind is touching. But at least you got your off-topic troll in.
  - astrodust 15y ago
    Maybe the W3C can seize the page for non-compliance.
  - jhamburger 15y ago
    I was really hoping there was a banner{1-6}.jpg
    - nkassis 15y ago
      those are probably for child porn, drugs etc.
vnorby 15y ago
WHOA, that's really big news for the poker industry. These are all very large, very big businesses (talking billions of dollars) in the US. Can anyone confirm if their poker clients are still functioning properly?
- iwwr 15y ago
  Weren't they all banned in the US a few years ago? Illegal even for banks to process transactions to them.
  - vnorby 15y ago
    Not technically. Technically, they were not allowed to process PAYMENTS in the US, so most of the poker site operators moved their payment processing internationally. If you made a deposit or a withdrawal to one of these services, you would be charged an international transaction fee. It's a gray legal area for sure, but one which they've operated in for many years without much trouble.
  - slay2k 15y ago
    A number of sites completely withdrew from the US (Party, Pacific, etc), either out of fear or because of their particular company's corporate setups / locations. A few big ones remained operational for US players, the biggest being Stars and FullTilt, with the only change being refusal to accept credit cards as a deposit method. I'd venture to say millions of bank deposits have occurred since then within the US, and the legality of it all was never black and white, and certainly not enforced in any way.
  - eli 15y ago
    Even if that's true, they're not illegal from, say, Ireland. Yet Irish citizens can't get to the site because the FBI took it. The US gets to seize assets anywhere in the world if they have some connection to an alleged US crime?
  - Vivtek 15y ago
    Yeah, I remember having troubles with Moneybookers payment processing and Joker.com registrar payments, because my bank (which was Chase Fricking Manhattan and thus should know better) assumed that they must be gambling sites.
j79 15y ago
Viewing Google cache, I noticed ub.com about us page: All financial transactions are processed by Hoop & Javelin Holdings Ltd., Vincenti Buildings, Suite 522, 14/19 Strait Street, VLT1432 Valletta, Malta, owner of this website. Can the FBI seize the domain because it's a .com TLD? Or, because transactions were occurring in the States?
- bjonathan 15y ago
  it's happening quite often that big poker sites have some of their funds confiscated. Usually they dont communicate about it and just change the payment provider they use to collect US money.
- nika 15y ago
  The DHS (and now FBI) believes that all .com domain names are "located in the USA". It is not hard to get a judge (generally they are pretty ignorant of technology) to go along with this. Therefore, even if the registrar and the company are overseas, the FBI is able to sieze the domains. Since I doubt the US government will start respecting international law (and ICAAN is international agreements, to which the US government has agreed) the only solution to this will be a viable alternative DNS system. This is a serious threat to any startup... even though you're not engaged in gambling, they are constantly expanding the "crimes" they will use to sieze domains.
  - thailandstartup 15y ago
    I wonder long before they're shutting down foreign .com sites for the 'crime' of infringing US patents. Having only a .com for a business feels a lot like having all your eggs in one basket now.
  - tankenmate 15y ago
    No, it's not that the DOJ believes that all .com domains are US. It is because Verisign has the contract to run .com, and Verisign is a US company. An US court can force an US company to comply.
- vnorby 15y ago
nika 15y ago
Reagan is the one who signed "asset forfeiture" into law. I remember at the time reading newspaper articles claiming this was "just going to be used to keep drugs off the streets" and how "law enforcement are outgunned and now can defend themselves against drug dealers". It was obvious to me then that this was a violation of due process. Also, it is not authorized by the constitution, and thus every act of seizure under it is criminal act. (There is a federal law that makes it a felony to violate constitutional rights under color of law. Fourth amendment prohibits this.) Notably, Bush the First, Clinton, Bush the Second and Obama have not made any moves to undo this legislation. Meanwhile, this has been used to take money from bikers on their way to buy a motorcycle, and random motorists in Florida and Texas who get pulled over for speeding. "It could be drug money" says the "law enforcement officers" who take life savings and then spend it on themselves. Just because they haven't seized your assets yet, doesn't mean you aren't at risk. When the government can take whatever it wants, without any legal restraint, and in violation of the ultimate law of the land, that government is not a legitimate government. We should be outraged. We should be throwing the bums out-- from Obama down to the local state congresspeople or local sheriffs and judges who fail to take actions overturning this, or who themselves participate in this. It does not matter what party they are from, they are all culpable, and they are all criminals. Edited: I removed the reference to my property that was stolen by the FBI because it prompted many people to attack me below. I really would rather the discussion be about how to resolve this issue for domain names, or maybe some discussion about how to overturn these seizure laws. Edited: I've made the legal case in defense of those wrongfully convicted. I cannot keep up with the tide of people who have no citations of the law, but are quick to disparage me personally, for my crime of defending victims here. Frankly, I think that the ease with which people assume that "naturally" these people were "bad guys" and therefore what they did was "illegal" despite the law and the constitution, is the very proof of my central point that the government is out of control, and they are getting away with it because people can't be bothered to challenge the belief-- taught by government in government schools-- that the "rule of law" holds sway.
- jackowayed 15y ago
  > There is a federal law that makes it a felony to violate constitutional rights under color of law. Never heard of that. Link?
InclinedPlane 15y ago
I for one am incredibly glad! Nothing is a more serious menace to our society and our way of life than ... online gambling. I'm glad that in this time of unprecedented natural disasters, geopolitical unrest, and financial crisis our government still has its priorities straight.
- ramidarigaz 15y ago
  /sarcasm Looks like you might need it.
- laut 15y ago
  I guess you are for alcohol prohibition too?
  - rmobin 15y ago
    Seems like you missed the "/sarcasm" comment, unless I'm being leveled?
nbpoole 15y ago
For those that are skeptical, check the nameservers: http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=pokerstars.com http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=po... http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=fulltiltpoker.com http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=fu... http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=ub.com http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=ub... All of the domains point to nameservers at cirfu.net, which appears to be the FBI's Cyber Initiative and Resource Fusion Unit (http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/Cyber_Initiative_and_Resource_Fusion_Unit http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/Cyber_Initiative_and_Resource_Fu...) What's more interesting (to me): the domains don't appear to have been using US domain registrars.
- markbao 15y ago
  What's more terrifying FTFY.
  - syncontrol 15y ago
    HN is not Reddit. Please don't post these.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
      - joeguilmette 15y ago
        actually HN has always been self aware in this regard.
- dsl 15y ago
  Neustar, Verisign, and Afilias operate the actual registry for most of the commercial TLDs (.com, .net, .me, .info, etc), and are all within US jurisdiction. Further, they all hold hefty government contracts.
  - dchest 15y ago
mycroftiv 15y ago
This is a disaster. A very sad day for the internet. We are entering into pastor Niemoller territory here: first they came for the file-sharing websites, next they came for the online gambling websites, and I would guess that Bitcoin is probably next in line, and following that, Magic: the Gathering online and the MMORPGs.
- nika 15y ago
  I had the opportunity to see Pastor Niemoller's cell once. Out back, behind the building, they had the execution wall. Your reference to Bitcoin is apt, as the government siezed $7M in gold, silver and platinum from a political organization who was advocating the use of generic silver and gold rounds instead of depreciating paper currency.... and just a few weeks ago succeeded in railroading the leader of that organization.
  - dusklight 15y ago
    links please?
- gst 15y ago
  No. It's not a disaster. Just the end of the .com/.net/.org era. As soon as people realize that .com/.net/.org are not neutral, but under US jurisdication, they will move to other TLDs operated in countries with more liberal laws.
  - pavel_lishin 15y ago
    Laws can change. I think it's well time to start thinking about how to organize the internet so that it routes around governments even more easily.
    - peterwwillis 15y ago
      Eh. You don't have to "route around" this currently, just use a DNS resolver outside of the country that re-introduces domains which get taken out by oppressive governments. Nobody wants to do this, though, as it would destroy the fabric of the internet as we know it or something. But a simpler method would just incur more government push back in an arms race around censorship. Do what the chinese [citizens] do: go covert.
thehodge 15y ago
Another interesting thing to note is that most of these are not US companies (I doubt any of them are, my guess would be a US based registrar)
ig1 15y ago
As what happened with the guys run the porn redirector under the Libya domain, if you're using a domain/registrar which is regulated under laws which make your website illegal then you're just asking for trouble. It's just basic common sense: Use domains/registrars which fall under the legal authority of a country in which your website is legal.
- gst 15y ago
  I think that up until now .com was considered to be a "neutral" domain, with individual domain names falling under the jursidication of the country where the registrar is located. However, in this case at least for ub.com the registrar is located outside the US, so this implies that the US has jurisdication over all .com domains. If I'd was a non-US company using a .com domain I think now is the time where I'd switch to another TLD.
eof 15y ago
Wow this is huge. I used to play online poker for a living, I had a decent chunk of cash locked up for almost a year when they came down on online poker previously (UIGEA) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAFE_Port_Act#Internet_gambling_provisions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAFE_Port_Act#Internet_gambling... It's worth noting that these are NOT American companies. It doesn't look like anyone (players) has had their assests seized; but this is bad news for a lot of people. It also appears people are still playing.
- davidcann 15y ago
  The real issue here is the seizure of domain names. US citizens who gamble online know full well that they're breaking the law and are subject to lose assets. The domain seizures are very troubling, though. Edit: There seems to be some dispute over where it's a crime to "participate" in different US states, but for the purposes of the "customer assests seized", the transaction is illegal, so it's to be expected that the "cash is locked up" as the result of government action.
  - slay2k 15y ago
    Um, no, US citizens don't know that. If they did, smart professional players like Durrr and Ivey wouldn't keep multi-million dollar bankrolls online that are subject to loss at any time. That's just common sense.
    - bjonathan 15y ago
      they are red pro , they will be fine, the real risk is for middle/high stakes grinders who dont have the same relationship with the big sites and as OP said risk to have their money freeze for some time (a US player is already reporting on 2+2 that he cant withdraw his money from FT)
