
FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,...  domain names - bjonathan
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/fulltiltpoker-com-pokerstars-com-domain-names-confiscated-fbi-1020606/
======
pero
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Federal authorities unsealed an indictment
Friday against the founders of the three largest internet poker companies
operating in the U.S. The indictment charges eleven defendants, including the
founders of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker, with bank fraud,
money laundering, and illegal gambling offenses, according to Federal
authorities in New York. Restraining orders were issued against more than 75
bank accounts used by the poker companies and their payment processors, while
five Internet domain names used by the companies to host poker games were
seized, federal authorities added in a statement.
[http://www.marketwatch.com/story/doj-indicts-founders-of-
top...](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/doj-indicts-founders-of-top-us-
online-poker-sites-2011-04-15-1358350?link=MW_latest_news)

Indictment
[http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/schein...](http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/scheinbergetalindictmentpr.pdf)

~~~
AJ007
This needs to be modded up. The ICE mass domain seizures were more blatant
violations of due process.

I would also add, if they are going after these poker sites for money
laundering, at this point players probably will be unable to deposit or
withdraw any money in to their game accounts.

from the indictment: "The United States also filed a civil money laundering
and in rem forfeiture complaint (the "Civil Complaint") against the Poker
Companies, their assets, and the assets of several payment processors for the
Poker Companies."

That means they are taking _everything_ Any asset that any of these defendants
has, that is within US government reach will be seized. The domain names were
probably the easiest part.

additionally from the indictment: "Defendants BITAR,SCHEINBERG, BURTNICK,
TATE, TOM, BECKLEY, RUBIN and LANG are not presently in the United States and
have not yet been arrested. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern
District of New York is _working with foreign law enforcement agencies_ and
_Interpol_ to secure the arrest of these defendants and the seizure of
criminal proceeds located abroad."

That doesn't sound like a rogue US seizure of some domain names they didn't
like (which was the case with the ICE seizures.)

~~~
caf
So the government gets to indict you; then sieze your assets; then take you to
court (where you cannot afford a lawyer anymore, because they have already
seized your assets).

I guess it's nice to be the King.

------
lawnchair_larry
The hijacked DNS has not propagated everywhere yet. Mine are still working. If
anyone has last minute business to do on these sites, such as cashing out
before the FBI steals your money, add these to your hosts file:

$ host pokerstars.com

pokerstars.com has address 77.87.179.116

pokerstars.com mail is handled by 20 mx20.pokerstars.com.

$ host absolutepoker.com

absolutepoker.com has address 66.212.244.175

absolutepoker.com mail is handled by 10 mail.absolutepoker.com.

absolutepoker.com mail is handled by 5 mx1.absolutepoker.com.

absolutepoker.com mail is handled by 5 mx2.absolutepoker.com.

$ host fulltiltpoker.com

fulltiltpoker.com has address 91.211.98.20

fulltiltpoker.com mail is handled by 200 mit-mx00.fulltiltpoker.com.

fulltiltpoker.com mail is handled by 100 mx00.fulltiltpoker.com.

$ host ultimatebet.com

ultimatebet.com has address 66.212.244.148

ultimatebet.com mail is handled by 100 mailb.ultimatebet.com.

ultimatebet.com mail is handled by 200 mailc.ultimatebet.com.

ultimatebet.com mail is handled by 10 mail.ultimatebet.com.

$ host ub.com

ub.com has address 66.212.231.205

~~~
llimllib
The FBI press release[1] says that they've shut down all the sites' bank
accounts too, so you're unlikely to be able to pull your money out.

I selfishly hope they go after everybody with money on any of those sites,
because it might generate more outrage than just the domain name seizures.

[1]: [http://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-
releases/2011/manhattan-u.s...](http://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-
releases/2011/manhattan-u.s.-attorney-charges-principals-of-three-largest-
internet-poker-companies-with-bank-fraud-illegal-gambling-offenses-and-
laundering-billions-in-illegal-gambling-proceeds)

~~~
BrandonM
> The FBI press release[1] says that they've shut down all the sites' bank
> accounts too, so you're unlikely to be able to pull your money out.

Sure, but we can at least take a screenshot of our accounts for the purposes
of a class-action lawsuit later, either against the site or the government,
itself.

~~~
chopsueyar
Against the site? What venue will that take place in?

------
TY
It's real and it's happening now.

I have nothing to do with online gambling (anymore), but this just sent
shivers down my spine. Who's next?

The US Government has just strengthened the case of those who were concerned
about having parts of Internet infrastructure under the control of the US
government.

Domain seizures have been happening for a while (i.e. [1]), but this case will
probably be the highest profile to date and will hopefully raise public
awareness about this disturbing issue.

I won't be surprised to see US based domain registrars to start loosing a lot
of their business quite soon.

[1] <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/us/04bar.html>

~~~
TillE
Indeed. I'm quite disgusted by the principle of the thing. Something about
being deprived of property without due process of law.

