Feds link mistakenly to 84,000 Child Porn websites removed

Imagine that you're a small business owner of a respectable, law-abiding. Show your store one morning, only to find the door locked and a big sign reading front window, "the Federal Government has seized this business as it is connected with the creation, distribution and/or storing pornography."

Worse still, imagine that every other activity on the block in the same way was blocked and had the same explanation overwhelming in their front window. And once the confusion has been clarified with the feds, it took longer to get all signs down and up, and run a couple of days.

The Internet equivalent of this scenario emerged during the weekend, according to reports, in one case the Federal Government's disturbing or grossly abusing his power and wielding very awkwardly.

As part of the seizure of Web success 10 domains suspected of storing, viewing, or peddling pornography, the Department of Justice and ICE (immigration and Customs Enforcement) Office of Homeland Security also seized a domain named mooo.com, the most popular shared domain in afraid.org domain now, that belongs to a DNS provider called FreeDNS.

Second FreeDNS, mooo.com is not a domain used for anything related to child pornography; rather, it houses some websites of 84,000 mainly belonging to individuals and small and medium-sized enterprises. Pulling the plug mooo.com, feds stop effectively all the 84,000 of these sites, but visitors to such sites would not simply get an error along the lines of "this site is currently down," or even "this site has been temporarily seized by Homeland Security."

No, instead, a visitor would be taken for a banner with the logo of the Homeland Security and the Department of Justice, under the reading of the text: "this domain name was seized by ice--Homeland Security investigations under a seizure ... mandate under the authority of title 17 USC 2254. Advertising, distribution, transmission, receipt and possession of child pornography are federal crimes. ... "

Second FreeDNS, mooo.com was seized and suspended on February 11, at about 9: 30 p.m. PT. service was not restored until 13 February, at about 7: 15 PM administrators at FreeDNS noticed that once the suspension has been lifted, it would take three days to all interested sites to be fully restored. In other words, not only some of the sites would be unusable by their owners until 16 February, but they continue to display the accusation of "pornography".

One of the major issues here: How did this happen? Federal law, ICE simply needs to convince a District Court judge to sign a warrant of seizure, then sort the records of the domain to redirect domains seized a warning message. What is not clear, though, is how or why mooo.com finished seized. Transcription error? Typo?

An individual who goes by the alias and stop_error whose site has suffered the kidnapping had some choice words on his blog direct to John Morton, who chairs the ice:

"Mr. Morton, with all due respect:" [Expletive] off. " Get out of my Internet. You would get no argument from me that there are things really unpleasant and illegal on the Internet. This is true of any society. But there are also ways to address these problems. Pulling a total domain, sweep innocent people along the way, the feeling that you don't have to respect the due process of law and indicating that you don't give a damn is wrong. Not so wrong as child pornography or counterfeiting, but it's still wrong. As a taxpayer, I hear that you're wasting my money and negate my ability to use the Internet to host a server containing useful, legal, and hopefully interesting content over an alias known promptly. ... That is to say nothing of any damage to my name or reputation of this idiotic Bill. "

If this incident was caused by careless or intentional abuse pure, sets a daunting precedent (or some critics may argue that perpetuates a worrying trend). Yes, the Internet is, in many ways, a lawless place and wild, where cyber crime is rampant. Individuals and businesses must be protected. Nobody in their right mind would criticize thefeds for closing sites dedicated to something as vile as pornography. At the same time, that the protection should not come at the expense of the existence of any individual, freedom of expression, or civil liberties.

For more analysis and commentary on emerging technologies, visit InfoWorld.com. Story copyright © 2010 InfoWorld Media Group. All rights reserved.

DHS associates mistakenly 84,000 websites with child pornography

Daniel Kennedy leads initiatives in politics and in the management of operational safety, conducts the certification strategy and risk assessment and is head of business continuity planning and disaster recovery to the Praetorian security group, LLC.

Praetorian Security Group first, Daniel was the global head of information security at D.B. Zwirn & co where he managed the company's information security. He was specifically responsible for the development, implementation and maintenance of information security policy of the company. Managed security metrics reporting, also the program of awareness raising and education of safety, security incident response, security control and develop the company's strategy for the security technology. In this role he worked closely with the firm's CIO, COO, head of compliance, head of legal, head of infrastructure, head of client services overseas and IT managers.

Before D.B. Zwirn, Daniel was Vice President and program director for the security application program at Pershing LLC, a division of the Bank of New York. Responsibilities of Daniel including management of the firm's application security, coordination of application vulnerability assessments and testing, application security, training, documentation of the secure coding guidelines and application security development firm SDLC penetration. He was the primary liaison for application security concerns among teams as the Information Security Office, Internal Audit, risk of Information Management (IRM) and teams of business and application development. He served on several committees, including the security infrastructure, Workgroup and chartered security architecture and chaired the Security Council of the enterprise application, an interdisciplinary team consisting of application developers and security experts on the subject.

His previous positions include the Pershing and development management positions in systems engineering of web applications creation company to facilitate the online brokerage. He was also employed at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Inc., a technology analyst for the Treasury.

