Can someone explain me why ICE has the power to enforce intellectual property laws on the internet? What does this have to do with immigration enforcement? Can ICE enforce other seemingly irrelevant laws? E.g. can ICE bust e.g. drug users, prostitution etc?
One of the main reasons that ICE believes they can exert this authority is because the .com/.net TLD namespace is owned and operated by Verisign, a US company. Further, the ICANN namespace is owned and operated by ICANN, a US company who, in fact, is also under the jurisdiction of attorney generals of California state [1].
As long as the namespace remains under the control of a centralized authority like the US, this will continue to be a reality. There may be some naysayers about solutions like Handshake, but frankly speaking, there's no person who would logically want their name to be able to be taken away by someone else. Your name is your identity and it is you. To be able to assert this with cryptography is a cypherpunk's dream.
Yeah, which seems ridiculous. As a first step, ICANN should be changed to some kind of international non-profit (I'm not even sure how you do that - do you just register it in Switzerland?).
Since they are not under a country code TLD, I think it really makes sense migrate .com, .net and .org to be 'international' TLDs (I think many people internationality basically already consider them to effectively be so) and US companies should be able to access equivalents under the ccTLD like .com.us, .net.us etc. if they wanted a US-specific one, just like every other country does. Then also, I really think all .gov, .mil and .edu and the other US-only TLDs should be phased out (they could just become redirects to .gov.us, .mil.us etc.). Having those TLDs as US-only just smacks of American exceptionalism - I understand the history and it made sense at the time, but became inappropriate as all the other ccTLDs started becoming used. They should have migrated to .us domains back then and deprecated .mil, .gov and so on.
It would be a bit messy, since .us is already delegated and there are already heaps of domains in that namespace which would have to be either retained as legacy or migrated after some time. So really the sooner the better! The US Government would probably have to buy the .us ccTLD back, create ones like com.us, net.us, org.us under it and then re-delegate them while operating .mil.us, .gov.us, .edu.us themselves.
> Then also, I really think all .gov, .mil and .edu and the other US-only TLDs should be phased out (they could just become redirects to .gov.us, .mil.us etc.). Having those TLDs as US-only just smacks of American exceptionalism
If other countries don't like it... why connect and use an American network? Why not build their own (and foot the research bill!).
I suspect that even the majority of Americans don't know that ICE handles customs as news stories rarely expand the acronym and the stories almost always deal with the immigration side of things.
In more recent news, this tech https://handshake.org/ is aimed at this kind of jurisdictional issue. Limiting the reach of a US court or any other central org for that matter at shutting down a domain .com, .net or other.
The only way an alternate TLD registrar will ever take off is if you get the people who own the current root servers on board. And the only way that will happen is if you figure out how they can make money from owning and operating the root servers.
My guess is that if you create a blockchain for registering DNS, and only the current registrars can issue coins on said blockchain, you might have a solution they would be willing to implement. You'd still have to pay them money to register a new domain or maintain it, but once you had the coin, you could register whatever you wanted and no government could stop you.
This has been the story for many sites, where domains are seized even if owned by a non-US person/company, with an order to the TLD that operates in the US. With a distributed DNS system like Handshake, 'in theory' this shouldn't be possible, since it would require multiple nodes to alter a domain's DNS records vs. a central TLD authority which has to abide by US law.
It's all interesting, but it still seems we are ways off from the DNS backbone (& my browser) operating with this kind of DNS architecture. It even appears it's becoming easier to take down a domain, not at the TLD/registrar level, but more so at the hosting level (e.g. Parler)
Is it the root servers that you need to get on board, or the publishers of the publications that most people use, or the operating system publishers?
For instance, if the browser makers all started resolving certain TLDs via an alternate network, then people could start publishing websites using domains managed by that network without needing to engage with the root DNS servers at all.
It would be a start, but not all of the internet is accessed through a browser. And I'm not sure you'd get Apple and Google on board unless there was a way for them to make money from it.
Those servers are only necessary for the ICANN tlds and those will continue to act as they do today, even in a Handshake future.
With Handshake, you run your own authoritative server (or use a hosted one) for your own name and that authoritative server's information will be obtainable on chain. No middle-man, no rent seeking.
I understand how handshake works. What I'm saying is that getting my mom to point her DNS servers at an alternate server is a non-starter. You have to get the root servers on board to carry all TLDs or most people will never find them.