My primary domain is a .net. I'm loathe to part with it since the TLD is a
useful descriptor in this case, but now I'm very seriously considering
registering and switching over to the .eu equivalent, which is only a couple
bucks more per year.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Does the EU not have a similar procedure they could follow? Or do they just
not have a history of doing this (yet)?

~~~
varjag
They likely have jurisdiction only over .eu TLD.

That said, they have implemented mandatory wiretapping on everyone some years
ago, so I wouldn't count on EU sanity or benevolence there.

------
mycroftiv
This is a disaster. A very sad day for the internet. We are entering into
pastor Niemoller territory here: first they came for the file-sharing
websites, next they came for the online gambling websites, and I would guess
that Bitcoin is probably next in line, and following that, Magic: the
Gathering online and the MMORPGs.

~~~
gst
No. It's not a disaster. Just the end of the .com/.net/.org era. As soon as
people realize that .com/.net/.org are not neutral, but under US
jurisdication, they will move to other TLDs operated in countries with more
liberal laws.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Laws can change. I think it's well time to start thinking about how to
organize the internet so that it routes around governments even more easily.

~~~
peterwwillis
Eh. You don't have to "route around" this currently, just use a DNS resolver
outside of the country that re-introduces domains which get taken out by
oppressive governments.

Nobody wants to do this, though, as it would destroy the fabric of the
internet as we know it or something. But a simpler method would just incur
more government push back in an arms race around censorship. Do what the
chinese [citizens] do: go covert.

~~~
blhack
This is actually an interesting idea to me. Forgive me for not being very
knowledgeable about the DNS, so if somebody could correct me, I would
appreciate it.

What happens if people start selectively paying attention to the ICANN root
servers? For instance, my computer is set to use google's DNS. What happens if
the DNS admins at google decide that they're going to just ignore the update
from ICANN?

And what happens if there is a second-tier DNS that crops up specifically to
thwart attempts at messing around with the records? (Honestly, domains being
'seized' should be treated like faulty equipment. If a drive starts bailing
out, you replace it. To me, it sounds like the US gov't's ability to modify
the DNS at their will is a click-of-death on the DNS)

~~~
peterwwillis
First of all, let's be clear: the root servers are owned and operated by
various entities in countries all around the world. The root zone file is the
sole domain of the Department of Commerce of the United States of America. So
you'd have to ignore all of them, and i'm not completely sure the US
Government wouldn't force Google to apply the one correct root zone file
(after all, Google is such a powerhouse you could complain of a monopoly of
internet control or influence).

Potential legal issues aside, what you end up with is a New Internet. Of
course routes all remain the same, but nobody refers to addresses or routes:
they use host names. Thus you run a huge risk of networked applications just
not working, which would affect everything from entertainment to commerce to
government services and god knows what else (what if medical devices in
hospitals needed to retrieve a firmware upgrade and couldn't connect to the
right host?).

In practice there would be no technical hurdle to do this. It's simple to just
configure your domain name server to include some records, leave out some
records and change others. Some people do this if their ISP redirects failed
lookups to some advertising-laden homepage, for example. But on a large scale,
the modification of the naming system to one's personal tastes has broad-
reaching negative consequences related to availability of hosts and the
functional and legal consequences therein. On a personal scale (modifying only
your own name server results), you get to connect to your poker site again. I
prefer the latter solution. If operating systems just started including a
simple GUI to modify their personal domain name caches we probably wouldn't
need an alternate dns root.

------
nbpoole
For those that are skeptical, check the nameservers:

[http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=po...](http://network-
tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=pokerstars.com)

[http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=fu...](http://network-
tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=fulltiltpoker.com)

[http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=ub...](http://network-
tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=ub.com)

All of the domains point to nameservers at cirfu.net, which appears to be the
FBI's Cyber Initiative and Resource Fusion Unit
([http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/Cyber_Initiative_and_Resource_Fu...](http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/Cyber_Initiative_and_Resource_Fusion_Unit))

What's more interesting (to me): the domains don't appear to have been using
US domain registrars.

~~~
dsl
Neustar, Verisign, and Afilias operate the actual registry for most of the
commercial TLDs (.com, .net, .me, .info, etc), and are all within US
jurisdiction. Further, they all hold hefty government contracts.

~~~
dchest
.me is operated by "doMEn, d.o.o., a Montenegrin joint venture (doing business
as .ME Registry), whose partners include Afilias Limited, GoDaddy.com, Inc.,
and ME-net d.o.o." (<http://www.domain.me/about.html>), so it seems like it's
not under the US jurisdiction.

~~~
tankenmate
However the backend is run by Afilias who are subject to US jurisdiction, even
though they have their group parent company incorporated in the Republic of
Ireland (for tax purposes).

~~~
dchest
Thanks for information.

------
dstein
Has a bureau of the US federal government just claimed ultimate authority over
the internet's domain name system?

If this is the case, then obviously we have a very serious problem on our
hands. This threatens the way the internet works at the infrastructure level.
Clearly the US needs to be stripped of their root DNS server privileges.

~~~
eropple
Stop hyperventilating, they did nothing of the sort. .com is based in the
United States, and (whether or not you agree with the US's stance on online
gambling, I don't) they seized an asset that they claim - probably rightly -
is within their jurisdiction and is assisting these companies in committing
acts that are illegal in the United States.