  - albedoa 15y ago
    Um, what? Can you cite the law they "know" to be breaking?
  - 15y ago
dpifke 15y ago
Someone came up with a Firefox add-on to automatically use alternate domain names when one tries to access one seized by the US Government: http://torrentfreak.com/firefox-add-on-undoes-u-s-government-domain-seizures-110414/ http://torrentfreak.com/firefox-add-on-undoes-u-s-government... I'm reminded of the John Gilmore quote, "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."
- kragen 15y ago
  John Gilmore was talking about Usenet, where that was actually true; if some intermediate netnews server started deleting articles that contained bad words, people using other news servers wouldn't even notice unless they got their only newsfeed from the censoring site. (Later on, this became a problem, as it was impossible to censor spam as well.) The internet is not like Usenet in that way. Its design is full of central points of failure: root nameservers, TLD nameservers, DNS registries, BGP, and AS and IP allocation, among others. Some newer network protocols like BitTorrent are indeed capable of routing around censorship and other forms of damage, but older ones like the Web are not. I've written a bit about some thoughts on how to fix that, but I still haven't done much: http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-tol/2006-November/000841.html http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-tol/2006-Novembe...
  - cgranade 15y ago
    The quote is still quite valid when applied to the culture of the Internet, however. People create tools ranging the gamut from Tor to MafiaaFire to circumvent and prevent censorship from occurring, even with systems that are anything like robust.
brk 15y ago
It seems that it's stuff like this that could be the biggest driver in validating non .com domain names. I could see a Benelux registrar organization setting up a quality .tld that was free from seizure over stupid shit. There are still other minor routing problems that can occur, but with proxies and DNS, that is much much more of a whack-a-mole problem than high level domain name seizure.
deleted 15y ago
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fanboy123 15y ago
CNBC Twitter: Three Largest Internet Poker Companies Charged With Fraud, Illegal Gambling - Pokerstars, Full Tilt Poker, & Absolute Poker - Charged
- patrickyeon 15y ago
  MarketWatch says it's bank fraud, money laundering, and illegal gambling. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/doj-indicts-founders-of-top-us-online-poker-sites-2011-04-15-1358350?link=MW_latest_news http://www.marketwatch.com/story/doj-indicts-founders-of-top...
skunkworks 15y ago
US government has been gunning for poker sites for a while (since 2006 when the UIGEA passed). Some places like Party Poker withdrew from the US market, while others flourished by skirting the rules to the best of their abilities (e.g. can't have ads for internet gambling on TV, so let's make a play money site fulltilt.net that will eventually funnel traffic to our real cash games). I am however surprised that they're seizing domains as I figured this would remain one of those "live and let live" legislations, like the online gambling equivalent of brown-bagging your drink. I imagine this will not end well for whoever was involved in this decision. Also, 2+2ers sup bro.
- cjeane 15y ago
  There was so much hope that poker would be granted legal status about a year ago, but congress does tend to get sidetracked. Nice to see other 2+2ers on HN.
  - ikono 15y ago
    It's kinda cool to see a link to 2+2 at the top of HN, sucks that it has to be for this though...
- codingthebeach 15y ago
  ;)
deleted 15y ago
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angrycoder 15y ago
Coming soon... PokerStars.cz FullTiltPoker.ly
mrtron 15y ago
Online gambling is legal almost everywhere - how does the FBI have the ability to do this?
- aneth 15y ago
  Not in the US, and these are US domain names.
- barefoot 15y ago
  They are using a TLD (top level domain name) operated by a US company (Verizon). The government hasn't gone out of it's jurisdiction, technically speaking.
  - tankenmate 15y ago
    Verisign, not Verizon.
    - barefoot 15y ago
      Autocorrect on iOS, sorry.
- rbetts 15y ago
  They are accused of a conspiracy of intentionally fraudulent financial transactions. From the press release: ... arranged for the money received from U.S. gamblers to be disguised as payments to hundreds of non-existent online merchants purporting to sell merchandise such as jewelry and golf balls
- burgerbrain 15y ago
  Clearly the FBI has the ability to do this... they just did. Now, do they have the right to do this? Of course not, but not having the right to do something has never stopped the FBI before. Remember, this is an organization that was created explicitly for the purpose of out-Mafia-ing the Mafia.
andrewcooke 15y ago
when this happened a while back for wikipedia and filesharing sites i wrote a script that lets you add, update, dump, and share entries in your local hosts file (you can even put the text on a website and pull it from a url). it's not really much use since the sites will be moving anyway if no-one else can contact them, but in case someone finds it useful - https://github.com/ghettonet/GhettoNet https://github.com/ghettonet/GhettoNet
TY 15y ago
It's real and it's happening now. I have nothing to do with online gambling (anymore), but this just sent shivers down my spine. Who's next? The US Government has just strengthened the case of those who were concerned about having parts of Internet infrastructure under the control of the US government. Domain seizures have been happening for a while (i.e. [1]), but this case will probably be the highest profile to date and will hopefully raise public awareness about this disturbing issue. I won't be surprised to see US based domain registrars to start loosing a lot of their business quite soon. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/us/04bar.html http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/us/04bar.html
- blhack 15y ago
  Unfortunately, I highly doubt that this will be seen as disturbing by the main stream.
  - jarin 15y ago
    I'm not so sure, a bunch of my mainstream friends are freaking out about it. They didn't care about the previous seizures, but once you stop people from playing Internet poker at work everyone turns into a civil rights advocate.
    - pavel_lishin 15y ago
      That's not necessarily a representative sample - it's only poker players, thus far.
      - BrandonM 15y ago
        That group is probably bigger than you think. There is a very large population of professional poker players, and those people make their money from a population of everyday players that are least ten times the size of the professional players. We're talking about hundreds of thousands of people whose poker accounts have essentially been frozen. TL;DR: About $100M-$1B of law-abiding citizens' money is currently in limbo because the government didn't consider the collateral damage of its attack on the big 3 poker sites (for all intents and purposes, UB and AP are the same site).
dstein 15y ago
Has a bureau of the US federal government just claimed ultimate authority over the internet's domain name system? If this is the case, then obviously we have a very serious problem on our hands. This threatens the way the internet works at the infrastructure level. Clearly the US needs to be stripped of their root DNS server privileges.
- knowtheory 15y ago
  This has been a criticism of ICANN since the very beginning of the internet. This has always been a serious problem, especially since ICANN was setup under the auspices of the Department of Commerce. And, i'd love to see your alternative proposal for who should run root DNS. Cause the US is nakedly political and partisan, but at least it's nakedly so. :\
  - tankenmate 15y ago
    I think you'll find that the internet is a few decades older than ICANN. But in ICANN's defence most people who participate in ICANN (remember it is a self selecting body) aren't happy about all the seizures either. I'm sure the mailing lists are going "full tilt" (pun intended) as we type.
    - knowtheory 15y ago
      Yes, fair enough, perhaps we can agree on world wide web, or public use of the internet? ;) And of course, this puts ICANN at risk itself, as it's forced to explain or decry the seizures. The FBI is taking short term actions which will have long term effects. You gotta wonder if they've got lawyers who understand the implications of what they're doing.
- eropple 15y ago
  Stop hyperventilating, they did nothing of the sort. .com is based in the United States, and (whether or not you agree with the US's stance on online gambling, I don't) they seized an asset that they claim - probably rightly - is within their jurisdiction and is assisting these companies in committing acts that are illegal in the United States. If they seize a .co.uk, then there's something to be worried about, but as far as I am aware that has not happened.
lusis 15y ago
This is actually perfect. Filesharing sites don't register on the average user radar. Online gambling sites? Joe Schmoe's everywhere are about to get seriously angry. It's sad it came to this but maybe it takes something as overreaching as this to get the attention of people.
eli 15y ago
Crazy. DC government just passed a bill allowing the city to offer online gambling. Will the FBI also sieze dclottery.com?
- Vivtek 15y ago
  DEA raids California medical marijuana stores that are legal according to state law, so ... yeah, if they want to, they will.
- tzs 15y ago
  Does DC plan to use the site for money laundering?
pero 15y ago
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Federal authorities unsealed an indictment Friday against the founders of the three largest internet poker companies operating in the U.S. The indictment charges eleven defendants, including the founders of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker, with bank fraud, money laundering, and illegal gambling offenses, according to Federal authorities in New York. Restraining orders were issued against more than 75 bank accounts used by the poker companies and their payment processors, while five Internet domain names used by the companies to host poker games were seized, federal authorities added in a statement. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/doj-indicts-founders-of-top-us-online-poker-sites-2011-04-15-1358350?link=MW_latest_news http://www.marketwatch.com/story/doj-indicts-founders-of-top... Indictment http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/scheinbergetalindictmentpr.pdf http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/schein...
- AJ007 15y ago
  This needs to be modded up. The ICE mass domain seizures were more blatant violations of due process. I would also add, if they are going after these poker sites for money laundering, at this point players probably will be unable to deposit or withdraw any money in to their game accounts. from the indictment: "The United States also filed a civil money laundering and in rem forfeiture complaint (the "Civil Complaint") against the Poker Companies, their assets, and the assets of several payment processors for the Poker Companies." That means they are taking everything Any asset that any of these defendants has, that is within US government reach will be seized. The domain names were probably the easiest part. additionally from the indictment: "Defendants BITAR,SCHEINBERG, BURTNICK, TATE, TOM, BECKLEY, RUBIN and LANG are not presently in the United States and have not yet been arrested. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York is working with foreign law enforcement agencies and Interpol to secure the arrest of these defendants and the seizure of criminal proceeds located abroad." That doesn't sound like a rogue US seizure of some domain names they didn't like (which was the case with the ICE seizures.)
  - caf 15y ago
    So the government gets to indict you; then sieze your assets; then take you to court (where you cannot afford a lawyer anymore, because they have already seized your assets). I guess it's nice to be the King.
eftpotrm 15y ago
