Yesterday when I wrote about more domain names being seized by Homeland Security and the ICE division, one of the domain names in the list was Mooo.com . Mooo is owned by the administrator of Afraid.org and they offer FreeDNS services. Somewhat similar to what several services like WordPress.org and Blogger.com etc. offers.
People often wish to use these services because they are free and settle on a subdomain instead of building a stand alone website on their own domain name. I have never thought this was a good idea and this just adds another reason why!
Mooo.com was seized likely because of one or two "bad apples" but since some 80,000+ subdomains called Mooo.com home, they all were effected! The following is from an anonymous email sent to me that brought the attention of what Mooo offered:
"So it was to everyone’s surprise that ICE seized mooo.com on Friday and added a Child Pornography related seizure notice on over 83,000 subdomains hosted there. There was no warning. Here’s a reaction from someone who ran a blog on their mooo.com subdomain:
http://stop-error.xanga.com/741136585/from-the-blithering-idiots-department/
After about 26 hours they decided to unseize mooo.com (due to TTL it could take effect +3 days later in some parts of the world). But the damage was already done. Some people had to explain to visitors of their blogs that they weren’t pedophiles. ICE totally screwed up this time and risked peoples reputations and possibly lives. Vigilante justice is often acted upon accused pedophiles.
The child pornography warning graphic that was displayed
You can view FreeDNS’s admin mention the seizure here
https://freedns.afraid.org/news/
You can see how many subdomains are on mooo.com here (84,669 now) third domain down in the list at time of posting
https://freedns.afraid.org/domain/registry/?sort=4&q=
I know for certain that mooo.com was targeted and that warning label was specifically put on it, because they have to set up each domain to show a different graphic. Suspected copyright infringers get the copyright warning, suspected child pornography traffickers get the child pornography.
Even though they unseized the domain name they didn’t bother to remove the pointer, so adding a mooo.com entry to your HOSTS file and pointing it to 74.81.170.110 will still show the child pornogaphy warning graphic.
Because of this blunder, they’ve decided to only announce 18 of the 24 domains seized last week. No apology to their potential thousands of victims. ICE needs to stop sticking their chest out and putting those warning labels up. Their careless actions should cause alarm to anyone who owns or uses a free/shared web host, subdomain or dns provider."
I think this shows another good reason why to host your own website on your own domain name and not tie yourself to a "free" service that in some way ties you to others who use it as well. Here is how to install a WordPress blog with your own domain and your own hosting if you have never done it before.
Update: Here is an official PR from DHS.gov . The PR doesn’t include the list of domains.
tim davids
it also shows a good reason to cut Government spending to the bone.
Michael
+1 Tim Davids
Hey Jamie……you should send this to some media outlets….they might pick up on it.
They should….it’s our freedom that ICE and Mr. Morton is treading on.
Granted, what they are trying to stop is a disgusting plague, but when they urinate on the constitution then all bets are off on being called out on it.
RKB
Check this out:
Can Google Be Seized By ICE?
http://www.copyhype.com/2011/02/can-google-be-seized-by-ice/
Jamie Zoch
@RKB,
I wrote about that on Feb 3, 2011 (not the interview part, but the idea of it) http://www.dotweekly.com/will-ice-seize-google-com-bing-com-and-yahoo-com-next
RKB
@Jamie
Sorry, I somehow missed that.
Thanks for the follow up on this issue.
It is quite bothersome and potentially risky for domainers if feds just start seizing/closing domains/websites like that.
Jamie Zoch
@RKB,
No problem! I was just showing that I wondered that not that long ago as well.
Elliander
If company *A* is operating a company selling children’s clothing, and company *B* is a child pornography ring and both companies have domains under company *C* and then because of actions against company *B* all domains under company *C* implies the site was shut down because of child pornography, wouldn’t that tarnish the image of company *A* to impact potential sales long after the website is restored?
If I owned an online store and someone used my own website to slander my company image by accusing me of child pornography to my customers while disrupting all sales I would consider that individual or group responsible for damages. The government should thus be subject to a class action lawsuit.
If “Protect IP” becomes law wouldn’t a scenario similar to the above become commonplace? Since it would let the ISP decide how to implement the blocking it can choose to target a single IP address but company *C* uses the same IP address for both company *A* and *B* meaning your local ISP can impose a de facto domain seizure affecting sales in another way but since another ISP might choose another method it could remain active where the server is located preventing a company from even knowing how many customers are cut off. So how exactly are authorities trying to keep it from happening again while trying to make it an everyday occurrence?