Feds disable movie piracy websites in raids
As randy said not too long ago, First they came for... BURBANK, Calif. (AP) -- U.S. officials on Wednesday announced a major crackdown on movie piracy that involved disabling nine websites that were offering downloads of pirated movies in some cases hours after they appeared in theaters. Officials also seized assets from 15 bank, investment and advertising accounts, and executed residential search warrants in North Carolina, New Jersey, New York and Washington. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials worked with the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and other government agencies. The investigation involved about 100 agents in 11 states and the Netherlands. Officials wouldn't say how many people were suspected of intellectual property theft, but said the penalties could include prison time. The raids were the first actions in a new "Operation In Our Sites" initiative to combat Internet counterfeiting and piracy. The government only seized domain names for the sites in question, however, meaning the computers that run the sites could still be used under a different name. http://www.technologyreview.com/wire/25690/?nlid=3195&a=f
On Jul 1, 2010, at 1:41 AM, Michael Painter wrote:
As randy said not too long ago, First they came for...
The felons? Strangely, I am not moved to defend them. According to the article, they didn't even take the physical computers running the sites, meaning not even other users on that virtual server were harmed. Exactly what are you worried about here? -- TTFN, patrick
BURBANK, Calif. (AP) -- U.S. officials on Wednesday announced a major crackdown on movie piracy that involved disabling nine websites that were offering downloads of pirated movies in some cases hours after they appeared in theaters.
Officials also seized assets from 15 bank, investment and advertising accounts, and executed residential search warrants in North Carolina, New Jersey, New York and Washington.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials worked with the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and other government agencies. The investigation involved about 100 agents in 11 states and the Netherlands.
Officials wouldn't say how many people were suspected of intellectual property theft, but said the penalties could include prison time.
The raids were the first actions in a new "Operation In Our Sites" initiative to combat Internet counterfeiting and piracy.
The government only seized domain names for the sites in question, however, meaning the computers that run the sites could still be used under a different name.
On 7/1/2010 00:43, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:
On Jul 1, 2010, at 1:41 AM, Michael Painter wrote:
As randy said not too long ago, First they came for...
The felons?
Strangely, I am not moved to defend them.
+1
According to the article, they didn't even take the physical computers running the sites, meaning not even other users on that virtual server were harmed.
Exactly what are you worried about here?
I really wonder where we are going with this "exalt the illegal" thing we have going. How very 1960's. -- Somebody should have said: A democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner. Freedom under a constitutional republic is a well armed lamb contesting the vote. Requiescas in pace o email Ex turpi causa non oritur actio Eppure si rinfresca ICBM Targeting Information: http://tinyurl.com/4sqczs http://tinyurl.com/7tp8ml
* Michael Painter:
BURBANK, Calif. (AP) -- U.S. officials on Wednesday announced a major crackdown on movie piracy that involved disabling nine websites that were offering downloads of pirated movies in some cases hours after they appeared in theaters.
Note that some of the domain names in the ICE press release appear to be wrong (or they have already lost control of them). Targeting THEPIRATECITY.ORG and not THEPIRATEBAY.ORG is slightly ridiculous, and it seems that TVSHACK.NET has already reappeared as TVSHACK.CC. ZML.NAME is still controlled by the ZML.COM folks, but seems to have problems right now. This takedown approach might work for controllers of non-too-advanced malware, but you need something better for content which people actually want to access, and which is indexed by helpful search engines. 8-/ -- Florian Weimer <fweimer@bfk.de> BFK edv-consulting GmbH http://www.bfk.de/ Kriegsstraße 100 tel: +49-721-96201-1 D-76133 Karlsruhe fax: +49-721-96201-99
The question is because gTLDs operations are in the USA, does it mean that the USA have control over all those domain names? Can we trust solely the USA for such control? This will come back with a vengeance in the JPA negotiations, ICANN, etc... ----- Original Message ----- From: "Florian Weimer" <fweimer@bfk.de> To: "Michael Painter" <tvhawaii@shaka.com> Cc: nanog@nanog.org Sent: Friday, 2 July, 2010 12:39:34 AM Subject: Re: Feds disable movie piracy websites in raids * Michael Painter:
BURBANK, Calif. (AP) -- U.S. officials on Wednesday announced a major crackdown on movie piracy that involved disabling nine websites that were offering downloads of pirated movies in some cases hours after they appeared in theaters.