While I'm not at all surprised to see this happening, I'm still astonished that the USA continues to try to stamp out gambling through legislation. I remember growing up being astonished at the number of references on USA TV shows to illegal gambling; I've never once come across it in the UK. I love cricket, but there's been a persistent series of match-fixing and spot-fixing allegations for years, almost exclusively originating from illegal south Asian (primarily Indian) bookmakers. The legal markets haven't been the source of this sort of problem at all. Much as I might not like gambling, there is a persistent human desire for it and the evidence seems to be that banning it, as so often, exacerbates rather than minimises harm. The US government should stop trying to hold back the tide on this.
- ericb 15y ago
  The casino lobby would prefer that online gambling didn't exist. Therefore, since these online companies are not in the US and have no lobbyist money in play, they have no standing. Voter preference, individual rights, domain name sanctity, jurisdiction, shortsightedness with regard to keeping control of TLD's, futility of the fight, all have no bearing when uncontested lobby money wants something, and doubly so when states think it will mean more tax dollars in their pockets.
  - davepeck 15y ago
    It's not quite true that these companies have no lobbying presence in the USA. The Poker Players Alliance operates out of Washington DC and represents all of the companies indicted today.
  - ikono 15y ago
    PPA aside, what's interesting is that PokerStars just announced a partnership with the Wynn recently. I don't know that it's the US brick and mortar casinos that are behind this.
  - dhughes 15y ago
    Actually the company I (a minion stuck in the cogs) work for is a government run lottery that set up a division called Digital Interactive Gaming just to design and build online a gambling website.
akavlie 15y ago
So yeah, about that distributed DNS idea...
Chrono 15y ago
The sites mentioned still resolves for me but if this is actually true... I am at a loss of words
- SebMortelmans 15y ago
  The alleged story behind all this: http://www.businessinsider.com/boy-genius-online-poker-scandal-2011-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/boy-genius-online-poker-scand...
ssclafani 15y ago
The indictment from the DOJ with a list of the charges: http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/scheinbergetalindictmentpr.pdf http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/schein...
- davepeck 15y ago
  Fascinating. This contains some pretty damning charges, if true.
  - nikcub 15y ago
    the UIEGA outlaws 'internet gambling' so the case will be based on if poker is considered gambling, which the supreme court has already found to not be the case when California attempted to pass laws to legalize card rooms back in the 70s A lot harder to avoid the money laundering charges, but they could argue that they had to process payments in that way because the banks wouldn't accept them because of an unjust UIEGA law
- rorrr 15y ago
  To be fair, most of these charges are probably true. What I'm not sure is how they can prosecute Canadian citizens living in Ireland or Canada.
  - nopassrecover 15y ago
    Extradition.
    - rorrr 15y ago
      Over financial crimes? Does that ever happen?
      - nl 15y ago
        It does, especially over money laundering. In this case though it's likely fought pretty strongly since it's possible that what they did weren't offences in their home countries.
jdp23 15y ago
Here's the full indictment: http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/scheinbergetalindictmentpr.pdf http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/schein...
andrenotgiant 15y ago
Great Job FBI, really thorough crackdown. http://www.pokerstars.net/ http://www.pokerstars.net/ http://www.pokerstars.jp/ http://www.pokerstars.jp/ http://www.pokerstars.de/ http://www.pokerstars.de/
- BrandonM 15y ago
  pokerstars.net only offers a play money client; it is not a gambling site by any stretch of the imagination. .jp and .de are not under US jurisdiction.
AlexC04 15y ago
Odd, they're all resolving for me. I wonder if that's USA only? I'm in Canada
- run4yourlives 15y ago
  Probably just hasn't propagated yet.
sp332 15y ago
The MAFIAAFire Firefox plugin will redirect seized domain names to alternate domains. It's already working with all of the domains listed in the article. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mafiaafire-redirector/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mafiaafire-re... Of course, it depends on how much you trust the maintainers of the plugin not to do something nefarious :)
viraptor 15y ago
The event was big and changed a lot... but not for pokerstars or other services. The client can use ips to auto-update with new domain names probably (it's got a pool of addresses to try). In a few days enough new links will be created to pokerstars.net that it will be reasonably visible on google. Service itself will buy loads of domains and start advertising as pokerstars.{your_tld}. In the meantime, pokerstars.net is still available as usual.
- PsyVisions 15y ago
  you should try pokerstars.pt ... it's already done, you silly... pokerstars owns about 1950 domain names... enough for you?
Maro 15y ago
I'm located in Hungary. Pokerstars.com works, Fulltiltpoker.com works, UB.com gives me an FBI page.
- redthrowaway 15y ago
  Same from Canada. Also, would seizing the domain name actually stop the clients from working? I would imagine that the devs, seeing the rash of increasingly ridiculous seizures, would have pushed an update to the client that bypasses DNS. That's what I would have done, anyway.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- ambiguity 15y ago
  ub.com and pokerstars.com both resolve to their original servers (77.87.179.116 & 66.212.231.205) using either Google's DNS servers (8.8.8.8) or Level3's (4.2.2.1, 4.2.2.2)
- maxer 15y ago
  all work in northern ireland
jneal 15y ago
Wow, I don't know why this surprises me so much - although I know plenty of people that play poker "illegally". A quote simply because I personally feel it's ridiculous. I also recall the difference between the poker related .com and .net sites. So fulltiltpoker.net is still up as is pokerstars.net - that, if I recall correctly, was because the .net website was aimed a playing poker with "fake money" while the .coms were all aimed at playing poker with "real money"
cabalamat 15y ago
Note to self: all future domains I buy won't have a .com extension.
- die_sekte 15y ago
  I'm using .is from now on. Sure, it's more expensive, but there are no fucking "domainers" there – even two letter domains are still available. And I have a hard time thinking of something Iceland would shut down (except for child pornography, obviously).
  - vukk 15y ago
    I tried to register a two-letter domain with few registrars found by googling: it seems that one isn't allowed to register a two-letter .is domain anymore; a very common policy in domain names.
    - die_sekte 15y ago
      That seems odd. I just registered one a few days ago… (fj.is). Also you can register domains directly at isnic.
      - vukk 15y ago
        ! You are correct, isnic allows to register two-letter domains :) It is probably better to register there anyway than with some random registrars.
jhamburger 15y ago
I was under the impression that Howard Lederer and possibly several other "celebrity" poker players had ownership interests in Full Tilt Poker so I'm surprised I don't see any familiar names listed as defendants in the indictment
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
pumpmylemma 15y ago
Okay. This makes me want to indulge in youthful indignation. If I saw this and was at a company like OpenDNS, I'd start considering saying "No. Sorry. We're going reverting back to the last good record." The federal government might have technical jurisdiction, and U.S. customers might technically be violating U.S. laws but the ability of the federal government to seize internet properties terrifies me because it might set a national and international precedent. (Other countries already do this, but U.S. doing it kinda makes it globally sanctioned.) I'm terrified of a slippery slope, even though I usually find slippery slope arguments dubious. (Plus, I just think this is a dumb seizure to begin with...) (End of youthful indignation.)
- ikono 15y ago
  I just had the same though except substitue OpenDNS with Google. OpenDNS would be better for users but this feels like a Google-y thing to do especially after the whole China debacle.
- dendory 15y ago
  Someone maintain a zone record (or hosts file) for all seized domains and make it public via P2P? Just an idea.. ;)
idefix 15y ago
seems to open fine in california
ajg1977 15y ago
Probably related to this - former online gambling lynchpin turns cooperating witness. http://www.couriermail.com.au/ipad/web-kings-life-on-the-line/story-fn6ck45n-1226039907165 http://www.couriermail.com.au/ipad/web-kings-life-on-the-lin...
Maascamp 15y ago
Interesting back story http://www.businessinsider.com/boy-genius-online-poker-scandal-2011-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/boy-genius-online-poker-scand...
olalonde 15y ago
Isn't their image with no alt tag (http://pokerstars.com/banner7.jpg http://pokerstars.com/banner7.jpg) in violation with Section 508 Amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973? [1] Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 A Federal law requiring US government electronic and information technology (EIT) to meet accessibility requirements [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_508_of_the_Rehabilitation_Act_of_1973 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_508_of_the_Rehabilitati...
- pbhjpbhj 15y ago
  It is a pretty blatant and unnecessary violation of accessibility standards, a longdesc wouldn't exactly be hard to add at least.
- jarin 15y ago
  You know, I almost wonder if it's intentional. Using an image-based seizure page with a very generic image name prevents search engines from having any content to spider (and thereby prevents people from searching for seized sites).
antidaily 15y ago
So no season II of 2 Months 2 Million?
lawnchair_larry 15y ago
The hijacked DNS has not propagated everywhere yet. Mine are still working. If anyone has last minute business to do on these sites, such as cashing out before the FBI steals your money, add these to your hosts file: $ host pokerstars.com pokerstars.com has address 77.87.179.116 pokerstars.com mail is handled by 20 mx20.pokerstars.com. $ host absolutepoker.com absolutepoker.com has address 66.212.244.175 absolutepoker.com mail is handled by 10 mail.absolutepoker.com. absolutepoker.com mail is handled by 5 mx1.absolutepoker.com. absolutepoker.com mail is handled by 5 mx2.absolutepoker.com. $ host fulltiltpoker.com fulltiltpoker.com has address 91.211.98.20 fulltiltpoker.com mail is handled by 200 mit-mx00.fulltiltpoker.com. fulltiltpoker.com mail is handled by 100 mx00.fulltiltpoker.com. $ host ultimatebet.com ultimatebet.com has address 66.212.244.148 ultimatebet.com mail is handled by 100 mailb.ultimatebet.com. ultimatebet.com mail is handled by 200 mailc.ultimatebet.com. ultimatebet.com mail is handled by 10 mail.ultimatebet.com. $ host ub.com ub.com has address 66.212.231.205
- llimllib 15y ago
  The FBI press release[1] says that they've shut down all the sites' bank accounts too, so you're unlikely to be able to pull your money out. I selfishly hope they go after everybody with money on any of those sites, because it might generate more outrage than just the domain name seizures. [1]: http://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-releases/2011/manhattan-u.s.-attorney-charges-principals-of-three-largest-internet-poker-companies-with-bank-fraud-illegal-gambling-offenses-and-laundering-billions-in-illegal-gambling-proceeds http://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-releases/2011/manhattan-u.s...
  - adam-_- 15y ago
    Cashing out is not working for me...
    - BrandonM 15y ago
      They process cashouts through intermediaries, essentially laundering the cashout money. This is one of the main crimes they are being charged with. In addition to the domain names, the FBI also seized all of the funds they could that were being used in handling cashouts.
dendory 15y ago
This will only get worse, and the US has no issue with doing this with International sites. Remember rojadirecta.org? It's a Spanish site, owned and operated in Spain, that fought for 3 years a legal battle, and won. Then the DOJ just came and in one day seized the domain. No appeal, no warning, their whole legal battle for nothing. They have been offline ever since. The Internet is at the complete mercy of the guys in ICE.
