If you run a web site or service that runs afoul of US law, and that site is hosted overseas, then the US legal system doesn’t have much recourse, right? Wrong. Because the .com, .net, and .org top level domains are managed by a US company, the government can come to Verisign with a court order and seize your domain, effectively shutting you down. And because of a quirk of internet history that made the US-controlled domains the de-facto standard for web sites, this is a situation that’s quite possibly permanent.This situation would have become even more amped up had SOPA/PIPA passed, since it would have given entertainment companies more ability to put sites in the government’s crosshairs, but open internet activists point out that the US government has plenty of tools it can use to shut down sites promoting illegal gambling, filesharing, and other activities that violate some interpretation of existing law. Some countries. Many people and countries have called to end the US’ control over the major TLDs, suggesting that it be turned over to the International Telecommunications Union, but others point out that the ITU, a UN agency, is a sclerotic, ineffective bureaucracy that would only make matters worse.
This isn’t a black and white issue, because while the US may be abusing its power, wresting the domain name system away from any accountability to any government is probably never going to happen. That means that if the US loses .com, it could possibly be out of the frying pan into the fire, with domain name politics enjoying the same ineffectual gridlock that the Israel-Palestinian dispute does.
The one bright spot is that as the internet and our use of it evolves, it may become less dependent on static domain names. In the age of Google, let’s imagine that Facebook lost its domain name and had to change its name to facemash.se. There would be chaos for a few days for sure, but most internet users are going to be able to find where Facebook went in short order. In fact, an alarming number of people find websites by searching google for them every single time, rather than bookmarking. And of course, if the US or any other government ever overreaches on the domain name system, we can always create a new, decentralized one. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
They can’t escape due to other US Laws that say that if you break a US law anywhere on this planet, we will come after you and send you to chokey for the rest of your natural.
Ok, I’m going a bit overboard but recent events have made me believe that there is ‘No Hiding Place’ from the Feds if they are really determined to come after you.
Don’t worry the US Government would never, ever abuse it’s power. Just ask our citizens on how well we have used the “Patriot Act.”
Most people don’t seem to know the facts about the Patriot Act, and certainly don’t appear to have read it. Whenever I hear people talking about it, it’s all the typical FUD. To make matters worse, the FUD has people paranoid who most certainly will never be affected in any way by the Patriot Act.
I certainly don’t agree with everything in the Patriot Act and I’m not saying it won’t ever become a serious problem in the future at some point… I’m just saying it’s incredibly unlikely.
What I don’t like about the “Patriot Act” is that it too broad and has very few checks and balances in it to keep it from being abused.
Here are the facts of the Patriot Act: For the issue of delayed-notice warrants from 2006-2009, the patriot Act was used 1618 times for drug cases, 122 times for fraud cases, and 15 times for cases of terrorism. All the 9/11 attack did was take away our rights.
Well any suspension of habeus corpus is clearly against the constitution. Letting any law that is so clearly unconstitutional stand SHOULD be a big issue for everyone. Otherwise you can just throw the whole idea of rule of law right out and just admit it is rule of the ultra-rich. Maybe that doesn’t effect you though. I can’t say.
Maybe I understood it wrong, but isn’t decentralised domain names already available. As far as I understand, it is managed via the Namecoin project (a child project of Bitcoin).
<ul>
<li> Namecoin – A DNS alternative based on Bitcoin
[ http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/2011/05/12/namecoin-a-dns-alternative-… ]
<li> Namecoin DNS Servers
[ http://namecoin.bitcoin-contact.org/ ]
</ul>
My understanding is that that is an alternate root-zone to the standard ICANN. There’s been a few of those that have cropped up over the years.
I think ‘decentralized’ as it is put in this article is referring to a ‘dynamic’ domain, or one that doesn’t depend on a specific tld or url to operate. I imagine something like wikileaks and its mirrors would be the closest example.
Possibly, but its made by the same people as bitcoin. A huge red flag for me. Bitcoin is a noble idea that’s economically naive about the effects of deflation. So what is this alternative DNS solution naive about?
Its scary to see the US demonstrate its unworthiness to continue management of the root servers, because I agree that a handoff to the UN would be worse, with strong russian, chinese, and other censorship-happy influences.
I hope I am wrong.
Even if root servers was internationally controlled, USA still could seize domains controlled by a company on American soil.
As long the US government keep itself away from the domains of other countries, i don’t think that any government would care less. (They know that the first time they dare to touch a thirty party domain, it will be the last.)
If you buy a service from a company in USA, then you subject part of your business to the American law. Just because its so easy to get American services overseas, it does not mean that the service itself is a international resource except from American law.
By the end of day, authoritarian countries already filter their DNS servers, and their local domain controllers are subject to heavy censorship, including background checks of anyone buying a domain. What we should try is to prevent USA itself to become a authoritarian regime.
