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ICANN Refuses to Accredit Pirate Bay Founder Peter Sunde Due to His ‘Background’
- roenxi 6y agoAlthough interesting, this is overshadowed by the growing politicisation of the internet. ICANN seems to have a representative multi-government structure that is robust against any particular government having unreasonable influence. If a few Sundes get crushed in the gears so be it. The US tech giants are beholden to themselves and control a scary fraction of the internet's infrastructure. They are starting to flex their muscles in regard to what should and should not appear on the internet. As far as political threats go, that is where they will materialise. Or in governments copying China's strategy for engaging with technology.
- TrispusAttucks 6y agoJust because some other internet giant is screwing free speech harder doesn't make this any less wrong. Battles can be fought on multiple fronts if necessary. This isn't the first corruption coming from ICANN.
- fredgrott 6y agoit's not FREE SPEECH, it's FREE POLITICAL SPEECH which is in fact an oxymoron as that cannot ever exist in an efficient society even if we want it to
- galangalalgol 6y agoThe US first amendment protects all speech, not just political speech. Most particularly it protects offensive speech because that is the only kind that needs protecting. We endure many inefficiencies for the freedoms we allow, the idea is that those freedoms are worth the cost.
- davrosthedalek 6y agoThe US first amendment protects (almost) all speech, but only from prosecution by the government, not by companies.
- toyg 6y agoYes, and this really highlight the problem with ICANN: it's de-facto (global) government, except legally it isn't.
- galangalalgol 6y agoIndeed, if the drafters had forseen corporatism many things might have been different. And then there is the organized persecution of peers for their horribly offensive (read differing) opinions that is allowed by our modern communication tools. Is freedom of speech freedom to persecute? Maybe having really bad ideas should become a protected class? I say that only half jokingly, I have no answers.
- shadowgovt 6y agoThe drafters didn't foresee protected classes (in the legal sense you're using the term, if I understand correctly); in fact, several of those protected classes simply weren't granted the rights granted to white male landowners by the Constitution the drafters framed. I don't know how much guidance we can take from the original drafters on the novel problems of the modern era.
- davrosthedalek 6y agoGood question. And there is also the freedom of (dis)association.
- FpUser 6y agoWell some companies are starting to look more and more like the government. Besides corporations are protected by the government from certain things. The populace should be protected from their actions as well. Existence of big corporation always affects life of many people so it is only fair that those corps should be restricted in what their can do. For one thing those corps main duty is to make money. If they engage in morality setting instead they should have their business license revoked.
- worldofmatthew 6y agoCorruption from ICANN is 100x worse than big tech. ICANN can just tell DNS servers not to route anything to do with you and threaten others to do the same.
- Mauricebranagh 6y agocough Is this the same ICANT that we all know and love :-)
- Mauricebranagh 6y agoSorry forgot the <sarcasm> tag
- mlthoughts2018 6y agoWhy do you believe ICANN’s multi-government structure is somehow robust against any one government or small consortium of governments having too much power?
- narag 6y agoThe strategy is different, and clear though. First monopolize contents, then censor. It seemed impossible to do in the web when it bloomed. Compared with tv, it was a difficult beast to tame. But free resources, convenience and having all your contacts captive work as a charm.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- cinntaile 6y agoI really doubt it has anything to do with thepiratebay, instead it's very likely due to his current project njal.la that provides anonymous domain names.
- Invictus0 6y agoCan't he sue? Surely their excuse will not hold up in court.
- worldofmatthew 6y agoI think a anti-trust one to break up ICANN would be good.
- Mauricebranagh 6y agoYou want the ITU to run the domain system then - there are more than a few ITU members who would love that
- worldofmatthew 6y agoI said break up, not move to the ITU.
- Mauricebranagh 6y agoICANN is not really the same as a US company here - not quite sure you realise some of the politics behind this.
- childintime 6y agoRegistration fees are sure to go up, to pay for wanting to be the center of the internet.
- afarrell 6y agoOpen question for HN: When evaluating how much to trust a person in a business relationship, when is it wise it to consider A. The person's past actions B. The intent behind those actions C. What they say now about those past actions ?
- globular-toast 6y agoIrrelevant question. This isn't about private business relationships, it's about a non-profit organisation entrusted with sole authority over public infrastructure.
- ben_w 6y agoAnd this is an important distinction because? He’s been denied accreditation for his business to resell certain domains, not kicked off the internet. Would it not be reasonable for, e.g. a publicly owned national electricity grid to refuse to accredit a new energy business which is run by someone who previously published “how to circumvent your electricity meter”? I don’t even know if such a thing would be illegal to publish, but even if it isn’t illegal, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for accreditation to be refused.