beedogs 15y ago
America sucks more every day.
Natsu 15y ago
If anyone hasn't figured it out yet, the Internet Police have come and they're starting the crackdown. So people who have been relying on the non-enforcement of certain laws, even the dumb ones, are going to get some nasty surprises soon. Or at least, that's how it looks to me. They've killed several botnets and lots of other sites, too, if anyone has noticed.
ig1 15y ago
It's worth noting that most gambling sites warn their employees against travelling to the US. The US has in the past arrested employees of foreign firms for actions which are entirely legal in their home country but illegal in the US. And it's not just gambling sites, in 2001 Dmitry Sklyarov was arrested on a similar basis.
- caf 15y ago
  To be quite frank, as a foreign national I'd be a lot more worried about visting the US than I would Cuba. That's hardly a ringing endorsement for the land of the free, is it?
rooshdi 15y ago
Well, there goes Full Tilt Capital...
vessenes 15y ago
If the press release is true, these guys are going away for a long time. They allegedly bribed the owner of a US bank with cash and allegedly purchased 30% of the bank in exchange for the bank allowing them to circumvent US money laundering and anti-gambling laws. There's a lot of civil liberty discussion in this thread, but I think this is actually a fascinating story about the linkage points between the internet and the real world -- in the real world, these guys needed bank processing. To get it, they went way, way over the line, as did the Bank owner.
- maratd 15y ago
  Over the line? Why did they have to bribe a bank to accept their business? That's crazy! The liberty to conduct everyday business is the most important liberty we have. It's what puts bread on the table. The fact that they had to bribe a bank to open and use an account is really really sick.
  - eropple 15y ago
    Online gambling is illegal in the United States. It is, by _definition_, not "everyday business."
    - nhangen 15y ago
      And that's part of the problem.
      - eropple 15y ago
        I don't disagree that it should be legal, but the fact that the government takes a dim view of bribing bank officials to allow someone to do other illegal things is really not something worth getting indignant about, no? The root cause, sure, but painting it as "everyday business" is rather naively lolbertarian.
        nhangen 15y ago
        You can't fix a problem by slashing at the symptoms. I don't disagree, but it shouldn't have come this far.
heyitsnick 15y ago
I'm happy to see this featured so highly in hacker news. As a professional poker player, the biggest concern right now are players balances. I know players with 250k+ bankrolls that are extremely concerned about the status of their money online. Right now it's entirely unclear the relative size of the seizures. If anyone has any questions from someone in the midst of this, fire way. I'll be up all night.
- palewery 15y ago
  Can you explain why someone would leave that much money in there? Are there tables that you can bring 250k to? Do these sites pay interest? How do you trust these sites? A casino in Las Vegas will get huge fines if one of the employees rips off players. How do you know some internal IT guy isn't cheating you?
  - heyitsnick 15y ago
    > Can you explain why someone would leave that much money in there? For someone in the US, it can be difficult depositing and withdrawing money. It's often easiest to keep your entire bankroll 'online' (in poker sites such as pokerstars or full tilt) rather than in banks or online wallets (such as moneybookers). 250k could be a standard poker bankroll for a high stakes professional poker player. My bankroll that I keep onlien is 50k USD and i don't consider myself a high-stakes player. >>> Are there tables that you can bring 250k to? It's 2.5 buyins for 500/1000 NL. There have been +1 million dollar pots heads up - http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/37/televised-poker/1-1-million-dollar-pot-ft-million-cash-game-602078/ http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/37/televised-poker/1-1-mil.... Although one doesn't normally sit with their bankroll. However due to the friction (time hassle, exchange rates, withdrawal fees) it is sensible to keep multiple buyins online at one time. I play from 5-10 to 25-50 limit and need 50k online spread across 8+ sites so I have enough to keep in action. >>> Do these sites pay interest? No.
  - sanswork 15y ago
    There are tables where you can play 250k in one hand. Not for me ever but I have a much much smaller balance. They make more money by being trustworthy than not. It has happened but it has usually been detected by players noticing unusual patterns in a players actions/win rate.
warmfuzzykitten 15y ago
They're resolving to normal web sites for me in California. It takes six hours for DNS servers to resolve? I checked whois and it looks perfectly normal. Also, you can ping the domains to get the URL, e.g., http://77.87.179.116 http://77.87.179.116 Is this story true?
ajays 15y ago
You know, these "asset forfeiture" laws will never change as long as it's the 'little people' who are getting reamed. The day the government grabs the assets of a few rich people, you can bet your ass these laws will change in a hurry.
- PostOnce 15y ago
  It takes just one man to rile the public. What we need is widespread and incendiary oratory; governments operate only with the consent of the governed. Inaction, in this case, is effectively consent.
roscohearts 15y ago
FBI needs to back down, citizens have a choice.
BrandonM 15y ago
Did anyone happen to cache the IP address for fulltiltpoker.com? I'd like to add it to /etc/hosts so that I can at least connect to the client and get a screenshot of my balance.
- thaumaturgy 15y ago
  91.211.98.20; it's posted abovethread.
  - BrandonM 15y ago
    That is the already-seized alias IP address. Go ahead and browse to it.
    - caf 15y ago
      No, that's the actual IP address, but you have to browse it as "www.fulltiltpoker.com", otherwise it redirects you to there.
roscohearts 15y ago
The gov. wannts to control everything this is going to change revolution is in need contact jksiedlarczyk@yahoo.com
MaysonL 15y ago
Two ineresting side notes: pokerstars.net is still up pokerstars.co.uk gives a 404 error, after redirecting to pokerstars.com/uk seems like sloppy webmastership from the FBI.
metachris 15y ago
Pretty strong charges: * Violation of Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act [5 years prison] * Operation of Illegal Gambling Business [5 years prison] * Conspiracy to Commit Bank Fraud and Wire Fraud [30 years prison] * Money Laundering Conspiracy [20 years prison] And for all of them fines double the gross gain or loss: http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/scheinbergetalindictmentpr.pdf http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/schein...
ynniv 15y ago
In case anyone thinks this is about deterring online gambling, Washington DC (the municipality, not the Federal government) has recently legalized online gambling as a type of lottery. [ http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ONLINE_GAMBLING_DC http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ONLINE_GAMBLING_DC]
codexon 15y ago
Here's what the domain names look like, for those of us who's DNS hasn't propagated yet. http://50.17.223.71/ http://50.17.223.71/
bostonscott 15y ago
This is another case of government manufacturing criminals. "There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted and you create a nation of law-breakers." - Ayn Rand
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
MaysonL 15y ago
An interesting article about Sunfirst Bank, and a previous brush with money-laundering problems: http://blogs.reuters.com/financial-regulatory-forum/2011/01/07/fdic-sunfirst-action-a-reminder-of-third-party-processors-risk-to-banks-complinet/ http://blogs.reuters.com/financial-regulatory-forum/2011/01/...
loganlinn 15y ago
The domain, http://www.pokerstars.net/ http://www.pokerstars.net/, is still up
tlack 15y ago
So far the US is only cracking down on domains in the .COM TLD. Do you guys think the US will eventually crack down on non-US-owned TLDs that are operated by US entities, such as .CO (operated by NeuStar)? And after that, perhaps a doomsday scenario, will they eventually force US-hosted DNS caches to expunge records that are related to criminal activity as, in a way, they are aiding and abetting..
cashchamps 15y ago
To restore your access to these websites, on Windows, open c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts with notepad (make sure you are running notepad as an administrator). At the bottom of the existing file, copy and paste these lines: 91.211.98.20 fulltiltpoker.com 91.211.98.20 www.fulltiltpoker.com 77.87.179.116 pokerstars.com 77.87.179.116 www.pokerstars.com 66.212.231.205 www.ub.com 66.212.231.205 ub.com Save the file, and reboot. That's it. You'll see the actual poker sites once again, not the FBI's communist page.
whackedspinach 15y ago
How exactly am I supposed to live in a system like this? I understand I can't have a perfect legal system, but the amount of effort required to challenge these ridiculous seizures seems very difficult. There are so many unconstitutional laws that need to be fixed. We need a second supreme court.
- ForumRatt 15y ago
  Oh great another 9 headed beast.
enb 15y ago
"Australian internet whiz Daniel Tzvetkoff, who has become a prized FBI informant in a bid to avoid a 75 year jail sentence in the US, may have brought down the multi-billion dollar American online poker industry. The three poker sites - PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker - have been shut down." Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/technology/technology-news/fbi-charges-11-internet-poker-kingpins-20110416-1difk.html#ixzz1Jf3LFavT http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/technology/technology-news/f...
ataggart 15y ago
And yet so many people are urging this same government to craft new "net neutrality" laws. Bewildering.
- jrockway 15y ago
  Well, net neutrality is to protect us from corporations. Protecting us from the government is something the government won't do.
beaker 15y ago
I don't know why but this issue really irks me. The hypocrisy on this is off the charts. Gambling is legal in our country - the WTO has made that legal judgment (http://www.ibet.pro/2007/08/25/us-government-ignores-wto-rulings-on-internet-gambling/ http://www.ibet.pro/2007/08/25/us-government-ignores-wto-rul...). Our actions are an attempt to preserve a protection racket for U.S. gambling operations and it's just wrong. Not only that but the strategy of seizing domain names, arresting execs, will never solve this problem. This shit pisses me off - I'm sorry.
caf 15y ago
The entire attack on online poker, and poker in general, is funded, supported and encouraged by that completely immoral mix of human misery and animal cruelty known as the racing industry. The sooner horse racing ends up where it belongs, alongside dogfighting and bear-baiting, the better.
nicklovescode 15y ago
The worst part: look at the HTML they replaced it with!
nothans 15y ago
Web app to report how much money is frozen in your poker account: http://socialsensornetwork.com/online-poker http://socialsensornetwork.com/online-poker
PHPAdam 15y ago
PokerStars is back - http://pokerstars.eu http://pokerstars.eu This is the message I get when I log in: http://i.imgur.com/PfUl4.png http://i.imgur.com/PfUl4.png
thought_alarm 15y ago
Winners don't conduct illegal gambling operations. -- William S. Sessions, Director of the FBI
pathik 15y ago
Meta: This is probably the most upvoted HN post I've seen.
ForumRatt 15y ago
This domain seizure nonsense is just the tip of the iceberg. http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/383473/white_house_releases_trusted_internet_id_plan/ http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/383473/white_house_r...
teyc 15y ago
For some more perspective: http://www.smartcompany.com.au/entrepreneur-watch/20110418-super-bad-to-supergrass.html http://www.smartcompany.com.au/entrepreneur-watch/20110418-s...
fedsrgay 15y ago
get a fucking life feds! fucking looserrs

