the government just shut down 73,000 blogs to get

armchair_warrior

a few blogs who hosted illegal stuff. just unbelievable, its like destroying a entire city to get to a few houses.


73,000 Wordpress blogs shut down by U.S. Government
Jul. 16, 2010 (12:13 pm) By: John Brownlee

This is alarming. Torrent
news site TorrentFreak is now reporting that Wordpress host Blogetery has been shut down by United States authorities… along with all 73,000 Blogetery-hosted blogs.

Although details are still very tentative, here’s what we know: Blogetery’s entire site has been taken down, and the company’s ISP is claiming that they had to terminate Blogetery’s account immediately after being ordered to do so by law enforcement officials, “due to material hosted on the server.”

“This was not a typical case, in which suspension and notification would be the norm,” Blogetery’s ISP said. “This was a critical matter brought to our attention by law enforcement officials. We had to immediately remove the server.”

Although TorrentFreak speculates that this is part of a recent Homeland Security effort to take down file sharing sites, that doesn’t quite make sense: surely in that case Blogetery would have been asked to pull specific infringing blogs, not have the rug yanked out from under them.

No, the extreme response taken here by U.S. Authorities implies some sort of believed terrorist connection or child pornography ring, not just a handful of warez and MP3 blogs. Even so, though, unless Blogetery itself is suspect of harboring terrorists or child pornographers, it’s hard to condone this sort of extreme action that has instantly silenced over 73,000 users, the majority of whom are doubtlessly innocent of any wrong-doing.

Hopefully, we’ll get more details of this developing story soon.

http://www.geek.com/articles/news/73000-wordpress-blogs-shut-down-by-u-s-government-20100716/

armchair_warrior

U.S. Authorities Shut Down WordPress Host With 73,000 Blogs
Written by enigmax on July 16, 2010

After the U.S. Government took action against several sites connected to movie streaming recently, nerves are jangling over the possibility that this is just the beginning of a wider crackdown. Now it appears that a free blogging platform has been taken down by its hosting provider on orders from the U.S. authorities on grounds of “a history of abuse”. More than 73,000 blogs are out of action as a result.

Hot on the heels of recent threats from Vice President Joe Biden and Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel directed at sites offering unauthorized movies and music, last month U.S. authorities targeted several sites they claimed were connected to the streaming of infringing video material.

‘Operation In Our Sites‘ targeted several sites including TVShack.net, Movies-Links.TV, FilesPump.com, Now-Movies.com, PlanetMoviez.com, ThePirateCity.org, ZML.com, NinjaVideo.net and NinjaThis.net. In almost unprecedented action, the domain names of 7 sites were seized and indications are that others – The Pirate Bay and MegaUpload – narrowly avoided the same fate.

Fears remain, however, that this action is only the beginning, and that more sites will be targeted as the months roll on. Indeed, TorrentFreak has already received information that other sites, so far unnamed in the media, are being monitored by the authorities on copyright grounds.

Now, according to the owner of a free WordPress platform which hosts more than 73,000 blogs, his network of sites has been completely shut down on the orders of the authorities.

Blogetery.com has been with host BurstNet for 7 months but on Friday July 9th the site disappeared. The following Monday the owner received an email from BurstNet:

Due to the history of abuse and on going abuse on this ‘bn.***********’ server.

We have opted to terminate this server, effective immediately. This termination applies to: bn.affiliateplex.com

Abuse Department
BurstNET Technologies, Inc

Further correspondence received the following response:

Bn.xx*********** was terminated by request of law enforcement officials, due to material hosted on the server.

We are limited as to the details we can provide to you, but note that this was a critical matter and the only available option to us was to immediately deactivate the server.

…and a later clarification:

Please note that this was not a typical case, in which suspension and notification would be the norm. This was a critical matter brought to our attention by law enforcement officials. We had to immediately remove the server.

“We notified him [the Blogetery owner] when we terminated it [the server], and we refunded him his money to his account, because he has other servers with us If he wants the refund to his card, we can easily do that. However, it should be the least of his concerns,” A BurstNet representative later confirmed.

“Simply put: We cannot give him his data nor can we provide any other details. By stating this, most would recognize that something serious is afoot.”

Due to the fact that the authorities aren’t sharing information and BurstNet are sworn to secrecy, it is proving almost impossible to confirm the exact reason why Blogetery has been completely taken down. The owner does, however, admit to handling many copyright-related cease and desists in the past, albeit in a timely manner as the DMCA requires.

Nevertheless, a couple of quick Google searches which are likely to turn up blogs which link to copyright material appear to do just that – here, here and here. That said, on any network this large this type of activity is bound to happen. Many thousands of blogs on the same platform would have been perfectly legal.

