About a quarter of the way in, I realized exactly where this was going. I wrote a similar post under the more obvious title, "SOPA for Non-Techies" [1]. This is an excellent narrative, whereas mine is in the format of a collection of two short essays.
Without context for this post though, it seems only the tech community would understand the parallels being drawn (even I feel I may be overreaching in my assumptions as to his actual purpose). The problem is, we're generally not the ones who need convincing. Definitely a great article, though.
Well, it's kind of hard. What they're not telling you is that the police actually called the highway squad to close off the road to your building with the sign "Closed due to illegal activity." They also don't tell you that it's technically legal and cheap to get the same highway squad to build a new road to the same place, and that it only takes a day or so of waiting time -- though you cannot be sure that the same highway squad won't close it down again, and so you pay some extra to some out-of-towner with a private lot between you and the highway, to build their own exit to your place.
Nuances like that are pretty specific to the cases that we're dealing with here.
Also there is the problem that it's totally a mistake and is silently reversed some days later -- yet nobody compensates you for the lost business or even apologizes for the horrible stain on your reputation. People instead blame you for choosing to open the mall on the west side of the town, which is more popular for businesses but the highway department on that side is well-known for handling these sorts of requests in a generally poor fashion, caving in under a minimum of pressure and not keeping you in the loop, and so forth.
Fan-fricking-tastic. Thank you for writing this. This should be syndicated in the Times, WSJ, and every local newspaper in the country -- maybe then people would get it. Great piece.
Yes, but with the caveat that it would have to include explicit commentary about what's going on with domain name seizures, because unfortunately most regular folk won't automatically make the leap.
You know, it's this kind of citizen journalism/reporting and outcries that makes me think the US has a high chance to get back on the right track in a couple of years.
There are so many entrepreneurs and businesses, and people are so eager to be actively involved in something that when something like this happens, a shtickstorm tornado rises against the powers that be and it's very hard to quell it.
This article and other similar pieces need to get into the mainstream media, and then things will start to change - just like they did with SOPA and other laws.
I've seen no other country where media holds such a power - the UK and the rest of EU, Russia, China and Japan, they're all much worse in these regards and yet you don't hear this much of an outcry over a few seized domains/servers or even physical property.
Hopefully the big corporations that lobby everything to their will and rampant elements in the US government will be brought back under control - the sooner, the better...
"You know, it's this kind of citizen journalism/reporting and outcries that makes me think the US has a high chance to get back on the right track in a couple of years."
Maybe. But we're talking about seizing domains, and domains is where all this pesky citizen journalism is happening. Could go either way.
Thing is, moving locations isn't going to help. When you're operating on the web that's you're neighborhood and a change of domain name won't keep this from happening again nor will it make it harder or less pleasant for them to do.
Maybe we should pass some more laws to solve the problem... (I hope I don't have to clarify that that last bit was sarcasm)
Ah yes, because the internet is the .com's and the united states owns the internet.
You might want to check your assumptions before stating something with that much certainty. There are, occasionally, things outside your borders worth thinking about.
US registrars do register foreign domains. If a US based registrar gives you a .de domain and the Feds ask your registrar to shut down your site I wouldn't be surprised if they did regardless of which registry controls the domain.
It's comforting to think that you're safe outside the US but you aren't. The US government is running a global empire. We may know the Internet is international but as far as the US is concerned they think they own it. When the US is no longer the power it is (and though it may seem prime to fall it is still a superpower) we won't be safe. All we can do is hope that whoever we register with is willing to put up a fight but not all countries are.
Besides that theres more than just the TLD to think about. It's the registrar, registry, your residence, and, if applicable, the location your company is registered. Unless you pay careful attention to all those details there will be a way to shut you down.
I completely agree, but there is quite a practical difference between a .com registered through godaddy and hosted there and the many safer alternatives.
I was more annoyed by this part of the parent: "...won't keep this from happening again nor will it make it harder or less pleasant for them to do"
It's comforting to think that you're safe outside the US but you aren't. The US government is running a global empire. We may know the Internet is international but as far as the US is concerned they think they own it. When the US is no longer the power it is (and though it may seem prime to fall it is still a superpower) we won't be safe. All we can do is hope that whoever we register with is willing to put up a fight but not all countries are.
I wonder if the US government can require certain hooks from ICANN.....