880 points by bjonathan 15y ago

thehodge 15y ago

They all show for me apart from absolutepoker.com but that could be DNS related

bjonathan 15y ago
I have the FBI message currently for UB.COM and Absolutepoker.com so yes I think it's DNS related. edit: confirm for PS and FTP also, you can check with that webproxy: http://www.fasterthree.info/index.php http://www.fasterthree.info/index.php

redorb 15y ago

http://www.whatsmydns.net/#A/fulltiltpoker.com http://www.whatsmydns.net/#A/fulltiltpoker.com Shows the propagation is underway.

seiji 15y ago
Beautiful: <HTML> <TITLE>WARNING</TITLE> <IMG SRC="banner7.jpg"> </HTML> I'm surprised they don't have text and audio for ADA compliance.
- knowtheory 15y ago
  for a site the don't want anyone to see? ;) But perhaps you're right and the FBI can be sued for non-compliance.
  - bmelton 15y ago
    If they really didn't want anyone to see it, they would likely have just replaced it with a blank page. The banner image that's there is meant to send a warning. It would have taken considerably less effort for them to put a blank message, or serve a 404 page than what I'm sure involved a committee of at least 4 people and 2 ranking executives to craft, create, get approval for, and implement the banner image that is currently in place.
- napierzaza 15y ago
  Yes, because if Richard Stallman was wget'ing his daily webpages, he would have a lot of trouble interpreting that site without going into xwindows.
  - blocke 15y ago
    "Yes, because if Richard Stallman was wget'ing his daily webpages, he would have a lot of trouble interpreting that site without going into xwindows." Your indifference to the Blind is touching. But at least you got your off-topic troll in.
- astrodust 15y ago
  Maybe the W3C can seize the page for non-compliance.
- jhamburger 15y ago
  I was really hoping there was a banner{1-6}.jpg
  - nkassis 15y ago
    those are probably for child porn, drugs etc.

vnorby 15y ago

WHOA, that's really big news for the poker industry. These are all very large, very big businesses (talking billions of dollars) in the US. Can anyone confirm if their poker clients are still functioning properly?

iwwr 15y ago
Weren't they all banned in the US a few years ago? Illegal even for banks to process transactions to them.
- vnorby 15y ago
  Not technically. Technically, they were not allowed to process PAYMENTS in the US, so most of the poker site operators moved their payment processing internationally. If you made a deposit or a withdrawal to one of these services, you would be charged an international transaction fee. It's a gray legal area for sure, but one which they've operated in for many years without much trouble.
- slay2k 15y ago
  A number of sites completely withdrew from the US (Party, Pacific, etc), either out of fear or because of their particular company's corporate setups / locations. A few big ones remained operational for US players, the biggest being Stars and FullTilt, with the only change being refusal to accept credit cards as a deposit method. I'd venture to say millions of bank deposits have occurred since then within the US, and the legality of it all was never black and white, and certainly not enforced in any way.
- eli 15y ago
  Even if that's true, they're not illegal from, say, Ireland. Yet Irish citizens can't get to the site because the FBI took it. The US gets to seize assets anywhere in the world if they have some connection to an alleged US crime?
- Vivtek 15y ago
  Yeah, I remember having troubles with Moneybookers payment processing and Joker.com registrar payments, because my bank (which was Chase Fricking Manhattan and thus should know better) assumed that they must be gambling sites.

j79 15y ago

Viewing Google cache, I noticed ub.com about us page: All financial transactions are processed by Hoop & Javelin Holdings Ltd., Vincenti Buildings, Suite 522, 14/19 Strait Street, VLT1432 Valletta, Malta, owner of this website. Can the FBI seize the domain because it's a .com TLD? Or, because transactions were occurring in the States?

bjonathan 15y ago
it's happening quite often that big poker sites have some of their funds confiscated. Usually they dont communicate about it and just change the payment provider they use to collect US money.
nika 15y ago
The DHS (and now FBI) believes that all .com domain names are "located in the USA". It is not hard to get a judge (generally they are pretty ignorant of technology) to go along with this. Therefore, even if the registrar and the company are overseas, the FBI is able to sieze the domains. Since I doubt the US government will start respecting international law (and ICAAN is international agreements, to which the US government has agreed) the only solution to this will be a viable alternative DNS system. This is a serious threat to any startup... even though you're not engaged in gambling, they are constantly expanding the "crimes" they will use to sieze domains.
- thailandstartup 15y ago
  I wonder long before they're shutting down foreign .com sites for the 'crime' of infringing US patents. Having only a .com for a business feels a lot like having all your eggs in one basket now.
- tankenmate 15y ago
  No, it's not that the DOJ believes that all .com domains are US. It is because Verisign has the contract to run .com, and Verisign is a US company. An US court can force an US company to comply.
vnorby 15y ago

nika 15y ago

Reagan is the one who signed "asset forfeiture" into law. I remember at the time reading newspaper articles claiming this was "just going to be used to keep drugs off the streets" and how "law enforcement are outgunned and now can defend themselves against drug dealers". It was obvious to me then that this was a violation of due process. Also, it is not authorized by the constitution, and thus every act of seizure under it is criminal act. (There is a federal law that makes it a felony to violate constitutional rights under color of law. Fourth amendment prohibits this.) Notably, Bush the First, Clinton, Bush the Second and Obama have not made any moves to undo this legislation. Meanwhile, this has been used to take money from bikers on their way to buy a motorcycle, and random motorists in Florida and Texas who get pulled over for speeding. "It could be drug money" says the "law enforcement officers" who take life savings and then spend it on themselves. Just because they haven't seized your assets yet, doesn't mean you aren't at risk. When the government can take whatever it wants, without any legal restraint, and in violation of the ultimate law of the land, that government is not a legitimate government. We should be outraged. We should be throwing the bums out-- from Obama down to the local state congresspeople or local sheriffs and judges who fail to take actions overturning this, or who themselves participate in this. It does not matter what party they are from, they are all culpable, and they are all criminals. Edited: I removed the reference to my property that was stolen by the FBI because it prompted many people to attack me below. I really would rather the discussion be about how to resolve this issue for domain names, or maybe some discussion about how to overturn these seizure laws. Edited: I've made the legal case in defense of those wrongfully convicted. I cannot keep up with the tide of people who have no citations of the law, but are quick to disparage me personally, for my crime of defending victims here. Frankly, I think that the ease with which people assume that "naturally" these people were "bad guys" and therefore what they did was "illegal" despite the law and the constitution, is the very proof of my central point that the government is out of control, and they are getting away with it because people can't be bothered to challenge the belief-- taught by government in government schools-- that the "rule of law" holds sway.

jackowayed 15y ago
> There is a federal law that makes it a felony to violate constitutional rights under color of law. Never heard of that. Link?

InclinedPlane 15y ago

I for one am incredibly glad! Nothing is a more serious menace to our society and our way of life than ... online gambling. I'm glad that in this time of unprecedented natural disasters, geopolitical unrest, and financial crisis our government still has its priorities straight.

ramidarigaz 15y ago
/sarcasm Looks like you might need it.
laut 15y ago
I guess you are for alcohol prohibition too?
- rmobin 15y ago
  Seems like you missed the "/sarcasm" comment, unless I'm being leveled?

nbpoole 15y ago

For those that are skeptical, check the nameservers: http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=pokerstars.com http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=po... http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=fulltiltpoker.com http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=fu... http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=ub.com http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=ub... All of the domains point to nameservers at cirfu.net, which appears to be the FBI's Cyber Initiative and Resource Fusion Unit (http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/Cyber_Initiative_and_Resource_Fusion_Unit http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/Cyber_Initiative_and_Resource_Fu...) What's more interesting (to me): the domains don't appear to have been using US domain registrars.

markbao 15y ago
What's more terrifying FTFY.
- syncontrol 15y ago
  HN is not Reddit. Please don't post these.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
    - joeguilmette 15y ago
      actually HN has always been self aware in this regard.
dsl 15y ago
Neustar, Verisign, and Afilias operate the actual registry for most of the commercial TLDs (.com, .net, .me, .info, etc), and are all within US jurisdiction. Further, they all hold hefty government contracts.
- dchest 15y ago

mycroftiv 15y ago

This is a disaster. A very sad day for the internet. We are entering into pastor Niemoller territory here: first they came for the file-sharing websites, next they came for the online gambling websites, and I would guess that Bitcoin is probably next in line, and following that, Magic: the Gathering online and the MMORPGs.

nika 15y ago
I had the opportunity to see Pastor Niemoller's cell once. Out back, behind the building, they had the execution wall. Your reference to Bitcoin is apt, as the government siezed $7M in gold, silver and platinum from a political organization who was advocating the use of generic silver and gold rounds instead of depreciating paper currency.... and just a few weeks ago succeeded in railroading the leader of that organization.
- dusklight 15y ago
  links please?
gst 15y ago
No. It's not a disaster. Just the end of the .com/.net/.org era. As soon as people realize that .com/.net/.org are not neutral, but under US jurisdication, they will move to other TLDs operated in countries with more liberal laws.
- pavel_lishin 15y ago
  Laws can change. I think it's well time to start thinking about how to organize the internet so that it routes around governments even more easily.
  - peterwwillis 15y ago
    Eh. You don't have to "route around" this currently, just use a DNS resolver outside of the country that re-introduces domains which get taken out by oppressive governments. Nobody wants to do this, though, as it would destroy the fabric of the internet as we know it or something. But a simpler method would just incur more government push back in an arms race around censorship. Do what the chinese [citizens] do: go covert.

thehodge 15y ago

Another interesting thing to note is that most of these are not US companies (I doubt any of them are, my guess would be a US based registrar)

ig1 15y ago

As what happened with the guys run the porn redirector under the Libya domain, if you're using a domain/registrar which is regulated under laws which make your website illegal then you're just asking for trouble. It's just basic common sense: Use domains/registrars which fall under the legal authority of a country in which your website is legal.

gst 15y ago
I think that up until now .com was considered to be a "neutral" domain, with individual domain names falling under the jursidication of the country where the registrar is located. However, in this case at least for ub.com the registrar is located outside the US, so this implies that the US has jurisdication over all .com domains. If I'd was a non-US company using a .com domain I think now is the time where I'd switch to another TLD.

eof 15y ago

Wow this is huge. I used to play online poker for a living, I had a decent chunk of cash locked up for almost a year when they came down on online poker previously (UIGEA) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAFE_Port_Act#Internet_gambling_provisions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAFE_Port_Act#Internet_gambling... It's worth noting that these are NOT American companies. It doesn't look like anyone (players) has had their assests seized; but this is bad news for a lot of people. It also appears people are still playing.

