Just say "No" to Network Solutions. If enough people drop them as their hosting company that would make a statement.

Utterly laughable decision on their part.

Posted by: Abu_Lahab at March 24, 2008 7:24 AM

with murder and intimidation comes previlige

and a little help from western fools only helps things along

Posted by: raven_ at March 24, 2008 7:39 AM

According to the State Department:

It is unlawful for a person in the United States or subject to the jurisdiction of the United States to knowingly provide "material support or resources" to a designated FTO. (The term "material support or resources" is defined in 18 U.S.C. § 2339A(b)(1) as " any property, tangible or intangible, or service, including currency or monetary instruments or financial securities, financial services, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, safehouses, false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel (1 or more individuals who maybe or include oneself), and transportation, except medicine or religious materials.” 18 U.S.C. § 2339A(b)(2) provides that for these purposes “the term ‘training’ means instruction or teaching designed to impart a specific skill, as opposed to general knowledge.” 18 U.S.C. § 2339A(b)(3) further provides that for these purposes the term ‘expert advice or assistance’ means advice or assistance derived from scientific, technical or other specialized knowledge.’’

http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/fs/37191.htm

Tell me how providing the service of domain name registration does not violate this?

Posted by: non-croyant at March 24, 2008 7:46 AM

Robert, this is very interesting. Hopefully it will help expose Network Solutions to some enlightened suggestions from the public (or perhaps DOJ) regarding their doing business with a terrorist organization. Just knowing their IP address ought to start the wheels turning in the heads of some of the more adventuresome geeks out there.

It would be helpful if someone who is knowledgeable (perhaps on your staff, or among the readers) could interpret the whois information. The Arab names, Hizbollah, and the Syrian connections stand out, but without knowing how the domain system, which is international in scope, works the significance of the various pieces of information is not at all apparent. I suspect if one could get a peek at Network Solutions' customer base one would find all sorts of unsavory customers like this.

Posted by: Eastview at March 24, 2008 7:46 AM

non-croyant,

Providing domain name registration services to Hizbollah sure seems to fit the definition of "unlawful."

Do there exist laws that make it illegal to arbitrarily deny, without due process or right of appeal, services for what may arguably be considered to be a public utility? Wilders should find an American partner and sue Network Solutions. The discovery process should be interesting, since it presumably would involve uncovering the facts behind their decision to remove Wilders as a customer. The publicity alone would be wonderful.

Posted by: Eastview at March 24, 2008 8:00 AM

1) How well laundered is the money that pays for the domain name registration?

2) How well laundered is the money that supports the IP address range and hosting?

1) connects directly to Network Solutions. 2) indirectly, since Network Solutions provides no hosting nor e-mail services for this domain name.

In any case the content of the Web site clearly violates the terms of use of Network Solutions, terms of use that I used to get svengalimedia.com (you don't want to know) shut down by them in the past.

Posted by: non-croyant at March 24, 2008 8:06 AM

"Providing domain name registration services to Hizbollah sure seems to fit the definition of 'unlawful.'"

I haven't really investigated the reality, aside from the surface appearance (I'm CJN btw), but I imagine that the defense is that Hezbollah has no real connection to the people who are running the site.

All we really know is that some people from Syria are hosting a site that someone paid Network Solutions to register a domain name for.

Yeah, it's hizbollah.org, but if "alqaedaintennessee.org" isn't taken already I am sure that I could register that domain name, but it wouldn't mean that I am a member of Al Qaeda (I promise I'm not, authorities-whom-it-might-concern).

I could even place content that cheers Al Qaeda on on the site and get away with it - just look at whatshisname? Samir Khan?

In the end, though, Network Solutions should shut down the site for its content alone, seeing is how they are worried about Fitna's content (or so they say).

Posted by: non-croyant at March 24, 2008 8:18 AM

I went to high school in Herndon, Virginia! It is in the Washington, DC metro area.

Is nothing sacred?

Posted by: tanstaafl at March 24, 2008 8:20 AM

... of course they did register under the name of Hezbollah:

Registrant Name:NO FIRST NAME NO LAST NAME
Registrant Organization:Hizbollah
Registrant Street1:ATTN insert domain name here
Registrant Street2:care of Network Solutions

Posted by: non-croyant at March 24, 2008 8:52 AM

I called NETWORK SOLUTIONS, according to their customer service, these terrorists are hosting on their own server.

