Domain Owners Lose Privacy

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Paul Levy <plevy () citizen org>
Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 16:34:43 -0500
To: <dave () farber net>, <ip () v2 listbox com>
Subject: Re: [IP] Domain Owners Lose Privacy

It is no response to a complaint about free speech violations to say
that there is some other way to speak, or to say that if you want to
remain anonymous, don't enter into any agreement with an ISP because you
always leave traces behind.  One had might as well say, don't use the
Internet either because you leave traces on the server.....

The real question, it seems to me, is presented by the third point
below -- are the concerns that are advanced as a reason for this new
rule sufficient to outweigh the imposition on speech rights?  Surely the
goal of preventing "abuse" is laudable, but is the fit between the goals
and the means tight enough?  Is there no way to accomplish the goal
without barring ANY person from staying anonymous?  How efectively does
the means accomplsih the goal?

Those are the questions that ought to be addressed .....

Paul Alan Levy
Public Citizen Litigation Group
1600 - 20th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20009
(202) 588-1000
http://www.citizen.org/litigation

> > > David Farber <dave () farber net> 03/04/05 01:53PM >>>

------ Forwarded Message
From: Rich Kulawiec <rsk () gsp org>
Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 13:36:42 -0500
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Re: [IP] Domain Owners Lose Privacy


They never had any.  Spammers have been acquiring and selling much
of this information for quite some time.

> The Electronic Privacy Information Center said the move violates
First
> Amendment rights to anonymous free speech.

Nonsense, for three reasons:

First, nobody actually NEEDS a domain name to engage in free speech,
anonymous or otherwise, on the Internet.  (Doesn't EPIC know this?)

Second, nobody who truly wants to be anonymous should even WANT a
domain
name: after all, registering it creates a record, directly traceable
to them, at their registrar.  It also -- if they, let's say, contract
for
web
hosting someplace -- creates a record there.  Those records are
available
to personnel at those companies, to anyone who can access them via
legal
discovery processes, to anyone who can penetrate registrar/host
security,
and to anyone with enough cash-in-hand to either cut a backroom deal
with registrar/host or just bribe their personnel.  (Have the latter
happened?
I have no idea.  But I think it's a legitimate question to ask how all
the
spammers that are selling CDs full of this information got their hands
on
it.)
Bottom line: registering a domain name is a dumb move if you really
want to
remain anonymous.

(Oh, and let me not forget to mention: some registrars ARE spammers.
Pop quiz: how long will "private" information entrusted to their care
stay that way?)

(Oh, one more thing, just one word: ChoicePoint.)

Third, domain names are Internet operational resources.  The Internet,
as a whole, cannot afford to permit those controlling operational
resources
to be anonymous -- because, as we've seen thousands and thousands of
times,
it's an open invitation for abuse.  Lots and lots of abuse.

Is this a pity?  Yes, it is.  But unfortunately, the failure of the
NON-abusive anonymous holders of Internet operational resources to
demand that this situation be rectified (by the only people in
position
to rectify it: the registrars) has allowed things to deteriorate so
badly that "anonymously registered domain" is becoming more and
more synonymous with "probable spam/abuse source domain".

By the way: an excellent rule-of-thumb is that any domain registered
in
the .us TLD which is _not_ part of a geographic hierarchy (e.g.
k12.pa.us)
is suspect.  Oh, I've found a few such domains that are legitimate:
I've also found over 1200 belonging to well-known, prolific spammer
Steve Goudreault.

---Rsk


------ End of Forwarded Message


-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as PLEVY () citizen org
To manage your subscription, go to
  http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at:
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/

------ End of Forwarded Message


-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org
To manage your subscription, go to
  http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/