Note that some of the domain names in the ICE press release appear to be wrong (or they have already lost control of them). Targeting THEPIRATECITY.ORG and not THEPIRATEBAY.ORG is slightly ridiculous, and it seems that TVSHACK.NET has already reappeared as TVSHACK.CC. ZML.NAME is still controlled by the ZML.COM folks, but seems to have problems right now. This takedown approach might work for controllers of non-too-advanced malware, but you need something better for content which people actually want to access, and which is indexed by helpful search engines. 8-/ -- Florian Weimer <fweimer@bfk.de> BFK edv-consulting GmbH http://www.bfk.de/ Kriegsstraße 100 tel: +49-721-96201-1 D-76133 Karlsruhe fax: +49-721-96201-99
On Jul 1, 2010, at 9:03 AM, Franck Martin wrote:
The question is because gTLDs operations are in the USA, does it mean that the USA have control over all those domain names?
Can we trust solely the USA for such control?
This will come back with a vengeance in the JPA negotiations, ICANN, etc...
Yeah, because if the domains were housed in another country than the USofA, that country's court system & law enforcement surely wouldn't feel any sort of authority over the machines on their sovereign soil. It's just the evil USA that would dare to think in such a fashion. Oh, wait.... Is it possible the law enforcement officers went through the standard due process for the country in which they operate, Just Like Any Other Law Enforcement Agency Would? Nahh, no way we could consider that. It wouldn't allow us to bang on the US and make hollow threats about future negotiations. It's fun to bang on the US, but let's try to keep even a hint of reality & perspective in our rants. Please? -- TTFN, patrick
----- Original Message ----- From: "Florian Weimer" <fweimer@bfk.de> To: "Michael Painter" <tvhawaii@shaka.com> Cc: nanog@nanog.org Sent: Friday, 2 July, 2010 12:39:34 AM Subject: Re: Feds disable movie piracy websites in raids
* Michael Painter:
BURBANK, Calif. (AP) -- U.S. officials on Wednesday announced a major crackdown on movie piracy that involved disabling nine websites that were offering downloads of pirated movies in some cases hours after they appeared in theaters.
Note that some of the domain names in the ICE press release appear to be wrong (or they have already lost control of them).
Targeting THEPIRATECITY.ORG and not THEPIRATEBAY.ORG is slightly ridiculous, and it seems that TVSHACK.NET has already reappeared as TVSHACK.CC. ZML.NAME is still controlled by the ZML.COM folks, but seems to have problems right now. This takedown approach might work for controllers of non-too-advanced malware, but you need something better for content which people actually want to access, and which is indexed by helpful search engines. 8-/
-- Florian Weimer <fweimer@bfk.de> BFK edv-consulting GmbH http://www.bfk.de/ Kriegsstraße 100 tel: +49-721-96201-1 D-76133 Karlsruhe fax: +49-721-96201-99
I'm not saying any other country is better, I'm just saying the Internet is international and we have the power of one jurisdiction over many internet resources. This will lead certainly to a push for re-balancing (successfully or not, for democracy or against democracy,...). The USA had a trust position with the nuke button that they should not have pushed, but they pushed the nuke button. How the rest of the world will react? will they want to have their say on who can push the nuke button? Today is may be for the right reason, but tomorrow? And there is the kill switch bill coming up (or not)... This is all political, and not suitable for nanog, but it opens a can of worms... ----- Original Message ----- From: "Patrick W. Gilmore" <patrick@ianai.net> To: "NANOG list" <nanog@nanog.org> Sent: Friday, 2 July, 2010 1:20:45 AM Subject: Re: Feds disable movie piracy websites in raids On Jul 1, 2010, at 9:03 AM, Franck Martin wrote:
The question is because gTLDs operations are in the USA, does it mean that the USA have control over all those domain names?
Can we trust solely the USA for such control?
This will come back with a vengeance in the JPA negotiations, ICANN, etc...
