5 ms·

Friendly for business

123 points by llambda 15y ago

billpatrianakos 15y ago
Thing is, moving locations isn't going to help. When you're operating on the web that's you're neighborhood and a change of domain name won't keep this from happening again nor will it make it harder or less pleasant for them to do. Maybe we should pass some more laws to solve the problem... (I hope I don't have to clarify that that last bit was sarcasm)
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- freshhawk 15y ago
  Ah yes, because the internet is the .com's and the united states owns the internet. You might want to check your assumptions before stating something with that much certainty. There are, occasionally, things outside your borders worth thinking about.
  - billpatrianakos 15y ago
    US registrars do register foreign domains. If a US based registrar gives you a .de domain and the Feds ask your registrar to shut down your site I wouldn't be surprised if they did regardless of which registry controls the domain. It's comforting to think that you're safe outside the US but you aren't. The US government is running a global empire. We may know the Internet is international but as far as the US is concerned they think they own it. When the US is no longer the power it is (and though it may seem prime to fall it is still a superpower) we won't be safe. All we can do is hope that whoever we register with is willing to put up a fight but not all countries are. Besides that theres more than just the TLD to think about. It's the registrar, registry, your residence, and, if applicable, the location your company is registered. Unless you pay careful attention to all those details there will be a way to shut you down.
    - nirvana 15y ago
      Can you recommend a foreign registrar? I'm with a US Based one that started out great, but has been acquired twice now, by increasingly less relevant sounding businesses. I've been looking for a foreign based registrar, preferably in the EU or iceland, that has really good domain management tools (my biggest problems with registrars are twofold- first many of them seem like fly by night operations, and the second is that their tools for managing domains are often very poor.) I have a large number of domains to manage.
      - sivers 15y ago
        I use and highly recommend these two: #1 = http://www.gandi.net/ http://www.gandi.net/ - in France - with a lot of integrity. See https://www.gandi.net/no-bullshit https://www.gandi.net/no-bullshit Their domain management tools are great. #2 = http://www.domaindiscount24.net/ http://www.domaindiscount24.net/ - in Germany - the registrar for thepiratebay.org - that didn't shut it down despite many threats. Their domain management tools are ugly and cluttered, but work well once you get used to it. ... also ... #3 = http://www.hover.com/ http://www.hover.com/ - in Canada - the retail front-end to OpenSRS/Tucows - a great reputable company around since 1994.
      - freshhawk 15y ago
        I also recommend gandi.net and they have decent tools to manage large numbers of domains although they don't have rock bottom prices.
    - freshhawk 15y ago
      I completely agree, but there is quite a practical difference between a .com registered through godaddy and hosted there and the many safer alternatives. I was more annoyed by this part of the parent: "...won't keep this from happening again nor will it make it harder or less pleasant for them to do"
    - einhverfr 15y ago
      It's comforting to think that you're safe outside the US but you aren't. The US government is running a global empire. We may know the Internet is international but as far as the US is concerned they think they own it. When the US is no longer the power it is (and though it may seem prime to fall it is still a superpower) we won't be safe. All we can do is hope that whoever we register with is willing to put up a fight but not all countries are. I wonder if the US government can require certain hooks from ICANN.....
nirvana 15y ago
I think this is a really great essay. I love the hook how I first thought he was going to be talking about the nature of businesses and why real estate is a good investment and probably give us some startup advice derived from looking at real estate. I am an old fart so it is sometimes difficult for me to judge how much young whippersnappers know about the history of these things. But in my lifetime (I'm sure an even older fart can point to even earlier history) this kind of government seizure of property started in the 1980s when Ronald Reagan signed into a law the concept of "Civil Asset Forfeiture". At the time there were lots of stories in the news media about drug lords and how big their mansions were etc. The MegaUpload stories about all the cars, etc are in the same vein. This law was pitched as "denying drug dealers the profits from their criminal activity". (Nevermind that drug dealing is not criminal activity in the US at the federal level- the constitution doesn't authorize regulation of substances, which is why for prohibition they needed a constitutional amendment....but also due to prohibition they learned that making things legal under the constitution was a huge pain in the butt and why not simply ignore it? What's the odds that a supreme court filled completely with appointees from the two parties will overturn unconstitutional laws passed by those same two political parties?) In the same way, seizing domain names is not authorized by the constitution either. It doesn't even make logical sense (e.g.: someone selling counterfeit jerseys- ok, raid the warehouse and seize the counterfeit products, you can make an argument for that, but a domain name is not physical property, and it could be used for any number of things.) Many of the domains that have been stolen were engaging in literal free speech-- like the hip hop blog that was talking about hip hop music[1]. That's unquestionably speech. Worse, the music they were sharing was given to them by record labels as part of their promotional efforts, so it wasn't even engaged in copyright infringement! Anyway, of course in the early years you heard about drug dealers getting busted and all their money taken. Then it started being biker dudes at airports flying across state lines to go buy (and drive back) the harley davidson they've always wanted (saw that on 20/20 in the 1990s) then it started being the guy who sells silver coins with Ron Paul's face on them, having $6M in