If they seize a .co.uk, then there's something to be worried about, but as far
as I am aware that has not happened.

~~~
JoachimSchipper
The line is less clear than you suggest: [http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-
valley/technology/141645-s...](http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-
valley/technology/141645-spanish-website-owner-pledges-to-fight-dhs-after-his-
domain-name-is-seized) (summary: Spanish site links to, but does not mirror,
copyrighted material; Spanish courts finally say it's legal; DHS still seizes
it).

In the above case, (almost) no crimes were committed by anyone in an area the
US has jurisdiction over; fulltiltpoker.com, at least, could be said to be
actively recruiting Americans.

------
olalonde
Isn't their image with no alt tag (<http://pokerstars.com/banner7.jpg>) in
violation with _Section 508 Amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973_? [1]

    
    
        Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 
        
        A Federal law requiring US government electronic and 
        information technology (EIT) to meet accessibility
        requirements
    

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_508_of_the_Rehabilitati...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_508_of_the_Rehabilitation_Act_of_1973)

~~~
jarin
You know, I almost wonder if it's intentional. Using an image-based seizure
page with a very generic image name prevents search engines from having any
content to spider (and thereby prevents people from searching for seized
sites).

------
ssclafani
The indictment from the DOJ with a list of the charges:

[http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/schein...](http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/scheinbergetalindictmentpr.pdf)

~~~
davepeck
Fascinating. This contains some pretty damning charges, if true.

~~~
nikcub
the UIEGA outlaws 'internet gambling' so the case will be based on if poker is
considered gambling, which the supreme court has already found to not be the
case when California attempted to pass laws to legalize card rooms back in the
70s

A lot harder to avoid the money laundering charges, but they could argue that
they had to process payments in that way because the banks wouldn't accept
them because of an unjust UIEGA law

------
heyitsnick
I'm happy to see this featured so highly in hacker news.

As a professional poker player, the biggest concern right now are players
balances. I know players with 250k+ bankrolls that are extremely concerned
about the status of their money online.

Right now it's entirely unclear the relative size of the seizures.

If anyone has any questions from someone in the midst of this, fire way. I'll
be up all night.

~~~
palewery
Can you explain why someone would leave that much money in there? Are there
tables that you can bring 250k to? Do these sites pay interest?

How do you trust these sites? A casino in Las Vegas will get huge fines if one
of the employees rips off players. How do you know some internal IT guy isn't
cheating you?

~~~
BrandonM
I made a longer post below (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2452958>)
that explains it all a bit better, but for poker players, their balances on
poker sites serve both as checking accounts (in many ways) and as their
capital. That's like asking why a corporation's value is tied up in its stock.
A poker player's account balance _is_ his livelihood.

You can sit at some tables with $100K. It's very easy to 4-table. Moreover,
it's very easy to have a 10-buy-in swing. This means that at a bare minimum, a
legitimate player has at least 15 buy-ins on any given site, and he damned
well better have another 15-25 somewhere else (cash, other sites, etc.) if he
doesn't want to risk blowing his entire bankroll (going "busto").

The players with these kinds of balances are part of a very tight-knit
community that is largely centered around 2+2. FullTilt and PokerStars both
have representatives that post there. It is basically to the poker world what
Hacker News is to the tech world. If even one player's money was seized for an
undisclosed reason, the major sites (which make money hand-over-fist daily
from rake) would lose a lot of faith, and their entire business model centers
on their customers' good faith.

There were a few people cheating before on UltimateBet and AbsolutePoker.
Thanks to the aforementioned community reconciling various players' hand
databases (each hand can be logged), they were caught and both of those sites
lost a ton of business.

~~~
heyitsnick
> There were a few people cheating before on UltimateBet and AbsolutePoker.
> Thanks to the aforementioned community reconciling various players' hand
> databases (each hand can be logged), they were caught and both of those
> sites lost a ton of business.

I also replied to your post below but just to clarify this for everyone:
despite he effort from hese communities, those involved in he cheating were
never caught. In fact. those named by the DoJ as the heads of Absolute Poker
are heavily implicated and the company line has been that ownership had
changed hands; this is clearly not the case.

And despite significant pressure, large amounts of money has not been returned
to players. And despite Absolute/UB temporarily seeing great loss of traffic,
they regained and were up to last night the 3rd largest American-facing
network or site.

------
dpifke
Someone came up with a Firefox add-on to automatically use alternate domain
names when one tries to access one seized by the US Government:

[http://torrentfreak.com/firefox-add-on-undoes-u-s-
government...](http://torrentfreak.com/firefox-add-on-undoes-u-s-government-
domain-seizures-110414/)

I'm reminded of the John Gilmore quote, "The Net interprets censorship as
damage and routes around it."

~~~
kragen
John Gilmore was talking about Usenet, where that was actually true; if some
intermediate netnews server started deleting articles that contained bad
words, people using other news servers wouldn't even notice unless they got
their only newsfeed from the censoring site. (Later on, this became a problem,
as it was impossible to censor spam as well.)

The internet is not like Usenet in that way. Its design is full of central
points of failure: root nameservers, TLD nameservers, DNS registries, BGP, and
AS and IP allocation, among others. Some newer network protocols like
BitTorrent are indeed capable of routing around censorship and other forms of
damage, but older ones like the Web are not.

