
Friendly for business - llambda
http://raganwald.posterous.com/friendly-for-business
======
JangoSteve
About a quarter of the way in, I realized exactly where this was going. I
wrote a similar post under the more obvious title, "SOPA for Non-Techies" [1].
This is an excellent narrative, whereas mine is in the format of a collection
of two short essays.

Without context for this post though, it seems only the tech community would
understand the parallels being drawn (even I feel I may be overreaching in my
assumptions as to his actual purpose). The problem is, we're generally not the
ones who need convincing. Definitely a great article, though.

[1] <http://jangosteve.com/post/16074674406/sopa-for-non-techies>

~~~
drostie
Well, it's kind of hard. What they're not telling you is that the police
_actually_ called the highway squad to close off the road to your building
with the sign "Closed due to illegal activity." They also don't tell you that
it's technically legal and cheap to get the same highway squad to build a new
road to the same place, and that it only takes a day or so of waiting time --
though you cannot be sure that the same highway squad won't close it down
again, and so you pay some extra to some out-of-towner with a private lot
between you and the highway, to build their own exit to your place.

Nuances like that are pretty specific to the cases that we're dealing with
here.

Also there is the problem that it's totally a mistake and is silently reversed
some days later -- yet nobody compensates you for the lost business or even
apologizes for the horrible stain on your reputation. People instead blame you
for choosing to open the mall on the west side of the town, which is more
popular for businesses but the highway department on that side is well-known
for handling these sorts of requests in a generally poor fashion, caving in
under a minimum of pressure and not keeping you in the loop, and so forth.

------
ajsharp
Fan-fricking-tastic. Thank you for writing this. This should be syndicated in
the Times, WSJ, and every local newspaper in the country -- maybe then people
would get it. Great piece.

~~~
jtheory
Yes, but with the caveat that it would have to include explicit commentary
about what's going on with domain name seizures, because unfortunately most
regular folk won't automatically make the leap.

------
jakeonthemove
You know, it's this kind of citizen journalism/reporting and outcries that
makes me think the US has a high chance to get back on the right track in a
couple of years.

There are so many entrepreneurs and businesses, and people are so eager to be
actively involved in something that when something like this happens, a
shtickstorm tornado rises against the powers that be and it's very hard to
quell it.

This article and other similar pieces need to get into the mainstream media,
and then things will start to change - just like they did with SOPA and other
laws.

I've seen no other country where media holds such a power - the UK and the
rest of EU, Russia, China and Japan, they're all much worse in these regards
and yet you don't hear this much of an outcry over a few seized
domains/servers or even physical property.

Hopefully the big corporations that lobby everything to their will and rampant
elements in the US government will be brought back under control - the sooner,
the better...

~~~
a_a_r_o_n
"You know, it's this kind of citizen journalism/reporting and outcries that
makes me think the US has a high chance to get back on the right track in a
couple of years."

Maybe. But we're talking about seizing domains, and domains is where all this
pesky citizen journalism is happening. Could go either way.

------
nirvana
I think this is a really great essay. I love the hook how I first thought he
was going to be talking about the nature of businesses and why real estate is
a good investment and probably give us some startup advice derived from
looking at real estate.

I am an old fart so it is sometimes difficult for me to judge how much young
whippersnappers know about the history of these things. But in my lifetime
(I'm sure an even older fart can point to even earlier history) this kind of
government seizure of property started in the 1980s when Ronald Reagan signed
into a law the concept of "Civil Asset Forfeiture". At the time there were
lots of stories in the news media about drug lords and how big their mansions
were etc. The MegaUpload stories about all the cars, etc are in the same vein.
This law was pitched as "denying drug dealers the profits from their criminal
activity". (Nevermind that drug dealing is not criminal activity in the US at
the federal level- the constitution doesn't authorize regulation of
substances, which is why for prohibition they needed a constitutional
amendment....but also due to prohibition they learned that making things legal
under the constitution was a huge pain in the butt and why not simply ignore
it? What's the odds that a supreme court filled completely with appointees
from the two parties will overturn unconstitutional laws passed by those same
two political parties?) In the same way, seizing domain names is not
authorized by the constitution either. It doesn't even make logical sense
(e.g.: someone selling counterfeit jerseys- ok, raid the warehouse and seize
the counterfeit products, you can make an argument for that, but a domain name
is not physical property, and it could be used for any number of things.) Many
of the domains that have been stolen were engaging in literal free speech--
like the hip hop blog that was talking about hip hop music[1]. That's
unquestionably speech. Worse, the music they were sharing was given to them by
record labels as part of their promotional efforts, so it wasn't even engaged
in copyright infringement!

Anyway, of course in the early years you heard about drug dealers getting
busted and all their money taken. Then it started being biker dudes at
airports flying across state lines to go buy (and drive back) the harley
davidson they've always wanted (saw that on 20/20 in the 1990s) then it
started being the guy who sells silver coins with Ron Paul's face on them,
having $6M in Gold, Platinum and Silver stolen by the FBI, as punishment for
suing the government to get a ruling that his business was legal after a
government employee (of the US mint, which was in competition with him via
their production of Silver Eagles) said it wasn't.

Then it was the guy you went to high school with, who is now a doctor and who
has this wacky notion that chronically ill people should not live out their
last years in massive pain and so he prescribes sufficient pain medications to
relieve their suffering, only to be raided by the DEA, have all of his assets,
his house, car, his wires car, all of his money, his savings, all of his
stocks, seized as part of the raid. Forced to sign a confession, and go to
prison, as part of a deal where they don't also prosecute all of his employees
and his wife, leaving his children as "wards of the state". Of course part of
the reason he had to sign the confession is, with all of his assets seized, he
was unable to pay for a lawyer. Don't I remember something about legal
representation being a right? All because some non-doctor decided he was
giving patients-- who literally were dying, these weren't junkies-- too many
drugs for their pain.

Imagine how many people with serious pain in the USA suffer because their
doctors are afraid to give them the correct dosage lest they too have their
lives destroyed by the DEA? And of course, since the DEA is conducting
surveillance, they know the average prescription for given conditions, which,
reduced by fear, means that it must continually ratchet lower and lower. This
is barbaric.

Naturally, since police agencies get to keep the money they steal, this has
resulted in more than one county sheriff operating literal highway robbery
schemes whereby they pull over people with out of state plates-- tourists--
and seize anything of significant value they find on them. I don't know if
they bother planting a tiny amount of drugs n the car anymore or not...

And of course, this has been going on, in increasingly worse degrees since the
1980s. But the news report always points out that the "accused" who had his
money stolen was "charged with possession" or some other crime. Nowadays its
the even more vague accusation of planning terrorism.

The thing is this-- this is not accidental. This is not just a weakness in the
system. This is the design of the system. This is completely deliberate. This
is a situation created with malice and forethought.

"Do you think that we want those laws to be observed? We want them broken.
There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power the government has is the
power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one
makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes
impossible for men to live without breaking laws." -- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

[1] Alas I don't remember the name, but I read about it on torrent freak.com
back when the first round of domains were stolen.