Yeah, because if the domains were housed in another country than the USofA, that country's court system & law enforcement surely wouldn't feel any sort of authority over the machines on their sovereign soil. It's just the evil USA that would dare to think in such a fashion. Oh, wait.... Is it possible the law enforcement officers went through the standard due process for the country in which they operate, Just Like Any Other Law Enforcement Agency Would? Nahh, no way we could consider that. It wouldn't allow us to bang on the US and make hollow threats about future negotiations. It's fun to bang on the US, but let's try to keep even a hint of reality & perspective in our rants. Please? -- TTFN, patrick
On 7/1/2010 08:45, Franck Martin wrote:
This is all political, and not suitable for nanog, but it opens a can of worms...
If NANOG is truly about "Operations" and not just BGP knob twiddling and searches for free service, it would be well to recognize at long last that the world we operate in is a political and politicized world and becoming more so by the second. -- Somebody should have said: A democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner. Freedom under a constitutional republic is a well armed lamb contesting the vote. Requiescas in pace o email Ex turpi causa non oritur actio Eppure si rinfresca ICBM Targeting Information: http://tinyurl.com/4sqczs http://tinyurl.com/7tp8ml
On 1 jul 2010, at 15.20, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:
n Jul 1, 2010, at 9:03 AM, Franck Martin wrote:
The question is because gTLDs operations are in the USA, does it mean that the USA have control over all those domain names?
Can we trust solely the USA for such control?
This will come back with a vengeance in the JPA negotiations, ICANN, etc...
JPA discussions are concluded and replaced with the AoC. The discussion on the renewal of the IANA contract I suspect will be a recurring theme in IGF in Villnius.
Yeah, because if the domains were housed in another country than the USofA, that country's court system & law enforcement surely wouldn't feel any sort of authority over the machines on their sovereign soil. It's just the evil USA that would dare to think in such a fashion. Oh, wait....
If you look at the . level i.e ICANN my understanding is that if it was a treaty or UN organization that does not apply. However as we are talking gTLD level you are indeed right.
Is it possible the law enforcement officers went through the standard due process for the country in which they operate, Just Like Any Other Law Enforcement Agency Would? Nahh, no way we could consider that. It wouldn't allow us to bang on the US and make hollow threats about future negotiations.
It's fun to bang on the US, but let's try to keep even a hint of reality & perspective in our rants. Please?
Best regards, - kurtis -
On Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 8:03 AM, Franck Martin <franck@genius.com> wrote:
The question is because gTLDs operations are in the USA, does it mean that the USA have control over all those domain names? Can we trust solely the USA for such control? No. However, anyone signing up for a GTLD should already have looked into risks like that, and there are ccTLDs....
This will come back with a vengeance in the JPA negotiations, ICANN, etc...
Only if US officials are forcing domains owned by foreign people/organizations to be disabled in the gTLD registry, based on activities of hosts that records in those domains point to, in that case, then, yes.. That's called introducing instability into the networks of other country's people that are not under your jurisdiction or operating servers in your jurisdiction, by attacking global infrastructure (DNS Servers) they rely on. By the same token, authorities could probably contrive court orders and send to Tier1 ISPs demanding they drop traffic to certain IP addresses (in foreign IP space). -- -J
* Franck Martin:
The question is because gTLDs operations are in the USA, does it mean that the USA have control over all those domain names?
Most gTLD operators do business pretty much world-wide, so they aren't exposed to just U.S. law alone. Globalization cuts both ways. In this particular case, the copyright infringement seems to have targeted mainly content created in the U.S., so it's quite natural that the U.S. authorities take a particular interest in it. -- Florian Weimer <fweimer@bfk.de> BFK edv-consulting GmbH http://www.bfk.de/ Kriegsstraße 100 tel: +49-721-96201-1 D-76133 Karlsruhe fax: +49-721-96201-99
participants (10)
-
Dmitry Burkov -
Florian Weimer -
Franck Martin -
James Hess -
Larry Sheldon -
Lindqvist Kurt Erik -
Michael Painter -
Patrick W. Gilmore -
Randy Bush -
Suresh Ramasubramanian