Network solutions was providing the "extra services" like domain name registration and DNS routing.

I asked them why they are helping a terrorist organization and shut down a website arguing for Fre e Speech and they had no response.

They told me the Fitna website's issue has escalated and will be handled by the legal department...

I suggest everyone call Network solution's customer service and ask why they are hosting a terrorist website.

1-800-333-7680 thats their number

Posted by: Freedom Rings at March 24, 2008 10:30 AM

Well, as far as I know, under the law registrant has to provide correct name, address etc. So they should close this sh*tballah domain right away.

Posted by: LazarOfSerbia at March 24, 2008 10:34 AM

ection 140(d)(2) of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act

It is unlawful for a person in the United States or subject to the jurisdiction of the United States to knowingly provide "material support or resources" to a designated FTO.

Posted by: Freedom Rings at March 24, 2008 10:44 AM

okay, after being on the phone with them, i filed official complaint aganist the company's hosting and services of a terrorist website.

My question to them was, how come they provided services to terrorist organization for the past 10 years without even shutting it down.

So i have opened a "ticket" on that website and filed a request to get Fitna site back because it is an expression of freedom of speech.

Spencer, we should start having the users call Network solutions over and over again to make sure they get the point.

the numbers are:

1.866.391.4357
1-800-333-7680

For both of them, call first and press the option for "Other Services" or "Help"

Posted by: Freedom Rings at March 24, 2008 10:59 AM

I live in Virginia Beach, I've contacted the big paper here with the tip. Hopefully we'll see something on the front page .

Posted by: subfrequency at March 24, 2008 11:00 AM

I'd like to inform (or remind) Robert and his readers that NetWork Solutions was convicted on several counts of using the US Mail to illegally "phish" customers of other registrars in an effort to fool them into registering with NetWork Solutions.

Since I own several domain names, I, too, was a target of their scam.

Basically, this phishing scheme consisted of sending "official looking" notices by regular US mail (and via email) to domain owners whose name was about to expire -- a name registered to another company.

The sent letters had something like this written in large type:

"NOTICE: your site is scheduled to be deactivated in 30 days (or 20 or 10 -- they continued to send letters at each interval) UNLESS you send fill out this form and send it in immediately"

The form consisted of a series of check boxes for 2-Year or 5-year renewals (with the words, "Big savings after it") and the costs to be sent in, preferably by credit card or money order, to an address headed by the words, "ATTN: DOMAIN RENEWALS."

Any domain owner mistakenly sending money to have their domain name renewed learned that they had just signed a NON-TRANSFERABLE AGREEMENT TO HAVE NETWORK SOLUTIONS PERMANENTLY MANAGE THEIR DOMAIN NAME.

That's right. PERMANENTLY. Unless, of course, you caught onto their phishing scheme and contacted the US government to complain.

IN OTHER WORDS, Network Solutions are a bunch of criminals, so what else would you expect them do to here?

Posted by: DrRJP at March 24, 2008 11:27 AM

Anybody got a complaint email address for Network Solutions?

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at March 24, 2008 11:29 AM

Jihad Reader CJN has done the work that should have been done by those working for the American government, for the Pentagon, which by now should have a program of cyber-jihad that harnesses the skills of harnessing the skills of those who, with their sometimes manic skills and enthusiasms and knowledge can, by sitting at their computers and doing what comes so naturally, apparently, to so many of them, become unsung war heroes as important, or more important, than any Audie Murphy on the conventional battlefield.

We are beginning to see the light. It is dawning on some former enthusiasts for the war in Iraq, that just may be that war that if indeed, having been led to believe by Saddam Hussein’s own effort which was aimed at convincing not the United States, but Iran, that he had or was soon to acquire weapons of mass destruction, the United States did invade, did remove him, did scour Iraq for such weapons, it ought at that point to have promptly withdrawn. There should be no embarrassment among those who, having apparently been mislead – were we not all misled? – by the information that the Administation claimed to have, or perhaps actually believed it had (there is no telling with those who made policy in the Bush Administration as to how much of the delusion and misinformation was believed in by those who spread it to others), voted for the war. Hillary Clinton, in that respect, has nothing to apologize for. And Barack Obama, who claims that he was “always against the war,” needs to tell us in what way his opposition to the war differed from that of, say, Noam Chomsky, or Ralph Nader, or those who run CAIR. In other words, was he against the war because he knew, unlike everyone else, that Saddam Hussein did not have, and was not soon to acquire, weapons of mass destruction, or was it because he believed that in any case the United States had no business depriving Saddam Hussein of such weapons? The answer is important.