What I wonder is if, or when, ICANN will start taking the US government to court, preferably in countries outside the USA, for violating the laws of those countries.
If ICANN does nothing, and nobody does anything to stop this, it will destroy the internet. (And there's no obvious white knight. The UN I trust even less than the US government.)
Right, I mean if this stuff is already happening then what are your options? You're right to not trust the UN. The UN might as well be the fourth branch of the US government - the branch that allows the US to order other countries around while still maintaining plausible deniability.
Can you recommend a foreign registrar? I'm with a US Based one that started out great, but has been acquired twice now, by increasingly less relevant sounding businesses.
I've been looking for a foreign based registrar, preferably in the EU or iceland, that has really good domain management tools (my biggest problems with registrars are twofold- first many of them seem like fly by night operations, and the second is that their tools for managing domains are often very poor.)
#2 = http://www.domaindiscount24.net/ - in Germany - the registrar for thepiratebay.org - that didn't shut it down despite many threats. Their domain management tools are ugly and cluttered, but work well once you get used to it.
... also ...
#3 = http://www.hover.com/ - in Canada - the retail front-end to OpenSRS/Tucows - a great reputable company around since 1994.
I think this is a really great essay. I love the hook how I first thought he was going to be talking about the nature of businesses and why real estate is a good investment and probably give us some startup advice derived from looking at real estate.
I am an old fart so it is sometimes difficult for me to judge how much young whippersnappers know about the history of these things. But in my lifetime (I'm sure an even older fart can point to even earlier history) this kind of government seizure of property started in the 1980s when Ronald Reagan signed into a law the concept of "Civil Asset Forfeiture". At the time there were lots of stories in the news media about drug lords and how big their mansions were etc. The MegaUpload stories about all the cars, etc are in the same vein. This law was pitched as "denying drug dealers the profits from their criminal activity". (Nevermind that drug dealing is not criminal activity in the US at the federal level- the constitution doesn't authorize regulation of substances, which is why for prohibition they needed a constitutional amendment....but also due to prohibition they learned that making things legal under the constitution was a huge pain in the butt and why not simply ignore it? What's the odds that a supreme court filled completely with appointees from the two parties will overturn unconstitutional laws passed by those same two political parties?) In the same way, seizing domain names is not authorized by the constitution either. It doesn't even make logical sense (e.g.: someone selling counterfeit jerseys- ok, raid the warehouse and seize the counterfeit products, you can make an argument for that, but a domain name is not physical property, and it could be used for any number of things.) Many of the domains that have been stolen were engaging in literal free speech-- like the hip hop blog that was talking about hip hop music[1]. That's unquestionably speech. Worse, the music they were sharing was given to them by record labels as part of their promotional efforts, so it wasn't even engaged in copyright infringement!
Anyway, of course in the early years you heard about drug dealers getting busted and all their money taken. Then it started being biker dudes at airports flying across state lines to go buy (and drive back) the harley davidson they've always wanted (saw that on 20/20 in the 1990s) then it started being the guy who sells silver coins with Ron Paul's face on them, having $6M in Gold, Platinum and Silver stolen by the FBI, as punishment for suing the government to get a ruling that his business was legal after a government employee (of the US mint, which was in competition with him via their production of Silver Eagles) said it wasn't.
Then it was the guy you went to high school with, who is now a doctor and who has this wacky notion that chronically ill people should not live out their last years in massive pain and so he prescribes sufficient pain medications to relieve their suffering, only to be raided by the DEA, have all of his assets, his house, car, his wires car, all of his money, his savings, all of his stocks, seized as part of the raid. Forced to sign a confession, and go to prison, as part of a deal where they don't also prosecute all of his employees and his wife, leaving his children as "wards of the state". Of course part of the reason he had to sign the confession is, with all of his assets seized, he was unable to pay for a lawyer. Don't I remember something about legal representation being a right? All because some non-doctor decided he was giving patients-- who literally were dying, these weren't junkies-- too many drugs for their pain.
Imagine how many people with serious pain in the USA suffer because their doctors are afraid to give them the correct dosage lest they too have their lives destroyed by the DEA? And of course, since the DEA is conducting surveillance, they know the average prescription for given conditions, which, reduced by fear, means that it must continually ratchet lower and lower. This is barbaric.
