["Gordon Arbuckle" <garbuck_at_hotmail.com> also submitted this late Fri
night. Background: http://www.cluebot.com/search.pl?query=voteauction.com
--Declan]
*********
>From: pr_at_vote-auction.com
>To: <pr_at_vote-auction.com>
>Subject: Vote-auction.com back online
>Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 07:54:51 +0200
>
>
> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
>
> --------------------------------------------------------
>
> Vote-auction.com back online
>
> --------------------------------------------------------
>
> Berlin, October 22, 2000
>
> Below you find the latest press release by Vote-auction.com
> [formerly voteauction.com]. We have included the most relevant
> information on the latest developments of the site and the
> people and users behind it.
>
> You can also find this press release at
> http://www.vote-auction.com/pr.htm
>
> For any further information feel free to contact
> pr_at_vote-auction.com or in urgent cases call +49-175-2066954.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> [V] Voteauction.com is dead, long live Vote-auction.com
>
> The "Leader of the Election Industry", vote-auction.com
> has regained access to the web via its new domain
>
> http://www.vote-auction.com
>
> During the past week, diverse rumours and hear-say has
> been passed concerning the website which explores the
> high-risk consumer markets of the American election
> industry.
>
> The site's original domain had been ordered shut down
> by a local American court in the U.S. state of Illinois
> earlier this week. But whilst American authorities took
> their time and tax payers' money to legally pursue almost
> everybody related to the existence of the website, the
> owners of the site worked on a re-design and strategy
> paper for version 2.0 of the project.
>
>
> [V] Sue 'em 'til they drop...
>
> The legal authorities of Chicago, Illinois, made every
> effort to get the site out of service during the last
> 2 weeks. Amongst the original creator of the project,
> James Baumgartner, and the owner of the domain, Hans
> Bernhard, they also found it in the public's interest
> to sue:
>
> . domainbank.com: Domainbank inc., is the registry where
> the original domain "voteauction.com" is registered.
> It is defendant in named Chicago legal case.
>
> . silverserver.at: Both SILVER SERVER's president as
> well as of one of the top technical staff are also named
> defendants in the Chicago legal case. SILVER SERVER is
> vote-auction.com's internet access provider.
>
>
> [V] (Il)legal Battle?
>
> It remains open for discussion how it should be possible
> that a dns (domain name service) or an access provider
> could ever be responsible for contents accessible via
> domains they are providing routing services for.
> Vote-auction.com sees this as illegal practice in total
> violation of standards set by ICANN.
>
> We can only interpret domainbank's and SILVER SERVER's
> name on the list of defendants as a indirect means of
> repression to force vote-auction.com to go offline.
>
> Concerning domainbank inc., this strategy seemed to
> work out for Chicago prosecutors: Because of domain-
> bank being involved in the legal case, the provider
> "politely asked" vote-auction.com to provide them
> with a USD 100,000.00 bond for potential legal costs.
> Vote-auction.com decided not to comply. Instead, we
> asked them to transfer our "voteauction.com" domain
> to another provider. This order was not fulfilled by
> domainbank, as they had at that time already made
> a "deal" with Chicago authorites "not to move the
> domain anywhere", as we were told by one of domain-
> bank's executives.
>
> Concerning "defendant" SILVER SERVER, we can provide
> you with a clear statement from their president:
>
> "SILVER SERVER clearly and fully supports vote-auction.com.
> SILVER SERVER president, o.o., is proud to be the billing
> contact for vote-auction.com. actually we received very
> interesting offers by investors to launch vote-auction.com
> in russia and japan."
>
>
> [V] Users give full support - despite potential respression
>
> Lots of users of Vote-auction.com have described their
> support in various emails. This is another reason why
> we decided not to wait to get back online until local U.S.
> legal authorities understand that Vote-auction.com
> works for and NOT against democracy. We will keep on
> protecting any data which has been submitted to us by
> trusting users.
>
> Chicago courts have a somewhat different approach to
> user rights. The court has ordered all data of users
> registered with the site to be disclosed to the
> authorities. This would then enable prosecutors in
> Chicago to sue users of vote-auction.com individually
> for so-called "voter fraud".
>
>
> [V] Where to go from here
>
> Vote-auction.com is ready to deliver even more services
> to the vital elections markets. We will keep on
> focusing on the American elections until mid-November
> this year. In the meantime we will also finish our
> redesign and software upgrade in order to get ready
> for upcoming elections worldwide.
>
>
> For the Vote-auction.com team:
>
> lizvlx
> [V]ote-auction.com
>
>
> PLEASE NOTE: If you want to access Vote-auction.com via
> web or mail, please be sure to use the correct domain:
>
> pr_at_vote-auction.com
> http://www.vote-auction.com
>
> We will not be able to receive messages sent to the
> old address. Thank you.
>
>
> [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]
> [] []
> [] [V]ote-auction.com []
> [] []
> [] pr_at_vote-auction.com []
> [] []
> [] The Election Idustry Leader - Bringing []
> [] Capitalism & Democracy closer together []
> [] []
> [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]
**********
>Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 07:54:58 -0400
>To: declan_at_well.com
>From: Thom Wysong <tgw_at_technodemocracy.org>
>Subject: VoteAuction.com & The Whack-A-Mole Defense
>
>Declan,
>
>You were right about VoteAuction.com popping up again -- same IP address,
>different domain name. More information on it is attached below.
>
>-Thom
>
>---------
>
>There are quite a few links in this article that don't show up in an email
>version of it. They are, however, usable in the online version of the
>article at ...
>http://technodemocracy.org/people/tgw/docs/voteauction-whackamole.html
>
>---------
>
>VoteAuction.com & The Whack-A-Mole Defense
>
>By Thom Wysong
>7:00 AM EST, 22 October 2000
>
>Only a day ago some were declaring that VoteAuction.com was dead. It's not
>so. It never was.
>
>Earlier this year the web site stirred up controversy when the site, and
>the New York based graduate student who created it, first came to the
>public's attention. When New York authorities threatened legal action, the
>web site was temporarily shut down. Ownership of the site was transferred
>to an Austrian entrepreneur who promptly re-opened the web site running on
>a server in Bulgaria - out of the reach of American authorities. Or, so it
>seemed.
>
>The weak link in their plan was that Domain Bank, the company that
>controlled their DNS entry, was based in the State of Pennsylvania. Last
>week, the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners took advantage of this
>weak link and obtained a court order forcing the US based company to
>remove VoteAuction.com from their Domain Name System (DNS). This action
>rendered the site unreachable by most people. But it did not shut the web
>site down,
>as was erroneously reported.
>
>For those not familiar with DNS, this is analogous to someone's name being
>removed from the telephone directory - their telephone is still hooked up,
>but people can no longer look that person's name up in the directory. To
>call that person you need to find the phone number from some other source,
>or simply remember what it was. But, you *can* still call the person.
>
>With the VoteAuction.com site, the same was true. In other words, even
>after the DNS entry had been deleted, the original VoteAuction.com website
>was still accessible from the Internet by those who knew how to find the
>website's "phone number" (its IP address) using such tools as a WHOIS
>search and a DNS lookup.
>
>However, to see what's posted on the website it's no longer necessary to
>track down its IP address. A few days ago, on 18 October 2000, the people
>behind VoteAuction.com registered a new domain name - apparently as a
>backup for the one they realized might get removed from DNS. The new
>domain name is simply Vote-Auction.com. All they did was add a hyphen.
>
>The article continues at ...
>http://technodemocracy.org/people/tgw/docs/voteauction-whackamole.html
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Received on Oct 24 2000
Intro