They aren't all in the US. Right now they remove a .com by telling Verisign, a US company, to change the registration for the .com. Since Verisign is the only way to change a .com, it works.
Many root servers operate outside of the US. If the blockchain were the authority on IP addresses, then even if they blocked the US roots the others would still have it.
Even today if all the US root servers go off-line every system would find the others and use them.
> If the blockchain were the authority on IP addresses
But it's not -- the root servers are -- by premise here. Premise is we assume zero config results in ICANN root servers having authority. My point is that given this premise, blockchain is ineffective. You are introducing ICANN as informational MITM and censor node in between user and blockchain validation.
True, you are excluding USA, if your only goal is exclude USA then this accomplishes that goal, but if your goal is censorship-proof then this is not it.
Installing apps is easy, built into the phone. And comes from a curated store run by a US company.
Installing plugins is well beyond the capabilities of most people, especially since the plugins for the default browsers come from a curated store run by US companies.
...Only because we (software engineers, developers, etc...) have completely failed in managing to make our field more communicable to users, and have gone down the path of complicating the hell out of things instead of nailing down the primitives and onboarding to the field.
I'm not even talking any wishy washy inclusiveness mumbo jumbo either. I'm talking over complicating the boot chain, over complicating memory management/models/toolchains.
Browsers are a living nightmare of complexity, and I am continuously amazed at the number of programmers who have no clue about the gory details of networking.
> … "and have gone down the path of complicating the hell out of things instead of nailing down the primitives and onboarding to the field."
I've thought much this same thing myself for ages now.
Not just "complicating the hell out of things" either. Complicating the hell out of things that should be simple ( or at least should be simplified, or automated, or something ). I see a lot of tedious activities in modern computing that appear to exist purely for the sake of the tedium time-wastery factor.
The flip-side of the same coin is the over-simplifying or "dumbing down" of some things that really should stay "complicated" (and hidden behind an "expert mode" toggle) to the point of allowing willfully uneducated morons to repeatedly "shoot themselves in the foot" and justify blaming everyone and everything but themselves for their error.
That sort of "computers should be an appliance like a toaster" mentality has contributed to a culture which seems convinced they should be able to magically jump from zero to "Hacker-Man" with no effort or learning required, the very same day they decide to "learn" programming.
Handshake is awful. Because they decided to allow anyone to register a TLD there's no way to determine if a name needs to be resolved with handshake other than trying to resolve it.
Yeah, IMO they should have gone the Tor route and registered `.hs` or something with ICANN and then made all Handshake domains a subdomain of that. That'd have made it way easier for software to support Handshake without breaking compatibility with traditional DNS roots.
Interesting, I had no idea they were letting anyone register data, I had initially thought the idea was for registrars to provide nodes & data to eventually phase out the current DNS architecture, ensuring no single TLD org could wipe out a domain.
The Handshake design still seems like a step in the right direction, but even with sound data, it's probably years away (if ever) for DNS resolution to "flip the switch" to use this kind of architecture.
There was a time when some used /etc/hosts whilst others used DNS. It was definitely a different time. Resolution issues with Handshake TLDs will easily be solved in time.
There are, however, other reasons why one might think Handshake isn't up to par just yet. Those reasons might be, for example, even though it completes the internet, making it significantly more secure and sovereign, the current implementations including DANE aren't as fast. Of course, this too [1] will be addressed with time.
There are highly technical people working on these problems with a heavy lean on making sure the experience is comparable if not better than today's expected experience. I think things will only get better from here.
Seems like you might be caught on the infinite abstraction escalator though, as who will manage the DNSNS (Domain Name Service NameSpaces) servers, and who'll take the onus for making the standard selector or display for the user to decide which lookup to consider canon for the request? This would actually be a pretty exciting development.
This would greatly complicate domain squatting (or maybe intensify/arms race it), and add a layer of resilience in the form of building up the interfaces required for users to maintain their own private DNS namespaces. This would conclusively shut the door in terms of centralized seizability of domains, since the user would in effect be empowered to be their own registrar.
You could even keep the traditional stuff seizable I guess. However, you'd be able to ask the fellow down the street if he still had the old DNS entry for x.y.z
yeah that was overly charitable, reality would be more like 0.00000001% of client devices. considering we now have several billion internet using cellphones and people globally.