And the answer that the candidates give, that the people give when they vote, to the question of what should be done in Iraq, is important, and not merely whether this or that candidate thinks we “should do this” or “should do that.” A further question to be asked is: why do you recommend this, or why do you disrecommend that? We are trying to determine, after all, if the candidates support, or oppose, certain measures for the right reasons rather than the wrong ones. I support a withdrawal from Iraq, and so does Noam Chomsky. We have different reasons. The reasons may be clues as to how that withdrawal takes place, in what “atmosphere,” with what accompanying series of measures taken elsewhere, and what other measures are contemplated. Does one simply withdraw, or withdraw to deploy resources, and policy-making attention, more effectively, in order to combat Jihad? Would greater attention, and collaboration, with allies in the historic West, and addressing the question of cutting off Saudi and other funding for Muslim institutions in that Western world, halting Muslim immigration, and working to reduce the Muslim presence in the Bilad al-kufr, the Lands of the Infidels. And this requires support, and that support will only come if there is wider diffusion of the contents of Qur’an, Hadith, and Sira, and greater familiarity not only with the texts, but with how those texts have been, and are likely to continue to be, received.

And the effort here – to shame or force Network Solutions into not collaborating with the enemy (by what it allows, and by what it does not allow) – demonstrates how various are the weapons of war. Even a book on Jihad or Muhammad will do, even a compilation entitled “Blogging the Qur’an” will do. Facts happen to be, for the Infidels, the most effective weapon of self-defense.

If you regard the American effort in Iraq as a squandering of resources -- men, money, materiel, morale both military and civilian, and if you do not accept that the phrase “war on terror” is adequate, and you further deny that Iraq is the “central battlefield” in that ill-named “war on terror” because there is, as you see it, no such “central battlefield,” but if you also agree that Islam, or the doctrine of Jihad, the inculcated vision or division of the world as split between Believer and Infidel, with a state of permanent hostility to exist between the two, and a permanent duty for Believers to push back the borders of Dar al-Islam at the expense of the Dar al-Harb, if that is you are opposed to the war in Iraq not despite, but because you regard the ideology of Islam with alarm, you are among the well-prepared.

And you are, as part of that growing group, likely to further understand that Jihad is a permanent doctrine (you can laughingly judge Noah Feldman’s “After Jihad” by its idiotic title), one that fell into desuetude, more or less, during the two centuries of perceived Muslim military weakness, in the period when there was no Muslim millions migrating behind what they, the Muslims, had been taught themselves to regard as enemy lines, no trillions of dollars received from an accident of geology, no exploitation of Western technology – as by Hezbollah, in the case of Network Solutions – the three developments which, I have repeatedly insisted here, explain the revival of Jihad to active life.

The Internet is now used effectively by Muslims to disseminate their message. Network Solutions supports a Hezbollah site, and denies Geert Wilders the ability to post his fifteen-minute documentary on Islamic texts and their connection to the behavior of Muslims. Network Solutions can be – is above – exposed, and that exposure should have consequences, if the American government has its wits about it.

Along with spreading knowledge of Islam – not the kind that Muslims and their apologists have in mind, but the kind that defectors from Islam, such as Magdi Allam, Wafa Sultan, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Taslima Nasreen, Ibn Warraq, recognize as the real thing, -- there is another think that the network of the world-wide web can do. It can spread the understanding, among Infidels, not only of the texts and tenets of Islam, and the attitudes and atmospherics that arise naturally from those texts and tenets, but can do something just as important. It is the best forum for showing Infidels that the failures, political, economic, social, intellectual, and moral, of states and societies suffused with Islam, are a direct result of Islam itself.