~~~
cynicalkane
You're at least wrong about the prohibition thing. Prohibition was enacted via
amendment because it occurred before Wickard v Filburn, which held that
Congress has powers to regulate intrastate commercial activity as part of a
program of interstate commerce. This extends to drugs (obvious example:
Gonzales v Raich)

Now you're going to say that Wickard is unconstitutional, but that constitutes
a libertarian-fundamentalist rewriting of how American jurisprudence works.
Maybe you think it ought to be unconstitutional, but when you say it "is"
unconstitutional you're not telling the truth, you're telling us what you
think and pretending it's the truth.

There's a whole bunch else about your post that's plainly wrong or misleading
(the stuff about the gold coins for instance) but I omit them for the sake of
brevity. In general your post is a rant. I see you posting a lot about
libertarianism when it's off-topic, uncalled for, or perhaps called for but
you're wrong anyway. Finally I think the tolerance and celebration of these
views--hardcore, far-out, and relatively uninformed--in the tech community is
a discrediting force when it comes to actually fighting the content industry.

~~~
nirvana
"that constitutes a libertarian-fundamentalist rewriting of how American
jurisprudence works"

Also known as accurately representing what the document literally says. I find
it really amusing that people pretend that the constitution is some vague
indecipherable document that requires court cases to "interpret". It isn't,
its written in quite plain english.

I'm sorry that the facts of reality, and the ultimate legal document in the
country, disagree with your ideology. I'm sorry that your ideology leaves you
ill equipped to make a counter argument, and thus instead choose to
characterize me personally.

The definition of libertarianism is "Someone who believes in the nonaggression
principle." I'm not afraid to stand behind my principles, though you have not
mentioned what ideology leads you to attack me in this way. Whatever it is,
obviously you want to initiate force against innocent people[1], so, by
definition, you'll never have the moral high ground.

I am, however, quite fascinated that, despite people being obviously against
the non-aggression principle, that I've yet to meet one who can make a counter
argument against it. I really wonder why that is so. I can defend my arguments
against attacks on them, but always it is the case that opponents attack me,
instead of my arguments. The only possible reason I can think of for that is
that my opponents follow ideologies the are not based on principle, but are
instead a collection of beliefs that they swallow whole. That would explain
why they cannot defend them, or construct counter arguments to philosophically
based positions, such as mine.

All they seem to be capable of mustering is name calling-- like you called me
"far out" "uninformed" "wrong", "misleading", "fundamentalist", etc, without
never once backing up these claims, making them essentially pure ad hominem.

If your ideology is strong enough to hold such sway over your thinking, why
doesn't it provide you with arguments you can make on the facts, and to the
point?

Calling me names is really easy. But who do you expect to persuade that way?
People who already agree with you?

[1] Because if you didn't, you'd have no motivation to hate libertarianism
with such fervor. All libertarian positions derive from this principle, and
this principle can be derived philosophically from basic moral premises. When
I first became aware of it, I figured it would quickly sweep the nation-- as
the idea of not using violence against the innocent seems compellingly right.
However, I've been forced to accept that many people, either because they are
taught it, or maybe just by their nature, actually do want to use violence
against other people for their own profit. And that's sad. But its also
embarrassing and so nobody wants to admit it, and so maybe that is why you
chose to call me names.

