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If you read through the comments there's a lot of angry users demanding refunds and questioning the service. There's a fair chance that they won't be able to bo

by mixmax 15y ago

If you read through the comments there's a lot of angry users demanding refunds and questioning the service. There's a fair chance that they won't be able to bounce back after this. Especially if the domain doesn't come back up within a day or two. In other words, this might very well kill a company that someone worked hard to get off the ground. And if you have any usergenerated content it might happen to your company too. Apparently without due process, and without warning. This is preposterous.

billpatrianakos 15y ago
Those comments really got to me too. What really struck me was that they seemed to be angry at Jorform! These angry users are talking about security too as if they were attacked or something. I really feel for the users but at the same time I'm angry at them for placing the blame where it doesn't belong. Instead of being mad at Jotform they should be mad at the government. A while back I was advocating that we reach out to such people and explain this SOPA censorship stuff in a way they understand and this is precisely why. SOPA's supporters have done a really great job of training regular folks to think like some of these angry users making them think that somehow it was Jotform that did wrong. If they only knew how totally arbitrary this stuff is I think they'd be mad at the Feds like they should be. It's so sickening that the government probably just hurt not one but maybe thousands of companies in one fell swoop and everyone's pissed at the wrong guy. Then the politicians want to go around talking about creating jobs... Ha! How about destroying them? That's what it looks like to me.
- benologist 15y ago
  Why shouldn't they be angry at jotform? It looks like they had no expedited process for reporting phishing forms which had to have been a known risk somewhere around #1 on their list of known risks, they actually made it easier to go upstream instead of searching for their contact page (only linked in the footer) and hoping someone replies today. Did they have any automated detection? If they didn't have a "report a bad form" button then maybe they didn't even try and find bad forms ... like anything with a sign in button or password field. 2 million forms is too many to inspect, but you could narrow that list down very easily. What happened to them sucks but it seems like the problem could probably have been avoided. Edit: it let me make a form with "Account number" and "Password" complete with emailing me what people put in it which is suggestive of no preventative measures at all.
  - AndyJPartridge 15y ago
    Some good points. But surely they should have been sent a warning, even a 24 hour one, to remove some content before just being wiped off the Internet. This action is business destroying and draconian.
    - benologist 15y ago
      Don't get me wrong, I absolutely agree they shouldn't have been destroyed and that GoDaddy has no right to be the executioner.
      - sukuriant 15y ago
        Then how do you rectify the statement you made that their customers should be angry with them, and that they shouldn't be destroyed? I really want to hear this.
        benologist 15y ago
        Because there are two things here: 1) GoDaddy overstepping their bounds and shutting down a website 2) JotForm having inadequate, perhaps even non-existant measures in place to prevent or respond to phishing Obviously #1 dwarfs #2 significantly but that doesn't make #2 okay.
        sukuriant 15y ago
        How doesn't it? The argument could be made that GoDaddy would have done that deed anyway, even if (2) hadn't been rectified. GoDaddy might not have, if those provisions had been in place. Do these sorts of stories with GoDaddy happen often?
        benologist 15y ago
        GoDaddy's actions don't cancel it out because ignoring or not adequately preparing for phishing was wrong every single day and a foreseeable problem for about a decade now. They had a responsibility to prevent this for their paying users. Maybe it wouldn't have saved them, but there are a lot of free-x-hosting companies out there that haven't been shut down in spite of abuse.
- mansolo 15y ago
  JotForm should have bailed from GoDaddy when most other people did. Instead, they were apathetic and took a chance with their business and all of their clients as well. Damn right it's their fault.
  - sukuriant 15y ago
    Now thiiis is a valid reason for it being their fault
    - chives 15y ago
      Even if its not. Bail from Godaddy.com. Seriously. Granted the same problem may persist given that .coms have a US based organization that governs them (I think). Nonetheless, this is the exact same godaddy.com that supported SOPA. There have been so many forks in the road where the obvious choice was to bail on GoDaddy.com. Yet, they stayed and here they are. This is why we can't have nice things.
      - colechristensen 15y ago
        Verisign, an American company based in Virginia, is the authoritative registrar for .com and .net.
        Revisor 15y ago
        More precisely Verisign is the registrY, GoDaddy the registrAR. Not that it changes anything in this case.
  - rbanffy 15y ago
    I'm not sure many US-based registrars would be willing go against a law enforcement agency. Or would be able to do it twice. It all depends on what was on the letter they got and who sent it. Should they have ditched GoDaddy? Most probably yes. Would that save them now? I wouldn't bet my company.
    - 15y ago
- mrschwabe 15y ago
  That's the big joke man... modern day 'politicians' do not seek to create jobs. They seek control and power. It's up to nerds like us to design, develop and innovate systems that decentralize not only the internet - but politics as well.
nextparadigms 15y ago
This is why the Pro IP Act from 2008 needs to be repealed as soon as possible. It's worse than SOPA for Americans because it can pretty much do all SOPA could do, but for domestic domains (.com, .org, .net, .us) rather than foreign ones. The Pro IP Act managed to pass by us just like SOPA almost did it, too.
steve-howard 15y ago
But they needed to shut down Jotform because otherwise it would kill American jobs... right?
vaksel 15y ago
I'm questioning the service, because I had to read about the outage on HN...and not through a warning email from jotform. At the very least, they should have sent an email, telling people to switch the urls so the forms would work.
- vaksel 15y ago
  looks like they are on the ball, just got the email

