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FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

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Re: FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

#91

Post by nika »

andrewbadera wrote: post #61
nika wrote: post #7

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 un…

Wish I could undo my upvote. The seizure is still subject to court proceedings. FUD.

After the fact you are able to try and prove that the money or assets were not used in the commission of a crime. How one could ever prove a negative is beyond me, and the burden of proof is higher than that required by the constitution which (IIRC) take the innocent until proven guilty perspective.

These poker sites have not been convicted of anything, nor was there a court proceeding where the siezure was proposed and the owners of the property had an option to defend their rights.

Further, as we've seen in case after case, even in situations where the victims are not involved in crime at all, the courts are stacked against them.

Re: FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

#92

Post by kragen »

dpifke wrote: post #19

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

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...

Re: FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

#93

Post by LordBodak »

andrewbadera wrote: post #61
nika wrote: post #7

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 un…

Wish I could undo my upvote. The seizure is still subject to court proceedings. FUD.

The poker sites domains have already been seized.

Re: FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

#94

Post by _ouxp »

nika wrote: post #58
_ouxp wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you referring to the Liberty Dollar? I remember being very interested in this (and in alternative currencies) a few years back but was put off by a video promoted on their official website which showed someone successfully passing a Liberty Dollar at a drive-through to an employee who asked, "what's this?", and was told that it was "a new dollar coin." At that point, they had unclean hands in my mind. The basis f…

You're misremembering. The primary educational effort of the Liberty Dollar focused on, whenever someone asked what it was, or you offered it, making clear that it wasn't US currency. Nobody associated with the Liberty Dollar in any official capacity would call it "a new dollar coin" and as the word "coin" is one of the magic ones that denotes government money. They might say "its 20 dollars in silver" or "a silver p…

Even "it's 20 dollars in silver" is iffy. To most, dollar means USD, and there's no constant dollars-silver ratio any more.

This is the video that I was misremembering (works in newest VLC): http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20050206004912/http://www.l...

via: http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20050206004912/http://www.l...

Re: FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

#95

Post by 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... Of course, it depends on how much you trust the maintainers of the plugin not to do something nefarious :)

Re: FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

#96

Post by samfoo »

smokeyj wrote: post #79
cjeane wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Constitutional law is so much more complicated than, "this is what the document says". What is happening is here is reprehensible, but I don't think you will find any defense against it in due process.

> Constitutional law is so much more complicated than, "this is what the document says". If you can't read the document and deduce it's meaning, why use this document? Is this an emperors clothe type of thing?

Because the world is a complicated place where a single (short) document is unlikely to fairly represent anything other than guiding principles. Having guiding principles is hugely important and valuable, just as giving people the leeway to make judgement calls on those principles is. Justice shouldn't be black and white.

Re: FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

#97

Post by eropple »

dstein wrote: post #37

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.

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.

Re: FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

#98

Post by damoncali »

eftpotrm wrote: post #50

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…

The US doesn't so much try to stamp out gambling as to regulate/profit from it. I suspect the dim view of online gambling stems from the fear that they cannot control it effectively.

Re: FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

#99

Post by nika »

cynicalkane wrote: post #88
blhack wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate on this for me? It sounds like what they're saying makes perfect sense (btw, there is really no need for the --or high school economics-- jab). Visa is an abstraction of my money. A better example would be american express gift cards. I can buy american express gift cards, and I can trade these gift cards or goods or services. The gift cards have a non-static real-value that is tied to the United…

Currency refers to physical money. A gift card isn't "money" because it's only a medium of exchange at a few specific places. Credit cards aren't currency because they are simply pointers to a line of credit, which isn't physical money. The Liberty Dollar guy was found guilty of imitating U.S. currency . The OP believes the application of the law is unjust because, mentally, he's equivocated currency with other numis…

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/currency

1. something that is used as a medium of exchange; money. 2.general acceptance; prevalence; vogue. 3. a time or period during which something is widely accepted and circulated. 4. the fact or quality of being widely accepted and circulated from person to person. 5. circulation, as of coin.

Currrency can refer to physical money. But it also refers to gift cards, visa cards, and any thing else that is, quoting the first definition, a "medium of exchange". Since you called a gift card a "medium of exchange" while saying it wasn't "currency" the dictionary proves you wrong.

Your understanding of my mental state and argument is also wrong, and I think you're projecting.

Since you apparently aren't familiar with the dictionary definition, I trust you will apologize for your assertions about my lack of knowledge.

Re: FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

#100

Post by 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.

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