Gold, Platinum and Silver stolen by the FBI, as punishment for suing the government to get a ruling that his business was legal after a government employee (of the US mint, which was in competition with him via their production of Silver Eagles) said it wasn't. Then it was the guy you went to high school with, who is now a doctor and who has this wacky notion that chronically ill people should not live out their last years in massive pain and so he prescribes sufficient pain medications to relieve their suffering, only to be raided by the DEA, have all of his assets, his house, car, his wires car, all of his money, his savings, all of his stocks, seized as part of the raid. Forced to sign a confession, and go to prison, as part of a deal where they don't also prosecute all of his employees and his wife, leaving his children as "wards of the state". Of course part of the reason he had to sign the confession is, with all of his assets seized, he was unable to pay for a lawyer. Don't I remember something about legal representation being a right? All because some non-doctor decided he was giving patients-- who literally were dying, these weren't junkies-- too many drugs for their pain. Imagine how many people with serious pain in the USA suffer because their doctors are afraid to give them the correct dosage lest they too have their lives destroyed by the DEA? And of course, since the DEA is conducting surveillance, they know the average prescription for given conditions, which, reduced by fear, means that it must continually ratchet lower and lower. This is barbaric. Naturally, since police agencies get to keep the money they steal, this has resulted in more than one county sheriff operating literal highway robbery schemes whereby they pull over people with out of state plates-- tourists-- and seize anything of significant value they find on them. I don't know if they bother planting a tiny amount of drugs n the car anymore or not... And of course, this has been going on, in increasingly worse degrees since the 1980s. But the news report always points out that the "accused" who had his money stolen was "charged with possession" or some other crime. Nowadays its the even more vague accusation of planning terrorism. The thing is this-- this is not accidental. This is not just a weakness in the system. This is the design of the system. This is completely deliberate. This is a situation created with malice and forethought. "Do you think that we want those laws to be observed? We want them broken. There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power the 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." -- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged [1] Alas I don't remember the name, but I read about it on torrent freak.com back when the first round of domains were stolen.
JangoSteve 15y ago
About a quarter of the way in, I realized exactly where this was going. I wrote a similar post under the more obvious title, "SOPA for Non-Techies" [1]. This is an excellent narrative, whereas mine is in the format of a collection of two short essays. Without context for this post though, it seems only the tech community would understand the parallels being drawn (even I feel I may be overreaching in my assumptions as to his actual purpose). The problem is, we're generally not the ones who need convincing. Definitely a great article, though. [1] http://jangosteve.com/post/16074674406/sopa-for-non-techies http://jangosteve.com/post/16074674406/sopa-for-non-techies
- drostie 15y ago
  Well, it's kind of hard. What they're not telling you is that the police actually called the highway squad to close off the road to your building with the sign "Closed due to illegal activity." They also don't tell you that it's technically legal and cheap to get the same highway squad to build a new road to the same place, and that it only takes a day or so of waiting time -- though you cannot be sure that the same highway squad won't close it down again, and so you pay some extra to some out-of-towner with a private lot between you and the highway, to build their own exit to your place. Nuances like that are pretty specific to the cases that we're dealing with here. Also there is the problem that it's totally a mistake and is silently reversed some days later -- yet nobody compensates you for the lost business or even apologizes for the horrible stain on your reputation. People instead blame you for choosing to open the mall on the west side of the town, which is more popular for businesses but the highway department on that side is well-known for handling these sorts of requests in a generally poor fashion, caving in under a minimum of pressure and not keeping you in the loop, and so forth.
ajsharp 15y ago
Fan-fricking-tastic. Thank you for writing this. This should be syndicated in the Times, WSJ, and every local newspaper in the country -- maybe then people would get it. Great piece.
- jtheory 15y ago
  Yes, but with the caveat that it would have to include explicit commentary about what's going on with domain name seizures, because unfortunately most regular folk won't automatically make the leap.
jakeonthemove 15y ago
You know, it's this kind of citizen journalism/reporting and outcries that makes me think the US has a high chance to get back on the right track in a couple of years. There are so many entrepreneurs and businesses, and people are so eager to be actively involved in something that when something like this happens, a shtickstorm tornado rises against the powers that be and it's very hard to quell it. This article and other similar pieces need to get into the mainstream media, and then things will start to change - just like they did with SOPA and other laws. I've seen no other country where media holds such a power - the UK and the rest of EU, Russia, China and Japan, they're all much worse in these regards and yet you don't hear this much of an outcry over a few seized domains/servers or even physical property. Hopefully the big corporations that lobby everything to their will and rampant elements in the US government will be brought back under control - the sooner, the better...
- a_a_r_o_n 15y ago
  "You know, it's this kind of citizen journalism/reporting and outcries that makes me think the US has a high chance to get back on the right track in a couple of years." Maybe. But we're talking about seizing domains, and domains is where all this pesky citizen journalism is happening. Could go either way.

