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No-IP's Formal Statement on Microsoft Takedown

noip.com

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Re: No-IP's Formal Statement on Microsoft Takedown

#31
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't actually due to the actions of their user though, was it? It was because of the actions of NoIP themselves, who did not act to prevent abuse by their users. From what Cisco and Microsoft are reporting NoIP is (was?) a hotspot of botnet activity. If NoIP was not doing anything against that Microsoft's lawsuit doesn't sound that unreasonable. How this was actually implemented in the end (MS just taking over t…

You might just as well say it is the IANA's fault for issuing the IP addresses the malware authors used, or Ford's fault for building the getaway car used in a bank robbery.

Your argument is ridiculous.

Turning over IANA or Ford over to Microsoft would not prevent malware or robberies. Turning over NoIP to Microsoft will prevent malware (at least in the short term).

Re: No-IP's Formal Statement on Microsoft Takedown

#32

Interesting that the claim they didn't get any notice, this is what Microsoft has to say in their complaint. >...United States, including those located in the state of Nevada and the city of Las Vegas. Defendant has a contractual obligation to take reasonable and prompt steps to investigate and respond to reports of Internet or computer abuse, and the company has also made representations to the public that it has an…

We assume that this is on-going (No-IP was the go-to since 2004) and Microsoft has finally decided they'd be able to take it over. Unfortunately they didn't plan enough to anticipate the amount of traffic they'd receive. If I was No-IP, I'd be out for blood.

Someone sends a court order to essentially handicap your business, putting it at risk for the sake of malevolent users. This was a situation where No-IP's "resolution" process should have been reported (ie they cater to criminals for profit), and not man-handled by a separate law and business body.

Re: No-IP's Formal Statement on Microsoft Takedown

#33

What I don't understand is the legal basis of Microsoft, a private entity, simply being handed over the property (the domain names) of another private entity. I understand that this is something that was ordered by a court, but under what legal theory was the order issued? I'm not a lawyer, but I think I've got at least a basic idea of the circumstances under which the government can take someone's property. This doe…

I don't think they had any opportunity to contest.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the Registry Operators must:

...

d. Shall completely refrain from providing any notice or warning to, or communicating in any way with Defendants or Defendants’ representatives and shall refrain from publicizing this Order until this Order is executed in full, except as necessary to propagate the changes ordered herein to all parts of the Domain Name System;

http://www.noticeoflawsuit.com/docs/Second%20Amended%20Order...

I haven't yet found Microsoft's justification for the seizure without notice.

Re: No-IP's Formal Statement on Microsoft Takedown

#34

What I don't understand is the legal basis of Microsoft, a private entity, simply being handed over the property (the domain names) of another private entity. I understand that this is something that was ordered by a court, but under what legal theory was the order issued? I'm not a lawyer, but I think I've got at least a basic idea of the circumstances under which the government can take someone's property. This doe…

A competitor no less!

no-ip and such are a required service for people to host their own "cloud" solutions from their home connections.

Microsoft makes money with their own "cloud" offering. which does not require such services. So by closing down on those services (or using the redirect to collect data) they are making their offering more attractive.

Obligatory car analogy: This is very well like Ford closing down all of Teslas charging stations because someone sold weed on one of them.

Re: No-IP's Formal Statement on Microsoft Takedown

#35

Interesting that the claim they didn't get any notice, this is what Microsoft has to say in their complaint. >...United States, including those located in the state of Nevada and the city of Las Vegas. Defendant has a contractual obligation to take reasonable and prompt steps to investigate and respond to reports of Internet or computer abuse, and the company has also made representations to the public that it has an…

We assume that this is on-going (No-IP was the go-to since 2004) and Microsoft has finally decided they'd be able to take it over. Unfortunately they didn't plan enough to anticipate the amount of traffic they'd receive. If I was No-IP, I'd be out for blood. Someone sends a court order to essentially handicap your business, putting it at risk for the sake of malevolent users. This was a situation where No-IP's "resol…

>Someone sends a court order to essentially handicap your business, putting it at risk for the sake of malevolent users.

"Someone" in this is case is a federal district court which did that because there was no communication from No-IP. MS does not have the power to send court orders. The court ordered No-IP to send a response and looks like there was no response.

>If I was No-IP, I'd be out for blood.

Who's blood?