Once this is understood by Infidels, and they can confidently, and articulately, make those connections, it will be very difficult for Muslims themselves not to begin to recognize the truth of that connection. For how else to explain the lack of democracy, which is to be found in only a few member states of the O.I.C., and those states have had Islam constrained by systematic policy (as Turkey), or possess large and still not powerless non-Muslim populations (Malaysia, Lebanon). But Islam itself locates political legitimacy not in the expressed will of the people, but in the will expressed by Allah in the Qur’an, as glossed by the Sunna. And how to explain the economic paralysis of so many Muslim states, and the failure of the rich oil states to create, over the past several generations, since the real bonanza began – some ten trillion dollars since 1973 alone – nearly thirty-five years ago – modern economies, but continiue to rely on armies of foreign wage-slaves to do all the real work. The Saudi rentiers have not created economies. Nothing is made in Saudi Arabia, nothing is grown in Saudi Arabia, and nothing is made or grown in the sheikhdoms of the Gulf, save perhaps those souvenirs made of seven differently-colored sands that tourists buy at the airport during their stopover in Dubai. Inshallah-fatalism guarantees that wherever Muslim and non-Muslims compete fairly in the realm of economics, the non-Muslims will win and the Muslims fall behind. That is not the only reason for black African states to limit the mosques and the Da’wa campaigns, but it’s one more reason. And then there are the social and moral failures, which are linked: the failure to see that the mistreatment of women, and of non-Muslims, is unacceptable, is wrong. And finally there are the intellectual failures, that can be seen by glancing at a list of Nobel Prize winners, or scanning a history of science, or visiting one of the world’s great museums to see examples of the Muslim contribution to world art. For Islam discourages, places severe limits placed, free and skeptical inquiry, in order to protect Islam itself, and this habit of mental submission carries over into other realms, and helps to explain the failure of science to develop under Islam (after that brief flourishing known as High Islamic Civilization, when a few freethinking nominal Muslims, such as Rhazes, and Arabic-speaking non-Muslims, or those who were only a generation away from being Jews and Christians and Zoroastrians and had been formed in a largely non-Muslim milieu), a failure that has lasted a thousand years, and can no longer be convincingly be rebutted by angry Muslims invoking a list of thousand-year-old names such as Ar-Razi and Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd and al-Farabi. The reply by non-Muslims – “What Have You Done For Us Lately?” is embarrassingly obvious. And then there is the poverty of the limited artistic expression in Islam, with calligraphy (chiefly Qur’anic), and mosque architecture, and ceramic bowls, and some small, not-quite-halal Indo-Persian miniatures, can hardly rival the vast and various artistic production that has come steadily from the West (Europe, North and South America), and from the East (the East of Hindu India, of China, Japan, Korea).

Islamic countires will always be, not damsels in distress to be “rescued” (to the tune of trillions of dollars) by generous Infidels, but something else. They are held back by their own ideology, they are hoist by their own dangerous mental petards. You may wish them well, wish them to somehow come out of it, and a demonstration by Infidels that we understand the source of their problems – not “colonialism” and not “Zionism” and not a
campaign by Crusaders led by the Pope” and not anything at all but Islam itself. It is Islam that holds them down, Islam that limits the possibilities of mental freedom and expression and economic development and individual liberties. We can’t save them, for we scarcely have the understanding, the time, the resources, to adequately save, without great disruption and pain, ourselves. If, as part of that saving of ourselves, we come to recognize and to propagate—above all over the world-wide Web – what we have learned, and what connections we have made, and this helps others, who through no fault of their own were born into Islam, to come to the same recognition and work for whatever conceivable “reform” of Islam that can be achieved, fine.

Call it a network solution. Not to be confused, of course, with an outfit called Network Solutions, which is a different thing.

Posted by: Hugh at March 24, 2008 12:18 PM

"Jihad Reader CJN has done the work that should have been done by those working for the American government, ..."

I actually do have a degree in computer science, but the sad thing is that whois and nslookup look ups require no more than an elementary school education, Internet access, and about 5 minutes.

I guess it helps that I know the fundamentals of what the DNS is and how it works (but I am by no means an expert in that area), but fancy knowledge isn't required. It's the computer equivalent of looking up names in the phone book.

The NSA does things with cryptanalysis every day that would tie your brain in knots. It's no exaggeration to say that would they do compared to what I did was like comparing Einstein to Mr Wizard.

Believe me when I say that what I did was a mean feat.

That's what makes me think that surely the governmental agencies charged with keeping tabs on this activity had to have known, and had their own reasons for letting it ride.