Thus, the only way to be sure that your business do not fall in some stupid grey area of American law, is to rely on the local services of your country, or of a country that is legal to do whatever you want to. If you are using the internet for political purposes, then you should go after a country that is sympathetic with your pleas.
Its pretty sad to know that we don’t have a country with the mighty of USA to actually stand as the perfect freedom outpost of the world. But as imperfect as the US government is, there is far worse countries out there.
Of course, if you rely on USA services just because your local services sucks, i’m sorry for you.
These sites are run by pond sucking scum. I could see if your instances included groups helping humanity that were under attack. All you want to do it promote theft. I think you need some six guns pardner. Kind of a wild west attitude. Really, it is time for you kids to grow up and join a civilized earth. We simply can’t allow folks to steal what they want can claim crazy things like it is their right to steal.
What people need is the MESH NETWORKING, independent and free from official internet.
I’m waiting eagerly for The Freedom Box to come. I hope it will give control back into our hands.
For now we can host our own things locally and use other domains, as TK and many more available.
US control of the major TLDs and most of the root DNS servers is like democracy in general: the worst option except for all the other ones. All the international options suck, and I don’t think there’s a single country out there that a) isn’t the US, b) won’t kowtow to US requests anyway, and c) isn’t more repressive than the US. Seriously, the short list of countries that routinely tell the US to go pound sand is like a who’s who of crackpot dictatorships and oppressive regimes. Venezuela, North Korea, China, Russia, Iran…
The US funded everything that became the internet. It seems only reasonable that it got first pick of domains. If a person or a company does not want to have any US involvement, pick another TLD. That seems easy enough. There are a lot of options now. Not so in the beginning, but times have changed!
Because .com does not represent the USA, it’s short for commercial, what does a company based in the UK or Asia or wherever have to do with the US? Nothing, perhaps the US should just use it’s own .us extension by default and create a new, better mechanism for handling .com in collaboration with the rest of the world. Maybe it’s also time to use different extensions depending on the organisation/person registering a domain. CERN is also where www was developed, should it have exclusive rights over that?
Most people are not complaining about that .com .org and so on are under the US jurisdiction.
The problem is how they handle it:
http://www.osnews.com/story/25627/_US_government_is_scaring_web_bus…
And the problem seems to be getting worse.
that’s wrong usa didn’t fund everything that became internet
I assume you posted this via OSAlert’s Usenet interface.
It turns out there’s quite a popular service on the internet nowadays called the “World Wide Web”. It was invented by an Englishman, working in Geneva for the European nuclear research agency.
You should give it a try some time, there’s some quite good stuff on there.
Bah, stealing and/or taking credit for Europe’s greatest stuff is practically a sport over here. Einstein? Yoink, worked at Princeton. Werner Von Braun? Yoink, helped start our space program. Timothy Berners Lee? Yoink, now an Ars Technica guy and member of the Cato Institute. Internetworking in general? Yoink.
Since your post doesn’t actually contain a valid point, what exactly are you claiming the US stole or is wrongfully taking credit for?
At times people suggested ICANN be based in Switzerland and be declared it independant.
Although when you look at FIFA for example it might turn out to be a bad idea too
The question is not if it’s bad or good but if it would be worse or better.
I use cesidian root, and Im very very happy with it.
faster than googles (from my location at least), and much more reliable than my isp’s.
Syncs to icanns also, so never ever problems resolving things
It is simple and would not do much to disrupt any business unless the US decides to blacklist domains, of course then they violate the Constitution.
TechGeek, please list any example of how you’ve been directly affected by the Patriot Act.
Lorin, blacklisting domain names and the Constitution have absolutely nothing in common. I’m guessing you this is another case of someone thinking they have a right that doesn’t actually exist.
What the hell kind of reply is that? If the US was burning people at the stake, I shouldn’t worry until they tie me to a pole? It’s EVERY citizen’s right and responsibility to speak out when our government does shitty things. Thats the whole point of a government by the people, for the people.
Ok, so you can’t provide any examples. No problem, I didn’t think you could. Trying to divert attention away by comparing it to burning people is a bit silly. We can stay on topic — we’re talking about the Patriot Act, not burning people. They are not comparable.
We have a government by the people, sure… But, we do not have a government for the people and if you’re unclear about that at this point then you’ve got a hell of a LOT of catching up to do.
time to abandon those domains and stop using us companies
Yes really, we should _all_ do this title IX:
… “Improve Intelligence”
O:-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_DNS_root
Edited 2012-03-07 14:18 UTC
Let’s hope it does come to that!
A decentralized internet and DNS system would be GREAT thing!
p2p all the way!
Even if most traffic doesn’t end up being p2p shuffled, the OPTION would be great. So a fall back is always there!
It’s already come to that, we’re just all a little too stupid to realize it. We’re like fish who don’t realize that they’ve been swallowed by a whale….until they’re being digested!
P.S. Before some idiot tries to slam me for badmouthing the US, I’m a veteran who spent 14yrs in the US Army…I believe that I’ve earned my opinion.