Thanks for the link (to a web site registered to Microsoft's law firm)
Milton. Court documents have yet to been posted on Pacer.
The fact that Microsoft was granted an ex parte TRO in this case against
Vitalwerks is absolutely disgraceful. It could be argued that Microsoft
might be entitled to a restraining order, even ex parte, against the
unnamed defendants, but Vitalwerks itself could easily have been served and
given at least some chance to respond, under a gag order if necessary, to
the emergency orders requested.
Microsoft's complaint is of the "throw the kitchen sink and hope something
sticks" variety. That's not to say there are not some legitimate charges
here, there are, but whether Microsoft has standing to bring them and
whether the defendants are correctly identified and joined is questionable.
The innocent parties claiming to be injured today might be interested in
this representation by Microsoft: "Vitalwerks...derives no known income from
this free service. Thus, there is no hardship on Defendants or any 3rd
party" in granting the TRO.
Tell that to the folks who couldn't connect today.
There is also a gem for our WHOIS privacy advocates. In it's negligence
claim against Vitalwerks Microsoft claims that Vitalwerks, as best practice,
should be required to collect and verify the name, address, telephone
number and IP address of all it's customers and make it publicly available
in a searchable database (page 20 of Microsoft's brief supporting it's
Emergency TRO request). Delightful. Can't wait to see Microsoft bring the
same charge against Facebook.
In it's trademark claims, and much of Microsoft's standing is derived from
it's position as a TM rights holder, Microsoft assumes TM rights in
subdomain names are the same as legal rights granted marks holders in domain
names under the ACSA. Big assumption not currently universally supported in
law.
We do need to follow this case. If Microsoft achieves victory in the manner
requested on the basis argued we're looking at this case expanding TM rights
and further eroding privacy, at least in the United States. Not to mention
the diminution of due process, the horrid mixture of public and private law
and other such folly...
-----Original Message-----
From: Milton L Mueller <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2014 16:09:55 +0000
Subject: Re: no-ip
Microsoft used some very powerful legal tools, asking for temporary
restraining orders, and convinced a judge that the need for immediate action
justified those actions. Http://noticeoflawsuit.com
They’ve since been forced to pull back on their response, but I agree
with Timothe that this is an issue that requires close attention and has
important implications for the ICANN community.
From: NCSG-Discuss [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Seun
Ojedeji
Sent: Tuesday, July 8, 2014 11:32 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [NCSG-Discuss] no-ip
Hello Timothe,
Thanks for bringing this up here; when i first read the news of Microsoft
hijacking no-ip domain. The first technical question that came to mind was;
Is Microsoft now some form of an hacker because i was just wondering how
they took-over without any form of authorisation from the domain owner.
However i guess the section below from your url clears it for me
Under the terms of the court decision, the DNS lookups for the domains were
passed to Microsoft's name servers, with the plan being that Redmond would
filter out No-IP subdomains linked to malicious activity and let legitimate
subdomains resolve as expected.
Having cleared the technical sides of the story, the question now is whether
no-ip should bound to respond to such call from Microsoft especially since
its not an act from no-ip itself but the users. One could liken this to
running botnets on systems that exist on a large ISP network to attack a
particular organisation. Does the victim sue the ISP or the users who don't
even know they are botnet nodes.
Cheers!
On Tue, Jul 8, 2014 at 3:51 PM, Timothe Litt <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
I haven't been following things here for a while, so sorry if this has
already been noticed.
If not, here's a case of judicial interference with the DNS, coupled
with incompetent 'solutions'.
This is highly relevant to the ncsg constituency as many non-commercial
users live with dynamic IP addresses, using services such as no-ip to
have stable names in the DNS.
Of course, our terms of membership can be read to exclude these users -
but note that there's nothing to prevent a similar action being taken
against direct holders of domain names...
Here's the story:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/01/sorry_chaps_microsoft_unborks_legitimate_noip_users_domains/
The comments provide more detail - which for technical readers is tragic.
--
Timothe Litt
ACM Distinguished Engineer
--------------------------
This communication may not represent the ACM or my employer's views,
if any, on the matters discussed.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Seun Ojedeji,
Federal University Oye-Ekiti
web: http://www.fuoye.edu.ng
Mobile: +2348035233535
alt email: [log in to unmask]
The key to understanding is humility - my view !
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