http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101201/ap_on_hi_te/us_tec_wikileaks_amazon

http://rulingclass.wordpress.com/2010/11/28/the-background-dope-on-dhs-recent-seizure-of-domains/

As has been reported, it looks like ICE, which is the principal investigative arm of DHS, has begun seizing domains under the pretext of IP infringement. But it’s actually not ICE who is executing the mechanics of the seizures. It’s a private company, immixGroup IT Solutions. Here is what is going down.

In May of this year, immixGroup IT Solutions is awarded a one year IT Services contract with DHS. The particulars of this contract:

Under this new contract, immixGroup will provide information technology operational services and support, implementation, and maintenance of DHS ICE C3′s software applications, network and CyberSecurity systems, as well as the maintenance and enhancement of applications that support law enforcement activities.

The contract includes one base year, one 12-month option period, and two six-month option periods; covers all four divisions of C3 (Child Exploitation, Cyber Crimes, Computer Forensics, and Cyber Training); and is critical to C3′s pursuit of criminal activity. immixGroup’s services in this effort include network maintenance, application development and support, forensic lab assistance, data storage maintenance, and information assurance.

On November 24th, immixGroup IT Solutions registered the domain SEIZEDSERVERS.COM, and primary and secondary nameservers, NS1.SEIZEDSERVERS.COM, NS2.SEIZEDSERVERS.COM, with Network Solutions, which is the registrar for this domain. Since the DHS contract is provisionally for one year only, the domain was only registered for one year(expires in one year).

immixGroup IT Solutions is using CaroNet to host their domain, including the authoritative name servers(NS1.SEIZEDSERVERS.COM, NS2.SEIZEDSERVERS.COM) for this domain. They have setup a simple web page, http://seizedservers.com/ or http://74.81.170.110 which is the same “Notification of Seizure” page you will get if you type in one of the seized domains in browser address bar(if you’re paranoid: yes, they are tracking using both Google analytics and piwik).

ICE is not actually “seizing” any servers or forcing hosting companies to remove web content from their servers; what they are doing is using immixGroup IT Solutions to switch the authoritative name servers for these “seized domains.” But they are not doing it at the Registrar level(by contacting the registrar for the domain and forcing them to update the authoritative name server info to point to NS1.SEIZEDSERVERS.COM, NS2.SEIZEDSERVERS.COM), but rather through the agency who controls the top level domain. In this case, all the “seized domains” appear to be .com and the agency/company who has the ICANN contract for this TLD is VeriSign(which also controls .net TLD). The changes are being made at the top-level authoritative name servers for the .com TLD, which would be the [a-m].gtld-servers.net. These are controlled by VeriSign(note: these top-level name servers are also authoritative for .net and .edu TLDs).

So, VeriSign, the owner of the .com TLD, is working in cooperation with DHS, and it appears immixGroup IT Solutions has what we might call an “IT Support Ticket system” setup with VeriSign.

That web servers are not being seized and web content not being deleted can easily be verified by clicking this link, http://208.101.51.57, which is the original IP Address of a seized domain, torrent-finder.com. It’s still up, and it appears it has registered a new domain, torrent-finder.info, that resolves to the original IP address. This site is being hosted by SoftLayer Technologies in Dallas, TX. So, it is certainly within US jurisdiction to be shut down if there was “a case to be made.”

Now the .info TLD is not controlled by VeriSign; it’s controlled by Afilias. So, an interesting little experiment would be to see if the torrent-finder.info domain remains up. As of now, we can only conclude that there is back deal between DHS and VeriSign that makes any .com or .net domain subject to seizure by the actions of immixGroup IT Solutions.

Lastly, there has been some speculation that this recent business of “domain seizure” portends the same tactics being used to seize the “wikileaks.org” domain. From a technical standpoint, understand that the .org TLD is not controlled by VeriSign; it is controlled by the Public Interest Registry. An interesting thing however: PIR has contracted out the technical operations to Afilias. So, if we were to see torrent-finder.info similarly seized, then this would mean that Afilias is also in cahoots with DHS, which could imply the .org TLD could be subject to the same type of “domain seizures.” As of now, there is no evidence of that. And, it should be clear, these type of domain seizures are completely different than the 2008 attempted shutdown of wikileaks.org by the US government. In that case, a U.S. District Court issued an injunction ordering Dynadot, which was the registrar for the domain, to remove all traces of Wikileaks from its records. That didn’t hold up.

