Verisign (Read ICANN) Seeks Internet Kill-Switch

[Rexibit]

So, since the PROTECT IP Act (Internet Blacklist Bill v2) has been stalled in the Senate for the last few months, Verisign, which controls domain registration, is seeking their own private version that would allow the Government the ability to suggest websites to go on a list to be taken offline.

Undoubtedly this won't just stop with the Government, but would be open to lobbying and large corporations too. We all know what a pain Spamhaus is with E-mail marketing, no reason to have it spread to actual sales pages.

The war rages on. A private company wants its own Internet Kill Switch: Verisign controls the assignment of .com and .net domain names -- and makes nearly $700 million each year to do it. Now it's seeking the power to take down websites whenever governments wants them censored.

It could implement the Internet Blacklist Bill that's pending before Congress. And it could help governments censor political speech abroad -- or, eventually, here in the United States.

Sign Petition & Take Action

 

[Crynos]

I just got the email from Demand Progress. Everyone in this industry (or in general) needs to sign the petition and yell at Verisign, etc.

 

[Kstanki2]

It's looking grim for freedom of information. What ever happened to ACTA?

Would they be able to shut down .onion sites?

 

[Rexibit]

Would they be able to shut down .onion sites?

I'm not certain about the Verisign version, I haven't read all they propose yet.

However, the PROTECT IP Act was going to apply their Kill-Switch at the DNS level, so .onion would be affected as everything passes through only a few central DNS hubs.

 

[-joe-]

I'm not certain about the Verisign version, I haven't read all they propose yet.

However, the PROTECT IP Act was going to apply their Kill-Switch at the DNS level, so .onion would be affected as everything passes through only a few central DNS hubs.

Are you sure? I can't say I 100% understand the DNS system, but I was under the impression .onion doesn't touch any DNS servers.

.onion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Rexibit]

Are you sure? I can't say I 100% understand the DNS system, but I was under the impression .onion doesn't touch any DNS servers.

.onion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Theoretically a pseudo TLD shouldn't be able to be taken down since it's just a mask for how to route to a site on I2P, TOR, etc., but the site is still hosted on a server somewhere that requires access to the Internet, and that routes packets through the main DNS hubs. They only need to know where the traffic ends up and they could block access to that point.

I could be wrong, but I'm fairly certain it could be done. Networks like TOR just make it a lot harder to take down.

 

[Flash4Ever]

And as another gift from Verisign, they'll increase .COM prices of 7% by january 2012.