I've written a bit about some thoughts on how to fix that, but I still haven't
done much: [http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-
tol/2006-Novembe...](http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-
tol/2006-November/000841.html)

~~~
cgranade
The quote is still quite valid when applied to the _culture_ of the Internet,
however. People create tools ranging the gamut from Tor to MafiaaFire to
circumvent and prevent censorship from occurring, even with systems that are
anything like robust.

------
InclinedPlane
I for one am incredibly glad!

Nothing is a more serious menace to our society and our way of life than ...
online gambling. I'm glad that in this time of unprecedented natural
disasters, geopolitical unrest, and financial crisis our government still has
its priorities straight.

~~~
laut
I guess you are for alcohol prohibition too?

~~~
rmobin
Seems like you missed the "/sarcasm" comment, unless I'm being leveled?

------
eof
Wow this is huge.

I used to play online poker for a living, I had a decent chunk of cash locked
up for almost a year when they came down on online poker previously (UIGEA)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAFE_Port_Act#Internet_gambling...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAFE_Port_Act#Internet_gambling_provisions)

It's worth noting that these are _NOT_ American companies. It doesn't look
like anyone (players) has had their assests seized; but this is bad news for a
lot of people.

It also appears people are still playing.

~~~
davidcann
The real issue here is the seizure of domain names. US citizens who gamble
online know full well that they're breaking the law and are subject to lose
assets.

The domain seizures are very troubling, though.

Edit: There seems to be some dispute over where it's a crime to "participate"
in different US states, but for the purposes of the "customer assests seized",
the transaction is illegal, so it's to be expected that the "cash is locked
up" as the result of government action.

~~~
generalk
You do understand that gambling online isn't illegal in the United States,
right?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UIGEA>

UIGEA "prohibits gambling businesses from knowingly accepting payments in
connection with the participation of another person in a bet or wager that
involves the use of the Internet and that is unlawful under any federal or
state law." but does not make it a crime for a citizen to engage in the
activity.

~~~
eof
It is illegal in a handful of states.

<http://www.gambling-law-us.com/State-Law-Summary/>

You are right though, the UIGEA makes it illegal to transfer money from a US
citizens account to an 'illegal gambling operation.' It doesn't actually
define what an illegal gambling operation is.

------
eftpotrm
While I'm not at all surprised to see this happening, I'm still astonished
that the USA continues to try to stamp out gambling through legislation. I
remember growing up being astonished at the number of references on USA TV
shows to illegal gambling; I've never once come across it in the UK.

I love cricket, but there's been a persistent series of match-fixing and spot-
fixing allegations for years, almost exclusively originating from illegal
south Asian (primarily Indian) bookmakers. The legal markets haven't been the
source of this sort of problem at all.

Much as I might not like gambling, there is a persistent human desire for it
and the evidence seems to be that banning it, as so often, exacerbates rather
than minimises harm. The US government should stop trying to hold back the
tide on this.

~~~
ericb
The casino lobby would prefer that online gambling didn't exist. Therefore,
since these online companies are not in the US and have no lobbyist money in
play, they have no standing.

Voter preference, individual rights, domain name sanctity, jurisdiction,
shortsightedness with regard to keeping control of TLD's, futility of the
fight, all have no bearing when uncontested lobby money wants something, and
doubly so when states think it will mean more tax dollars in their pockets.

~~~
dhughes
Actually the company I (a minion stuck in the cogs) work for is a government
run lottery that set up a division called Digital Interactive Gaming just to
design and build online a gambling website.

------
pumpmylemma
Okay. This makes me want to indulge in youthful indignation.

If I saw this and was at a company like OpenDNS, I'd start considering saying
"No. Sorry. We're going reverting back to the last good record." The federal
government might have technical jurisdiction, and U.S. customers might
technically be violating U.S. laws but the ability of the federal government
to seize internet properties terrifies me because it might set a national and
international precedent. (Other countries already do this, but U.S. doing it
kinda makes it globally sanctioned.) I'm terrified of a slippery slope, even
though I usually find slippery slope arguments dubious. (Plus, I just think
this is a dumb seizure to begin with...)

(End of youthful indignation.)

~~~
ikono
I just had the same though except substitue OpenDNS with Google. OpenDNS would
be better for users but this feels like a Google-y thing to do especially
after the whole China debacle.

------
lusis
This is actually perfect. Filesharing sites don't register on the average user
radar.

Online gambling sites? Joe Schmoe's everywhere are about to get seriously
angry.

It's sad it came to this but maybe it takes something as overreaching as this
to get the attention of people.

------
skunkworks
US government has been gunning for poker sites for a while (since 2006 when
the UIGEA passed). Some places like Party Poker withdrew from the US market,
while others flourished by skirting the rules to the best of their abilities
(e.g. can't have ads for internet gambling on TV, so let's make a play money
site fulltilt.net that will eventually funnel traffic to our real cash games).

I am however surprised that they're seizing domains as I figured this would
remain one of those "live and let live" legislations, like the online gambling
equivalent of brown-bagging your drink. I imagine this will not end well for
whoever was involved in this decision.

Also, 2+2ers sup bro.

~~~
cjeane
There was so much hope that poker would be granted legal status about a year
ago, but congress does tend to get sidetracked.