Not that it's going to do any better but more relevant figure is the percentage of routers... those client devices just accept configuration from the upstream network.
Depends on if you look at it based on a narrative that the former-staff wanted people to hear, or if you base it on the truth [1][2]. Specifically, this person states that I was in a position to "abuse my power" at freenode, such would mean that the statements he and others made in the past saying I had nothing to do with freenode until I "came in with lawyers" untrue, no? It's probably not worth spending cycles to research, but I'll leave these links if you're interested.
That said, a person simply can't defeat the cryptographically secured names of Handshake, so even if I was the boogie man, unless I have found the One Piece of Quantum CPU and harnessed its chakra[3], I'd be hard-pressed in fulfilling the boogie man role. ;)
I look at it from the narrative that I ran a decades-old channel on Freenode, and your scripts deopped me, removed my control of the channel, and opped some rando who had never even been there before. I have no stake in any of the other posturing from either side: I had a channel with a couple hundred users, and then I did not. We had no choice but to move to another ircnet (not one operated by people dumb enough to get their network snatched from under them, either).
Handshake is yet another cryptocoin grift entirely reliant on the assumption that it will never be important enough to attack. Its anti-government-control claims are equivalent to a high-school student in Tulsa bragging that Mike Tyson is afraid to fight him -- it's not that anyone is convinced Handshake is unassailable, it's just that nobody cares.
That's unfortunate about your channel - I really do wish the former staff didn't stage a hostile take over and begin their attack on freenode. It's really unfortunate, and I'm sorry for that.
As for your comment on Handshake, you sound a lot like the opponents we used to face in the early days of crypto and the cypherpunk movement. That means we're getting somewhere! :-)
Again, the narrative one wishes to hear, but, to be clear:
[0] No different from Microsoft taking control of a repository that many relied upon.
[1] There was an active spam attack going on. [x1]
[2] IRC cloud deceptively labeled freenode a malicious network. Seemed fair to ban them since they were collecting rent from users that were using the network. Probably better than a libel lawsuit that we were recommended to file.
[3] freenode isn't subject to GDPR. Jurisdiction is an interesting topic given the scope of this thread by the way!
To be clear, I don't appreciate the perpetuation of the false narrative -- once it started to become death threats, the safety of my family elevated this to a much higher level of concern and obviously things are being investigated. As has been the same position of mine from the beginning, I continue to protect freenode and have always seeked [x2] to give ownership and control of it to the community [x3].
As I said, these are reasons that people left, not a telling of a specific narrative on whether or not you did things correctly.
As for GDPR, Jurisdiction is indeed an interesting topic, one that is less defined by laws and more gunboat diplomacy[0] - the US and EU understand this, but perhaps not Freenode Limited.
I think attorneys who specialize in this know better than you?
Sorry for the delay in response as well, you kept changing this comment to try to sway the narrative a certain way, so I had to wait until you finished your edits to make sure my reply would make sense.
Edit: In the spirit of editing comments, any continuance of this which is completely off topic is malicious at best. Best of luck to you.
I always had this question and perhaps someone here can shine some light.
It is my understanding that under US copyright law if you own a trademark you have some grounds to sue someone else that may be using/squatting "your" domain in order to acquire it.
What would happen, though, if the owner of the domain does not live in the US, does not operate in the US, nor has any other thing to do there aside from owning a .com domain?
I'm not a us citizen. But as far as I see, money talks in courts. So if one cannot afford a good lawyer, or at least does not have a valuable domain to defend using a borrowed money, that's it. Correct me if I'm wrong.
I'm not a lawyer, but my impression is that money mostly matters in tipping the scales of a difficult case (e.g. Google v. Oracle) or in pursuing a case despite low stakes or a fundamentally weak legal position. Someone with a strong, high-stakes case can typically get a lawyer to take it on contingency.
That's why we offer .onion addresses for our services (websites, APIs, everything). These addresses connect customers to tor/onion services hosted on our property. Customers who need to keep disruption at a minimum are advised to implement tor access as a fallback.
I firmly believe that automated DMCA-style processes (and other slow, guilty-until-proven-innocent schemes) are going to become more prevalent around the world. Defending against all of them in a timely manner will become impossible for all but the biggest of players. Smaller players will have to use services like Tor to have any semblance of reliability.
