Mozilla Refuses to Drop Domain Seizure Circumvention App

Scott Bullock

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Nov 11, 2010
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Mozilla Refuses to Drop Domain Seizure Circumvention App

Mozilla, in a gutsy display, has denied the Department of Homeland Security's request to remove an add-on that gets around domain seizures.

Back in November, the Department of Homeland Security seized the domains of a bunch of websites [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/105661-Homeland-Security-Seizes-Dozens-of-Piracy-Websites] that were supposedly contributing to online piracy. This was but a minor setback to many of the sites, who promptly got a new domain name and hosted the site anew, albeit with a different address. To keep track of these domain changes and send users to the right place, MafiaaFire Redirector was created and posted to the Mozilla add-on marketplace.

As a blatant method of circumventing the take-down, Homeland Security was understandably displeased, and asked Mozilla to remove the add-on. Though Mozilla claims its policy is to comply with warrants and court orders, the company has refused. Mozilla's lawyer, Harvey Anderson, asked Homeland Security on his blog [http://lockshot.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/homeland-security-request-to-take-down-mafiaafire-add-on/] if taking down MafiaaFire was a legal requirement or just a request, as the legality of MafiaaFire circumventing a government ordered take-down was not made clear.

Anderson also said that if the DHS comes back with an order to take the add-on down, they may be stretching the law. "One of the fundamental issues here is under what conditions do intermediaries accede to government requests that have a censorship effect and which may threaten the open Internet," he said. "In this case, the underlying justification arises from content holders' legitimate desire to combat piracy. The problem stems from the use of these government powers in service of private content holders when it can have unintended and harmful consequences."

The developer of the add-on has stated that he created it because he believes that many of the seizures were illegally done, a sentiment shared by many. The dev is currently in the process of creating a version of the add-on for Google's Chrome browser, and has made the program open source, making it even harder for the DHS to prevent the circumnavigation of the domain seizures.

Homeland Security has not yet responded to Anderson's questions.

Source: Geeks Are Sexy [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/05/mozilla-resists-us-govt-request-to-nuke-mafiaafire-add-on.ars]



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Gigano

Whose Eyes Are Those Eyes?
Oct 15, 2009
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Way to go Mozilla.

...Not that those sites are probably anything worth visiting. But freedom of information is no trivial matter, and such censorship against an application - to the extent it should exist - should certainly go through a thorough legal evaluation in a court of law, not be handed out by the administrative branch at the request of private companies.
 

Booze Zombie

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Dec 8, 2007
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America doesn't have jurisdiction on the internet, I don't really see how they could legally do this.
 

Jinxey

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Nov 10, 2008
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Booze Zombie said:
America doesn't have jurisdiction on the internet, I don't really see how they could legally do this.
As the American Gov. invented the internet (read: the army) I'm pretty sure there's a strong case that they do have jurisdiction on the internet.
 

sheic99

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Oct 15, 2008
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Booze Zombie said:
America doesn't have jurisdiction on the internet, I don't really see how they could legally do this.
They do have it on the sites whose domain is in the US.
 

Therumancer

Citation Needed
Nov 28, 2007
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I'm a big supporter of Homeland Security, and actually felt that "The Patriot Act" does not go far enough in what it needs to do. I supported Gitmo, and all kinds of things that make left wingers uneasy to even think about.... however in reading this, and similar things, I can't help but say "WTF Is Homeland Security doing involved in this?". There is no justification for using what is supposed to be an organization intended to defend the country against terrorist threats, acting as a punkhammer for anti-piracy slapfights. It's sort of like how the definition of "Terrorism" is extended and trampled on to deal with any kind of major case that law enforcement needs a bit more oomph with.

It's like this, unless Homeland Security can prove that there is some direct connection to terrorism, they need to butt out. By this I don't just mean hypothetical exploitation by terrorists.

It's this kind of irresponsibility, and the breadth of operations of "Homeland Security" that cause people to have so many problems with them. I believe such organizations can operate without abuses of their authority, or taking undue advantage of a broad mandate, but actions like this certainly make my defense of them being a lot more difficult. Piracy revolves around private businesses losing money, NOT about threats to our nation as a whole, Homeland Security has no part being involved here, heck there are plenty of criminal cases that they get involved in where they shouldn't besides this.

I might not care for piracy, but this while thing just generally stinks. Piracy might be wrong, but you can commit greater wrongs in the course of going after it, and abusing authority given to deal with terrorists so some company can save a few bucks is one of
those greater evils.
 

rickynumber24

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Feb 25, 2011
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Imperator_DK said:
Way to go Mozilla.

...Not that those sites are probably anything worth visiting. But freedom of information is no trivial matter, and such censorship against an application - to the extent it should exist - should certainly go through a thorough legal evaluation in a court of law, not be handed out by the administrative branch at the request of private companies.
Everything I'd have to say has already been said here, I think.
 

Baradiel

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Mar 4, 2009
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Go Mozilla! I can't stand the way the internet is getting policed by America. I truly hate it.
 

Braedan

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Sep 14, 2010
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AnythingOutstanding said:
Anonymous is going to be pissed at DHS.
Round 1.

FIGHT


DHS has no business trying to police the Internet.

Edit: not that I think anonymous should take on DHS... but that would be hilarious to watch.
 

Baradiel

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Mar 4, 2009
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sheic99 said:
Booze Zombie said:
America doesn't have jurisdiction on the internet, I don't really see how they could legally do this.
They do have it on the sites whose domain is in the US.
But not on, say, TV Shack. The offices are in Sweden and the servers are in Australia. Where is their jurisdiction there?

Not trying to be inflammatory, but this sort of thing seriously irritates me.
 

sheic99

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Oct 15, 2008
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Baradiel said:
sheic99 said:
Booze Zombie said:
America doesn't have jurisdiction on the internet, I don't really see how they could legally do this.
They do have it on the sites whose domain is in the US.
But not on, say, TV Shack. The offices are in Sweden and the servers are in Australia. Where is their jurisdiction there?

Not trying to be inflammatory, but this sort of thing seriously irritates me.
I'm no lawyer, but that can't be legal.
 

TheEvilCheese

Cheesey.
Dec 16, 2008
1,151
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Thank you Mozilla.

While Piracy may be hurting the music/TV/Film/Gaming industries, blocking sites and seizing domains because corporations with a vested interest say you should isn't the way to go.

I hate to be the one to say it, but clever people will always be able to get data for free.
 

Snotnarok

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Nov 17, 2008
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Why bother taking it down? Pirates will always find away and if it's not through a mozilla add-on, it'll be through a 3rd party program that will be just as easy to find.
 

RA92

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Jan 1, 2011
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Jinxey said:
Booze Zombie said:
America doesn't have jurisdiction on the internet, I don't really see how they could legally do this.
As the American Gov. invented the internet (read: the army) I'm pretty sure there's a strong case that they do have jurisdiction on the internet.
Yeah, and since the Luftwaffe made the first operational jet fighter, all the jet fighters in the world belong to the Nazis.

If the domains are not in the US, Homeland Security has no jurisdiction over them.