Nice to see other 2+2ers on HN.

~~~
ikono
It's kinda cool to see a link to 2+2 at the top of HN, sucks that it has to be
for this though...

------
ajg1977
Probably related to this - former online gambling lynchpin turns cooperating
witness.

[http://www.couriermail.com.au/ipad/web-kings-life-on-the-
lin...](http://www.couriermail.com.au/ipad/web-kings-life-on-the-line/story-
fn6ck45n-1226039907165)

------
bostonscott
This is another case of government manufacturing criminals.

"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any 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. Who wants a nation of law-
abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of
laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted and
you create a nation of law-breakers."

\- Ayn Rand

------
ig1
As what happened with the guys run the porn redirector under the Libya domain,
if you're using a domain/registrar which is regulated under laws which make
your website illegal then you're just asking for trouble.

It's just basic common sense: Use domains/registrars which fall under the
legal authority of a country in which your website is legal.

~~~
gst
I think that up until now .com was considered to be a "neutral" domain, with
individual domain names falling under the jursidication of the country where
the registrar is located. However, in this case at least for ub.com the
registrar is located outside the US, so this implies that the US has
jurisdication over all .com domains.

If I'd was a non-US company using a .com domain I think now is the time where
I'd switch to another TLD.

------
sp332
The MAFIAAFire Firefox plugin will redirect seized domain names to alternate
domains. It's already working with all of the domains listed in the article.
[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mafiaafire-
re...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mafiaafire-redirector/)
Of course, it depends on how much you trust the maintainers of the plugin not
to do something nefarious :)

------
vessenes
If the press release is true, these guys are going away for a long time. They
allegedly bribed the owner of a US bank with cash and allegedly purchased 30%
of the bank in exchange for the bank allowing them to circumvent US money
laundering and anti-gambling laws.

There's a lot of civil liberty discussion in this thread, but I think this is
actually a fascinating story about the linkage points between the internet and
the real world -- in the real world, these guys needed bank processing. To get
it, they went way, way over the line, as did the Bank owner.

~~~
maratd
Over the line? Why did they have to bribe a bank to accept their business?
That's crazy! The liberty to conduct everyday business is the most important
liberty we have. It's what puts bread on the table.

The fact that they had to bribe a bank to open and use an account is really
really sick.

~~~
vessenes
It's not over the line; they wanted to do a business that's illegal in the
states, so they (allegedly) committed crimes. If they had wanted they could
have banned US players, and only accepted money from players in other
countries. They didn't want to do that.

I'm presuming most of the main people here don't live in the states, they are
no doubt implementing their own personal Plan B's right now, and have already
landed in their chosen spots.

The US citizens living in the US are in the most trouble, I'd guess.

~~~
maratd
_they wanted to do a business that's illegal in the states, so they
(allegedly) committed crimes._

It's funny, but you do realize the government defines what is and what is not
a crime? I only hope for your sake the government doesn't make your industry
illegal. Otherwise you may have to bribe others to earn a living.

It's unfortunate that many don't realize this is just the beginning. There is
a multitude of other industries which are on the "edge" and trust me, if this
goes well for the government (3 billion profit) they will come after everyone
else with full force!

------
eli
Crazy. DC government just passed a bill allowing the city to offer online
gambling. Will the FBI also sieze dclottery.com?

~~~
Vivtek
DEA raids California medical marijuana stores that are legal according to
state law, so ... yeah, if they want to, they will.

------
enb
"Australian internet whiz Daniel Tzvetkoff, who has become a prized FBI
informant in a bid to avoid a 75 year jail sentence in the US, may have
brought down the multi-billion dollar American online poker industry.

The three poker sites - PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker - have
been shut down."

Read more: [http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/technology/technology-
news/f...](http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/technology/technology-news/fbi-
charges-11-internet-poker-kingpins-20110416-1difk.html#ixzz1Jf3LFavT)

------
ig1
It's worth noting that most gambling sites warn their employees against
travelling to the US. The US has in the past arrested employees of foreign
firms for actions which are entirely legal in their home country but illegal
in the US.

And it's not just gambling sites, in 2001 Dmitry Sklyarov was arrested on a
similar basis.

~~~
caf
To be quite frank, as a foreign national I'd be a lot more worried about
visting the US than I would Cuba.

That's hardly a ringing endorsement for the land of the free, is it?

------
j79
Viewing Google cache, I noticed ub.com about us page:

All financial transactions are processed by Hoop & Javelin Holdings Ltd.,
Vincenti Buildings, Suite 522, 14/19 Strait Street, VLT1432 Valletta, Malta,
owner of this website.

Can the FBI seize the domain because it's a .com TLD? Or, because transactions
were occurring in the States?

~~~
nika
The DHS (and now FBI) believes that all .com domain names are "located in the
USA". It is not hard to get a judge (generally they are pretty ignorant of
technology) to go along with this. Therefore, even if the registrar and the
company are overseas, the FBI is able to sieze the domains.

Since I doubt the US government will start respecting international law (and
ICAAN is international agreements, to which the US government has agreed) the
only solution to this will be a viable alternative DNS system.

