U.S. Government Seizes BitTorrent Search Engine Domain and More

[Amr Elsadr]

I just spoke to the owner of torrent-finder.com on the phone.  He has not
been contacted by any branch of the US Govt. and still has an open ticket
with GoDaddy who have not been able to help him in any way regarding the
status of his domain name. He also told me that he called them on the phone,
and stated that their staff seemed to be "lost" regarding what happened.

I am still confused about what is happening with the so-called seizures (or
possible hoaxes). This article in the New York Times
(http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/27/technology/27torrent.html?_r=2) states
that a spokesperson for ICE said that there HAVE been a number of
court-orders and warrants for seizures of domain names without specifying
which domain names she was referring to. She also continues to explain that
there is an ongoing investigation in the matter. Perhaps they are
investigating who is pretending to be perpetuating this act in ICE's and
DHS's name???

Amr Elsadr M.D.
Chief Operating Officer
Tele-Med International
http://www.telemedint.net
Tel: +2(023)534-6098
Fax: +2(023)534-6029

-----Original Message-----
From: NCSG-NCUC [mailto:NCSG-NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of
Jorge Amodio
Sent: Sunday, November 28, 2010 4:21 PM
To: NCSG-NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Re: U.S. Government Seizes BitTorrent Search Engine Domain and More

Everybody keeps reporting about something (a court order) but nobody
is showing it, and on the ICE, NIPR, or related sites there is no
clear indication that the reports are accurate.

Until I find/see a copy of the court order this thing looks very bogus.

All reports indicated that what was seized is the domain name, then in
that case the delegation for that particular domain should most
probably point to a DHS or similar related site.

Actually that page is located in a hosting service provider (Caronet
Managed Hosting, own by Carolina Internet in North Carolina, US), very
unlikely that DHS will use Caronet as a hosting proviider.

Now if the ICE actions were real, they should have seized also
torrent-finder.info, some may argue that .info is not under USG
jurisdiction, let me remind you that Afilias is also incorporated in
the Horsham, PA, US, and the site is hosted by a company in Dallas
Texas also under US courts jurisdiction.

It's obviously concerning when the IP community gets overreaching
powers, but is also concerning that others claim the
selling/distributing/manufacturing of counterfeit/fake/stolen stuff
(be it music, software, hardware, or armani underware) is an
expression of free-speech.

I hope we start to see some serious analysis and reports about what
happen in this particular case and stop the flow of incorrect or bogus
information.

Cheers
Jorge

2010/11/28 Rafik Dammak <rafik.dammak at gmail.com>:
> Well that is getting more fuzzy, http://j.mp/f8EClO people pretending that
> is. Elaborated hoax
>
> Rafik