- toyg 6y ago> I don’t think it’s unreasonable for accreditation to be refused. It would not just be unreasonable, for a rehabbed offender, but also stupid. The people who know the ins and outs of systems are the ones best placed to suggest improvements to the status quo. I wouldn't think this necessary to be explained on Hacker News, but here we are.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- afarrell 6y ago> rehabbed This is the core of my question C -- Is it reasonable to judge someone's current trustworthiness by what they say about their past actions?
- cute_boi 6y agowow what a shame? Controlling the internet just because one person has a different political view? This might be reason why Domain Name price is sky rocketing :/
- withinboredom 6y agoLast I checked, ICANN fees are still less than a buck per year. It's the registrars that are increasing the price.
- dgudkov 6y agoI guess every public internet policy should now include a clause such as "We reserve the right to not do any business with you if we don't like you, regardless of any other provision of the policy". At least, it will be honest. PS. Variations may include: "...if we don't like you OR we don't like anyone you like...".
- buro9 6y agoThat's already in most policies without qualifying it's because they don't like you. Here's an example: > We also reserve the right to modify or discontinue the Service at any time (including, without limitation, by limiting or discontinuing certain features of the Service) without notice to you. We will have no liability whatsoever on account of any change to the Service or any suspension or termination of your access to or use of the Service The right is reserved, no need to give any reason.
- toyg 6y agoSunde understands the value of propaganda, so it's fairly obvious he expected this outcome. He wanted to highlight the undemocratic and corrupt nature of one of the most critical parts of our global infrastructure, and he did it. Ironically, this was a better proof of transparency than what most "problematic" people would subject themselves to. If any vanilla oligarch wanted to be in those circles, he would just pay some squeaky-clean individual to be his stooge, and then make it known, after registration, who the real power is. Sunde could have configured himself as a freelance consultant to his friends, and he would not have appeared on any radar. This would have made his business work, but it would not have advanced the perennial conversation about ICANN's original sins, which have become more and more untolerable with the years. ICANN were pretty stupid to just veto his admission. That's not how you deal with institutional critics. They could have simply brought him in, then informally and formally vetoed anything he wanted to do. They have experience with people who tried to blow up things "from inside" in the past, so clearly they've developed countermeasures ready for that scenario. Or they could have given him something, enough to behold him, so he'd have an incentive to stay in the tent and piss outside rather than the other way around. This attitude proved Sunde is fundamentally right on the subject matter, like him or not as a person.
- nabla9 6y agoI have no ill will against Sunde, I have used Piratebay from the start. But denying application because you have a conviction is completely fair and expected. They have that box in the application for reason. Sunde choose pirate life. Crying about how you can't be respected businessman and convicted pirate is just pathetic.
- pantalaimon 6y agoAny conviction in any country?
- FpUser 6y ago>"But denying application because you have a conviction is completely fair and expected. They have that box in the application for reason." Nope. Whatever he did he had paid for it. With the very rare exceptions those checkboxes should not be allowed at all.
- jMyles 6y agoDisturbing perhaps, but not surprising. And, given the arrival of ENS, IPFS, etc., probably not of any enormous consequence either. Centralized services in the vein of ICANN are clearly on the way out.
- KingOfCoders 6y agoThe EU needs to control - preferably democratically - its own part of the internet.
- argvargc 6y agoThat, and end users need to control - preferably democratically - all of it.
- thinkingemote 6y agoWould anyone be surprised if a defence of "why worry? Just make your own non-profit global corporation to control IP address space allocation" is being expressed amongst some here? Or would that be a bit of a stretch?
- shadowgovt 6y agoProbably worth noting that several people are, in fact, suggesting distributed DNS as the solution here. Whether a rival private corporation or a distributed federation, competition is the only option if one doesn't trust a government to take the responsibility over.
- exo762 6y agoThis illustrates the need Handshake project. They created an alternative root for DNS - basically a fully distributed ICANN replacement.
- rasengan 6y agoDefinitely agree here. Essentially, ICANN is deplatforming Peter.
- varjag 6y agoGood call by ICANN.
- Traster 6y agoI'd like to hear a statement from ICANN regarding this before I jump to any conclusions, so far TF seem to just be repeating whatever Sunde tells them without any other sources. There's about a thousand different reasons I could see ICANN rejecting Sunde's company depending on how the appliction process went.
- 1337shadow 6y agoThat's funny given all the scammers they have accredited, ie. when your domain expires and goes under "infinite lock" because 2 registars lock it for as long as they can and then transfer it to the other.