davidcann 15y ago
The real issue here is the seizure of domain names. US citizens who gamble online know full well that they're breaking the law and are subject to lose assets. The domain seizures are very troubling, though. Edit: There seems to be some dispute over where it's a crime to "participate" in different US states, but for the purposes of the "customer assests seized", the transaction is illegal, so it's to be expected that the "cash is locked up" as the result of government action.
- slay2k 15y ago
  Um, no, US citizens don't know that. If they did, smart professional players like Durrr and Ivey wouldn't keep multi-million dollar bankrolls online that are subject to loss at any time. That's just common sense.
  - bjonathan 15y ago
    they are red pro , they will be fine, the real risk is for middle/high stakes grinders who dont have the same relationship with the big sites and as OP said risk to have their money freeze for some time (a US player is already reporting on 2+2 that he cant withdraw his money from FT)
- albedoa 15y ago
  Um, what? Can you cite the law they "know" to be breaking?
- 15y ago

dpifke 15y ago

Someone came up with a Firefox add-on to automatically use alternate domain names when one tries to access one seized by the US Government: http://torrentfreak.com/firefox-add-on-undoes-u-s-government-domain-seizures-110414/ http://torrentfreak.com/firefox-add-on-undoes-u-s-government... I'm reminded of the John Gilmore quote, "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."

kragen 15y ago
John Gilmore was talking about Usenet, where that was actually true; if some intermediate netnews server started deleting articles that contained bad words, people using other news servers wouldn't even notice unless they got their only newsfeed from the censoring site. (Later on, this became a problem, as it was impossible to censor spam as well.) The internet is not like Usenet in that way. Its design is full of central points of failure: root nameservers, TLD nameservers, DNS registries, BGP, and AS and IP allocation, among others. Some newer network protocols like BitTorrent are indeed capable of routing around censorship and other forms of damage, but older ones like the Web are not. I've written a bit about some thoughts on how to fix that, but I still haven't done much: http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-tol/2006-November/000841.html http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-tol/2006-Novembe...
- cgranade 15y ago
  The quote is still quite valid when applied to the culture of the Internet, however. People create tools ranging the gamut from Tor to MafiaaFire to circumvent and prevent censorship from occurring, even with systems that are anything like robust.

brk 15y ago

It seems that it's stuff like this that could be the biggest driver in validating non .com domain names. I could see a Benelux registrar organization setting up a quality .tld that was free from seizure over stupid shit. There are still other minor routing problems that can occur, but with proxies and DNS, that is much much more of a whack-a-mole problem than high level domain name seizure.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

fanboy123 15y ago

CNBC Twitter: Three Largest Internet Poker Companies Charged With Fraud, Illegal Gambling - Pokerstars, Full Tilt Poker, & Absolute Poker - Charged

patrickyeon 15y ago
MarketWatch says it's bank fraud, money laundering, and illegal gambling. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/doj-indicts-founders-of-top-us-online-poker-sites-2011-04-15-1358350?link=MW_latest_news http://www.marketwatch.com/story/doj-indicts-founders-of-top...

skunkworks 15y ago

US government has been gunning for poker sites for a while (since 2006 when the UIGEA passed). Some places like Party Poker withdrew from the US market, while others flourished by skirting the rules to the best of their abilities (e.g. can't have ads for internet gambling on TV, so let's make a play money site fulltilt.net that will eventually funnel traffic to our real cash games). I am however surprised that they're seizing domains as I figured this would remain one of those "live and let live" legislations, like the online gambling equivalent of brown-bagging your drink. I imagine this will not end well for whoever was involved in this decision. Also, 2+2ers sup bro.

cjeane 15y ago
There was so much hope that poker would be granted legal status about a year ago, but congress does tend to get sidetracked. Nice to see other 2+2ers on HN.
- ikono 15y ago
  It's kinda cool to see a link to 2+2 at the top of HN, sucks that it has to be for this though...
codingthebeach 15y ago
;)

deleted 15y ago

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angrycoder 15y ago

Coming soon... PokerStars.cz FullTiltPoker.ly

mrtron 15y ago

Online gambling is legal almost everywhere - how does the FBI have the ability to do this?

aneth 15y ago
Not in the US, and these are US domain names.
barefoot 15y ago
They are using a TLD (top level domain name) operated by a US company (Verizon). The government hasn't gone out of it's jurisdiction, technically speaking.
- tankenmate 15y ago
  Verisign, not Verizon.
  - barefoot 15y ago
    Autocorrect on iOS, sorry.
rbetts 15y ago
They are accused of a conspiracy of intentionally fraudulent financial transactions. From the press release: ... arranged for the money received from U.S. gamblers to be disguised as payments to hundreds of non-existent online merchants purporting to sell merchandise such as jewelry and golf balls
burgerbrain 15y ago
Clearly the FBI has the ability to do this... they just did. Now, do they have the right to do this? Of course not, but not having the right to do something has never stopped the FBI before. Remember, this is an organization that was created explicitly for the purpose of out-Mafia-ing the Mafia.

andrewcooke 15y ago

when this happened a while back for wikipedia and filesharing sites i wrote a script that lets you add, update, dump, and share entries in your local hosts file (you can even put the text on a website and pull it from a url). it's not really much use since the sites will be moving anyway if no-one else can contact them, but in case someone finds it useful - https://github.com/ghettonet/GhettoNet https://github.com/ghettonet/GhettoNet

TY 15y ago

It's real and it's happening now. I have nothing to do with online gambling (anymore), but this just sent shivers down my spine. Who's next? The US Government has just strengthened the case of those who were concerned about having parts of Internet infrastructure under the control of the US government. Domain seizures have been happening for a while (i.e. [1]), but this case will probably be the highest profile to date and will hopefully raise public awareness about this disturbing issue. I won't be surprised to see US based domain registrars to start loosing a lot of their business quite soon. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/us/04bar.html http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/us/04bar.html

blhack 15y ago
Unfortunately, I highly doubt that this will be seen as disturbing by the main stream.
- jarin 15y ago
  I'm not so sure, a bunch of my mainstream friends are freaking out about it. They didn't care about the previous seizures, but once you stop people from playing Internet poker at work everyone turns into a civil rights advocate.
  - pavel_lishin 15y ago
    That's not necessarily a representative sample - it's only poker players, thus far.
    - BrandonM 15y ago
      That group is probably bigger than you think. There is a very large population of professional poker players, and those people make their money from a population of everyday players that are least ten times the size of the professional players. We're talking about hundreds of thousands of people whose poker accounts have essentially been frozen. TL;DR: About $100M-$1B of law-abiding citizens' money is currently in limbo because the government didn't consider the collateral damage of its attack on the big 3 poker sites (for all intents and purposes, UB and AP are the same site).

dstein 15y ago

Has a bureau of the US federal government just claimed ultimate authority over the internet's domain name system? If this is the case, then obviously we have a very serious problem on our hands. This threatens the way the internet works at the infrastructure level. Clearly the US needs to be stripped of their root DNS server privileges.

knowtheory 15y ago
This has been a criticism of ICANN since the very beginning of the internet. This has always been a serious problem, especially since ICANN was setup under the auspices of the Department of Commerce. And, i'd love to see your alternative proposal for who should run root DNS. Cause the US is nakedly political and partisan, but at least it's nakedly so. :\
- tankenmate 15y ago
  I think you'll find that the internet is a few decades older than ICANN. But in ICANN's defence most people who participate in ICANN (remember it is a self selecting body) aren't happy about all the seizures either. I'm sure the mailing lists are going "full tilt" (pun intended) as we type.
  - knowtheory 15y ago
    Yes, fair enough, perhaps we can agree on world wide web, or public use of the internet? ;) And of course, this puts ICANN at risk itself, as it's forced to explain or decry the seizures. The FBI is taking short term actions which will have long term effects. You gotta wonder if they've got lawyers who understand the implications of what they're doing.
eropple 15y ago
Stop hyperventilating, they did nothing of the sort. .com is based in the United States, and (whether or not you agree with the US's stance on online gambling, I don't) they seized an asset that they claim - probably rightly - is within their jurisdiction and is assisting these companies in committing acts that are illegal in the United States. If they seize a .co.uk, then there's something to be worried about, but as far as I am aware that has not happened.

lusis 15y ago

This is actually perfect. Filesharing sites don't register on the average user radar. Online gambling sites? Joe Schmoe's everywhere are about to get seriously angry. It's sad it came to this but maybe it takes something as overreaching as this to get the attention of people.

eli 15y ago

Crazy. DC government just passed a bill allowing the city to offer online gambling. Will the FBI also sieze dclottery.com?

Vivtek 15y ago
DEA raids California medical marijuana stores that are legal according to state law, so ... yeah, if they want to, they will.
tzs 15y ago
Does DC plan to use the site for money laundering?

pero 15y ago

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Federal authorities unsealed an indictment Friday against the founders of the three largest internet poker companies operating in the U.S. The indictment charges eleven defendants, including the founders of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker, with bank fraud, money laundering, and illegal gambling offenses, according to Federal authorities in New York. Restraining orders were issued against more than 75 bank accounts used by the poker companies and their payment processors, while five Internet domain names used by the companies to host poker games were seized, federal authorities added in a statement. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/doj-indicts-founders-of-top-us-online-poker-sites-2011-04-15-1358350?link=MW_latest_news http://www.marketwatch.com/story/doj-indicts-founders-of-top... Indictment http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/scheinbergetalindictmentpr.pdf http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/schein...

AJ007 15y ago
This needs to be modded up. The ICE mass domain seizures were more blatant violations of due process. I would also add, if they are going after these poker sites for money laundering, at this point players probably will be unable to deposit or withdraw any money in to their game accounts. from the indictment: "The United States also filed a civil money laundering and in rem forfeiture complaint (the "Civil Complaint") against the Poker Companies, their assets, and the assets of several payment processors for the Poker Companies." That means they are taking everything Any asset that any of these defendants has, that is within US government reach will be seized. The domain names were probably the easiest part. additionally from the indictment: "Defendants BITAR,SCHEINBERG, BURTNICK, TATE, TOM, BECKLEY, RUBIN and LANG are not presently in the United States and have not yet been arrested. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York is working with foreign law enforcement agencies and Interpol to secure the arrest of these defendants and the seizure of criminal proceeds located abroad." That doesn't sound like a rogue US seizure of some domain names they didn't like (which was the case with the ICE seizures.)
- caf 15y ago
  So the government gets to indict you; then sieze your assets; then take you to court (where you cannot afford a lawyer anymore, because they have already seized your assets). I guess it's nice to be the King.

eftpotrm 15y ago

While I'm not at all surprised to see this happening, I'm still astonished that the USA continues to try to stamp out gambling through legislation. I remember growing up being astonished at the number of references on USA TV shows to illegal gambling; I've never once come across it in the UK. I love cricket, but there's been a persistent series of match-fixing and spot-fixing allegations for years, almost exclusively originating from illegal south Asian (primarily Indian) bookmakers. The legal markets haven't been the source of this sort of problem at all. Much as I might not like gambling, there is a persistent human desire for it and the evidence seems to be that banning it, as so often, exacerbates rather than minimises harm. The US government should stop trying to hold back the tide on this.

ericb 15y ago
The casino lobby would prefer that online gambling didn't exist. Therefore, since these online companies are not in the US and have no lobbyist money in play, they have no standing. Voter preference, individual rights, domain name sanctity, jurisdiction, shortsightedness with regard to keeping control of TLD's, futility of the fight, all have no bearing when uncontested lobby money wants something, and doubly so when states think it will mean more tax dollars in their pockets.
- davepeck 15y ago
  It's not quite true that these companies have no lobbying presence in the USA. The Poker Players Alliance operates out of Washington DC and represents all of the companies indicted today.
- ikono 15y ago
  PPA aside, what's interesting is that PokerStars just announced a partnership with the Wynn recently. I don't know that it's the US brick and mortar casinos that are behind this.
- dhughes 15y ago
  Actually the company I (a minion stuck in the cogs) work for is a government run lottery that set up a division called Digital Interactive Gaming just to design and build online a gambling website.

akavlie 15y ago

So yeah, about that distributed DNS idea...

