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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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You can also read Richi full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.

Windows startup: Microsoft is wrong is right, Computerworld

The vast majority of articles on the recent change to the State of AutoRun for Windows XP, Vista, Server 2003 and Server 2008 that Microsoft has just released an update that will be installed automatically.

This is not true.

In honesty printing tech, Microsoft said this themselves.

Microsoft Security Advisory (967940): update for Windows AutoRun was published in February 2009. The corresponding patch, published in August 2009, was only available to techies who knew to look for it. The patch has changed the way they worked in those versions AutoRun in Windows to simulate the behavior of Windows 7.

Security Advisory was updated February 2011 to add the following:

The AutoRun update described in Microsoft Knowledge Base article 971029 is now offered via automatic updates. Customers with automatic update enabled will not take any action because this update will be downloaded and installed automatically.

It's a sad commentary on Microsoft that this is not the case.

What actually happened is that the patch was added as an optional Windows Update/Microsoft Update. Users of automatic updates will not have the patch applied. You must still manually to find her. It's just a little easier to find.

Kudos to both Gregg Keizer, who writes for Computerworld and Paul Thurrott in Windows IT Pro. Both stressed that the change of AutoRun is not installed automatically and both describes the manual steps required to install the patch under Windows XP. Their articles are below:

This shows a difference between members of the press tech that parrot back what they read elsewhere and those who take the time to kick the tires.

Defensive Computing part is knowing whom to trust. Going forward, I will put more trust in the writings of Keizer is Thurrott.

STILL NOT FULLY PROTECTED

Taking a step back, however, Windows users should be aware that the update is incomplete.

Even with it installed, Windows computers can get infected when inserting a USB based device, the device needs to do is go to the system as a CD or DVD, that still support AutoRun.

In the update for the AutoPlay feature in Microsoft Windows Says:

Some USB flash drives have firmware with these USB flash drives such as CD drive when you insert them into your computer. These USB flash drives are not affected by this update.

Gregg Keizer reported in his article, that

... the delay of more than year-to-a-half to push the Autorun update to Windows Update is designed to give providers of legitimate software that uses the time to recraft the functionality for their programs. Most have transformed the U3 specification ... to run automatically on their software from removable media.

Personally I've run across more than one external hard drive that Windows is presented as an external hard drive is a CD drive. Without doubt this is done to promote the automatic installation of software preloaded on external hard drive.

I wrote about a battleship approach to disabling AutoRun Back in January 2009. This approach, an update to registry easy, applies to all devices, such as CDs and DVDs.

See the best way to disable AutoRun for protection from infected USB flash drive and test the defenses against malicious USB flash drive.

Defensive Computing is the thing.

Update: 12 February 2011:

Larry Seltzer, PC Magazine has been one of the many who got some facts wrong AutoRun. February 11, published a correction. However, his initial posting, from 8 February, has not been corrected. What did change in the initial registration, were the comments. What I had left, correcting facts, has been deleted.