Free Republic

[caption id="attachment_1512" align="aligncenter" width="620"] Image source: Wired.com[/caption] See that over-the-top, anti-Obama comment on Facebook or your favorite blog?  It could be a paid Russian troll.  See the picture above?  He's serving a life sentence without parole because he started an illegal website.  He claims to be a Libertarian, but he certainly made a ton of money (the Feds claim over $100 million) selling--well, everything, sort of like Amazon, but much smaller and very much in the shadows of the "dark web." What do Russian trolls have to do with a guy in prison for life?  One of them was caught...

Chicago has won a legal battle allowing its wasteful “amusement tax” to be levied on everyday people. Residents who enjoy gaming will now have to pay a 9 percent tax for streaming services they buy through Playstation. They also have to pay this 9 percent tax on other streaming services for entertainment like Netflix, Spotify, and Hulu. The amusement tax is one of multiple examples of government using its ability to pick the pockets of the populace to select winners and losers in the market while paying its bills with money that citizens often do not realize they are spending....

ICANN has scheduled the Root Zone Key Signing Key (KSK) Rollover for today, and it could affect some DNS users all over the world. By Rolling the KSK, ICANN implies that a new cryptographic public and private key pair will be generated and the private key will be distributed to internet service providers, enterprise network administrators, and Domain Name System (DNS) resolver operators. KSK Rollover operations began in October 2016 and were scheduled for October 2017. However, ICANN announced that the rollover has been postponed due to the fact that “a significant number of resolvers used by Internet Service Providers...

ICANN has scheduled the Root Zone Key Signing Key (KSK) Rollover for today, and it could affect some DNS users all over the world. [What that means is potentially no internet for lots of people!] By Rolling the KSK, ICANN implies that a new cryptographic public and private key pair will be generated and the private key will be distributed to internet service providers, enterprise network administrators, and Domain Name System (DNS) resolver operators. KSK Rollover operations began in October 2016 and were scheduled for October 2017. However, ICANN announced that the rollover has been postponed due to the fact...

If you think Facebook has problems, they’re nothing compared to the fiasco at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Americans should be far more alarmed about what’s happening with the obscure, private California company that oversees the Internet’s backbone. "ICANN’s " gross mismanagement of behind-the-scenes technical operations threatens the security, interoperability, and openness of the entire Internet, industry experts warn. Unlike the Facebook situation, however, there may not be much lawmakers can do. President Barack Obama paradoxically decided ICANN was better off without any government intervention. ICANN now has absolute control of key Internet infrastructure and answers to...

Outgoing U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler warned Republicans against dismantling the Obama administration’s landmark “net neutrality” protections that bar internet service providers from slowing consumer access to web content. Wheeler, in an interview this week, repeatedly questioned why Republicans would institute new policies that he said would benefit major internet service providers such as Comcast Corp, AT&T Inc, Verizon Communications Inc and CenturyLink Inc at the expense of thousands of other companies and consumers. The FCC rules set in early 2015 prohibit broadband providers from giving or selling access to speedy internet, essentially a “fast lane” on the...

Someone successfully shut down many websites Friday, attacking a crucial part of the internet that has been made more vulnerable due to an Obama administration decision to surrender American control, according to experts. Websites like Twitter, Spotify, Reddit and many others were not working for a large portion of U.S. citizens Friday, after unknown hackers breached the servers of Dyn, a major domain name system (DNS) host. Essentially the “yellow pages” of online addresses, DNS is the technical network that converts web address names into numbers. “We began monitoring and mitigating a DDoS attack against our Dyn Managed DNS infrastructure....

For more than two hours on Friday morning, much of the web seemed to grind to a halt—or at least slow to dial-up speed—for many users in the United States. More than a dozen major websites experienced outages and other technical problems, according to user reports and the web-tracking site downdetector.com. They included The New York Times, Twitter, Pinterest, Reddit, GitHub, Etsy, Tumblr, Spotify, PayPal, Verizon, Comcast, EA, the Playstation network, and others. How was it possible to take down all those sites at once?

