What? You’re Not All Child Pornographers? Never Mind.

If you’re not familiar with how the Internet works, there are domains (stinque.com), and there are subdomains (zombie.stinque.com). A subdomain is very easy to set up — just an additional entry in your domain registration record. Heck, if there was a market for it, we could sell custom subdomains: YourNameHere.stinque.com.

Some web-hosting companies do just that. Of course, it means that your custom subdomain is dependent on the primary domain remaining live, but what could possibly go wrong?

The Department of Justice and Homeland Security’s ICE office proudly announced that they had seized domains related to counterfeit goods and child pornography. What they failed to mention, however, is that one of the targeted domains belongs to a free DNS provider, and that 84,000 websites were wrongfully accused of links to child pornography crimes.

Say we had 84,000 subdomain customers, and one of those customers — without our knowledge — set up marksanchezgirlfriends.stinque.com for the purposes of conducting Naughty Business. So the ICE Squad swoops down on that operation and “seizes” stinque.com to cut off its Internet spigot. And to make the point, ICE redirects all 84,000 stinque.com subdomains to display the banner above. Nailed!

Unless you’re among the other 83,999 subdomains:

Most of the subdomains in question are personal sites and sites of small businesses. A search on Bing still shows how innocent sites were claimed to promote child pornography. A rather damaging accusation, which scared and upset many of the site’s owners.

But all’s well that ends well, and after the primary domain was seized Friday, ICE switched it back on Sunday. That’s only two or three days of telling everyone in the world that you’re a child pornographer. Plus another two or three days for the Internet to catch up with the changes.

Heck, could be worse. You could be Rick Santorum.

U.S. Government Shuts Down 84,000 Websites, ‘By Mistake’ [TorrentFreak]

nojo
6:00 pm • Wednesday • February 16, 2011
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10 Comments

redmanlaw

6:06 pm • Wednesday • February 16, 2011

The tin foil hat brigade commenting at rawstory (soon to be under the guidance of one Megan Carpenteeyay as editrix) says its a test run for the interwebz kill shot Obama wants.

nojo

6:07 pm • Wednesday • February 16, 2011

@redmanlaw: Megan’s going to Raw? Wow. Did they do the relaunch just for her?

6:10 pm • Wednesday • February 16, 2011

@nojo: Don’t think so. She doesn’t start until March sometime.

Dodgerblue

6:20 pm • Wednesday • February 16, 2011

Wait. This, from the government that is photographing our tackle at airports? Who is the perv here, anyway?

JNOV

6:37 pm • Wednesday • February 16, 2011

It’s LIMERICK TYME, MOTHERFUCKERS!

There once was a grrrl born in Pitt
She sits on the train drunk as shit
She’s collecting the digits
As she commutes and visits
Cuz dudes here think she’s The Shit.

(My dongle cuts out once we hit Amish Country, but I’ll be back if I don’t pass out first.)

6:54 pm • Wednesday • February 16, 2011

And in the email box…

We have just launched a new entertainment platform TaskRacers in alpha mode. In a few words this is a competitions place where users are felcome ot create competitions (we call that TASKS here) and solutions.

I’m not sure, but I suspect “felcome” has something to do with child porn. Or Santorum. Or both.

7:38 pm • Wednesday • February 16, 2011

The cartoon gal in the “Project Blackout” ad I’m seeing is not a minor.

Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One

7:57 pm • Wednesday • February 16, 2011

There once was a donkey named “Moe”,
Whose fame has continued to grow,
For he comported so well,
With the pundit “Michelle”,
Fox News had to broadcast the show!

mellbell

10:07 pm • Wednesday • February 16, 2011

@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One: Game, set, match.

5:30 am • Thursday • February 17, 2011

@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One: Brilliant! I knew I could count on you!