Department of Homeland Security shutting down websites

This might be part of new law voted in a week or so ago that prohibits credit card companies from doing business with offshore companies that break copyright laws. For instance, sites like Pirate Bay would no longer be able to accept visa when selling PB coffee mugs, etc.

I would think customs should fall outside the scope of homeland security.
 
Glaucus said:
This might be part of new law voted in a week or so ago that prohibits credit card companies from doing business with offshore companies that break copyright laws. For instance, sites like Pirate Bay would no longer be able to accept visa when selling PB coffee mugs, etc.

I would think customs should fall outside the scope of homeland security.
Click to expand...

Apparently this is all under DMCA.
 
Another notable site that got its domain name yanked is wikileaks.org

However, as domain names get yanked parts of the web is moving away from the current DNS system. Already we have OpenNIC

http://www.opennicproject.org/

which hosts .bbs, .free, .geek and some others. You need some software to use it but that's not a big deal. It doesn't come installed on anything yet as standard though.

and coming soon there is .p2p which could one day turn into a distributed DNS and get built into bitTorrent.
 
I have a hard time believing a p2p style DNS will ever become mainstream. The security implications alone are pretty much a show stopper. But it may be useful for underground sites.

Overall I think their attempts to clamp down on sites like this is going to backfire. We're already seeing "dark net" technology like The Freenet Project which is designed to be impossible to track individuals (although whether it has achieved it's design goals is up for debate). This already has attracted the criminal elements and the police will now have a harder time tracking down actual criminals. In the end they may go after entire protocols, for instance, making Freenet or p2p DNS illegal.
 
Glaucus said:
This already has attracted the criminal elements and the police will now have a harder time tracking down actual criminals.
Click to expand...
Actual criminals? Here's the problem ... because crimes are defined by the rulers even using encryption could be defined as criminal then anyone using encryption would become a criminal. The state loves to go on about criminality but I personally think that the term has lost a lot of meaning because criminalizing things that aren't intrinsically wrong or damaging is a popular sport amongst the ruling classes and allowing behaviours and activities that clearly ARE harmful to continue unabated and even unregulated is commonplace. It was once considered criminal to teach slaves to read because it harmed the slave owner and gave his slaves ideas above their station, crazy ideas like rights. Is it illegal to kidnap people, torture people, kill people and take their homes and property? For you and me, yes: for states apparently not.
This sets what's known as a bad example. When the folks at the top get away with crimes it's only a matter of time before the people at the bottom think it's the way to get ahead. The solution from the top is not to clean up its act but to repress information about their crimes and repress the population.

In the end they may go after entire protocols, for instance, making Freenet or p2p DNS illegal.
Click to expand...

They may go after entire protocols but then everything could end up tunneling through https:// and how would you stop that without taking out critical infrastructure.

There are so many alternatives now though for those who need to disseminate information. Stuff can pass through the cell phone networks so easily now. Ad-hoc bluetooth networks can be set up and all sorts of other distributed technologies could be hacked together by the moderately skilled these days ... all it takes to drive wide spread adoption of any of these alternatives would be sufficient quantities of pornography. The rulers are trying to plug a sieve.
 
Yes, real criminals. Every now and then I re-install Freenet to see how it's coming along, but there's not much useful stuff there unless you're looking for child porn. Freenet promises complete anonymity and thus it attracts those who seek complete anonymity. Since p2p isn't really policed here in Canada (aleast for copyrighted materials) there's little reason for me to use Freenet, but if they change the laws here I'll take a closer look into it (or something just like it). But like I alluded to earlier, copyright infringement isn't the type of crime I was referring to.

The way I see things, everything should be out in the open; the government, the police, the justices and the people too. Secrecy only breeds corruption. Of course I want to live in a world where I can trade information without threat of persecution, but I want that assured in laws and not technology. Using technology to hide from the law only strengthens those who misuse the law.
 
Glaucus said:
Using technology to hide from the law only strengthens those who misuse the law.
Click to expand...

Agreed, but you won't get the laws you need while corruption persists because it only strengthens itself (since they are also chief among those who misuse the law). While people persist in following along with the old information technologies that have already been taken over (press, TV etc) they will only be getting information that helps maintain the status-quo. That means that people will keep electing status-quo approved figureheads and nothing will change.

In the meantime, communication of any information damaging to the status-quo is de-facto criminal.
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
Glaucus said:
Using technology to hide from the law only strengthens those who misuse the law.
Click to expand...

Agreed, but you won't get the laws you need while corruption persists because it only strengthens itself (since they are also chief among those who misuse the law).
Click to expand...
I understand that, but despite this the best way to change the "system" is from within it. I mean, there's no denying that I do feel that what Anonymous is doing to the RIAA is justified, but it's not likely to make the RIAA stop what it's doing. What is far more likely to be effective is this: ACS: Law takes P2P users to court, fails miserably

Andrew Crossley, the UK lawyer behind P2P settlement letter firm ACS: Law, has actually filed lawsuits against several named individuals. Well, sort of. And it didn't go so well.

Crossley has said for years that he wasn't in the shakedown business and that real lawsuits would be filed against alleged file-sharers who didn't settle—but few such suits have been forthcoming. Crossley has been attacked by members of the House of Lords, has lost a crucial archive of his business e-mails, and is facing disciplinary charges from the regulators. But somehow he presses on, and last month he pressed his claims against eight individuals who had never responded to the court.

Crossley wanted default judgments in each case, but the England and Wales Patents County Court (which handles many IP cases) refused to give him any money, and in fact had little good to say about Crossley's lawyering. For instance, the court notes that in three of the eight cases, the defendant has actually responded. "The requests for judgment should never have been filed," wrote Judge Birss, QC.

...


The entire judgement reads like this—a long litany of the defects in Crossley's case. To really drive home the point, the judge concludes with an odd statement: "I should end by recording that I am not sorry to have reached the conclusion I have in refusing all the requests for default judgment. The nature of the allegations made in the Particulars of Claim are such that it seems to me that it would be unfortunate if it were possible to obtain a default judgment without notice" to the defendant.
Click to expand...
That very last sentence has organizations like the RIAA (or it's UK equivalent) shaking in their boots, something Anonymous has yet to do.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top