123 points by llambda 15y ago

Thing is, moving locations isn't going to help. When you're operating on the web that's you're neighborhood and a change of domain name won't keep this from happening again nor will it make it harder or less pleasant for them to do. Maybe we should pass some more laws to solve the problem... (I hope I don't have to clarify that that last bit was sarcasm)

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
freshhawk 15y ago
Ah yes, because the internet is the .com's and the united states owns the internet. You might want to check your assumptions before stating something with that much certainty. There are, occasionally, things outside your borders worth thinking about.
- billpatrianakos 15y ago
  US registrars do register foreign domains. If a US based registrar gives you a .de domain and the Feds ask your registrar to shut down your site I wouldn't be surprised if they did regardless of which registry controls the domain. It's comforting to think that you're safe outside the US but you aren't. The US government is running a global empire. We may know the Internet is international but as far as the US is concerned they think they own it. When the US is no longer the power it is (and though it may seem prime to fall it is still a superpower) we won't be safe. All we can do is hope that whoever we register with is willing to put up a fight but not all countries are. Besides that theres more than just the TLD to think about. It's the registrar, registry, your residence, and, if applicable, the location your company is registered. Unless you pay careful attention to all those details there will be a way to shut you down.
  - nirvana 15y ago
    Can you recommend a foreign registrar? I'm with a US Based one that started out great, but has been acquired twice now, by increasingly less relevant sounding businesses. I've been looking for a foreign based registrar, preferably in the EU or iceland, that has really good domain management tools (my biggest problems with registrars are twofold- first many of them seem like fly by night operations, and the second is that their tools for managing domains are often very poor.) I have a large number of domains to manage.
    - sivers 15y ago
      I use and highly recommend these two: #1 = http://www.gandi.net/ http://www.gandi.net/ - in France - with a lot of integrity. See https://www.gandi.net/no-bullshit https://www.gandi.net/no-bullshit Their domain management tools are great. #2 = http://www.domaindiscount24.net/ http://www.domaindiscount24.net/ - in Germany - the registrar for thepiratebay.org - that didn't shut it down despite many threats. Their domain management tools are ugly and cluttered, but work well once you get used to it. ... also ... #3 = http://www.hover.com/ http://www.hover.com/ - in Canada - the retail front-end to OpenSRS/Tucows - a great reputable company around since 1994.
    - freshhawk 15y ago
      I also recommend gandi.net and they have decent tools to manage large numbers of domains although they don't have rock bottom prices.
  - freshhawk 15y ago
    I completely agree, but there is quite a practical difference between a .com registered through godaddy and hosted there and the many safer alternatives. I was more annoyed by this part of the parent: "...won't keep this from happening again nor will it make it harder or less pleasant for them to do"
  - einhverfr 15y ago
    It's comforting to think that you're safe outside the US but you aren't. The US government is running a global empire. We may know the Internet is international but as far as the US is concerned they think they own it. When the US is no longer the power it is (and though it may seem prime to fall it is still a superpower) we won't be safe. All we can do is hope that whoever we register with is willing to put up a fight but not all countries are. I wonder if the US government can require certain hooks from ICANN.....