- user3939382 6y agoThis was my reaction. They've let cybersquatters go nuts ruining the domain registration system for years. UDRP is fine for big businesses but what about everyone else? Why do they allow companies to run bots on the dictionary and register thousands of names at wholesale rates that go years without an active site? I spoke with Vint Cerf when he was the head of ICANN about GoDaddy's abusive policies that blocked customers from transferring domains, they went years without doing anything about that as well. Peter Sunde is not the problem.
- flyinghamster 6y agoAnd don't get me started on the willingness of registrars to look the other way and pocket the cash when spammers register "word salad" domain names by the bajillion for their snowshoe[0] spam operations. [0] https://www.spamhaus.org/faq/section/Glossary#233 https://www.spamhaus.org/faq/section/Glossary#233
- tzfld 6y agoThis is more and more like China's social credit system.
- Hnrobert42 6y agoWhat do you mean “more and more”? Are there other examples of this from ICANN?
- patrickaljord 6y agoThere's this one but one cared because he was a nazi. Now they're going against pirates. Who knows who's next. https://www.propublica.org/article/service-provider-boots-hate-site-off-the-internet https://www.propublica.org/article/service-provider-boots-ha...
- hansjorg 6y agoThis reminds me of that famous poem. "First they came for the nazis, and I defended them because I am a staunch supporter of free speech. Then the nazis exterminated me and my entire family, just like they had always promised they would. The end."
- progre 6y agoI much prefer to have nazis out in the open where we can keep an eye on them than forcing them underground.
- claudiawerner 6y agoAlthough I sympathise with that view too, it's unclear to me whether this tactic actually works against the feared outcome, which is Nazis gaining political power. Let's say we do keep an eye on them, and we see something we really don't like. What do we do then? Just keep on keeping an eye on them? It's also unclear what 'underground' means here. Most communication (and particularly political organizing) happens over the Internet, and people regularly gain access to ideologically-bent forums. Was Parler 'underground'? Is a closed Facebook group 'underground'? At first glance, it seems that such groups being 'underground' is actually what we want to happen. More caution to conceal their activities and spread of information would limit the number of people getting into such a movement. If the ideas are out in the open, we have to accept that there will be points at which rhetoric wins out over 'ideas', and that even if the marketplace of ideas produces correct results in the long run, we're still left dealing with incorrect results in the short run. Maybe that's a reasonable judgement for a libertarian point of view, but it's equally reasonable and understandable that someone may not want to make that concession at all.
- input_sh 6y agoDirect link to a Twitter thread from him: https://twitter.com/brokep/status/1364950213790740481 https://twitter.com/brokep/status/1364950213790740481
- lucb1e 6y agoMost contentful/relevant tweets I think: > After the first final review of our application, ICANN made a background check of everyone involved in the application (we're a team). My first contacts with ICANN I've been very open with who I am - I mentioned they should google me. My background is.. let's say different. [...] > After the background check I get a reply that I've "checked the wrong boxes" on parts of the application. There's some boxes saying: (paraphrasing) "have anyone in the team being convicted of fraud or similar in the past 10 years". > Noone in the team has been convicted of that. Nor murder, manslaughter, theft, breaking & entering, or anything else. I was involved in a case of aiding with copyright infringement from 2005-2006. That's 15+ years ago. And not fraud or similar. [...] > However, @ICANN is of another opinion. After spending over half a year to review the application (with a bi-weekly email stating that the delay is normal, nothing to be concerned about), they decided to deny the application since "the wrong box was ticked". What the heck: "You convicted for fraud in the past 10 years?" "Nope." "You liar, you were convicted in 2006!" Someone needs to tell the ICANN what year it is. Also, they didn't notice before? Not like internet people should have never heard of his name. To be honest, the next thing he writes (being actively wanted by interpol) does sound a bit fishy, I can see why that would make a bureaucrat on the other end of the line a bit less happy to comply. Imagine someone calls up your org and you find she (or he) is wanted in multiple countries, well, I can sort of see the point there, regardless of whether it's just in this particular case. (First tweet starting at https://twitter.com/brokep/status/1364950233382273031 https://twitter.com/brokep/status/1364950233382273031 )
- creddit 6y ago> Also, they didn't notice before? Not like internet people should have never heard of his name. One of the craziest things about the internet to me is that everyone treats their experience of “the internet” as THE experience of “THE internet” like it’s one singular conception that we all enjoy. But, the internet is huge and diverse and full of distinct niches such that no two “internets” (as conceived of as an individual’s experience of it) are almost ever close to the same. The idea that surely the good people at ICANN would know this guy (I certainly didn’t) is so striking to me as derivative of this.
