
The End of the DreamHost vs. DOJ privacy case - yoda_sl
http://www.dreamhost.com/blog/the-end-of-the-road/
======
ENOTTY
Is this really a win for DreamHost (and other internet service providers)?

> DreamHost has been deputized to redact sensitive information

If DH was deputized to do this on behalf of the government, what limits are
there to deputizing DH to do something else, possibly more nefarious, on
behalf of the government? Why can't the DoJ now "deputize" Apple to produce
the iOS with the backdoor?

Also important, who pays for the employee time for this? What about the
opportunity cost of moving an employee off of her main duties onto this other
duty that has no revenue benefit? Did this ruling just create an unfunded
mandate for private businesses?

> We see this as an absolute victory not just for DreamHost, but for online
> service providers throughout America and for internet users around the
> world.

I think this statement requires far more analysis before it can be made.

EDIT: Oh good, Orin Kerr has started tweeting about this. I'd trust his
judgment on the legal matters more than my armchair lawyering.
[https://twitter.com/OrinKerr/status/917923510462435328](https://twitter.com/OrinKerr/status/917923510462435328)

~~~
foolfoolz
they could have appealed again. what is the cost of their legal team?

complying with laws and regulations is a cost of doing business in the any
country

~~~
ENOTTY
I think lawyer time is quantifiable so that's one thing.

But the cost of moving a developer over to satisfy the DoJ's request is
practically unquantifiable. Say DH has a dev team of 10. One of them moves
over to implement the DoJ search protocol and develop redaction scripts. Do
the other 9 now work this person's workload?

Or does DH bring in a new developer? Now DH has to train this person up. We
all know, as programmers, that a new developer to a team induces a temporary
drag on performance.

Anyways, I think Apple covered this hypothetical in their response brief to
the FBI request.

~~~
krisdol
Again, this just sounds like the cost of doing business. You’re not always
going to be able to have everyone working on the ideal goals. Sometimes a
developer will have to be working with auditors (be they from the private or
public sector) or lawyers on something other than their typical project.

I also don’t think a search protocol would be a part of this request, as much
as a dump of redacted data.

------
kbutler
Not having experience with disruptj20:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisruptJ20](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisruptJ20)

DisruptJ20 (also Disrupt J20), a Washington, D.C.-based political organization
founded in July 2016 and publicly launched on November 11 of the same year,
stated its initial aim as protesting and disrupting events of the presidential
inauguration of the 45th U.S. President, Donald Trump, which occurred on
January 20, 2017. The protests organized and encouraged by the DisruptJ20
group were a part of a wider array of protests initiated by a variety of
individuals and groups, in Washington, DC and nationwide; from a more
extensive initial plan, deployments by DisruptJ20 at the inauguration
eventually included efforts, at least, to blockade one bridge, and to attempt
to shut down security checkpoints.

\---

I don't care either way about disruptj20, but I appreciate DreamHost's
efforts, and the intervention by the court to curtail the overly broad demand
for information.

~~~
sillysaurus3
Can anyone point out how blockading a bridge could possibly lead to political
change?

The only scenario that seems obvious is if the police overreact and shoot some
of the protesters. That would cause a massive public outcry and bring their
cause to the front and center stage.

What are some other ways that blocking a bridge could be productive?

~~~
dfabulich
It's a protest. Protests work. For example, this paper used rainfall as a
source of exogenous variation to measure the effect of the Tea Party protests.

[https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-
abstract/128/4/1633/184...](https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-
abstract/128/4/1633/1849540/Do-Political-Protests-Matter-Evidence-from-the-
Tea?redirectedFrom=fulltext)

 _Can protests cause political change, or are they merely symptoms of
underlying shifts in policy preferences? We address this question by studying
the Tea Party movement in the United States, which rose to prominence through
coordinated rallies across the country on Tax Day, April 15, 2009. We exploit
variation in rainfall on the day of these rallies as an exogenous source of
variation in attendance. We show that good weather at this initial,
coordinating event had significant consequences for the subsequent local
strength of the movement, increased public support for Tea Party positions,
and led to more Republican votes in the 2010 midterm elections. Policy making
was also affected, as incumbents responded to large protests in their district
by voting more conservatively in Congress. Our estimates suggest significant
multiplier effects: an additional protester increased the number of Republican
votes by a factor well above 1. Together our results show that protests can
build political movements that ultimately affect policy making and that they
do so by influencing political views rather than solely through the revelation
of existing political preferences._

