WIRED.com

Blogging platform Blogetery.com was cut off by its hosting company last week after the authorities said al-Qaida “terrorist material” was found on one of its servers, said a statement from web host BurstNET Technologies Monday.

Blogetery, a platform for some 70,000 blogs, was taken down by BurstNET after the Federal Bureau of Investigation asked BurstNET “to provide information regarding ownership” of the server hosting Blogetery.com,” BurstNET said.

BurstNET shuttered Blogetery at its own discretion, after concluding it was violating its “Acceptable Use Policy.”

“It was revealed that a link to terrorist material, including bomb-making instructions and an al-Qaida ‘hit list,’ had been posted to the site,” BurstNET said.

CNET said the material allegedly discovered by the FBI “is connected to an online magazine called Inspire,” whose mission is to recruit al-Qaida members.




  1. bobbo, to the left of Obama says:

    Good example of “the chilling effect” of Homeland Security Protection Efforts.

    So, if ONE website on a server is doing something hinkey, the owner violates none of its provider contracts by shutting down an entire server?? Good to know.

    Shut down “forever” or when will it reopen?

  2. B, Dog says:

    So, uh, if they find one illegal alien in a city, do they deport all 70,000 Mexicans there?

  3. aslightlycrankygeek says:

    So basically they were hosting 70,000 websites from a single server? Yikes. This is a good incentive to use a dedicated server, or at least use get an deal directly with the hosting company. Don’t be under any impression it is your own blog if it is on someone else’s “blogging platform”.

  4. Greg Allen says:

    The headline is a little deceptive – the FBI didn’t close down 70k blogs.

    If the FBI finds terrorist activity on a blog site, it’s not draconian to ask a few questions about who owns what. I expect them to!

    It seems like a massive over-reaction by “BurstNET.”

    The terrorists also use Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc. I hope Google doesn’t take down all of Gmail if they find some terrorists on there!

    [The headline did not say the FBI shut down the blogs. – ed.]

  5. Zybch says:

    Oh My God!!
    A LINK!!!! Holy shit, whatever shall we do?
    Surely a better approach would have been to get the hosting company to just track whomever clicked on that evil dastardly link, after all, whenever you click on a link there is more than just the requested address being accessed, info that makes it a trivial matter to track down the IP address of the ‘clicker’.

    So, who still doesn’t believe the US has turned into a police state in all but name?

  6. Steve S says:

    B, Dog said,
    “So, uh, if they find one illegal alien in a city, do they deport all 70,000 Mexicans there?”

    Well, IF those 70,000 Mexican Nationals are here illegally then, by the definition of current federal law, the answer is yes. Otherwise no.

  7. chuck says:

    I guess they should shut down Google, because I’m pretty sure you could find the same links using Google.

  8. Rider says:

    Yay deceptive headline. The FBI asked for information about one site hosted on the server. The hosting company freaked out and pulled every blog they host. Stop it with the stupid shit.

    [All the headline said was that the FBI was involved. Sheeesh! – ed.]

  9. Greg Allen says:

    Ridyer and I have been sheeshed by ed.!

    When you say someone is “involved” in something most people will assume active participation.

    But it is conveniently vague enough that the smearer can deny the smear.

    (English is a great liar’s language, that way.)

    A non-deceptive headline would have been:

    “Hosting company shuts down 70,000 blogs.”

  10. Rider says:

    Ed you know you purposely wrote the headline o be misleading, as you can see by the responses no one here actually read the story and assumed from your headline that the FBI was involved in shutting the blogs down. Stop trying trying to play innocent.

  11. pedro's confused donkey says:

    Ya ed. pedro can’t access his donkey porn now because the FBI got too nosey.

  12. ECA says:

    #10,
    this site is an aggregation..Thats the title found on the other sites..

  13. ArianeB says:

    I figured as much. There are only two reasons why law enforcement would ask an ISP to take down a web server: Terrorism and child porn.

    So all of you that thought it was politically motivated, or the result of RIAA or MPAA meddling, get a big fat raspberry.


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