Posted by: non-croyant at March 24, 2008 1:47 PM

Robert (and all), this is common practice for controversial web sites, one way or another. Registration at one place, hosting at another. And picking a Syrian ISP makes sense.
However, it is absolutely possible to force Hezbollah offline from that provider. What we need to do is to threaten the Syrian provider with being cut off the net unless it stops hosting for terrorists. Either it's a big provider and can kick the terrorists with ease, or it's a small one in the pocket of Hezbollah, and we'll need to kick it. If it has a larger Syrian uplink, repeat this procedure.
Forcing Jihadist web sites off the Internet is a task we should engage in with vigor. It's our enemy, for crying out loud! It's easy to kick them, either as mentioned above, or - as is being done in Denmark against child porn and music piracy - to simply delete them from the DNS.
It's the infrastructure of our enemy. What are we waiting for?

Posted by: Henrik at March 24, 2008 2:31 PM

It's not hosted by Network Solutions.

The domain name is registered through Network Solutions, however.

There is a difference. I'm not sure what kind of bureaucracy comes into play ever since the InterNIC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internic) was privatized, but I'm sure something can be done about providing domain name service to terrorist organizations.

No, it's not hosted by Network Solutions. Hosting would mean supplying the servers on which the content is located, and also usually involves providing the domain space, or numerical ip address, which is what the domain name (hizbollah.org) that Network Solutions maps to.

The hosting is being provided by servers in Syria, as my reverse lookup of the numerical ip address showed.

Domain name registration is still a service even if it's not the meat and potatoes of a Web site, and it's a service that shouldn't be supplied to terrorist organizations - listed terrorist organizations - by US companies.

Any of you can go to http://whois.net/ and type in "hizbollah" in the "WHOIS Lookup" field to check this for yourselves.

Posted by: non-croyant at March 24, 2008 2:41 PM

non-croyant, forcing ISP's to ditch certain servers from the DNS is completely doable. Should be done with a proper warrant, of course, so a judge has deemed the site in question illegal under terrorism laws. The loophole is that the server will still be accessible with OpenDNS or from its numerical address, but still kicking it from the DNS would be a very, very clear signal about its legitimacy, as well as a significant hindrance for all non-techcnical users.

We have that procedure in place in Denmark, it is being used - just not against terrorists! I still think terrorism is a life and death matter, getting or not getting an illegimate copy of the latest Britney Spears single isn't.

Alternatively, the servers can be squeezed completely off the Internet according to the procedure above. It's a lot more work, but doable. The server might then appear again somewhere else, to be squeezed off again, and it's all a nice, relevant cat-vs-mouse games against the Jihadists.

They use the servers for much more than web hosting anyway, such as encrypted communication infrastructure, and kicking them off the net every now and then would seriously hamper their recruiting and general operations.

Posted by: Henrik at March 24, 2008 3:43 PM

Henrik, see my followup work in the No movie after all? topic.

Posted by: non-croyant at March 24, 2008 6:02 PM

Do there exist laws that make it illegal to arbitrarily deny, without due process or right of appeal, services for what may arguably be considered to be a public utility?

I certainly hope not. If a private company chooses not to do business with someone, that's their own damn business. You can't go around abrogating human rights while claiming to defend them.

Posted by: Duncan Bayne at March 25, 2008 3:07 AM

I received a reply from Network Solutions on my complaint about this.

They said, "Thank you for contacting Network Solutions Customer Service Department. We are committed to creating the best Customer experience possible. One of the first ways we can demonstrate our commitment to this goal is to quickly and efficiently handle your recent request.

With regard to your concern, please be advised our Corporate Department is already tasked to handle the issue surrounding the domain name HIZBOLLAH.ORG...."

The rest was just the usual 'don't respond to this email, etc.".

Posted by: TS at March 25, 2008 11:07 AM

I received a reply from Network Solutions on my complaint about this.

They said, "Thank you for contacting Network Solutions Customer Service Department. We are committed to creating the best Customer experience possible. One of the first ways we can demonstrate our commitment to this goal is to quickly and efficiently handle your recent request.

With regard to your concern, please be advised our Corporate Department is already tasked to handle the issue surrounding the domain name HIZBOLLAH.ORG...."

The rest was just the usual 'don't respond to this email, etc.".

Posted by: TS at March 25, 2008 11:13 AM

I just came upon this thread and would like to know "in a nutshell" what this is all about?

Posted by: MrBrownThumb at March 25, 2008 7:20 PM