~~~
hueving
You're conflating a protest with a protest that involves breaking the law and
risking peoples lives (blocking a road interferes with emergency services).

~~~
blowski
Oh come on. You’re suggesting that what their protesting _against_ doesn’t
break the law and risk lives? I’m not a masssive supporter of the protests,
but people’s right to protest is important, without silly limits.

------
marsrover
Wow, I didn't expect to read that and see anything positive. Good job,
Dreamhost. Maybe I should get rid of my Digital Ocean account and migrate
over.

~~~
KGIII
I'd suggest reading some of the complaints about their service and support.
They have had a whole litany of complaints that span years of operation.

In their defense, I've read that they have improved significantly - but they
had a pretty poor reputation to begin with.

While its great to support a company that fights for your rights, it's also
prudent to ensure the company meets your service needs.

So, I'd suggest reading sites like WebHostingTalk, and similar. Then, after
reading, I'd suggest interacting with them to answer questions and measure
things like initial response time. And, of course, basing your judgement on
that and not just reviews or willingness to fight for your rights.

~~~
robotpony
I've had a few servers (and previously shared hosting) at DH over the last 20
years. While they have had their fair share of major downtime, it has been on
par with Rackspace, AWS, etc., who have all had day+ events in the last.

I have heard reports of some shared servers being worse than others, but
generally I've only seen reasonable performance at a low price.

That said, I also use Digital Ocean, AWS, and Rackspace still for various
projects. Really, they're all pretty great.

~~~
KGIII
Most of the complaints I've seen have revolved around their shared hosting
environment and some support complaints. I figure it worth mentioning. I do
know there are far fewer complaints AND that they are still in business, so
they can't be too bad, can they?

But, yeah, at one point their shared hosting services had quite a reputation
and they had lots of complaints (reasonable or not) concerning getting
terminated for unreasonable resource usage when hosters felt they were in the
right.

I had a personal site with them for a few months and had some downtime that
put it below my acceptability level. They were pleasant enough to work with
and refunded the remainder of my money without any compliant. I don't recall
the exact figure but it was in the 95% uptime range.

Caveat emptor, I suppose. Refunding and moving was easy enough. I'm in the
market for hosting, again. So, maybe I'll give them another shot.

~~~
wingworks
I've been with them since 2007 and they did have some bad years, and just last
year I was getting quite a bit of downtime due to someone attaching the shared
server I was on. I asked to be moved to a different server and have had like
99% uptime since. So while there are issues now and then these days, support
does help you if you ask. Plus for what I pay, I think it's great value.

------
djsumdog
Would you defend the Daily Stormer?

[http://fightthefuture.org/article/the-new-era-of-
corporate-c...](http://fightthefuture.org/article/the-new-era-of-corporate-
censorship/)

Unpopular thoughts of the past century are accepted norms today.

~~~
latigidigital
Censorship is a blight on society, no matter the target.

