Of course a court can seize domains. But if an investigation follows, it should be carried out by the police, not by private companies (and especially not by the plaintiff).
At least that's what I'd expect from a constitutional state ;-)
If people gave the money they can (at least in England) mount a private criminal prosecution. That's very rare, but it does happen.
I'm pleased that MS is doing this. So long as it stays open, scrutinised by the courts, and restricted to massive malware botnets the results are good for almost everyone.
Microsoft failed to secure Windows XP against malware and botnets, so all Windows XP users will now be redirected to Ubuntu.com when they try to access the internet through Internet Explorer.
That's quite a stretched analogy. A fully updated Windows XP computer will still be vulnerable to malware and botnets.
That is because Windows, OS X, Android and Linux allow their users to install third party programs without whitelisting them. There is nothing stopping users from installing malware. OS X and Linux have less malware because they're not as popular as Windows and Android.
That's opposite to iOS, Windows Phone/RT, XBox and Playstation which are pretty much free from malware because everything has to go through an app store.
A fully updated Windows XP computer will still be vulnerable to malware and botnets.
That is because Windows, OS X, Android and Linux allow their users to install third party programs without whitelisting them.
<Devil's advocate>Then clearly Microsoft aren't doing enough to look after their own back yards, and their domains should be seized and potential Microsoft customers rerouted to information about the dangers of using Microsoft products and safer alternatives.</Devil's advocate>
This is a highly impractical response to the problem of malware, of course, but I don't find the analogy stretched at all. The action Microsoft have reportedly taken -- and the support they appear to have been given by the courts -- are just about as absurd as my tongue-in-cheek response above.
We seem to have grown up and stopped assuming everyone using P2P protocols obviously wants to pirate films, and we don't assume everyone using Windows XP obviously wants to be part of a botnet, so why would we assume everyone using Dynamic DNS obviously wants to distribute malware?
[Edit: There are now quite a few HN posters in multiple discussions about this action who are saying their innocent use of No-IP is being undermined because Microsoft's sinkhole is getting in the way.]
On OSX you actually have to whitelist software as a user. If something doesn't come from an approved developer, user has to say "Yup, I really do actually want this to be able to run"
(unless we're talking things installed through homebrew, pip, gems and whatnot, but those aren't likely to be used by inexperienced users)
Yeah but what fraction of home users are going to consider that prompt as opposed to just clicking on the OK button? I've noticed a lot of software will include that in its install steps.
You now actually need to specifically open the application with a right click to even have the option to open it, simply double clicking just says it's unsafe and closes. I think that safeguard probably has saved significant numbers of people from unsavory malware.
