Thursday, 16 October 2008
Dumb and Dumber
« Live Blogging The Debate | Main | What I Would Like to See McConnell Do »I am dumbfounded. I thought it was a ridiculous idea when Beshear filed suit against Internet gaming sites. His plan is to stop people from gaming by not allowing them to go to certain domain names. Now a Franklin Circuit Judge is backing the Beshear administration on the claim.
A Franklin Circuit judge has denied a motion by Internet gambling Web sites, Internet poker players and online trade associations to stop the state from taking over the domain names of 141 online gambling sites.
That means the seizure by the state of the domains with such names as wildjack.com and worldwidevegas.com will proceed.
In an order issued Thursday, Judge Thomas Wingate said that opposing lawyers' arguments that interference of the Internet by a Kentucky judge will create undue havoc did not impress him. " The Internet, with all its benefits and advantages to modern day commerce and life, is still not above the law," Wingate wrote in the 44-page opinion.
William Johnson, a Frankfort lawyer who represents some of the online gambling sites that the state wants to seize, said Thursday it was too early to say whether the online gambling sites would appeal Wingate's decision.....
...In his order, Wingate concurred with state lawyers who said that the domain itself was a gaming device. Johnson said that when Kentucky's gaming statutes were written, there was no Internet and no domains.
The colossal ignorance on display not only by the Beshear administration but by this Judge is unfanthomable. To say that the domain name was a gaming device makes zero sense. Let me try to explain why.
Machines on the internet have numerical addresses. The address is 4 numbers from 0 to 255 separated by dots (.). This is known as the computer's IP address. DNS or Domain Naming Services is a simple naming service. It allows people to map names to the numerical address. Let's say I have a server with an address of 192.168.2.53. I can assign the name foobie.schenkenfelder.com to that IP addres. That means when you type in foobie.schenkenfelder.com into a browser. Your machine will ask a DNS server for the IP address of foobie.schenkenfelder.com. The DNS server will return the address 192.168.2.53. Your machine then makes a network connection to the machine by the IP address.
What makes DNS cool is that it is a distributed system. That means the domain names are managed by thousands and thousands of smaller DNS machines around the world. Any one of which can be designated as the authoritative DNS server for any particular domain.
So what the hell does it mean that Kentucky is going to take over the domains?
Wingate, in his order, said that those gambling Web sites that blocked Kentucky users from accessing their site within 30 days of his order will no longer have their domain names transferred to Kentucky. Brown said Thursday the state had heard that some sites had blocked Kentucky users earlier this month but then later heard that wasn't true.
"We heard that some sites had directed people to another Web site," Brown said. There were some sites the state had moved to take over that appear to be defunct, Brown said.
They are going to stop DNS from coming into this state? Big deal. How is the state going to keep you from pointing to DNS servers outside of the state such as 4.2.2.2? Or better yet, what is to stop anyone from using the IP address directly. If I know the IP address for "worldwidevegas.com" I could type it into my browser directly and I would be taken to the site.
If you don't believe me try it. The IP address for worldwidevegas.com is 196.40.46.182 - Type that into your browser and you will get the web site. So how in the hell does a domain name equal a gambling device again?
The only thing that explains this ruling is complete ignorance on the subject. This is the problem with technology and the law. The Judges today are not competent enough to understand how technology works in order to apply it to the law.
The Beshear administration deserves unending ridicule for the utter stupidity of bringing up this case. On top of that the Judge needs to recuse himself from the case. He has no business making any legal decision that involves technology. It is no wonder people outside Kentucky think we are a bunch of bumpkins. I wonder what this will do to any technology companies that are thinking of locating in Kentucky? I know it would give me pause.