by mixmax 15y ago

billpatrianakos 15y ago

Those comments really got to me too. What really struck me was that they seemed to be angry at Jorform! These angry users are talking about security too as if they were attacked or something. I really feel for the users but at the same time I'm angry at them for placing the blame where it doesn't belong. Instead of being mad at Jotform they should be mad at the government. A while back I was advocating that we reach out to such people and explain this SOPA censorship stuff in a way they understand and this is precisely why. SOPA's supporters have done a really great job of training regular folks to think like some of these angry users making them think that somehow it was Jotform that did wrong. If they only knew how totally arbitrary this stuff is I think they'd be mad at the Feds like they should be. It's so sickening that the government probably just hurt not one but maybe thousands of companies in one fell swoop and everyone's pissed at the wrong guy. Then the politicians want to go around talking about creating jobs... Ha! How about destroying them? That's what it looks like to me.

benologist 15y ago
Why shouldn't they be angry at jotform? It looks like they had no expedited process for reporting phishing forms which had to have been a known risk somewhere around #1 on their list of known risks, they actually made it easier to go upstream instead of searching for their contact page (only linked in the footer) and hoping someone replies today. Did they have any automated detection? If they didn't have a "report a bad form" button then maybe they didn't even try and find bad forms ... like anything with a sign in button or password field. 2 million forms is too many to inspect, but you could narrow that list down very easily. What happened to them sucks but it seems like the problem could probably have been avoided. Edit: it let me make a form with "Account number" and "Password" complete with emailing me what people put in it which is suggestive of no preventative measures at all.
- AndyJPartridge 15y ago
  Some good points. But surely they should have been sent a warning, even a 24 hour one, to remove some content before just being wiped off the Internet. This action is business destroying and draconian.
  - benologist 15y ago
    Don't get me wrong, I absolutely agree they shouldn't have been destroyed and that GoDaddy has no right to be the executioner.
    - sukuriant 15y ago
      Then how do you rectify the statement you made that their customers should be angry with them, and that they shouldn't be destroyed? I really want to hear this.
      - benologist 15y ago
        Because there are two things here: 1) GoDaddy overstepping their bounds and shutting down a website 2) JotForm having inadequate, perhaps even non-existant measures in place to prevent or respond to phishing Obviously #1 dwarfs #2 significantly but that doesn't make #2 okay.
        sukuriant 15y ago
        How doesn't it? The argument could be made that GoDaddy would have done that deed anyway, even if (2) hadn't been rectified. GoDaddy might not have, if those provisions had been in place. Do these sorts of stories with GoDaddy happen often?
        benologist 15y ago
        GoDaddy's actions don't cancel it out because ignoring or not adequately preparing for phishing was wrong every single day and a foreseeable problem for about a decade now. They had a responsibility to prevent this for their paying users. Maybe it wouldn't have saved them, but there are a lot of free-x-hosting companies out there that haven't been shut down in spite of abuse.
mansolo 15y ago
JotForm should have bailed from GoDaddy when most other people did. Instead, they were apathetic and took a chance with their business and all of their clients as well. Damn right it's their fault.
- sukuriant 15y ago
  Now thiiis is a valid reason for it being their fault
  - chives 15y ago
    Even if its not. Bail from Godaddy.com. Seriously. Granted the same problem may persist given that .coms have a US based organization that governs them (I think). Nonetheless, this is the exact same godaddy.com that supported SOPA. There have been so many forks in the road where the obvious choice was to bail on GoDaddy.com. Yet, they stayed and here they are. This is why we can't have nice things.
    - colechristensen 15y ago
      Verisign, an American company based in Virginia, is the authoritative registrar for .com and .net.
      - Revisor 15y ago
        More precisely Verisign is the registrY, GoDaddy the registrAR. Not that it changes anything in this case.
- rbanffy 15y ago
  I'm not sure many US-based registrars would be willing go against a law enforcement agency. Or would be able to do it twice. It all depends on what was on the letter they got and who sent it. Should they have ditched GoDaddy? Most probably yes. Would that save them now? I wouldn't bet my company.
  - 15y ago
mrschwabe 15y ago
That's the big joke man... modern day 'politicians' do not seek to create jobs. They seek control and power. It's up to nerds like us to design, develop and innovate systems that decentralize not only the internet - but politics as well.

nextparadigms 15y ago

This is why the Pro IP Act from 2008 needs to be repealed as soon as possible. It's worse than SOPA for Americans because it can pretty much do all SOPA could do, but for domestic domains (.com, .org, .net, .us) rather than foreign ones. The Pro IP Act managed to pass by us just like SOPA almost did it, too.

steve-howard 15y ago

But they needed to shut down Jotform because otherwise it would kill American jobs... right?

vaksel 15y ago

I'm questioning the service, because I had to read about the outage on HN...and not through a warning email from jotform. At the very least, they should have sent an email, telling people to switch the urls so the forms would work.

vaksel 15y ago
looks like they are on the ball, just got the email