Section 2 starts out all well in good, congress recognizes how important the internet is, the importance of the internet being a marketplace, having communities, etc. This is great.

Section 2 states how Title I of the Communications Act of 1934 would be changed. Here is where I get a little lost. In change (1) it states “to maintain the freedom to use for lawful purposes…” Now what I don’t get is why the need to mention lawful. Wouldn’t any illegal act being done over the internet be covered under a specific law already. Child Porn.. Yep, Fraud.. Yep, etc, etc. So why the need. In Change (3) it again refers to “lawful content” this begs the question what is lawful content, isn’t this still covered under current laws. If someone transmits information that is unlawful across the internet isn’t it already illegal? Someone please explain why these constant references to lawful and legal need to be in this law. Maybe there is a reason, read on.

Section 4 talks about requiring an assessment by the FCC to come up with specific requirements that ISP’s and internet devices must do or not do. Good so far. Under sub-section (2) part A it is talking about ISP’s ability to adhere to this said policy and it uses the phase “unreasonably interfering with the ability of consumers to do..” and then it goes on to mention several specific ideas or processes that ISP’s can’t “unreasonably interfere with. so exactly what does unreasonably interfere mean. I don’t know. Many wise men would disagree to what is reasonable so I see this as nothing but an out for the ISP’s. Big loophole. In (i) of Part A it again mentions lawful content and the ability of citizens to utilize the internet for lawful content. (ii) of Part A starts out “use lawful applications”. (iii) of Part A “attach or connect their choice of legal devices…” legal devices, ok so follow me here, what would be an illegal internet device. Does such a device exist yet? Maybe a scanning device would become illegal, maybe a logging device would become illegal. How can any policy on net neutrality have these types of provisions? Wouldn’t the addition (3) of the Title I Act which states “…as long as such devices do not harm the network…” cover all devices to ensure no harm is being done. I can only take (iii) of Part A to allow future laws or government acts to instantly and without recourse make any device illegal to use on the internet. Seems a bit odd to me. Maybe this is the same ability the FAA has to ground airplanes it deems unairworthy?

Maybe I just don’t understand the law enough to realize that the mentioning of lawful acts needs to be in the law. I haven’t read the laws concerning our nations highways, do they mention something similiar to “operating a motor vehicle lawfully”, etc maybe they do but if so why, if speeding is illegal why must another law cover the same act. In the case of the internet if the lawful phases where left out and someone robs a bank via the internet is their act somehow not illegal anymore because of net neutrality, I think not but then again I’m not a lawyer and maybe that is the case. I certainly hope not. In the end I believe in net neutrality but this bill seems to leave huge holes for ISP’s and industry to drive through. Really think about it, a few dollars here or there and all of a sudden my xyz device I’ve used for years is deemed illegal… It would be a shame.

Permalink

First assume that each person has a productive work life, has health insurance and pays his/her share of the taxes. In otherwords except for the unhealthy life choice these two people are on the same plane in life.

• Assuming the unhealthy person dies early in life say before starting to collect social security, medicare/medicaid etc they will have paid into the retirement system/Healthcare system and never have used any of the services. This is a plus for the US Government and it’s citizens as this persons lifestyle has been cheaper for us.
• Assuming the healthy person lives much longer and dies of natural causes the assumption is that the healthcare costs for this person will be lower, but wait why would they be lower, Will they sudden and without cause die peacefully and quietly never having to use any government program. I think not, so let us take another look. First they live to retirement age and will start to draw money out from Social Security, they will also start using medicare and medicaid and any number of other programs. Even with a healthy lifestyle eventually the body and mind break down and everyone needs help. I would say that at the end of this long life when their body does begin to breakdown won’t the costs be higher, who’s to say that their kids are able to help, they will be older and less likely to be able to help even if they too have led healthy lives. I see an increase in government money needed for healthy people. They cash in all of the government insurance policies we as citizens are forced to pay into.

So in the end do we really want to force people to live a certain way based on what we believe will be a cost reduction to society. Forget that being healthy is probably great for each individual person. if we live in a society such that we make it the governments role to take care of us until the bitter end maybe we need to allow people to live their lives the way they want so as a society and a system we have enough diversity and difference to smooth out the edges and make a better and cheaper place for us all.

Permalink