nirvana 15y ago

I think this is a really great essay. I love the hook how I first thought he was going to be talking about the nature of businesses and why real estate is a good investment and probably give us some startup advice derived from looking at real estate. I am an old fart so it is sometimes difficult for me to judge how much young whippersnappers know about the history of these things. But in my lifetime (I'm sure an even older fart can point to even earlier history) this kind of government seizure of property started in the 1980s when Ronald Reagan signed into a law the concept of "Civil Asset Forfeiture". At the time there were lots of stories in the news media about drug lords and how big their mansions were etc. The MegaUpload stories about all the cars, etc are in the same vein. This law was pitched as "denying drug dealers the profits from their criminal activity". (Nevermind that drug dealing is not criminal activity in the US at the federal level- the constitution doesn't authorize regulation of substances, which is why for prohibition they needed a constitutional amendment....but also due to prohibition they learned that making things legal under the constitution was a huge pain in the butt and why not simply ignore it? What's the odds that a supreme court filled completely with appointees from the two parties will overturn unconstitutional laws passed by those same two political parties?) In the same way, seizing domain names is not authorized by the constitution either. It doesn't even make logical sense (e.g.: someone selling counterfeit jerseys- ok, raid the warehouse and seize the counterfeit products, you can make an argument for that, but a domain name is not physical property, and it could be used for any number of things.) Many of the domains that have been stolen were engaging in literal free speech-- like the hip hop blog that was talking about hip hop music[1]. That's unquestionably speech. Worse, the music they were sharing was given to them by record labels as part of their promotional efforts, so it wasn't even engaged in copyright infringement! Anyway, of course in the early years you heard about drug dealers getting busted and all their money taken. Then it started being biker dudes at airports flying across state lines to go buy (and drive back) the harley davidson they've always wanted (saw that on 20/20 in the 1990s) then it started being the guy who sells silver coins with Ron Paul's face on them, having $6M in Gold, Platinum and Silver stolen by the FBI, as punishment for suing the government to get a ruling that his business was legal after a government employee (of the US mint, which was in competition with him via their production of Silver Eagles) said it wasn't. Then it was the guy you went to high school with, who is now a doctor and who has this wacky notion that chronically ill people should not live out their last years in massive pain and so he prescribes sufficient pain medications to relieve their suffering, only to be raided by the DEA, have all of his assets, his house, car, his wires car, all of his money, his savings, all of his stocks, seized as part of the raid. Forced to sign a confession, and go to prison, as part of a deal where they don't also prosecute all of his employees and his wife, leaving his children as "wards of the state". Of course part of the reason he had to sign the confession is, with all of his assets seized, he was unable to pay for a lawyer. Don't I remember something about legal representation being a right? All because some non-doctor decided he was giving patients-- who literally were dying, these weren't junkies-- too many drugs for their pain. Imagine how many people with serious pain in the USA suffer because their doctors are afraid to give them the correct dosage lest they too have their lives destroyed by the DEA? And of course, since the DEA is conducting surveillance, they know the average prescription for given conditions, which, reduced by fear, means that it must continually ratchet lower and lower. This is barbaric. Naturally, since police agencies get to keep the money they steal, this has resulted in more than one county sheriff operating literal highway robbery schemes whereby they pull over people with out of state plates-- tourists-- and seize anything of significant value they find on them. I don't know if they bother planting a tiny amount of drugs n the car anymore or not... And of course, this has been going on, in increasingly worse degrees since the 1980s. But the news report always points out that the "accused" who had his money stolen was "charged with possession" or some other crime. Nowadays its the even more vague accusation of planning terrorism. The thing is this-- this is not accidental. This is not just a weakness in the system. This is the design of the system. This is completely deliberate. This is a situation created with malice and forethought. "Do you think that we want those laws to be observed? We want them broken. There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power the 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." -- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged [1] Alas I don't remember the name, but I read about it on torrent freak.com back when the first round of domains were stolen.