This is a serious threat to any startup... even though you're not engaged in
gambling, they are constantly expanding the "crimes" they will use to sieze
domains.

~~~
thailandstartup
I wonder long before they're shutting down foreign .com sites for the 'crime'
of infringing US patents.

Having only a .com for a business feels a lot like having all your eggs in one
basket now.

------
vnorby
WHOA, that's really big news for the poker industry. These are all very large,
very big businesses (talking billions of dollars) in the US. Can anyone
confirm if their poker clients are still functioning properly?

~~~
iwwr
Weren't they all banned in the US a few years ago? Illegal even for banks to
process transactions to them.

~~~
eli
Even if that's true, they're not illegal from, say, Ireland. Yet Irish
citizens can't get to the site because the FBI took it.

The US gets to seize assets anywhere in the world if they have some connection
to an alleged US crime?

------
beedogs
America sucks more every day.

------
jdp23
Here's the full indictment:
[http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/schein...](http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/scheinbergetalindictmentpr.pdf)

------
brk
It seems that it's stuff like this that could be the biggest driver in
validating non .com domain names.

I could see a Benelux registrar organization setting up a quality .tld that
was free from seizure over stupid shit.

There are still other minor routing problems that can occur, but with proxies
and DNS, that is much much more of a whack-a-mole problem than high level
domain name seizure.

------
beaker
I don't know why but this issue really irks me. The hypocrisy on this is off
the charts. Gambling is legal in our country - the WTO has made that legal
judgment ([http://www.ibet.pro/2007/08/25/us-government-ignores-wto-
rul...](http://www.ibet.pro/2007/08/25/us-government-ignores-wto-rulings-on-
internet-gambling/)). Our actions are an attempt to preserve a protection
racket for U.S. gambling operations and it's just wrong. Not only that but the
strategy of seizing domain names, arresting execs, will never solve this
problem. This shit pisses me off - I'm sorry.

------
andrenotgiant
Great Job FBI, really thorough crackdown.

<http://www.pokerstars.net/> <http://www.pokerstars.jp/>
<http://www.pokerstars.de/>

~~~
BrandonM
pokerstars.net only offers a play money client; it is not a gambling site by
any stretch of the imagination. .jp and .de are not under US jurisdiction.

------
akavlie
So yeah, about that distributed DNS idea...

------
fanboy123
CNBC Twitter: Three Largest Internet Poker Companies Charged With Fraud,
Illegal Gambling - Pokerstars, Full Tilt Poker, & Absolute Poker - Charged

~~~
patrickyeon
MarketWatch says it's bank fraud, money laundering, and illegal gambling.

[http://www.marketwatch.com/story/doj-indicts-founders-of-
top...](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/doj-indicts-founders-of-top-us-
online-poker-sites-2011-04-15-1358350?link=MW_latest_news)

------
cabalamat
Note to self: all future domains I buy won't have a .com extension.

~~~
die_sekte
I'm using .is from now on. Sure, it's more expensive, but there are no fucking
"domainers" there – even two letter domains are still available. And I have a
hard time thinking of something Iceland would shut down (except for child
pornography, obviously).

~~~
vukk
I tried to register a two-letter domain with few registrars found by googling:
it seems that one isn't allowed to register a two-letter .is domain anymore; a
very common policy in domain names.

~~~
die_sekte
That seems odd. I just registered one a few days ago… (fj.is).

Also you can register domains directly at isnic.

~~~
vukk
! You are correct, isnic allows to register two-letter domains :) It is
probably better to register there anyway than with some random registrars.

------
redorb
<http://www.whatsmydns.net/#A/fulltiltpoker.com>

Shows the propagation is underway.

~~~
seiji
Beautiful:

    
    
       <HTML>
         <TITLE>WARNING</TITLE>
         <IMG SRC="banner7.jpg">
       </HTML>
    

I'm surprised they don't have text and audio for ADA compliance.

~~~
jhamburger
I was really hoping there was a banner{1-6}.jpg

~~~
nkassis
those are probably for child porn, drugs etc.

------
Maascamp
Interesting back story [http://www.businessinsider.com/boy-genius-online-
poker-scand...](http://www.businessinsider.com/boy-genius-online-poker-
scandal-2011-4)

------
andrewcooke
when this happened a while back for wikipedia and filesharing sites i wrote a
script that lets you add, update, dump, and share entries in your local hosts
file (you can even put the text on a website and pull it from a url). it's not
really much use since the sites will be moving anyway if no-one else can
contact them, but in case someone finds it useful -
<https://github.com/ghettonet/GhettoNet>

------
BrandonM
Did anyone happen to cache the IP address for fulltiltpoker.com? I'd like to
add it to /etc/hosts so that I can at least connect to the client and get a
screenshot of my balance.

~~~
thaumaturgy
91.211.98.20; it's posted abovethread.

~~~
BrandonM
That is the already-seized alias IP address. Go ahead and browse to it.

~~~
caf
No, that's the actual IP address, but you have to browse it as
"www.fulltiltpoker.com", otherwise it redirects you to there.

------
angrycoder
Coming soon...

PokerStars.cz FullTiltPoker.ly

------
mrtron
Online gambling is legal almost everywhere - how does the FBI have the ability
to do this?

~~~
barefoot
They are using a TLD (top level domain name) operated by a US company
(Verizon).

The government hasn't gone out of it's jurisdiction, technically speaking.

~~~
tankenmate
Verisign, not Verizon.