Naturally, since police agencies get to keep the money they steal, this has resulted in more than one county sheriff operating literal highway robbery schemes whereby they pull over people with out of state plates-- tourists-- and seize anything of significant value they find on them. I don't know if they bother planting a tiny amount of drugs n the car anymore or not...
And of course, this has been going on, in increasingly worse degrees since the 1980s. But the news report always points out that the "accused" who had his money stolen was "charged with possession" or some other crime. Nowadays its the even more vague accusation of planning terrorism.
The thing is this-- this is not accidental. This is not just a weakness in the system. This is the design of the system. This is completely deliberate. This is a situation created with malice and forethought.
"Do you think that we want those laws to be observed? We want them broken.
There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power the government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them.
One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws." -- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
[1] Alas I don't remember the name, but I read about it on torrent freak.com back when the first round of domains were stolen.
You're at least wrong about the prohibition thing. Prohibition was enacted via amendment because it occurred before Wickard v Filburn, which held that Congress has powers to regulate intrastate commercial activity as part of a program of interstate commerce. This extends to drugs (obvious example: Gonzales v Raich)
Now you're going to say that Wickard is unconstitutional, but that constitutes a libertarian-fundamentalist rewriting of how American jurisprudence works. Maybe you think it ought to be unconstitutional, but when you say it "is" unconstitutional you're not telling the truth, you're telling us what you think and pretending it's the truth.
There's a whole bunch else about your post that's plainly wrong or misleading (the stuff about the gold coins for instance) but I omit them for the sake of brevity. In general your post is a rant. I see you posting a lot about libertarianism when it's off-topic, uncalled for, or perhaps called for but you're wrong anyway. Finally I think the tolerance and celebration of these views--hardcore, far-out, and relatively uninformed--in the tech community is a discrediting force when it comes to actually fighting the content industry.
"that constitutes a libertarian-fundamentalist rewriting of how American jurisprudence works"
Also known as accurately representing what the document literally says. I find it really amusing that people pretend that the constitution is some vague indecipherable document that requires court cases to "interpret". It isn't, its written in quite plain english.
I'm sorry that the facts of reality, and the ultimate legal document in the country, disagree with your ideology. I'm sorry that your ideology leaves you ill equipped to make a counter argument, and thus instead choose to characterize me personally.
The definition of libertarianism is "Someone who believes in the nonaggression principle." I'm not afraid to stand behind my principles, though you have not mentioned what ideology leads you to attack me in this way. Whatever it is, obviously you want to initiate force against innocent people[1], so, by definition, you'll never have the moral high ground.
I am, however, quite fascinated that, despite people being obviously against the non-aggression principle, that I've yet to meet one who can make a counter argument against it. I really wonder why that is so. I can defend my arguments against attacks on them, but always it is the case that opponents attack me, instead of my arguments. The only possible reason I can think of for that is that my opponents follow ideologies the are not based on principle, but are instead a collection of beliefs that they swallow whole. That would explain why they cannot defend them, or construct counter arguments to philosophically based positions, such as mine.
All they seem to be capable of mustering is name calling-- like you called me "far out" "uninformed" "wrong", "misleading", "fundamentalist", etc, without never once backing up these claims, making them essentially pure ad hominem.
If your ideology is strong enough to hold such sway over your thinking, why doesn't it provide you with arguments you can make on the facts, and to the point?
Calling me names is really easy. But who do you expect to persuade that way? People who already agree with you?
[1] Because if you didn't, you'd have no motivation to hate libertarianism with such fervor. All libertarian positions derive from this principle, and this principle can be derived philosophically from basic moral premises. When I first became aware of it, I figured it would quickly sweep the nation-- as the idea of not using violence against the innocent seems compellingly right. However, I've been forced to accept that many people, either because they are taught it, or maybe just by their nature, actually do want to use violence against other people for their own profit. And that's sad. But its also embarrassing and so nobody wants to admit it, and so maybe that is why you chose to call me names.
"All they seem to be capable of mustering is name calling-- like you called me "far out" "uninformed" "wrong", "misleading", "fundamentalist", etc, without never once backing up these claims, making them essentially pure ad hominem."