Disclaimer: We're a registered llc (not US-based), and all our activities are 100% legitimate in most jurisdictions including the US.
The words we use are important, because public opinion tends to matter quite a bit with these things, and public opinion is shaped immensely by words and their connotations (remember death panels?). If sci-hub is said to aid in the pirating of papers, it is doomed. If instead its purpose is said to be to make publicly-funded research accessible to the public for the benefit of all, then there's at least a slightly better chance of its surviving.
I think it's possible it could be considered piracy in the US, but not all countries follow these same rules nor schools of thought.
The issue is that the jurisdiction bleeds into others' jurisdictions that might have different rules on these types of things, but the US doesn't really care since it has absolute power and exercises its authority over those outside of its jurisdiction.
I'm aware of one, and if it's the one I'm thinking of, he didn't so much "give his life for the cause" as tragically commit suicide because he couldn't see a way out of legal pressure put on him (which other people have had put on them and didn't commit suicide over; depression is a terrible disease).
Is there someone else you're referring to that I haven't heard of?
> I'm aware of one, and if it's the one I'm thinking of, he didn't so much "give his life for the cause" as tragically commit suicide because he couldn't see a way out of legal pressure put on him (which other people have had put on them and didn't commit suicide over; depression is a terrible disease).
You have described someone as having a weakness and committed suicide where others didn't. For you to know what was going on in whoever you speak of's mind is interesting to me to say the least.
That said, I don't know anyone like that; so I wasn't referring to the same person as you probably.
Ah, I follow. Since the topic was Sci-Hub, I assumed you were referring to Aaron Swartz specifically; I'm aware of nobody else whom anyone has claimed has given their life to the cause of open access to partially publicly-funded research. Carry on.
Old article, but still relevant in that it should be seen as a reminder of the sorts of political and corporate Internet "fuckery" that we should all always be on the lookout for.
Something something … "forget history" … "doomed to repeat past mistakes" ~ Someone Famous
The actual title is: "US claims all .com and .net websites are in its jurisdiction" which is virtually the same as the title of the HN thread.
The literal first sentence is:
"THE US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) wants to take down web sites that use the .com and .net top level domains (TLD) regardless of whether their servers are based in the US."
I’m agreeing with you? I’m saying that the HN title “claims jurisdiction over all sites even if outside the US” is way more sensational than the US gov’t telling a
US based registrar to remove entries pointing to sites hosted outside the US.
This is why we need decentralized DNS. Sure you can subscribe to ICANNs list, or create your own TLDs, or pin domains to something ICANN doesn't agree with because fuck governments trying to control domains and TLDs.
I honestly can't think of a better steward. Believing that independent organizations can continue to main an infrastructure that supports trillions of dollars of economic activity is absurd. And regardless of politics, the US has the most stable and trusted rule of law in the world.
Not at all, and I say this as an American. I mean we’ve had several protests in just the last year about our legal system’s inability to function correctly.
They always have, the internet originated from U.S. defense, (was that not domain name allocation)? residing physicaly with-in a country never mattered. they still consider it ownership.
wasen't this why russia/ussr didn't adhear to US ip's on their local lan?
is this not the same as FAA wanting all the control, including foreign airspace and the space whithin your ceiling?
you physically do not have control over something but still want to say it's yours.
that's what this is, no?
About that, I don’t know why nor how but, does starlink needs authorization for all the countries their satellites fly by or only the usa? Is it becasuse the satellites are too “up” in the sky in ot her countries?
This is probably covered by the Outer Space Treaty, but in short, no. Satellites overfly many countries and if they needed permission from every country we'd have no satellites.
I imagine orbits are a thing seen not as deliberate as say, flying a U-2 plane over other airspace. Terrestial jurisdiction would be a very trying thing to enforce for space vehicles
Many states have the capability to shoot down the satellites if they violate local rules, but AFAIK whether they would actually be willing to do that is unknown.
But if you entered a country's airspace or waters without permission you'd be arrested or worse. This is more like preventing everyone from doing things that are illegal for Americans too. Meanwhile, if you operate legally, they are not claiming any control.
https://www.icann.org/en/blogs/details/cheers-to-the-multist...
https://www.icann.org/en/announcements/details/stewardship-o...