Author: Lucie Loos

Marketing & Communication Director - Nameshield group

GDPR and consequences: DomainTools appeals injunction decision in .NZ whois case

GDPR and consequences: DomainTools appeals injunction decision in .NZ whois case
Image source: mohamed_hassan via Pixabay

DomainTools sued by DNCL

In June 2018, .NZ registry, DNCL (Domain Name Commission Limited) sued the American company specialized in tools of monitoring and investigation, on the ground that it violated the registry’s terms of use.

The DNCL was successful and the Federal Court in the State of Washington granted a preliminary injunction that banned DomainTools to collect the whois data of .NZ and ordered the suppression of the data used in the existing publications, while the lawsuit proceeded.

Indeed, since June 2016, .NZ registry has indicated in its terms that it was now forbidden to copy the domain names holders’ data.

DomainTools appeals the injunction decision

Without surprise, DomainTools, that first indicated that the use of these data was also of general interest, these data being used by its customers in the context of the fight for cybersecurity, appealed the preliminary injunction.

Of course, this trial reflects the terms of the debate which took place at ICANN regarding the General data protection regulation (GDPR).

DomainTools is mentioned in the American draft legislation unveiled by the Internet Governance Project, which indicates as such, that this attempt would be led by different lobbies. The Transparent, Open and Secure Internet Act of 2018, dated from August 16, 2018 mentions these two possibilities of evolution: 

  • The first called “large” proposes keeping a whois with a wide enough spectrum of information (more or less the same as our old fashioned whois)
  • The second, more limited, would keep this obligation to publish the data to the American residents or to the actors targeting a business activity on the US market.

An intense debate about the GDPR

This trial reminds us how the debates regarding the GDPR implementation are intense within ICANN, opposing actors using the now so precious data and the privacy advocates, supported by the WP29 (Article 29 Data Protection Working Party) that mentions in particular the applicable sanctions.

Finally, it should be reminded that the GAC attempts to minimize the consequences of the European regulation. After being dismissed by the German Court from their attack in May 2018, which aimed a registrar that stopped to provide customers data under the GDPR, the GAC aims to obtain from the EU’s Court of Justice a favorable decision on this subject. The debate about the DomainTools case deserves to be followed closely!

The DNS KSK-2010 security key revocation by ICANN, it’s this week!

Image source : TheDigitalArtist via Pixabay

After the first changing of the cryptographic key in last October, it is now, on January 11, that the old KSK key (Key Signing Key) of the root zone will be deactivated.

The process initiated in October 2018 to improve the security of the root zone, with the deployment of the Key Signing Key-2017, finds its achievement with the revoking of the root of the old key KSK-2010.

As indicated by Paul Hoffman, ICANN’s Principal Technologist, “The ICANN organization does not expect problems with the revocation. However, this is the first time a KSK in the Domain Name System (DNS) root has been revoked, so the ICANN org and the DNS technical community will be watching carefully for at least 48 hours after the publication of the revoked KSK-2010.”

To note, during the rollover on October, the negative impacts were extremely limited and it would seem that only two Internet services providers were impacted by interruptions during the process.

Of course, ICANN encourages solutions providers to no longer ship KSK-2010 in their products. ICANN should later publish a white paper about the full rollover process, including the lessons learned from this operation. ICANN communities will then be able to open discussions regarding upcoming rollovers that could happen.

The shutting down of Incels.me, the “involuntary single” website

The shutting down of Incels.me, the “involuntary single” website
Image source: geralt via Pixabay

As a result of the violation of the anti-abuse policy, the .me registry decided to suspend the Incels.me website for an indefinite period. For reminder, the website possesses a forum that regroups members claiming to be single despite themselves, or “incels”, and who exchange on their daily lives through this mean.

Disturbing comments, the source of the suspension

It is not without surprise that the administrators of the incels.me website saw their forum become inaccessible. The investigations done by the registry have allowed to discover hate speeches, threats of rape and even murder in the comments exchanged between the participants. The decision to shut down the website was promptly made on October 15th, 2018, due to the content that violated the anti-abuse policy. According to the registry, this measure was taken to force the Incels.me administrators to take down the inappropriate contents and to prevent hate speech from appearing on the forum again.

Incels.me website associated to attacks?