 _The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one
's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive
laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is
to be stopped at all. — H. L. Mencken, US editor (1880-1956)_

~~~
thephyber
> Censorship

I, personally, think it's still debatable as to whether the DailyStormer
issues qualify as censorship.

Matthew Prince, CEO of CloudFlare, brought this topic up when they dropped
DailyStormer. There's no easy answer on how to deal with it. Is there strong
demand for a vertical monopoly in content hosting which will host any kind of
offensive content? Are legislators close to passing laws denying the right to
host a website for distasteful speech?

I would argue that censorship is an _active_ action and that what happened to
the Daily Stormer is mostly a _passive_ action.

Analogy: This is not like burning a book. It's more like every book publisher
passing on publishing the book before it's printed. Would you risk your
reputation as a book publisher just because "I don't want to censor the
author" despite not liking the content, not knowing if there was any paying
market for the book, and despite the negative press + potential boycotts of
your company? If you won't, how can you expect anyone else to do different in
similar circumstances?

The slippery slope argument is a valid concern, but is there a moral panic
spreading concerning things that are equally distasteful? Last I checked, the
Westboro Baptist Church is still on the internet with both a website and a
Twitter account. And they were used by the FBI to train agents to withstand
hateful speech while maintaining their composure.

Note: Granted, Google Domains not allowing them to transfer their domain seems
very icky, but I can see how there is no good policy for that situation.

------
twobyfour
This tiny court decision is a huge win. One that gives me hope for the future
of our democracy on a day when I was tending to despair for it.

------
djsumdog
It's interesting how DreamHost picks and chooses which opinions it defends:

[http://fightthefuture.org/article/the-new-era-of-
corporate-c...](http://fightthefuture.org/article/the-new-era-of-corporate-
censorship/)

------
mtgx
> _Under this order, we now have the ability to redact all identifying
> information and protect the identities of users who interacted with
> disruptj20.org before handing over any data to the court. Chief Judge Morin
> acknowledged that the government “does not have the right to rummage through
> the information contained on DreamHost’s website” to “discover the identity
> of . . . individuals not participating in alleged criminal activity.”_

That's interesting. Days before he left office, President Obama gave the NSA
permission to share _raw_ internet data with 16 other agencies (because of
course he did...). That data should _mostly_ include American citizens'
information.

So I wonder if the EFF or ACLU can sue the White House/DoJ over expanding
those rules, considering judges seem to not like such mass surveillance, as
exemplified in this case.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/us/politics/nsa-gets-
more...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/us/politics/nsa-gets-more-
latitude-to-share-intercepted-communications.html)

------
fareesh
Happy to see the law work it out this way. Good of Dreamhost to stand up for
privacy.

Unfortunately disrupt J20 is a violent group that promotes assault and anarchy
against conservatives, so it's important that law enforcement officials are
able to continue their investigation in some other way.

Members of this group were arrested and convicted in a plot to attack the
inauguration ball using acid in the ventilation system and other alleged
tactics.

~~~
interfixus
This is indisputably true, so I have no idea why you are downvoted. Or rather,
I _have_ an idea, but it's not a pleasant one.

There's nothing contradictory in applauding Dreamhost's attitude and victory,
while at the same time seing the disrupters for exactly what they are.

~~~
spaceseaman
The comment above you directly disputes it.

How is it indisputable? Please don't forget your citations.

------
MentallyRetired
This is amazing. Thank you, Dreamhost, for defending your customers' rights.

------
chiefalchemist
Good news.

But now, sadly, we need a service (i.e. Chrome extension?) that rates the
depth of the pockets (and the size of "the stones") of the company hosting a
site we're about to visit.

That aside, it there was smart and kbown way to picking hosting that's - more
or less - beyond the reach of such things? Would AWS have been as upstanding
as DH?

~~~
chiefalchemist
Can someone explain the reason for a down vote?

If hosting now matters, why is awareness of such things a negative?

------
deepnotderp
Not gonna lie, this headline scared me ;)

Good work Dreamhost, proud to be a customer!

~~~
drdeadringer
The headline scared me too.

To be honest, a part of me was expecting a complete company shutdown if not a
mandatory compliance order.

------
hamstercat
It's great to see Dreamhost standing up for the right of their customer's
website visitors. They don't have any financial incentive, but they still made
it right. Makes me feel secure to know where they'd be ready to go for their
own customers if you ever got targeted by an unlawful request.

------
roadbeats
The title sounds like they're shutting down. The article has a positive result
though.

------
tdeck
> We are now required to hand over a drastically reduced amount of data to the
> government and will redact any identifying information from every scrap of
> it that relates to non-subscribers.

Does anyone know what they mean by "non-subscribers"?

