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Homeland Security seizes domain names
The Hill ^ | 11/26/2010 | Sara Jerome

Posted on 11/27/2010 7:15:22 AM PST by GreaterSwiss

The investigative arm of the Homeland Security Department appears to be shutting down websites that facilitate copyright infringement.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has seized dozens of domain names over the past few days, according to TorrentFreak.

ICE appears to be targeting sites that help Internet users download copyrighted music, as well as sites that sell bootleg goods, such as fake designer handbags.

The sites are replaced with a note from the government: "This domain named has been seized by ICE, Homeland Security Investigations."

For instance, 2009jersey.com, 51607.com, and amoyhy.com have each been seized.

One of the site owners told TorrentFreak that his site was shut down without any notice or warning.

The effort come as Congress considers the Combatting Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA). Critics, including Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) say it is too heavy-handed. He has vowed to put a formal hold on the bill.


TOPICS: Breaking News; Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Government
KEYWORDS: domainnames; fascism; homelandsecurity; ice; internet; netneutrality; obama; palin; websites
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To: GreaterSwiss
The whole "domain name" system is just a directory service. Give it a user-friendly name like "freerepublic.com" and you get back it's actual IP address of 209.157.64.200

What Homeland Security just did was to order the directory servers to take those names' real IP address out, and replace it with a dummy address provided by homeland security.

They can get away with it once or twice, but if they do it enough times, it creates a niche for a competing directory service provider which WILL NOT CARE about orders from Homeland Security.

181 posted on 11/28/2010 1:41:59 PM PST by PapaBear3625 ("It is only when we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything" -- Fight Club)
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To: COBOL2Java

182 posted on 11/28/2010 2:11:02 PM PST by rlmorel ("We treat terrorists with kid gloves, and our citizens with rubber gloves." Rush Limbaugh)
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To: Artcore

Let's get the Great American Electorate Elbow to Obama's Face movement rolling...

183 posted on 11/28/2010 2:14:08 PM PST by rlmorel ("We treat terrorists with kid gloves, and our citizens with rubber gloves." Rush Limbaugh)
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To: OldDeckHand; Cacique
Yes, vaguely. That's a ways away from my area of practice. I think you're right. I think that some modifications to DVD players can be illegal, as you've described.

Kind of sounds antithetical to capitalism, if not the Constitution itself. The very act of paying money for a DVD player is an implicit agreement that you will use it in a certain way? Or opening the box?

But it's all preposterous IMO. Blockbuster declared bankruptcy, not because of DVD piracy, but because streaming is easier and cheaper, and those who don't use streaming found better deals.

There are better ways to fight media piracy than this.

184 posted on 11/28/2010 2:34:11 PM PST by ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas (Lt. Col. Ralph Peters: Obama is the dog who caught the fire truck!)
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To: PapaBear3625
% -> host filespump.com                  
filespump.com has address 74.208.15.160
------- ~ ------- [18:17:34]
% -> host movies-links.tv
movies-links.tv has address 74.208.15.160
------- ~ ------- [18:17:49]
% -> host planetmoviez.com
planetmoviez.com has address 74.208.15.160
------- ~ ------- [18:17:57]
% -> host thepiratecity.org
thepiratecity.org has address 74.208.15.160
------- ~ ------- [18:18:12]
% -> host tvshack.net
tvshack.net has address 74.208.15.160
------- ~ ------- [18:18:20]
% -> host zml.com
zml.com has address 74.208.15.160

Yup. (The unix command 'host' queries the ip address of a server name)

185 posted on 11/28/2010 4:29:21 PM PST by Moose Burger
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To: Moose Burger
Yes, Homeland Security now has all those host names pointing to its dummy IP.

It can be defeated by simply having a web site which has a downloadable "hosts" file, which when installed on your PC contains the real IP addresses of the sites that HS has decided to censor.

Since your PC looks at the hosts file before checking the domain name servers, this would override HS's censoring.

186 posted on 11/28/2010 4:44:32 PM PST by PapaBear3625 ("It is only when we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything" -- Fight Club)
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To: napscoordinator

I don’t blame anyone for supporting DHS when it was created. At the time of 9/11, I didn’t live too far away from NYC and I’ll never forget how afraid I was; not so much for myself, but afraid something would happen to my husband and I’d be left alone. We hadn’t gone grocery shopping over the weekend and were planning to do it that evening, so we had no food (nothing satisfying, anyway) in the house. But when all of that came down we decided to stay home. My husband wanted to go grab subs for dinner and I wouldn’t let him because I was afraid I would never see him again; so we had to make due with scraps of stuff from the pantry.