JangoSteve 15y ago

About a quarter of the way in, I realized exactly where this was going. I wrote a similar post under the more obvious title, "SOPA for Non-Techies" [1]. This is an excellent narrative, whereas mine is in the format of a collection of two short essays. Without context for this post though, it seems only the tech community would understand the parallels being drawn (even I feel I may be overreaching in my assumptions as to his actual purpose). The problem is, we're generally not the ones who need convincing. Definitely a great article, though. [1] http://jangosteve.com/post/16074674406/sopa-for-non-techies http://jangosteve.com/post/16074674406/sopa-for-non-techies

drostie 15y ago
Well, it's kind of hard. What they're not telling you is that the police actually called the highway squad to close off the road to your building with the sign "Closed due to illegal activity." They also don't tell you that it's technically legal and cheap to get the same highway squad to build a new road to the same place, and that it only takes a day or so of waiting time -- though you cannot be sure that the same highway squad won't close it down again, and so you pay some extra to some out-of-towner with a private lot between you and the highway, to build their own exit to your place. Nuances like that are pretty specific to the cases that we're dealing with here. Also there is the problem that it's totally a mistake and is silently reversed some days later -- yet nobody compensates you for the lost business or even apologizes for the horrible stain on your reputation. People instead blame you for choosing to open the mall on the west side of the town, which is more popular for businesses but the highway department on that side is well-known for handling these sorts of requests in a generally poor fashion, caving in under a minimum of pressure and not keeping you in the loop, and so forth.

ajsharp 15y ago

Fan-fricking-tastic. Thank you for writing this. This should be syndicated in the Times, WSJ, and every local newspaper in the country -- maybe then people would get it. Great piece.

jtheory 15y ago
Yes, but with the caveat that it would have to include explicit commentary about what's going on with domain name seizures, because unfortunately most regular folk won't automatically make the leap.

jakeonthemove 15y ago

You know, it's this kind of citizen journalism/reporting and outcries that makes me think the US has a high chance to get back on the right track in a couple of years. There are so many entrepreneurs and businesses, and people are so eager to be actively involved in something that when something like this happens, a shtickstorm tornado rises against the powers that be and it's very hard to quell it. This article and other similar pieces need to get into the mainstream media, and then things will start to change - just like they did with SOPA and other laws. I've seen no other country where media holds such a power - the UK and the rest of EU, Russia, China and Japan, they're all much worse in these regards and yet you don't hear this much of an outcry over a few seized domains/servers or even physical property. Hopefully the big corporations that lobby everything to their will and rampant elements in the US government will be brought back under control - the sooner, the better...

a_a_r_o_n 15y ago
"You know, it's this kind of citizen journalism/reporting and outcries that makes me think the US has a high chance to get back on the right track in a couple of years." Maybe. But we're talking about seizing domains, and domains is where all this pesky citizen journalism is happening. Could go either way.