~~~
barefoot
Autocorrect on iOS, sorry.

------
viraptor
The event was big and changed a lot... but not for pokerstars or other
services.

The client can use ips to auto-update with new domain names probably (it's got
a pool of addresses to try). In a few days enough new links will be created to
pokerstars.net that it will be reasonably visible on google. Service itself
will buy loads of domains and start advertising as pokerstars.{your_tld}. In
the meantime, pokerstars.net is still available as usual.

------
dendory
This will only get worse, and the US has no issue with doing this with
International sites. Remember rojadirecta.org? It's a Spanish site, owned and
operated in Spain, that fought for 3 years a legal battle, and won. Then the
DOJ just came and in one day seized the domain. No appeal, no warning, their
whole legal battle for nothing. They have been offline ever since. The
Internet is at the complete mercy of the guys in ICE.

------
codexon
Here's what the domain names look like, for those of us who's DNS hasn't
propagated yet.

<http://50.17.223.71/>

------
Natsu
If anyone hasn't figured it out yet, the Internet Police have come and they're
starting the crackdown. So people who have been relying on the non-enforcement
of certain laws, even the dumb ones, are going to get some nasty surprises
soon. Or at least, that's how it looks to me.

They've killed several botnets and lots of other sites, too, if anyone has
noticed.

------
ynniv
In case anyone thinks this is about deterring online gambling, Washington DC
(the municipality, not the Federal government) has recently legalized online
gambling as a type of lottery.

[ <http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ONLINE_GAMBLING_DC>]

------
whackedspinach
How exactly am I supposed to live in a system like this? I understand I can't
have a perfect legal system, but the amount of effort required to challenge
these ridiculous seizures seems very difficult. There are so many
unconstitutional laws that need to be fixed. We need a second supreme court.

~~~
ForumRatt
Oh great another 9 headed beast.

------
jhamburger
I was under the impression that Howard Lederer and possibly several other
"celebrity" poker players had ownership interests in Full Tilt Poker so I'm
surprised I don't see any familiar names listed as defendants in the
indictment

------
ajays
You know, these "asset forfeiture" laws will _never_ change as long as it's
the 'little people' who are getting reamed.

The day the government grabs the assets of a few rich people, you can bet your
ass these laws will change in a hurry.

~~~
PostOnce
It takes just one man to rile the public. What we need is widespread and
incendiary oratory; governments operate only with the consent of the governed.
Inaction, in this case, is effectively consent.

------
PHPAdam
PokerStars is back - <http://pokerstars.eu>

This is the message I get when I log in: <http://i.imgur.com/PfUl4.png>

------
jneal
Wow, I don't know why this surprises me so much - although I know plenty of
people that play poker "illegally". A quote simply because I personally feel
it's ridiculous.

I also recall the difference between the poker related .com and .net sites. So
fulltiltpoker.net is still up as is pokerstars.net - that, if I recall
correctly, was because the .net website was aimed a playing poker with "fake
money" while the .coms were all aimed at playing poker with "real money"

------
metachris
Pretty strong charges:

* Violation of Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act [5 years prison]

* Operation of Illegal Gambling Business [5 years prison]

* Conspiracy to Commit Bank Fraud and Wire Fraud [30 years prison]

* Money Laundering Conspiracy [20 years prison]

And for all of them fines double the gross gain or loss:
[http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/schein...](http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/scheinbergetalindictmentpr.pdf)

------
tlack
So far the US is only cracking down on domains in the .COM TLD. Do you guys
think the US will eventually crack down on non-US-owned TLDs that are operated
by US entities, such as .CO (operated by NeuStar)? And after that, perhaps a
doomsday scenario, will they eventually force US-hosted DNS caches to expunge
records that are related to criminal activity as, in a way, they are aiding
and abetting..

------
thehodge
Another interesting thing to note is that most of these are not US companies
(I doubt any of them are, my guess would be a US based registrar)

------
MaysonL
An interesting article about Sunfirst Bank, and a previous brush with money-
laundering problems:

[http://blogs.reuters.com/financial-regulatory-
forum/2011/01/...](http://blogs.reuters.com/financial-regulatory-
forum/2011/01/07/fdic-sunfirst-action-a-reminder-of-third-party-processors-
risk-to-banks-complinet/)

------
warmfuzzykitten
They're resolving to normal web sites for me in California. It takes six hours
for DNS servers to resolve? I checked whois and it looks perfectly normal.
Also, you can ping the domains to get the URL, e.g., <http://77.87.179.116> Is
this story true?

------
thought_alarm

        Winners don't conduct illegal gambling operations.
    
        -- William S. Sessions, Director of the FBI

------
ataggart
And yet so many people are urging this same government to craft new "net
neutrality" laws. Bewildering.

~~~
jrockway
Well, net neutrality is to protect us from corporations. Protecting us from
the government is something the government won't do.

------
Chrono
The sites mentioned still resolves for me but if this is actually true... I am
at a loss of words

~~~
SebMortelmans
The alleged story behind all this:

[http://www.businessinsider.com/boy-genius-online-poker-
scand...](http://www.businessinsider.com/boy-genius-online-poker-
scandal-2011-4)

------
ForumRatt
This domain seizure nonsense is just the tip of the iceberg.