~~~
ssutch3
It means anyone who isn't paying for the hosting of the website.

------
drdeadringer
I have been using DreamHost for a decently long time. I signed up right around
their infamous "billing issue" around 8-9 years ago; I naively -- and luckily
-- ignored the huge red flag that was and bought in long and ard. This current
development has only solidified my enjoyment of using them as my hosting
service.

I am very glad they came out on top here and, to be honest, given recent
events mu heart was sinking when I read the title but was uplifted when I read
the content.

------
deusofnull
This is a big deal. Thank you.

------
colordrops
What is disruptj20.org? I'm afraid to visit it.

~~~
omegaworks
Disrupt J20 was a website put together for organized resistance to Donald
Trump's administration. This case is specifically tied to an overturned trash
can and mass marches that were held on inauguration day in DC.

Some background on the case:
[https://www.democracynow.org/2017/8/18/trumps_doj_demands_pe...](https://www.democracynow.org/2017/8/18/trumps_doj_demands_personal_info_on)

From Nate Cardozo, senior staff attorney at the EFF:

"The government asserts that there were crimes committed on January 20th. You
know, there was some petty vandalism or whatever. The government is claiming,
of course, felony rioting, which is another thing altogether.

So, the government’s theory of the case, laughable as it is, is that everyone
who visited J20—DisruptJ20.org did so in order to plan a crime."

230 people that participated that day were mass-arrested and 194 are
potentially facing 75 years in prison.
[http://defendj20resistance.org/](http://defendj20resistance.org/)

~~~
Natsu
You left out any mention of this video series, or the claims & counter claims
regarding it -

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHZSfhd1X_8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHZSfhd1X_8)

~~~
kevinh
James O'Keefe has a history of editing footage to make misleading or false
claims. Nothing he says should be believed.

Just look at the amount of times he has settled claims for misrepresenting
individuals and organizations:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_O%27Keefe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_O%27Keefe)

~~~
Natsu
> Just look at the amount of times he has settled claims for misrepresenting
> individuals and organizations

There appear to have been two settlements, one to Izzy Santa and one to Juan
Carlos Vera. In the ACORN videos, the guy was playing along with them and
reported the contact to the cops. As for the CNN thing, I honestly don't know
what was going on there, because the settlement was paid to one of Veritas'
own employees and the whole thing is crazy.

I understand that there were claims that this video was like the ACORN video,
incidentally. We'll know if that's what really happened or not once the police
finish their investigation and the evidence comes out at trial.

------
esotericsean
Proud to be a DH customer today. Awesome news!

~~~
drdeadringer
Same here.

------
agentultra
This makes me proud to have worked for Dreamhost. Great job friends!

------
gkanai
That is impressive! More incentive to become a Dreamhost customer.

------
betimsl
As I was reading "The end of the Dreamhost[...]". I started to feel very happy
until I realized this is not their end but something else :(

------
hoodoof
Integrity....how weird.

~~~
snitch_whorl
Now if only Cloudflare could follow suit.

------
islanderfun
Amazing results and glad they stood up. Looking into signing up!

------
fred_is_fred
I thought DH was going under when I saw that headline! Much happier result.

~~~
blakecaldwell
Yeah, me too. Terrible till.

~~~
blakecaldwell
*title

------
cperciva
Can we have the title edited so it doesn't sound like a going-out-of-business
post?

I'd suggest "The End of the DreamHost vs. DOJ privacy case".

~~~
yoda_sl
Updated to be more accurate and keeping still the initial blog title. Thanks
for the suggestion.

~~~
dang
That still has the unwanted connotation so I've adopted cperciva's suggestion.

