[AusNOG] Confirmation of govt blackholing. Was: Re:Understanding lack of Aus connectivity to melbournefreeuniversity.org.

[Pinkerton, Eric]

In the case of a fraudulent site being reported, the hosting provider should be the first port of call for a request to take the site offline (and hopefully start the forensic process) – if they are unresponsive within a reasonable timeframe, then the ISP get’s a call.  If they are unresponsive then a request to block the entire IP *might* be the logical next step.  

I don't know enough about the specifics of this case, but assuming that was roughly the process there are several positive outcomes:

Hosting providers and ISP’s are incentivised to be more responsive to legit take down requests. 
Customers are incentivised to think about the cost benefits/risks of cheap shared hosting, especially overseas.

I don’t see this as a massive conspiracy, or evidence of overzealous politicians restricting our right to free speech as much as people trying to do the right thing with the tools at hand….When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

I agree with Renai that ultimately this procedure is ripe for abuse, and that the shroud of secrecy surrounding it's use is unhelpful and does nothing to engender trust in it's legitimacy.

It's easy to say the responsibility lies with the Industry to push back on these requests when they are unreasonable, but that is only viable whilst they are few and far between.

As it stands it's inefficient and ineffective (every ISP has to consider every request, and not all of them will decide on the same outcome) so I would suggest that ISP's should form a working group together and consider such requests/agree on an action/raise objections as a whole, much like the way our banks are sharing info on threats etc.  

My 2c

E