~~~
llambda
"All they seem to be capable of mustering is name calling-- like you called me
"far out" "uninformed" "wrong", "misleading", "fundamentalist", etc, without
never once backing up these claims, making them essentially pure ad hominem."

Wrong. This is no ad hominem, this is you, nirvana, trying to reframe the
discussion to your benefit: The OP explicitly says these things in regard to
your "views" and the "post", not you[1]. It's only you who insists on
characterizing yourself as the victim here. Rather than actually responding to
the criticism of the content of your post you instead try to reframe the
discussion as an attack on you (which it clearly is not) as opposed to an
evaluation of our views (which it clearly is). Too bad you never seem to
actually address criticism of your ideology and instead leave with the cop
out, "You can't disprove my opinions to myself so therefore I must be right."

Really disappointing to see this kind of shenanigans on HN.

[1] "There's a whole bunch else about _your post_ that's plainly wrong or
misleading...In general _your post_ is a rant...Finally I think the tolerance
and celebration of _these views_ \--hardcore, far-out, and relatively
uninformed--in the tech community is a discrediting force..." These are
related to the "post" or the "views" and not the person making or holding
them.

~~~
nirvana
"Your post is fascist, and your views are mindless, based on an unthinking
ideology which has, at its core, the exploitation of the innocent for your own
personal gain."

The above sentence is addressing your post, your views and your ideology, in
the same way you claim he was addressing my "post" and my "views". (and my
ideology).

It is a painfully transparent way to call you "fascist", "mindless",
"unthinking", "exploitative" and "evil".

If he were actually addressing my points, he could rebut them. To rebut them,
requires several elements. First he has to honestly accept what I'm saying--
thus knocking down a strawman is not actually addressing a point, and thus not
rebutting it. Second he has to bring facts, logic or reason to show why the
point is in error. Simply calling the point names (as you claim he is doing)
is not actually rebuttal. He didn't respond to my point at all, he
misrepresented it characterize me and then characterized me, while pretending
not to.

I saw thru it. It seems silly that you'd think that, having seen thru it, I
would suddenly think otherwise. I think the motivation of your response is
also that you disagree with me, but rather than rebut my points, you're
jumping into the flay because he made it personal.

Nothing convinces me of the correctness of my perspective like my opponents
fear of it.

------
billpatrianakos
Thing is, moving locations isn't going to help. When you're operating on the
web that's you're neighborhood and a change of domain name won't keep this
from happening again nor will it make it harder or less pleasant for them to
do.

Maybe we should pass some more laws to solve the problem... (I hope I don't
have to clarify that that last bit was sarcasm)

~~~
freshhawk
Ah yes, because the internet is the .com's and the united states owns the
internet.

You might want to check your assumptions before stating something with that
much certainty. There are, occasionally, things outside your borders worth
thinking about.

~~~
billpatrianakos
US registrars do register foreign domains. If a US based registrar gives you a
.de domain and the Feds ask your registrar to shut down your site I wouldn't
be surprised if they did regardless of which registry controls the domain.

It's comforting to think that you're safe outside the US but you aren't. The
US government is running a global empire. We may know the Internet is
international but as far as the US is concerned they think they own it. When
the US is no longer the power it is (and though it may seem prime to fall it
is still a superpower) we won't be safe. All we can do is hope that whoever we
register with is willing to put up a fight but not all countries are.

Besides that theres more than just the TLD to think about. It's the registrar,
registry, your residence, and, if applicable, the location your company is
registered. Unless you pay careful attention to all those details there will
be a way to shut you down.

~~~
nirvana
Can you recommend a foreign registrar? I'm with a US Based one that started
out great, but has been acquired twice now, by increasingly less relevant
sounding businesses.

I've been looking for a foreign based registrar, preferably in the EU or
iceland, that has really good domain management tools (my biggest problems
with registrars are twofold- first many of them seem like fly by night
operations, and the second is that their tools for managing domains are often
very poor.)

I have a large number of domains to manage.

~~~
sivers
I use and highly recommend these two:

#1 = <http://www.gandi.net/> \- in France - with a lot of integrity. See
<https://www.gandi.net/no-bullshit> Their domain management tools are great.

#2 = <http://www.domaindiscount24.net/> \- in Germany - the registrar for
thepiratebay.org - that didn't shut it down despite many threats. Their domain
management tools are ugly and cluttered, but work well once you get used to
it.

... also ...

#3 = <http://www.hover.com/> \- in Canada - the retail front-end to
OpenSRS/Tucows - a great reputable company around since 1994.