[http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/383473/white_house_r...](http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/383473/white_house_releases_trusted_internet_id_plan/)

------
Maro
I'm located in Hungary.

Pokerstars.com works, Fulltiltpoker.com works, UB.com gives me an FBI page.

~~~
redthrowaway
Same from Canada. Also, would seizing the domain name actually stop the
clients from working? I would imagine that the devs, seeing the rash of
increasingly ridiculous seizures, would have pushed an update to the client
that bypasses DNS. That's what I would have done, anyway.

------
AlexC04
Odd, they're all resolving for me. I wonder if that's USA only? I'm in Canada

~~~
run4yourlives
Probably just hasn't propagated yet.

------
teyc
For some more perspective: [http://www.smartcompany.com.au/entrepreneur-
watch/20110418-s...](http://www.smartcompany.com.au/entrepreneur-
watch/20110418-super-bad-to-supergrass.html)

------
nothans
Web app to report how much money is frozen in your poker account:
<http://socialsensornetwork.com/online-poker>

------
MaysonL
Two ineresting side notes:

pokerstars.net is still up

pokerstars.co.uk gives a 404 error, after redirecting to pokerstars.com/uk

seems like sloppy webmastership from the FBI.

------
loganlinn
The domain, <http://www.pokerstars.net/>, is still up

------
thehodge
They all show for me apart from absolutepoker.com but that could be DNS
related

~~~
bjonathan
I have the FBI message currently for UB.COM and Absolutepoker.com so yes I
think it's DNS related.

edit: confirm for PS and FTP also, you can check with that webproxy:
<http://www.fasterthree.info/index.php>

------
caf
The entire attack on online poker, and poker in general, is funded, supported
and encouraged by that completely immoral mix of human misery and animal
cruelty known as the racing industry.

The sooner horse racing ends up where it belongs, alongside dogfighting and
bear-baiting, the better.

------
pathik
Meta: This is probably the most upvoted HN post I've seen.

------
nicklovescode
The worst part: look at the HTML they replaced it with!

------
antidaily
So no season II of 2 Months 2 Million?

------
rooshdi
Well, there goes Full Tilt Capital...

------
idefix
seems to open fine in california

------
nika
Reagan is the one who signed "asset forfeiture" into law. I remember at the
time reading newspaper articles claiming this was "just going to be used to
keep drugs off the streets" and how "law enforcement are outgunned and now can
defend themselves against drug dealers".

It was obvious to me then that this was a violation of due process. Also, it
is not authorized by the constitution, and thus every act of seizure under it
is criminal act. (There is a federal law that makes it a felony to violate
constitutional rights under color of law. Fourth amendment prohibits this.)

Notably, Bush the First, Clinton, Bush the Second and Obama have not made any
moves to undo this legislation.

Meanwhile, this has been used to take money from bikers on their way to buy a
motorcycle, and random motorists in Florida and Texas who get pulled over for
speeding. "It could be drug money" says the "law enforcement officers" who
take life savings and then _spend it on themselves_.

Just because they haven't seized your assets yet, doesn't mean you aren't at
risk.

When the government can take whatever it wants, without any legal restraint,
and in violation of the ultimate law of the land, that government is not a
legitimate government.

We should be outraged. We should be throwing the bums out-- from Obama down to
the local state congresspeople or local sheriffs and judges who fail to take
actions overturning this, or who themselves participate in this. It does not
matter what party they are from, they are all culpable, and they are all
criminals.

Edited: I removed the reference to my property that was stolen by the FBI
because it prompted many people to attack me below. I really would rather the
discussion be about how to resolve this issue for domain names, or maybe some
discussion about how to overturn these seizure laws.

Edited: I've made the legal case in defense of those wrongfully convicted. I
cannot keep up with the tide of people who have no citations of the law, but
are quick to disparage me personally, for my crime of defending victims here.

Frankly, I think that the ease with which people assume that "naturally" these
people were "bad guys" and therefore what they did was "illegal" despite the
law and the constitution, is the very proof of my central point that the
government is out of control, and they are getting away with it because people
can't be bothered to challenge the belief-- taught by government in government
schools-- that the "rule of law" holds sway.

~~~
BrandonM
This post really highlights the needs for collapsible threads. I'd be very
interested in discussing more about asset forfeiture at large, but it's
ridiculous to have to wade through all the Liberty Dollar bullshit in order to
do that.

~~~
yurifury
Here you go:

[http://alexander.kirk.at/2010/02/16/collapsible-threads-
for-...](http://alexander.kirk.at/2010/02/16/collapsible-threads-for-hacker-
news/)

~~~
bermanoid
Very nice, that helps a lot.

Still, though, this feature _really_ should be part of HN proper, especially
since it's so simple to implement. I think a lot more attention would hit
posts that aren't already at the top, which would encourage people to write
new posts instead of responding to whatever happens to be above the fold.

It's not going to fix the comment quality problems, but it _would_ give a bump
in the direction of wider, shallower comment trees, which will probably help a
bit (deeply nested comments tend to either meander off topic or degenerate
into arguments between a couple of people).

------
roscohearts
FBI needs to back down, citizens have a choice.