Last April, Toronto was the scene of a bloody attack, where a man murdered 10 persons by a vehicle-ramming attack. Before attacking, the man posted a message on social networks, where he declared himself “incel”. This is only after the investigation that the police discovered that the murderer was inspired by some violent contents from the forum of Incels.me. The link is quickly made between the individual and the content inciting hatred, but also rape, exchanged on the forum.

Incels.me financed by a Chinese giant with suspicious activities

The inquiries launched on the website allow to trace back to its main financier. Thanks to these investigations, we know today that the incels.me website is financially supported by a big Chinese entity that in parallel owns more than 54 000 other domain names. The investigators were shocked by the potential of illicit nature of this company’s activities, ZhuHai NaiSiNike Information Technology Co. Indeed, on the thousands of domain names registered, the major part is involved in websites hosting of prescription drugs’ illegal sale.

Despite the suppression requests of the abusive comments present on the incels.me forum, the Chinese company didn’t proceed to the removing. The website will thus remain suspended until the removing of the litigious contents.

DNS Belgium will now take offline fraudulent websites within 24 hours

DNS Belgium will now take offline fraudulent websites within 24 hours
Source of the picture: Kreutzfelder via Pixabay

In the context of the fight against insecurity on the web, DNS Belgium, the .BE registry, decided to intensify its action by cooperating with the FPS Economy [The FPS Economy, SMEs, Middle Classes and Energy is a Federal Public Service of Belgium which is responsible for contributing to the development, competitiveness and sustainability of the goods and services market in Belgium] in order to shut down fraudulent websites within 24 hours.

Philip Du Bois, general manager of DNS Belgium indicates: “This protocol will enable us to take even more targeted action, together with the FPS Economy, against possible abuses where .be domain names are involved. It underscores our ambition for a high quality and safe .be zone which serves as suitable environment for the further development of the Internet.”

The aim: to ensure consumers a completely safe Internet browsing on .BE websites.

This procedure will ensure a much higher reactivity. Indeed, until now, FPS Economy couldn’t request a blocking from the registry regarding the content, moreover fraudulent websites with correct identification data (at least of which the forgery couldn’t be proven), were untouchable. The blocking required a request from the Prosecution, i.e. a two weeks long procedure, which left plenty of time for the fraudulent website to create important damages to the consumers. Several hundreds of such websites per year were concerned!

From December, the 1st 2018, the protocol will then allow at the request of FPS Economy, the DNS Belgium registry to block .BE domain names which:

  • Are used for fraudulent websites
  • Host phishing websites

Of course, this procedure will be applied in the case of serious crimes.

The blocked domain name’s owner will have two weeks to react against the blocking. Without action of their part within 6 months, the blocked name will expire.

This still too rare initiative is to be welcomed in a context of the fierce fight against cybercriminality!

Webstresser.org, the source of million DDoS attacks have been dismantled

Webstresser.org, the source of million DDoS attacks have been dismantled
Source : typographyimages via Pixabay

The good news just arrived, Webstresser.org, one of the websites most responsible of million DDoS attacks has been dismantled. This shutdown has been possible thanks to Europol’s active intervention.

For reminder, a DDoS is a cyberattack. The operating mode is to saturate queries servers so the websites hosted on these same servers cannot operate for web users anymore.

Many countries hand in hand to dismantle the network

According to the National Crime Agency’s research, Webstresser.org has been used by hackers for the launching of almost 4 million attacks around the world. Among its victims, there are many British banks.

To carry out this large scale operation, five countries, Croatia, Scotland, Canada, Netherlands and Serbia have combined their best policemen to lend a hand to Europol.

Although this is an operation of international concern, the German, Dutch and American authorities were in charge of closing the website definitely. Now, its operators can’t access it anymore and a message left by the American Ministry of Defense serves as the home page.

Heavy penalties for the hackers

The shutdown of webstresser.org also led to a wave of arrests in many countries like Scotland, Croatia and Serbia. According to the French law, a cyberattack is a criminal offence and the penalties are severe. Thus, if the attack aims individuals, the hacker or hackers can be sentenced to 5 years of imprisonment and a fine of 150 000 euros. If the attack touches the State or its institutions, the penalty can go up to 7 years of imprisonment and a fine of 300 000 euros.

Following this great haul, the Europol spokeswoman and operations coordinator, Claire Georges announced that measures will be taken against all users of the website around the world and that arrests will be expected.