Re: [Pearg] Research Group Last Call for "A Survey of Worldwide Censorship Techniques"

[Joseph Lorenzo Hall <[e-mail]>]

On May 27, 2020, at 5:47 AM, Eliot Lear <[e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
Also, it seems to me that a reference check is in order.  If we look at Sections 6.2 and 6.3 the authors are discussing various forms of takedowns, and a reference is made to [Anderson-2011].  To begin with, as a nit, the first person on that work is Murdoch, not Anderson.  Second, the chapter referenced doesn’t go into any detail about take downs.  There are better more specific references such as Moore and Clayton, and specifically “The Impact of Incentives on Notice and Take-down”, WEIS 2008, although I would imagine that there is even later work available.

Ah, will fix to get the order of authors right and you’re right that it doesn’t go into any detail. Here we were looking for something that actually went into physical seizure of server hardware or seizure of entire logical entities (instead of notice and takedown, the next section, which is often directed at individual pieces of content or a single domain on a webserver). I’ll check out the citation above and citations since and see if we can’t get better pointers in there (this section is obviously to be complete and quite svelte).


Ok.  That sounds like a classic asset seizure.  It may be worth expanding on how and when physical asset seizure is effective, especially in a cloud-based world.


I’ve fixed the reference and made sure the text acknowledges it’s an in-passing mention and it now calls out cloud-like situations. See if this works or send edits?

https://github.com/IRTF-PEARG/rfc-censorship-tech/commit/61202f9346876ba8d311c178e632d9333b70ce3c


Finally, did I miss the part where one discusses domain name takedowns by registry, or has that not been used as a form of censorship?


We can add it if you have citations. Would love a PR of course or suggested text.

I guess I would suggest starting with the references in guidance-domain-seizures-07mar12-en.pdf<https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/guidance-domain-seizures-07mar12-en.pdf>.

Ok, that was quite a rabbit hole. I’ve been fascinating by domain seizures for a while now (ever since a legal case called, “The State of Kentucky vs. 141 domain names” where the US state of Kentucky used its own anti-gambling laws to seize the domains of 141 online gambling websites).

I agree that the draft should mention this. Here is my proposal and I’m interested in your (and others’) feedback:

* I’ll add domain registries and registrars as a “point of control” in Section 3.1.
* I’ll add a paragraph to Section 4.1.1 (on DNS Interference) pointing to domain seizures in malware/botnet/spam, anti-fraud, and intellectual property cases.

I wanted to summarize that before actually changing the text and see what folks think.

best, Joe

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Joseph Lorenzo Hall, Senior Vice President, Strong Internet
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