Sites across the internet had problems on Friday morning following a cyberattack on a major internet management company. On Friday morning, Dyn — a company that hosts domain name systems — announced it has been the subject of a cyberattack that caused major problems for numerous websites. People reported issues with Twitter, Spotify, SoundCloud, Vox Media sites, Airbnb and numerous other sites. SEE ALSO: It's war: U.S. officially blames Russia for recent hacks Domain name systems (DNS) are essentially the GPS of the internet, taking the text URLs you type into a browser and figuring out where those websites’ data...

Speaking at the University of Alabama tonight, Breitbart Senior Editor MILO gave a speech discussing Obama ceding control of internet governing body ICANN to foreign powers.

At the stroke of midnight on September 30, 2016, America said good-bye to its long-time oversight of the internet, and along with it, the certainty of internet freedom. Because the internet was started in the United States, from its inception, the system of managing domain names and numbers has always been conducted in or by the United States. In 1998, the Department of Commerce (DoC) contracted ICANN, a California-based non-profit, to perform the function of IANA[1] management. It’s a critical role to ensure that internet domain names are not duplicated and that the assigned numbers are secure. DoC maintained oversight...

At the stroke of midnight on September 30, 2016, America said good-bye to its long-time oversight of the internet, and along with it, the certainty of internet freedom. Because the internet was started in the United States, from its inception, the system of managing domain names and numbers has always been conducted in or by the United States. In 1998, the Department of Commerce (DoC) contracted ICANN, a California-based non-profit, to perform the function of IANA[1] management. It’s a critical role to ensure that internet domain names are not duplicated and that the assigned numbers are secure. DoC maintained oversight...

In another blow to American global leadership the Obama administration is abdicating control of the Internet. Countries that loathe freedom are gaining more influence over what you'll be able to find on the web. The U.S. started the Internet and served as its guardian for many years, guaranteeing that virtually any person or group, no matter how controversial, could add a website to the worldwide network. But on October 1, the Obama administration surrendered U.S. oversight to a multinational organization, ICANN, which stands for Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. ICANN will have sole power to grant web addresses...

Charter internet has been down for about 16 hours. Other providers like Time Warner and Comcast are showing widespread outages. Using phone and data to post this.

Senators who voted for and against giving away the USA Citizen's Internet: 77 US Senators voted for giving away the Internet. 21 US Senators voted against giving away the Internet.

10 minute video from Stefan Molyneux

The Blockstack approach should make shutting down the internet or blocking a particular site considerably more challenging. Domain registration is turned over to a blockchain (right now, that’s the original bitcoin blockchain), and no private interest needs to be involved. There’s no single point to tell computers where to look to find a site. There’s lots of places, and the more people use it, the more places there will be. If one path to information is shut down, another can found. On this internet, no one would need to log in to websites, because your browser would use its built...

Washington (AFP) - The US government on Saturday ended its formal oversight role over the internet, handing over management of the online address system to a global non-profit entity. The US Commerce Department announced that its contract had expired with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which manages the internet's so-called "root zone." That leaves ICANN as a self-regulating organization that will be operated by the internet's "stakeholders" -- engineers, academics, businesses, non-government and government groups. The move is part of a decades-old plan by the US to "privatize" the internet, and backers have said it would help...

Ok, folks, I've had enough of Ted Cruz and a handful of others trying to fundraise on the back of the Internet handover issue.First, this is not a surprise nor something Obama cooked up in the dead of night.  The expiration of the existing arrangement has been known for literal years and the timing of same has been known for the same amount of time.  If the US Congress wanted to intervene it has had years to do so and has intentionally not done so.  So to Ted Cruz and others (Jim DeMint anyone?) who is now claiming "emergency", go perform an anatomically-impossible act; if you...

Attorney General Ken Paxton on Friday lost his last-minute bid for a court injunction to prevent the federal government from transferring its oversight of internet registrations to an international body. Hours before the transition was set to take effect, a federal judge in Galveston ruled against Paxton and three other state attorneys general who had asked him to temporarily halt the transfer while they pursue a lawsuit challenging it. The four sued the federal government late Wednesday after Republicans in Congress, led by U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, failed to halt the transfer. The ruling by Judge George C....