- notRobot 6y ago> They basically admitted that they don’t like me. They’ve banned me for nothing else than my political views. This is typical discrimination. Considering I have no one to appeal to except them, it’s concerning, since they control the actual fucking center of the internet. Next-level deplatforming. From a non-profit. That essential controls the internet. Yay.
- worldofmatthew 6y agoTime for anti-trust lawsuits.
- joncrane 6y agoIn what jurisdiction(s)?
- prepend 6y agoHis home jurisdiction, I suppose. Comically, this is what the riaa did with making claims against Sunde based on US laws and applying them to Sweden. I think ICANN is a US corporation, but if they are impacting a Swedish company I’m sure there’s some local law that can be used.
- worldofmatthew 6y agoUS law is default but ICANN connection to the UN could allow someone to sue in any UN registered country. Though, I am not an expert on law.
- prepend 6y agoI thought ICANN has no connection to the UN. It used to have a connection to the US department of commerce but that ended years ago.
- GoblinSlayer 6y agoLos Angeles.
- progre 6y agohttps://www.icann.org/registrar-reports/accreditation-qualified-list.html https://www.icann.org/registrar-reports/accreditation-qualif... I doubt that every individual connected to these organizations have a spot free reputation, so ICANN is really putting themselves in a weird position by singling out Sunde.
- notahacker 6y agoI suspect not many of those other registrars are run by people able to use the line "they were also unhappy I was wanted by Interpol"...
- chmod775 6y agoIt's weird to hold that against someone though. Interpol is not judiciary. It's not even proper part of any executive.
- ClumsyPilot 6y agoGuilty untill proven innocent?
- notahacker 6y agoNo, guilty as found by a court that handed him an eight month jail sentence. Even if you think that was unfair and his Pirate Bay enterprise was generally a good thing for content discovery, it's unsurprising that an organisation for the administration of intellectual property doesn't consider an enterprise run by someone with a conviction for criminal copyright infringement suitable for its partner list.
- toyg 6y agoBut it was 15+ years ago. I guess they don't believe in rehabilitation... Can US companies discriminate on the basis of such ancient history?
- 6y ago
- veeti 6y agoThey are a private organization and have a right to choose who to do business with. /s
- 4cao 6y ago> Over the phone, ICANN explained that the matter was discussed internally. This unnamed group of people concluded that the organization is ‘not comfortable’ doing business with him. It's the height of arrogance that they didn't even feel the need to come up with any better excuse, just this. And of course: > ICANN will also keep the registration fee
- Hnrobert42 6y agoWell, be careful. This is according to Sunde. We don’t know what they said or for that matter, if IVANN even called him.
- boomboomsubban 6y agoEven without the particularly damming phone call, the ICANN looks fairly terrible in this exchange.
- Hnrobert42 6y agoAgain, particularly damning according to one person.
- 4cao 6y agoICANN were asked to comment on the story but chose not to do so. If they have anything to say, they are free to issue a statement anytime. Meanwhile, what we know so far, together with their lack of response, should be more than enough to have an opinion about the whole situation.
- jmull 6y agoYou can form your opinion based on anything you want... But if you do it based on an unsubstantiated semi-incoherent one-sided account, I think we can safely say you don't care about the truth of the matter.
- 6y ago
- isitdopamine 6y agoHe lied on the form, everything else is anecdotal.
- Qwertious 6y agoWhat was the lie?
- isitdopamine 6y ago> The accreditation form requires applicants to tick a box if they have been convicted for fraud or something similar. Sunde didn’t tick this box, as he was convicted for criminal copyright infringement. This ‘error’ was swiftly noticed by ICANN, which is also uneasy with other parts of the Pirate Bay founder’s history.
- known 6y agoI think ICANN is wrong IMO
- longtailofsighs 6y agoMy guess is that ICANN knows full well that he's going to appeal the decision and win and they are probably fine with that. It gives them coverage to respond to intellectual property interests, and the governments they hold sway over with "See! We tried!". It's an unfortunate waste of registrant fees in expensive legal consulting, it's a waste of people's time, and it demonstrates the power that IP holds within the ICANN community.
- zoobab 6y agoJust put DNS in a blockchain with some cost to buy a domain forever, and voila, problem solved.
- troquerre 6y agoICANN corruption is wel-known at this point after the .org fiasco. A lot of DNS industry folks are now giving decentralized DNS alternatives more attention. I wonder if we’re reaching a tipping point — it’s not unimaginable to me that in 10 years ICANN’s influence over DNS is significantly reduced as decentralized alternatives take over
- kzrdude 6y agoWhy do the pirate bay founders get treated like pariah while other "business men" like the people in Kazaa - like for example Zennström and Friis who went on to create Skype - are treated like everyone else? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazaa#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazaa#History