Turnkey Server Outage and YouTube refuses Obama
FTNHosting.net acquires ChromiumHosting
Christopher Miller, CEO of FTN Hosting.net, announced today (September 16th) that FTNHosting.net is now the proud owner of ChromiumHosting. Customers of ChromiumHosting will be given the option to migrate from the current infrastructure to FTNHosting.net’s equipment. All of ChromiumHosting’s customers will receive an email further detailing their migration options. ChromiumHosting customers now have 24/7 access to FTNHosting.net’s support. Miller also announced that this acquisition was one of many that the company plans to make in the near future. FTNHosting.net also owns web hosting services VMPort.com, URPad.net, and K-Disc.net.
Turnkey Server Outage
Many Turnkey customers could not access the website or their services on Saturday, September 15th. Turnkey said that the outage was caused by a large distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. According to the company, over 2000 ips were randomly attacked. The attack occurred across several different network blocks. Apparently, having multiple network blocks affected at once caused the automated system Turnkey has in place to deflect such attacks failed. This caused a distribution level routing problem for large portions of their network. Turnkey apologized for the inconvenience to their customers, and is continuing to evaluate ways to prevent future attacks and outages.
Google refuses to remove controversial YouTube video from the web
Google, Inc. has refused President Obama’s request that they remove the controversial “Innocence of Muslims” film clip. The video has caused outrage and violence in Muslim communities around the world, including the attack on the US embassy that resulted in the death of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. The video depicts the Muslim Prophet Mohammad as a fraud and a philanderer. Google has restricted access of the video to India and Indonesia because it is illegal in those countries. Google also restricted access of the video to Libya and Egypt in light of the current violence and instability in those countries. On Wednesday, the White House asked Google to review the video to see if their terms of service had been violated. Google responded that no terms of use had been violated and that they would not remove the video.
New Blackberry Domain Registrations
Blackberry registered quite a few domain names yesterday that may offer some hints at new Blackberry products being developed. The domain names registered are blackberryflick.com, blackberryflick.net, blackberryflick.org, blackberryflow.net, blackberryflow.org, and blackberryhub.net. They also registered blackberryhub.org, blackberrykeyboard.net, blackberrynewstand.net, blackberrynewstand.org, blackberrypeek.com, blackberrypeek.net, and blackberrypeek.org. Blackberry also registered the domains blackberryplayon.com, blackberryplayon.net, blackberryplayon.org, blackberryremember.com, blackberryremember.net, blackberryremember.org, and blackberrystorymaker.org. The company also registered blackberrystorymaker.net, blackberrystorymaker.com, blackberrytimeshift.com, blackberrytimeshift.net, blackberrytimeshift.org, blackberryvoicecontrol.com, blackberryvoice control.net, and blackberryvoicecontrol.org. Blackberry also registered the domains bbmvideo.com, bbmvideo.net, and bbmvideo.org for their BBM product the BlackBerry Messenger.
WallStreet.com Complaint denied
In June of this year, the company Wall-Street.com LLC filed a Uniform Domain-Name Dispute Resolution (UDRP) complaint against the owner of Wallstreet.com. The World Intellectual Property Organization panel has denied the complaint. Marcus Kocak, a Danish businessman, is the owner of Wallstreet.com. Kocak bought the domain in 1999 for $1.03 million dollars. The purchase was the first ever one million dollar sale of a domain. Since that time there have been many domain sales that were over one million dollars. The current record holder of the most expensive domain name purchase is Sex.com which sold for 13 million dollars.
Nominet accused of skirting Freedom of Information laws
A former employee of Nominet, Emily Taylor has accused Nominet the .uk registry company, of using private emails to communicate with the Department of Business, Enterprise, and Regulatory Reform to get around the Freedom of Information Act. According to Taylor, Nominet’s former policy director, the two entities were collaborating on regulatory government oversight of the .uk namespace. The Freedom of Information Act guarantees a right of access to information held by public authorities. The Act first went into effect in January of 2005. The Act applies to government offices and to companies that are publicly owned. By using private emails instead of government or company emails the “right of access” was denied. In 2011, the Information Commissioner’s Office said that personal emails also fall under the purview of the Freedom of Information Act if the emails relate to official business. The emails that Taylor has released are dated 200, and since that tome the company has been under review and restructured. Quite a few of the emails specifically mention how wonderful it is to work without having to fear the Freedom of Information Act. Nominet is still under investigation by multiple government agencies, and they have also released a statement saying that they are conducting an internal review of the matter.