“All of the users are without service just like when the Pirate Bay raids happened and all the people who were on the host sites were also taken down,” pointed out an annoyed Blogetery user who contacted TorrentFreak. “I have lost my personal site also and I don’t have any way to contact the owner since his contact info was on the blogetery.com site & that was the only way to contact him.”

Indeed, 73,000 blogs is a significant number to take down in one swoop, regardless of what some users of the site may or may not have been doing. Time will tell if it was indeed a copyright complaint that took down the service but the signs are certainly there. Not so long ago the conclusion that this type of action could be taken on copyright grounds would have been dismissed out of hand, but the current atmosphere seems to be changing.
Saved in: Copyright Issues

http://torrentfreak.com/u-s-authorities-shut-down-wordpress-host-with-73000-blogs-100716/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed: Torrentfreak (Torrentfreak)

armchair_warrior

http://www.helium.com/items/1893892-why-73000-wordpress-blogs-were-shut-down-by-the-us-government?page=2

Why 73,000 WordPress blogs were shut down by the U.S. Government


by Bruce Tyson


The United States Government shut down about 73,000 WordPress blogs on a single Web site in a move that some fear signals an increasing disregard for individual free speech rights. The action follows the high profile government seizure of seven online movie sites weeks ago. The U.S. move dwarfs current Chinese government activity that shut down only “dozens” of blogs in China.

Recently targeted by federal action, the free WordPress blogging site Blogetery abruptly came offline after hosting provider BurstNet complied with undisclosed demands from authorities. A message viewable upon visiting the Blogetery site gives this message from its owner: "After being BurstNet customer for 7 months our server was terminated without any notification or explanation.” A link on the site leads to a forum called Web Hosting Talk, where the site operator has posted correspondence with BurstNet, that suggests feederal involvement in the incident.

Those first to learn about the Blogetery shutdown seemed to think that the move was due to intellectual property concerns. The online discussion supposedly with the Blogetery owner suggests that users of his site prompted frequent cease and desist demands from copyright holders to which he responded with appropriate action against users of his site.

Original speculation seemed to be misguided upon the release of comments from BurstNet that disclosed that the action against Blogetery was not “typical” and required instant compliance with federal demands to close the entire Web site. Some reports seem to suggest that intellectual property rights actions typically target specific users of a service rather than the entire operation. Now, some fear that the suffering of the innocent together with the guilty as the free speech of many appears to have been infringed by government action. Such fear supposes, of course, that not all 73,000 blogs on Blogetery were lawbreakers. Some consider the magnitude of the federal action as an indication that the Blogetery site itself and its owner may have been involved in some type of wrongdoing.

BurstNet and authorities have been mum on specific details of the case, saying only that they have refunded the payments from the Web site owner owner. BurstNet has reportedly refused to allow the owner access to data from the site, crippling his capacity to bring the site back on a different Web site provider.

Although we do not know the underlying reason why the American government shut down Blogetery, the communist government in China indicates that a desire to throttle the popularity of social networking and micro bloggers in effort to stymie dissent within the country. Actions by that government closed selective blogs from the blogging site Sohu and shut down entire Chinese blogging sites such as Tencent, Sina, and Netease.



Sources:

Brownlee, John. "73,000 Wordpress blogs shut down by U.S. Government ." Geek.com. July 16, 2010. http://www.geek.com/articles/n ews/73000-wordpress-blogs-shut -down-by-u-s-government-201007 16/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter (accessed July 16, 2010).

"Burst, BurstNet, Nocster - BEWARE!" Blogetery. http://blogetery.com/ (accessed July 16, 2010).

"Burst, BurstNet, Nocster - BEWARE!" Webhosting Talk. http://www.webhostingtalk.com/ showthread.php?t=964013&page=1 (accessed July 16, 2010).

Enugnmax. "U.S. Authorities Shut Down WordPress Host With 73,000 Blogs." Torrent Freak. July 16, 2010. http://torrentfreak.com/u-s-au thorities-shut-down-wordpress- host-with-73000-blogs-100716/? utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:%20Torrentfr eak%20%28Torrentfreak%29 (accessed July 16, 2010).

Lipowicz, Alice. "TSA reverses Web site censorship policy." Federal Computer Week. July 8, 2010. http://fcw.com/articles/2010/0 7/08/tsa-reverses-web-site-cen sorship-policy-blames-cyber-pr otocols.aspx (accessed July 16, 2010).

Whitney, Lance. "Report: China shuts down dozens of blogs." CNet. July 15, 2010. http://news.cnet.com/8301-1357 8_3-20010651-38.html (accessed July 16, 2010).