Chrono 15y ago

The sites mentioned still resolves for me but if this is actually true... I am at a loss of words

SebMortelmans 15y ago
The alleged story behind all this: http://www.businessinsider.com/boy-genius-online-poker-scandal-2011-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/boy-genius-online-poker-scand...

ssclafani 15y ago

The indictment from the DOJ with a list of the charges: http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/scheinbergetalindictmentpr.pdf http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/schein...

davepeck 15y ago
Fascinating. This contains some pretty damning charges, if true.
- nikcub 15y ago
  the UIEGA outlaws 'internet gambling' so the case will be based on if poker is considered gambling, which the supreme court has already found to not be the case when California attempted to pass laws to legalize card rooms back in the 70s A lot harder to avoid the money laundering charges, but they could argue that they had to process payments in that way because the banks wouldn't accept them because of an unjust UIEGA law
rorrr 15y ago
To be fair, most of these charges are probably true. What I'm not sure is how they can prosecute Canadian citizens living in Ireland or Canada.
- nopassrecover 15y ago
  Extradition.
  - rorrr 15y ago
    Over financial crimes? Does that ever happen?
    - nl 15y ago
      It does, especially over money laundering. In this case though it's likely fought pretty strongly since it's possible that what they did weren't offences in their home countries.

jdp23 15y ago

Here's the full indictment: http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/scheinbergetalindictmentpr.pdf http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/schein...

andrenotgiant 15y ago

Great Job FBI, really thorough crackdown. http://www.pokerstars.net/ http://www.pokerstars.net/ http://www.pokerstars.jp/ http://www.pokerstars.jp/ http://www.pokerstars.de/ http://www.pokerstars.de/

BrandonM 15y ago
pokerstars.net only offers a play money client; it is not a gambling site by any stretch of the imagination. .jp and .de are not under US jurisdiction.

AlexC04 15y ago

Odd, they're all resolving for me. I wonder if that's USA only? I'm in Canada

run4yourlives 15y ago
Probably just hasn't propagated yet.

sp332 15y ago

The MAFIAAFire Firefox plugin will redirect seized domain names to alternate domains. It's already working with all of the domains listed in the article. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mafiaafire-redirector/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mafiaafire-re... Of course, it depends on how much you trust the maintainers of the plugin not to do something nefarious :)

viraptor 15y ago

The event was big and changed a lot... but not for pokerstars or other services. The client can use ips to auto-update with new domain names probably (it's got a pool of addresses to try). In a few days enough new links will be created to pokerstars.net that it will be reasonably visible on google. Service itself will buy loads of domains and start advertising as pokerstars.{your_tld}. In the meantime, pokerstars.net is still available as usual.

PsyVisions 15y ago
you should try pokerstars.pt ... it's already done, you silly... pokerstars owns about 1950 domain names... enough for you?

Maro 15y ago

I'm located in Hungary. Pokerstars.com works, Fulltiltpoker.com works, UB.com gives me an FBI page.

redthrowaway 15y ago
Same from Canada. Also, would seizing the domain name actually stop the clients from working? I would imagine that the devs, seeing the rash of increasingly ridiculous seizures, would have pushed an update to the client that bypasses DNS. That's what I would have done, anyway.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
ambiguity 15y ago
ub.com and pokerstars.com both resolve to their original servers (77.87.179.116 & 66.212.231.205) using either Google's DNS servers (8.8.8.8) or Level3's (4.2.2.1, 4.2.2.2)
maxer 15y ago
all work in northern ireland

jneal 15y ago

Wow, I don't know why this surprises me so much - although I know plenty of people that play poker "illegally". A quote simply because I personally feel it's ridiculous. I also recall the difference between the poker related .com and .net sites. So fulltiltpoker.net is still up as is pokerstars.net - that, if I recall correctly, was because the .net website was aimed a playing poker with "fake money" while the .coms were all aimed at playing poker with "real money"

cabalamat 15y ago

Note to self: all future domains I buy won't have a .com extension.

die_sekte 15y ago
I'm using .is from now on. Sure, it's more expensive, but there are no fucking "domainers" there – even two letter domains are still available. And I have a hard time thinking of something Iceland would shut down (except for child pornography, obviously).
- vukk 15y ago
  I tried to register a two-letter domain with few registrars found by googling: it seems that one isn't allowed to register a two-letter .is domain anymore; a very common policy in domain names.
  - die_sekte 15y ago
    That seems odd. I just registered one a few days ago… (fj.is). Also you can register domains directly at isnic.
    - vukk 15y ago
      ! You are correct, isnic allows to register two-letter domains :) It is probably better to register there anyway than with some random registrars.

jhamburger 15y ago

I was under the impression that Howard Lederer and possibly several other "celebrity" poker players had ownership interests in Full Tilt Poker so I'm surprised I don't see any familiar names listed as defendants in the indictment

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

pumpmylemma 15y ago

Okay. This makes me want to indulge in youthful indignation. If I saw this and was at a company like OpenDNS, I'd start considering saying "No. Sorry. We're going reverting back to the last good record." The federal government might have technical jurisdiction, and U.S. customers might technically be violating U.S. laws but the ability of the federal government to seize internet properties terrifies me because it might set a national and international precedent. (Other countries already do this, but U.S. doing it kinda makes it globally sanctioned.) I'm terrified of a slippery slope, even though I usually find slippery slope arguments dubious. (Plus, I just think this is a dumb seizure to begin with...) (End of youthful indignation.)

ikono 15y ago
I just had the same though except substitue OpenDNS with Google. OpenDNS would be better for users but this feels like a Google-y thing to do especially after the whole China debacle.
dendory 15y ago
Someone maintain a zone record (or hosts file) for all seized domains and make it public via P2P? Just an idea.. ;)

idefix 15y ago

seems to open fine in california

ajg1977 15y ago

Probably related to this - former online gambling lynchpin turns cooperating witness. http://www.couriermail.com.au/ipad/web-kings-life-on-the-line/story-fn6ck45n-1226039907165 http://www.couriermail.com.au/ipad/web-kings-life-on-the-lin...

Maascamp 15y ago

Interesting back story http://www.businessinsider.com/boy-genius-online-poker-scandal-2011-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/boy-genius-online-poker-scand...

olalonde 15y ago

Isn't their image with no alt tag (http://pokerstars.com/banner7.jpg http://pokerstars.com/banner7.jpg) in violation with Section 508 Amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973? [1] Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 A Federal law requiring US government electronic and information technology (EIT) to meet accessibility requirements [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_508_of_the_Rehabilitation_Act_of_1973 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_508_of_the_Rehabilitati...

pbhjpbhj 15y ago
It is a pretty blatant and unnecessary violation of accessibility standards, a longdesc wouldn't exactly be hard to add at least.
jarin 15y ago
You know, I almost wonder if it's intentional. Using an image-based seizure page with a very generic image name prevents search engines from having any content to spider (and thereby prevents people from searching for seized sites).

antidaily 15y ago

So no season II of 2 Months 2 Million?

lawnchair_larry 15y ago

The hijacked DNS has not propagated everywhere yet. Mine are still working. If anyone has last minute business to do on these sites, such as cashing out before the FBI steals your money, add these to your hosts file: $ host pokerstars.com pokerstars.com has address 77.87.179.116 pokerstars.com mail is handled by 20 mx20.pokerstars.com. $ host absolutepoker.com absolutepoker.com has address 66.212.244.175 absolutepoker.com mail is handled by 10 mail.absolutepoker.com. absolutepoker.com mail is handled by 5 mx1.absolutepoker.com. absolutepoker.com mail is handled by 5 mx2.absolutepoker.com. $ host fulltiltpoker.com fulltiltpoker.com has address 91.211.98.20 fulltiltpoker.com mail is handled by 200 mit-mx00.fulltiltpoker.com. fulltiltpoker.com mail is handled by 100 mx00.fulltiltpoker.com. $ host ultimatebet.com ultimatebet.com has address 66.212.244.148 ultimatebet.com mail is handled by 100 mailb.ultimatebet.com. ultimatebet.com mail is handled by 200 mailc.ultimatebet.com. ultimatebet.com mail is handled by 10 mail.ultimatebet.com. $ host ub.com ub.com has address 66.212.231.205

llimllib 15y ago
The FBI press release[1] says that they've shut down all the sites' bank accounts too, so you're unlikely to be able to pull your money out. I selfishly hope they go after everybody with money on any of those sites, because it might generate more outrage than just the domain name seizures. [1]: http://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-releases/2011/manhattan-u.s.-attorney-charges-principals-of-three-largest-internet-poker-companies-with-bank-fraud-illegal-gambling-offenses-and-laundering-billions-in-illegal-gambling-proceeds http://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-releases/2011/manhattan-u.s...
- adam-_- 15y ago
  Cashing out is not working for me...
  - BrandonM 15y ago
    They process cashouts through intermediaries, essentially laundering the cashout money. This is one of the main crimes they are being charged with. In addition to the domain names, the FBI also seized all of the funds they could that were being used in handling cashouts.

dendory 15y ago

This will only get worse, and the US has no issue with doing this with International sites. Remember rojadirecta.org? It's a Spanish site, owned and operated in Spain, that fought for 3 years a legal battle, and won. Then the DOJ just came and in one day seized the domain. No appeal, no warning, their whole legal battle for nothing. They have been offline ever since. The Internet is at the complete mercy of the guys in ICE.

beedogs 15y ago

America sucks more every day.