Daniel Degree Master of Science in information systems from Stevens Institute of Technology, a Master of Science in information assurance from Norwich University and a Bachelor of Science in Information Management and Technology from Syracuse University. He is certified as a CEH (Certified Ethical Hacker) of the EC-Council, a CISSP and an NASD Series 7 license.

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DHS ICE seizes 84,000 wrong domains: Child porn oops and COICA

By Richi Jennings. 17 February 2011.

The Department of Homeland Security has seized accidentally 84,000 innocent domains. This time, immigration and customs enforcement blamed the wrong domain hosting of child pornography. Unfortunately, that domain is not only a shutter--faultless the effect chain killed all other domains on your shared hosting service. In IT Blogwatch, bloggers ponder the implications for the return of COICA.

Your humble blogwatcher curated by these bits bloggy for your entertainment. Not to mention "January"--an experiment in algorithmic music ...

Ernst van der Sar is enraged:

The Government of the United States ... proudly announced that they had seized domains relating to counterfeit and pornography. However, what they failed to mention, you ... 84000 sites were unjustly accused of links to child pornography. ...  ICE Cyber crimes Center once again seized several domain names, but not without making a huge mistake. ... ICE convinced a judge of the District Court to sign a warrant of seizure and then contacted the domain registries to point your domain to a server that hosts the warning ... Friday.
...
mooo.com ... is the most popular shared domain in afraid.org domain now and consequently for the actions of the authorities a massive 84,000 subdomains were seized a wrongly as well. ...  [En], once again, shows that the process of seizure is flawed. ... If the Government would allow only for debt, this process will take place and other errors were made.

John Brownlee adds his displeasure:

Like you did a mistake like this? Seems purely clerical, with mooo.com erroneously included in the list. The error was traded on Sunday, but not before visitors of websites over 84,000 you are told that the owner of this site is a child pornographer … a mistake rather libelous that could open the door to a federal lawsuit or two.

Jon Newton legislative proposals:

Well done. Even if somehow they missed a couple of Helper porn more egregious.

Google search search and Microsoft Bing.

Sherwin Siy outlines the effects of refrigeration:

The same legal and technical tools that can be used to protect the copyright can, if applied overbroadly or bad, can stifle legitimate speech and information. Nor are problems of legal jurisdiction and prosecution usually better quickly remedied by changing the nature of the various technical systems.
...
The same network operations that make illegal streaming easy also support the safety of e-commerce, Exchange global free speech and conversation and the reliability of daily communication.  Any attempt by Congress to influence the functioning Internet technology must take account of those vital interests are based on its structure and ensure that these values are not damaged.

Abigail Phillipssays:

"COICA," Senator Leahy infringements Online fighting and counterfeiting Act, is back. ... COICA would give the Government a dramatic new copyright powers, most notably the ability to interfere with the Internet domain name system (DNS) and effectively make entire websites disappear, along with the speech and legitimate by keeping content.
...
Our concern most basic ... that informs our concerns about COICA — is whether the seizure is available for this type of infringement. ... Law of the United States to seize infringing materials and tools for infringement only in cases of criminal copyright. Affidavit establishes "probable cause" to believe the domain names in question have been used to commit a felony copyright? We don't think so.
...
This blurring of the distinction between criminal and civil remedies is a disturbing example of COICA would expand the application of copyright to the detriment of the Internet continues to grow as a platform for expression and innovation.

Mike masnickcannot believe his eyes:

Congress is holding hearings as it prepares to reintroduce COICA, a horribly written piece of legislation that actually gives more power to censor sites ... with little or no due process, the Government of the United States in violation of the fundamental principles of the Constitution. ... [I] law may look good on a first step, but has a ton of unintended consequences. There are serious questions about destroying not only plenty of speech do not infringe rights of third parties, but also harm innovation.
...
Hopefully Congress realizes what a mistake COICA would, but we hear from people saying that the entertainment industry has put a huge effort behind COICA and always passed as soon as possible.

AND Nate Andersongoes further:

COICA ... would give the legal instruments of governance "blacklist" of a rogue Web site from the Internet ... prohibit credit card companies for payment processing and forbid U.S. site online advertising networks based in the United States to work with the site. ... Everybody loves the idea. Democrats love the idea. ... Republicans don't like the idea. And really like the idea holders.
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Rosetta Stone, creators of the software, the learning of foreign languages to go much further. They doubt ... that the Government is really going to spend much effort as they want busting fake small shops on the Web, so that Rosetta Stone wants to open Internet censorship regime of COICA to private actors. ... This idea would mean any private company could "bring the evidence which would allow courts to judge ... order the remedies contained in the Bill." When it comes to foreign Web sites ... most of these judicial hearings would probably unilateral, with only the test result is considered. Also sites already declared legal in other countries ... you could suddenly find reduced from ad networks and credit card processors, and their blocked domains.

 
And finally ...
Rich "January Vreeland"--an experiment in algorithmic music
[hat tip: Andy Baio]

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