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[Jonah Aragon <jonaharagon AT gmail.com>]

Hmm, OpenNIC liability issues isn't something I've really considered. Maybe we should revisit the non-profit organization setup, I know we voted to approve moving forward with that and never did.

I'd be in support of blacklisted domains as need be, but it seems like asking here every single time wouldn't be the best solution, because of the need for swift action in the case of domains like these or the scenario you mentioned. Perhaps a form for users to report suspect domains and a smaller review committee to decide the fate of the domains would be better, you could just find some other trusted parties here and build that into your charter with a single vote here on the list. With the policy that the domain blacklisting could still be overridden by a vote here to make sure the users have overall control.

Everything is up to you taking the first steps here, these are all just policy edits you'd propose for the .bit charter, so the final say is yours as the current operator.

Jonah

On Tue, Jul 18, 2017, 3:19 PM Calum McAlinden <calum AT mcalinden.me.uk> wrote:

The .bit domains in question being used for malware to call home are
only accessible on OpenNIC though, so organisations see OpenNIC as
responsible. This is a problem with linking a decetralised system with a
centralised one like OpenNIC: the point of centralisation becomes a
target for demands of censorship.

I think most of the OpenNIC TLDs have policies against illegal/unethical
use, but .bit has no enforceable policy of anything. This leaves OpenNIC
servers hypothetically acting as an authoritative nameserver for domains
controlling malware, promoting terrorism, or distributing child pornography.

While censorship is obviously bad, is democratic blocking of known
abusive domains that bad? A list of blocked domains and reasons could be
published, and each domain could be voted on with evidence presented.

For example take another situation such as the recent ransomware
affecting organisations such as the NHS, where the ransomware might (in
the future) resolve .bit domains to command and control servers. I'm not
sure how I'd feel about having the single handed ability to alter a line
of code and halt the spread, yet not doing so.

Of course, I would never do this without the decision of OpenNIC members.

Given the increasing prevalence of .bit use in malware, I envisage a
situation where maintainers of OpenNIC's servers or the providers may be
put under pressure by governments to stop resolving domains. Also, as
OpenNIC (as far as I'm aware) is not a legal entity, does that mean that
individual members are liable for any damages that such incident might
cause?


On 18/07/17 21:51, Daniel Quintiliani wrote:
> Does Google DNS, OpenDNS, or any ISP with their own DNS ever receive and follow random demands from private companies with no legal threats? I know there was that incident years ago when the FBI shut down malicious DNS servers that were used by ransomware, but other than that?
>
> --
>
> -Dan Q
>
> On Tue, 18 Jul 2017 15:01:22 -0500, Daniel Shirley <aditaa05 AT gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Agreed its kind if what we do is to stand up to censorship
>>
>> On Jul 18, 2017 14:26, "Daniel Quintiliani" <danq AT runbox.com> wrote:
>>
>> Continue to resolve .bit domains. It's not anyone's job to police the
>> Internet at the demands of strangers you've never met.
>>
>> --
>>
>> -Dan Q
>>
>>
>> On Tue, 18 Jul 2017 17:11:25 +0100, Calum McAlinden <calum AT mcalinden.me.uk>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> (sorry, I wrote this email earlier but accidentally sent it to Arthur
>>> Garnier instead of the mailing list)
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I am the operator of the OpenNIC server which generates OpenNIC's .bit
>>> zone from the blockchain.
>>>
>>> This is something that has been concerning me for awhile. I recently
>>> became aware of malware developers are using OpenNIC T2 servers in their
>>> malware to resolve .bit domains which contain the IP address of command
>>> and control servers.
>>>
>>> I had also been answering a several inquiries about zone updates over a
>>> few months. Eventually I looked into the domains in question and what
>>> they appear to be used for, which was C&C servers for malware.
>>>
>>> OpenNIC really has 3 options:
>>>
>>> - Continue resolving .bit domains known to be used for malware purposes,
>>> in effect facilitating the distribution of malware
>>>
>>> - Blacklist these domains democratically, thus not being a true
>>> representation of the names registered in the blockchain and raising
>>> censorship issues
>>>
>>> - Drop the entire .bit zone
>>>
>>>
>>> What are people's thoughts on this?
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Calum
>>>
>>> On 18/07/17 15:49, Jonah Aragon wrote:
>>>> You can probably blacklist that single domain for the time being as
>>>> attack mitigation, but blacklisting any domain or TLD would make your
>>>> Tier 2 no longer compatible with OpenNIC.
>>>>
>>>> But this is the reason we keep bringing up removing .bit entirely, from
>>>> what I can tell it seems to bring much more trouble than it's worth, but
>>>> maybe that's the cost of a successful alt-TLD. Perhaps we should revisit
>>>> the .bit removal discussion.
>>>>
>>>> Look into rate limiting or ask for help on IRC if your server is under
>>>> attack.
>>>>
>>>> Jonah
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Jul 18, 2017, 4:22 AM Arthur Garnier <arthur AT arthurgarnier.fr
>>>> <mailto:arthur AT arthurgarnier.fr>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>      Hello,
>>>>
>>>>      My dedicated server provider (OVH.com) asked me, yesterday, to
>> blacklist
>>>>      the domain "letit2.bit" because it's a domain used by a malware
>>>>      (https://malwarebreakdown.com/2017/06/06/relst-campaign-
>> delivering-pony-downloads-chthonic/
>>>>      )
>>>>
>>>>      After checking my logs from yesterday, this domain name has been
>>>>      resolved more than 125,000 times in 24 hours.
>>>>
>>>>      Maybe we should blacklist this domain from an higher level than
>> Tier2.
>>>>      Or it's against the policy ?
>>>>
>>>>      Regards,
>>>>
>>>>      Arthur
>>>>
>>>>
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