It’s easy in hindsight to say that something like DHS is only as good as those who keep it. I never understood what it was supposed to accomplish that changes to the FBI couldn’t, and saw it as way too much redundancy in the policing function, that is why I didn’t really support it. So I am among those, even in dissent, that didn’t see the danger in such a thing. For the majority of my life, I never felt the need to worry about such things because they had generally been rather benign.

But Obama and his cronies who care nothing about the porper role of the Federal government in everyday life have changed all of what I believed to be true. If there is anything positive in all of this heartache and upheaval, it is that they have taught us, or at least me, the greater value of enumerated powers, and why building a behemoth of an administrative state, even if under the pretense of doing good, is a really bad idea.


187 posted on 11/28/2010 4:47:42 PM PST by dajeeps
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To: PapaBear3625
I checked 74.208.15.160 via telnet; if I put the number on the browser, it takes me to the ICE. But if I query directly via 'GET /' on a telnet session at the port 80, I get a weird

The document has moved <a href="http://NinjaVideo.net/index.html">here</a>.

NinjaVideo.net? Whiskey Tango...

188 posted on 11/28/2010 4:57:08 PM PST by Moose Burger
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To: yldstrk

What else do they have to do? They sure aren’t guarding our borders.


189 posted on 11/28/2010 5:06:44 PM PST by dools0007world
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To: mazda77

Um, what has copyright infringement have to do with homeland security? The answer is nothing. Anyway there is already a Fed agency that deals iwith those issues. FCC?


190 posted on 11/28/2010 5:08:58 PM PST by dools0007world
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To: dools0007world
Um, what has copyright infringement have to do with homeland security?

The answer is Customs (now a department of DHS) or maybe you have never had to deal with getting something you buy overseas into the country, even something you buy on a foreign vacation. The laws we already have for copyright infringement is under the juristiction of the court system where one would have to file a lawsuit in such cases. But my guess is that you have also not had to deal with international copyright infringement now have you?

The point I am making is the same as the indignation you seem to be firing blindly attempting to hit. If the government had a case, why did they not send in the district attorney? But noooooo, they just had to jump right in heavy handed without warrants and/or legal complaints to support their case with that funny little thing we call due process.

191 posted on 11/28/2010 5:29:05 PM PST by mazda77 (Mike Hogan - JAX Mayor)
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To: Cacique
Theoretically? My gosh, do I have to go through my whole website and post that all my posts are there by permission? Because I don't think this is theoretical at all, I think the total plan is to go after sites like FreeRepublic, Drudge and mine.

What REALLY GETS ME is they can just do it without notice. We'll have no ability to shout foul or defend ourselves.
192 posted on 11/28/2010 5:37:09 PM PST by Jen Shroder
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To: GreaterSwiss

This isn’t about homeland security, it’s about the campaign donations and political support of the entertainment industry and their lawyers.


193 posted on 11/28/2010 5:37:21 PM PST by tacticalogic
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To: All

I meant anyone that opposes Obama and the progressive agenda...not to sound like my site is anywhere near as big as others (duck)


194 posted on 11/28/2010 5:38:58 PM PST by Jen Shroder
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To: All

I meant anyone that opposes Obama and the progressive agenda...not to sound like my site is anywhere near as big as others (duck)


195 posted on 11/28/2010 5:39:06 PM PST by Jen Shroder
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To: Nachum

what threat???


196 posted on 11/28/2010 5:41:47 PM PST by dalebert
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To: thethirddegree
This is just an excuse to begin seizing any website that contains
political speech contrary to the progressive marxist administration.

research / pick a target / isolate it / kill it.


BUMP


197 posted on 11/28/2010 9:15:42 PM PST by skinkinthegrass (Imam Zer0: DeathCARE, Is my only "health" plan....to hell w/ free enterprise system :^)
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To: GreaterSwiss

It’s all right, they’ll just sell the domain names to the highest bidder and pretend to give it to the taxpayer.


198 posted on 11/28/2010 9:15:57 PM PST by TheThinker (Communists: taking over the world one kooky doomsday scenario at a time.)
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To: tacticalogic

BINGO!!!


199 posted on 11/28/2010 10:02:12 PM PST by Humidston (For the first time in my adult life I FEAR my government.)
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To: Moose Burger
NinjaVideo.net? Whiskey Tango...

They're messing with anybody who tries to access the old sites. NinjaVideo.net will point back to that same page.

200 posted on 11/29/2010 5:14:53 AM PST by PapaBear3625 ("It is only when we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything" -- Fight Club)
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