Natsu 15y ago

If anyone hasn't figured it out yet, the Internet Police have come and they're starting the crackdown. So people who have been relying on the non-enforcement of certain laws, even the dumb ones, are going to get some nasty surprises soon. Or at least, that's how it looks to me. They've killed several botnets and lots of other sites, too, if anyone has noticed.

ig1 15y ago

It's worth noting that most gambling sites warn their employees against travelling to the US. The US has in the past arrested employees of foreign firms for actions which are entirely legal in their home country but illegal in the US. And it's not just gambling sites, in 2001 Dmitry Sklyarov was arrested on a similar basis.

caf 15y ago
To be quite frank, as a foreign national I'd be a lot more worried about visting the US than I would Cuba. That's hardly a ringing endorsement for the land of the free, is it?

rooshdi 15y ago

Well, there goes Full Tilt Capital...

vessenes 15y ago

If the press release is true, these guys are going away for a long time. They allegedly bribed the owner of a US bank with cash and allegedly purchased 30% of the bank in exchange for the bank allowing them to circumvent US money laundering and anti-gambling laws. There's a lot of civil liberty discussion in this thread, but I think this is actually a fascinating story about the linkage points between the internet and the real world -- in the real world, these guys needed bank processing. To get it, they went way, way over the line, as did the Bank owner.

maratd 15y ago
Over the line? Why did they have to bribe a bank to accept their business? That's crazy! The liberty to conduct everyday business is the most important liberty we have. It's what puts bread on the table. The fact that they had to bribe a bank to open and use an account is really really sick.
- eropple 15y ago
  Online gambling is illegal in the United States. It is, by _definition_, not "everyday business."
  - nhangen 15y ago
    And that's part of the problem.
    - eropple 15y ago
      I don't disagree that it should be legal, but the fact that the government takes a dim view of bribing bank officials to allow someone to do other illegal things is really not something worth getting indignant about, no? The root cause, sure, but painting it as "everyday business" is rather naively lolbertarian.
      - nhangen 15y ago
        You can't fix a problem by slashing at the symptoms. I don't disagree, but it shouldn't have come this far.

heyitsnick 15y ago

I'm happy to see this featured so highly in hacker news. As a professional poker player, the biggest concern right now are players balances. I know players with 250k+ bankrolls that are extremely concerned about the status of their money online. Right now it's entirely unclear the relative size of the seizures. If anyone has any questions from someone in the midst of this, fire way. I'll be up all night.

palewery 15y ago
Can you explain why someone would leave that much money in there? Are there tables that you can bring 250k to? Do these sites pay interest? How do you trust these sites? A casino in Las Vegas will get huge fines if one of the employees rips off players. How do you know some internal IT guy isn't cheating you?
- heyitsnick 15y ago
  > Can you explain why someone would leave that much money in there? For someone in the US, it can be difficult depositing and withdrawing money. It's often easiest to keep your entire bankroll 'online' (in poker sites such as pokerstars or full tilt) rather than in banks or online wallets (such as moneybookers). 250k could be a standard poker bankroll for a high stakes professional poker player. My bankroll that I keep onlien is 50k USD and i don't consider myself a high-stakes player. >>> Are there tables that you can bring 250k to? It's 2.5 buyins for 500/1000 NL. There have been +1 million dollar pots heads up - http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/37/televised-poker/1-1-million-dollar-pot-ft-million-cash-game-602078/ http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/37/televised-poker/1-1-mil.... Although one doesn't normally sit with their bankroll. However due to the friction (time hassle, exchange rates, withdrawal fees) it is sensible to keep multiple buyins online at one time. I play from 5-10 to 25-50 limit and need 50k online spread across 8+ sites so I have enough to keep in action. >>> Do these sites pay interest? No.
- sanswork 15y ago
  There are tables where you can play 250k in one hand. Not for me ever but I have a much much smaller balance. They make more money by being trustworthy than not. It has happened but it has usually been detected by players noticing unusual patterns in a players actions/win rate.

warmfuzzykitten 15y ago

They're resolving to normal web sites for me in California. It takes six hours for DNS servers to resolve? I checked whois and it looks perfectly normal. Also, you can ping the domains to get the URL, e.g., http://77.87.179.116 http://77.87.179.116 Is this story true?

ajays 15y ago

You know, these "asset forfeiture" laws will never change as long as it's the 'little people' who are getting reamed. The day the government grabs the assets of a few rich people, you can bet your ass these laws will change in a hurry.

PostOnce 15y ago
It takes just one man to rile the public. What we need is widespread and incendiary oratory; governments operate only with the consent of the governed. Inaction, in this case, is effectively consent.

roscohearts 15y ago

FBI needs to back down, citizens have a choice.

BrandonM 15y ago

Did anyone happen to cache the IP address for fulltiltpoker.com? I'd like to add it to /etc/hosts so that I can at least connect to the client and get a screenshot of my balance.

thaumaturgy 15y ago
91.211.98.20; it's posted abovethread.
- BrandonM 15y ago
  That is the already-seized alias IP address. Go ahead and browse to it.
  - caf 15y ago
    No, that's the actual IP address, but you have to browse it as "www.fulltiltpoker.com", otherwise it redirects you to there.

roscohearts 15y ago

The gov. wannts to control everything this is going to change revolution is in need contact jksiedlarczyk@yahoo.com

MaysonL 15y ago

Two ineresting side notes: pokerstars.net is still up pokerstars.co.uk gives a 404 error, after redirecting to pokerstars.com/uk seems like sloppy webmastership from the FBI.

metachris 15y ago

Pretty strong charges: * Violation of Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act [5 years prison] * Operation of Illegal Gambling Business [5 years prison] * Conspiracy to Commit Bank Fraud and Wire Fraud [30 years prison] * Money Laundering Conspiracy [20 years prison] And for all of them fines double the gross gain or loss: http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/scheinbergetalindictmentpr.pdf http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/schein...

ynniv 15y ago

In case anyone thinks this is about deterring online gambling, Washington DC (the municipality, not the Federal government) has recently legalized online gambling as a type of lottery. [ http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ONLINE_GAMBLING_DC http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ONLINE_GAMBLING_DC]

codexon 15y ago

Here's what the domain names look like, for those of us who's DNS hasn't propagated yet. http://50.17.223.71/ http://50.17.223.71/

bostonscott 15y ago

This is another case of government manufacturing criminals. "There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted and you create a nation of law-breakers." - Ayn Rand

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

MaysonL 15y ago

An interesting article about Sunfirst Bank, and a previous brush with money-laundering problems: http://blogs.reuters.com/financial-regulatory-forum/2011/01/07/fdic-sunfirst-action-a-reminder-of-third-party-processors-risk-to-banks-complinet/ http://blogs.reuters.com/financial-regulatory-forum/2011/01/...

loganlinn 15y ago

The domain, http://www.pokerstars.net/ http://www.pokerstars.net/, is still up

tlack 15y ago

So far the US is only cracking down on domains in the .COM TLD. Do you guys think the US will eventually crack down on non-US-owned TLDs that are operated by US entities, such as .CO (operated by NeuStar)? And after that, perhaps a doomsday scenario, will they eventually force US-hosted DNS caches to expunge records that are related to criminal activity as, in a way, they are aiding and abetting..

cashchamps 15y ago

To restore your access to these websites, on Windows, open c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts with notepad (make sure you are running notepad as an administrator). At the bottom of the existing file, copy and paste these lines: 91.211.98.20 fulltiltpoker.com 91.211.98.20 www.fulltiltpoker.com 77.87.179.116 pokerstars.com 77.87.179.116 www.pokerstars.com 66.212.231.205 www.ub.com 66.212.231.205 ub.com Save the file, and reboot. That's it. You'll see the actual poker sites once again, not the FBI's communist page.

whackedspinach 15y ago

How exactly am I supposed to live in a system like this? I understand I can't have a perfect legal system, but the amount of effort required to challenge these ridiculous seizures seems very difficult. There are so many unconstitutional laws that need to be fixed. We need a second supreme court.

ForumRatt 15y ago
Oh great another 9 headed beast.

enb 15y ago

"Australian internet whiz Daniel Tzvetkoff, who has become a prized FBI informant in a bid to avoid a 75 year jail sentence in the US, may have brought down the multi-billion dollar American online poker industry. The three poker sites - PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker - have been shut down." Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/technology/technology-news/fbi-charges-11-internet-poker-kingpins-20110416-1difk.html#ixzz1Jf3LFavT http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/technology/technology-news/f...

ataggart 15y ago

And yet so many people are urging this same government to craft new "net neutrality" laws. Bewildering.

jrockway 15y ago
Well, net neutrality is to protect us from corporations. Protecting us from the government is something the government won't do.

beaker 15y ago

I don't know why but this issue really irks me. The hypocrisy on this is off the charts. Gambling is legal in our country - the WTO has made that legal judgment (http://www.ibet.pro/2007/08/25/us-government-ignores-wto-rulings-on-internet-gambling/ http://www.ibet.pro/2007/08/25/us-government-ignores-wto-rul...). Our actions are an attempt to preserve a protection racket for U.S. gambling operations and it's just wrong. Not only that but the strategy of seizing domain names, arresting execs, will never solve this problem. This shit pisses me off - I'm sorry.

caf 15y ago

The entire attack on online poker, and poker in general, is funded, supported and encouraged by that completely immoral mix of human misery and animal cruelty known as the racing industry. The sooner horse racing ends up where it belongs, alongside dogfighting and bear-baiting, the better.

nicklovescode 15y ago

The worst part: look at the HTML they replaced it with!

nothans 15y ago

Web app to report how much money is frozen in your poker account: http://socialsensornetwork.com/online-poker http://socialsensornetwork.com/online-poker

PHPAdam 15y ago

PokerStars is back - http://pokerstars.eu http://pokerstars.eu This is the message I get when I log in: http://i.imgur.com/PfUl4.png http://i.imgur.com/PfUl4.png

thought_alarm 15y ago

Winners don't conduct illegal gambling operations. -- William S. Sessions, Director of the FBI

pathik 15y ago

Meta: This is probably the most upvoted HN post I've seen.

ForumRatt 15y ago

This domain seizure nonsense is just the tip of the iceberg. http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/383473/white_house_releases_trusted_internet_id_plan/ http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/383473/white_house_r...

teyc 15y ago

For some more perspective: http://www.smartcompany.com.au/entrepreneur-watch/20110418-super-bad-to-supergrass.html http://www.smartcompany.com.au/entrepreneur-watch/20110418-s...

fedsrgay 15y ago

get a fucking life feds! fucking looserrs