

Judge: Bomb victims can't seize Iran's domain name as compensation - mnw21cam
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/13/dc_court_cctlds_not_attachable_property/

======
mnw21cam
Interesting comment in the article - someone said that it would instructive to
see what would happen if the court had handed the domain over. The rest of the
world would view the update as a global attack on the integrity of the DNS
system and start ignoring DNS updates from the US.

While I am not 100% convinced that this would actually happen (it might, but
might not), it would at least be technically possible to change what everyone
in the US sees when they look a .ir domain. Could have been a popcorn moment.

~~~
xorcist
I absolutely think they would.

This is related to why DNSSEC detractors think it is equivalent of handing the
ICANN your key pair, by way of acquiring the TLD.

Turns out it's not that easy in practice.

------
JoshTriplett
The most important bit in this ruling, I think:

> Since these are ongoing services, the judge then argues that because a ccTLD
> is being constantly changed and updated it can be viewed as an "ongoing
> contractual arrangement that necessarily requires continued work or services
> to have value". Because of this it cannot be "attached" to a lawsuit under
> Washington DC law.

------
danbruc
Nine people injured and they ask for millions while families in Afghanistan
are compensated with $5000 per collateral fatality (and if I remember
correctly there was at least one case where it was $200 per killed and $75 per
wounded). This doesn't sound like justice to me. Yes, it is a bit apples and
oranges, but then again the people were just civilians in the wrong place at
the wrong time.

Addendum: I am aware that this is quite a bit off-topic, but I just had that
thought how kind of ridiculous it is, to go to such lengths to get financial
compensations while the state will just hand you a couple hundred or thousand
dollars and case closed.

~~~
Crito
Is _" Nine people injured and they ask for millions"_ problematic because of
_" families in Afghanistan are compensated with $5000 per collateral
fatality"_? Or is _" families in Afghanistan are compensated with $5000 per
collateral fatality"_ problematic? Are we trying to drag the value of a human
life down, or are we trying to pull it up?

We can treat everyone equally by treating everyone like shit, or we can treat
everyone equally by treating everyone well. I'm sure you didn't intend it, but
your comment reads as though you are you are upset that the former are asking
for so much, not that the later got so little.

~~~
danbruc
I wanted to include a line about that but finally decided against it. I like
neither option. Would it really be any better if way paid a million for every
fatality? Yea, we killed your children...but hey, you are a dollar millionaire
now, buy some nice stuff to cheer you up! Maybe the money would be spent
better trying to avoid such incidents in the first place instead of attaching
a price tag to accidentally killed people. In the end I am really unsure what
the best option would be.

~~~
Crito
Family members are a part of the support network that people have. This
includes emotional support, as well as more tangible support such as financial
or residential, as well as informational support (family members teaching each
other about society and life) and social support (for instance family members
refering each other to friends or professionals (lawyers, doctors, carpenters,
etc)).

When somebodies family member is killed, their support network is reduced.
Financial compensation can help to offset the damage done to their support
network. It's not just about making people feel better.

------
debacle
Does Iran even own the .ir TLD in the legal sense? I thought ICANN owned all
TLDs and just assigned custodial administrators for registration, etc.

~~~
thirdtruck
That's a good question. As I understand it, taking control of the .ir domain
from Iran would make as much sense as taking control of the street address of
their embassy. _Not_ the embassy or the property it sits on, mind you, but the
_address itself._ If my interpretation is correct, then the absurdity of the
plaintiff's request is obvious.

~~~
astrodust
Is three any legal precedent for _owning_ a street address?

Isn't the postal service or municipality at liberty to renumber things as they
see fit? I know several people that have had to "move", file change of address
forms, even though they're in the same physical structure.

~~~
thirdtruck
The latter makes sense. At the same time, neither the postal service or
municipalities have the liberty to say that Best Buy is at a given address
when you'll actually find a Fry's. Well, they can _claim_ it, but no one's
going to believe them after they make the trip.

I think that's the big difference: The Iran TLD isn't just "owned" by the
country, the TLD is supposed to _factually_ represent the location of the
country's IPs. It's similar to how only government agencies or the like are
supposed to have .gov domains.

------
gdy
And yet the risk of the opposite verdict is the reason why domains must be
managed by the United Nations and not by an American organization.

~~~
kevinskii
I agree that this should be under the control of an international
organization, but the UN is unlikely to be an impartial or intelligent
arbiter.

~~~
northernmonkey
The UN is broadly as impartial and 'intelligent' as its voting members, which
is kinda by design. The happy reality is that the UN is successful at most of
the almost unimaginably diverse myriad of thing it's has to do. It seems to me
to be a great choice for the role.

~~~
mayanksinghal
> voting members

Except 5, other countries don't have a permanent say in the system. The 5 can
veto any resolution. The sad reality is that UN has been successful on various
issues (while still failing on very many) despite being an utterly
undemocratic establishment and that is constantly being used as an excuse to
continue with the current system.

~~~
gdy
Five is the number of permanent members of the UN Security Concil which has
nothing to do with things like managing internet.

------
squozzer
The logic behind the demand seems a logical extension of what happened to
Germany after WW2 -
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_reparations_for_World...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_reparations_for_World_War_II)

~~~
Alex3917
Given the fact that the US would owe Iran literally trillions of dollars for
overthrowing their democracy, giving their oil to the British, and giving Iraq
weapons to attack them, I somehow doubt that's a road the US is going to want
to go down.

