In recent news there have been two cases of DNS registrars being 'ordered'
to take down domain names and lock them against transfer. The city of
London police case is well known. There is also a Pharmacy industry group
asserting the 'right' to take down sites without a court order or any form
of due process.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140110/12140025836/pharmacy-lobbyists-lie-to-registrars-if-we-complain-about-site-it-must-be-taken-down-no-questions-asked.shtml
What is worrying here is not just the lack of oversight in these particular
cases. If these practices become a regular occurrence they are going to be
interpreted as an attack and countermeasures will begin to emerge.
We have indeed already seen the emergence of one such countermeasure
'Namecoin' which applies Bitcoin to "replace" the DNS and according to some
this also "deprecates" the WebPKI.
The main application for Namecoin appears to be the same as the main
application for Bitcoin itself: Enabling the dotcom revolution to finally
extend to the provision of recreational pharmaceuticals. But the Namecoin
technology if successful would also be used for much more including
applications most of us support (dissident speech against authoritarian
regimes) and applications none of us support (child abuse, etc.).
At the moment use of Namecoin is restricted to a particular niche and is
unlikely to gain widespread acceptance. It is also a technology designed by
geeks for geeks in the finest tradition of calling anyone who can't grock
it a luser.
But if the principle of due process comes under further attack, we are
going to find ourselves in a different domain and the demand for a naming
infrastructure that is not exposed to the risk of arbitrary search and
seizure will grow.
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Website: http://hallambaker.com/