Re: No-IP's Formal Statement on Microsoft Takedown

#36

What I don't understand is the legal basis of Microsoft, a private entity, simply being handed over the property (the domain names) of another private entity. I understand that this is something that was ordered by a court, but under what legal theory was the order issued? I'm not a lawyer, but I think I've got at least a basic idea of the circumstances under which the government can take someone's property. This doe…

I don't think they had any opportunity to contest. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the Registry Operators must: ... d. Shall completely refrain from providing any notice or warning to, or communicating in any way with Defendants or Defendants’ representatives and shall refrain from publicizing this Order until this Order is executed in full, except as necessary to propagate the changes ordered herein to all parts of the D…

How do we file the same action against Microsoft? I would like to take their domains for my own purposes, which are obviously far more worthy than what Microsoft is doing with them (I swear).

Re: No-IP's Formal Statement on Microsoft Takedown

#37
post #23
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree with the precedent set here but it does seem No-IP was doing a pretty bad job of responding to mass abuse. While I do take issue to the actions of Microsoft and the courts I also think No-IP hasn't done themselves any favours and are at least partially to blame for this coming to pass. It stands to reason that it's close to impossible to create a free service that is impervious to abuse however it's sti…

That responsibility is not absolute, and could be interpreted differently in the frameworks of ethicality, legality, economics, and liberty. Ethically, I think you're correct that it's their responsibility to do what they can. Legally, the court in this situation thought it was somehow Microsoft's responsibility to fix it. Economically, I'd say being held liable to what users do on your platform will hurt innovation…

I don't believe they should be held liable for the actions of malicious users, that would violate all sorts of safe harbour provisions.

However, safe harbour does atleast imply reasonable effort to curb mass abuse.

Responding case by case is nice but it's not the same. As it leaves open the proverbial DDoS attack where botnets just create so many domains that the process put in place to resolve them is too burdensome for companies like Microsoft (or even law enforcement) to reasonably utilize.

Hence if you have a platform that is vulnerable to such abuses you should have systems in place to handle this at a bigger scale than single case by case means.

Re: No-IP's Formal Statement on Microsoft Takedown

#38
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That responsibility is not absolute, and could be interpreted differently in the frameworks of ethicality, legality, economics, and liberty. Ethically, I think you're correct that it's their responsibility to do what they can. Legally, the court in this situation thought it was somehow Microsoft's responsibility to fix it. Economically, I'd say being held liable to what users do on your platform will hurt innovation…

You believe in terms of liberty that botnets who compromise machines in order to steal data, spam and many other nefarious activities doesn't compare to one business being temporarily affected ? That is a strange perspective I have to say.

It is even more strange because botnets are the source of most DDoS, so there are ton of companies out there who have been crippled by DDoS and/or blackmail.

Re: No-IP's Formal Statement on Microsoft Takedown

#39

What I don't understand is the legal basis of Microsoft, a private entity, simply being handed over the property (the domain names) of another private entity. I understand that this is something that was ordered by a court, but under what legal theory was the order issued? I'm not a lawyer, but I think I've got at least a basic idea of the circumstances under which the government can take someone's property. This doe…

I don't think they had any opportunity to contest. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the Registry Operators must: ... d. Shall completely refrain from providing any notice or warning to, or communicating in any way with Defendants or Defendants’ representatives and shall refrain from publicizing this Order until this Order is executed in full, except as necessary to propagate the changes ordered herein to all parts of the D…

Edit: Looks like Microsoft filed for and got a emergency temporary restraining order against all the defendants including No-IP.

http://www.noticeoflawsuit.com/docs/Second%20Amended%20Order...

Also this is No-IPs response to Cisco's previous accusations. http://www.noip.com/blog/2014/02/12/cisco-malware-report/

They did have lot of chances to contest. Apart from Microsoft's notices, the court sent a notice to No-IP which they didn't respond to. They cleary state that ex-parte decision will be taken if they don't respond. Maybe federal courts don't like it very much if you act like they don't exist.

http://www.noticeoflawsuit.com/docs/Summons%20for%20Vitalwer...

Re: No-IP's Formal Statement on Microsoft Takedown

#40
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they had any opportunity to contest. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the Registry Operators must: ... d. Shall completely refrain from providing any notice or warning to, or communicating in any way with Defendants or Defendants’ representatives and shall refrain from publicizing this Order until this Order is executed in full, except as necessary to propagate the changes ordered herein to all parts of the D…

How do we file the same action against Microsoft? I would like to take their domains for my own purposes, which are obviously far more worthy than what Microsoft is doing with them (I swear).

Microsoft would respond. No-ip.com didn't respond.
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