Wrong. This is no ad hominem, this is you, nirvana, trying to reframe the discussion to your benefit: The OP explicitly says these things in regard to your "views" and the "post", not you[1]. It's only you who insists on characterizing yourself as the victim here. Rather than actually responding to the criticism of the content of your post you instead try to reframe the discussion as an attack on you (which it clearly is not) as opposed to an evaluation of our views (which it clearly is). Too bad you never seem to actually address criticism of your ideology and instead leave with the cop out, "You can't disprove my opinions to myself so therefore I must be right."
Really disappointing to see this kind of shenanigans on HN.
[1] "There's a whole bunch else about your post that's plainly wrong or misleading...In general your post is a rant...Finally I think the tolerance and celebration of these views--hardcore, far-out, and relatively uninformed--in the tech community is a discrediting force..." These are related to the "post" or the "views" and not the person making or holding them.
"Your post is fascist, and your views are mindless, based on an unthinking ideology which has, at its core, the exploitation of the innocent for your own personal gain."
The above sentence is addressing your post, your views and your ideology, in the same way you claim he was addressing my "post" and my "views". (and my ideology).
It is a painfully transparent way to call you "fascist", "mindless", "unthinking", "exploitative" and "evil".
If he were actually addressing my points, he could rebut them. To rebut them, requires several elements. First he has to honestly accept what I'm saying-- thus knocking down a strawman is not actually addressing a point, and thus not rebutting it. Second he has to bring facts, logic or reason to show why the point is in error. Simply calling the point names (as you claim he is doing) is not actually rebuttal. He didn't respond to my point at all, he misrepresented it characterize me and then characterized me, while pretending not to.
I saw thru it. It seems silly that you'd think that, having seen thru it, I would suddenly think otherwise. I think the motivation of your response is also that you disagree with me, but rather than rebut my points, you're jumping into the flay because he made it personal.
Nothing convinces me of the correctness of my perspective like my opponents fear of it.
The Constitution does not say how it is to be interpreted, with the Founders expecting it to be interpreted in a pre-existing framework of common law. For instance, this was used by the Supreme Court to establish judicial review, which is not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution. Without those "activist judges" the Supreme Court would be toothless and the Constitution toilet paper.
So those are the "facts of reality", not your libertarian fantasies. As for the rest of your rant I consider it both off-topic and highly uninteresting. Actually, we're off-topic already, so I'll stop here.
"Without those "activist judges" the Supreme Court would be toothless and the Constitution toilet paper."
Without these violations of the constitution, it, rather than the supreme court, would be the highest law in the land ,and the constitution would no longer be toothless.
"So those are the "facts of reality""
At best, what you just gave me was your opinion. You didn't cite any actual facts.
"not your libertarian fantasies. "
I must guess that you're incapable of making arguments to the point, so you feel compelled to characterize me. Here you do it with two characterizations that you imagine are insulting.
"As for the rest of your rant"
Another characterization. You feel you do not have to respond to my arguments, if you just call them a rant. Also, you get to imply that I'm not being rational by calling it a rant.
"Actually, we're off-topic already, so I'll stop here."
My post, was on the topic. I addressed how the domain seizures were the latest in a historical line of property seizures, which I talked about. You didn't address seizures at all, and instead chose to attack me.
Since your entire participation in this thread has been off topic and personal, you should have never started it.
Nothing convinces me of the correctness of my arguments like my opponents being in a abject terror at addressing them.
Without these violations of the constitution, it, rather than the supreme court, would be the highest law in the land ,and the constitution would no longer be toothless.
This is not just factually incorrect, it's... Holy cow. Do you know what judicial review is? It's what gives the Constitution teeth! And I'm at least partially repeating myself when I say this!
And why do you accuse me of being, your words, in "abject terror"?
Whatever it is, obviously you want to initiate force against innocent people[1], so, by definition, you'll never have the moral high ground.
Wow, downvoted for ridiculous application of fake-logic in a poorly masked form of ad-hominem. Also, I'm rolling my eyes so hard, I think my head might explode.
Actually it is perfectly logical. Since he focused his time on characterizing me, and never got around to actually making a point, he forces me to either guess his position, or not address it. The motive is obvious and thus the logic holds.
Its not ad hominem, it is itself an argument-- I'm pointing out why he chose the technique he did.
Without context for this post though, it seems only the tech community would understand the parallels being drawn (even I feel I may be overreaching in my assumptions as to his actual purpose). The problem is, we're generally not the ones who need convincing. Definitely a great article, though.
[1] http://jangosteve.com/post/16074674406/sopa-for-non-techies