Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Sabotaging No-IP Rather Than Admitting Its Own Failures, Time for Class Action Seems Right as List of Affected Domains Collected

Summary: Microsoft control over the Internet (control that should never have been granted) is used to shut down millions of legitimate services

THIS is an incident that has infuriated many people, companies, organisations, etc. It's widely publicised by now. Microsoft is above the law, apparently, or rather, Microsoft is the law in the United States (see our page about "Microsoft influence in the United States government").



Tux Machines, our near-real-time news site, relied on No-IP until some months ago. Millions of people use the site every month. Millions of services and sites use No-IP every month. It means that billions of people are dependent on No-IP . It is a critical service for perhaps tens of millions of Web sites and other services (such as LDAP, E-mail, and so on). Well, Microsoft's outrageous demands have ruined the services. It is Microsoft's fault (due to its own sabotage like back doors and incompetence that makes many insecurities). Do Microsoft's demands now supersede the rest of us? Can Microsoft knock offline millions of services all around the world and if so, where did Microsoft acquire such an infitinite power? Here is an explanation and roundup of the past few days' responses, which resulted in Microsoft relinquishing control of No-IP (when it was already too late and huge damage had been done).

"Can Microsoft knock offline millions of services all around the world and if so, where did Microsoft acquire such an infitinite power?"Let's start by stating that Microsoft has back doors and much of the blame for SPAM, DDOS etc. should be put on Microsoft Windows, which is insecure by design. Microsoft cannot claim to be pursuing better Internet security (ever!) while it does what it does for the NSA. For Microsoft to take a whole network to court is like the FBI and USDOJ going after MegaUpload; however, Microsoft, unlike the FBI and USDOJ, is not a Federal agency. So what the heck is going on here? And how can Microsoft get away with it? Surely there should be a class action lawsuit, but will victims be capable of finding each other, then organising? Here is the response from No-IP and an article about it which says:

Millions of legitimate servers that rely on dynamic domain name services from No-IP.com suffered outages on Monday after Microsoft seized 22 domain names it said were being abused in malware-related crimes against Windows users.


"Apparently," it says, "the Microsoft infrastructure is not able to handle the billions of queries from our customers. Millions of innocent users are experiencing outages to their services because of Microsoft’s attempt" (Microsoft is probably arrogant enough to not even apologise).

"Microsoft now claims that it just wants to get us to clean up our act, but its draconian actions have affected millions of innocent Internet users," says the above.

They should organise for class action lawsuit. Perhaps No-IP should sue Microsoft for loss of many customers and the customers too should sue Microsoft for the damage caused by its overreach and abuse. No-IP ought to help its clients organise for a class action lawsuit.

Two days ago I drafted a post about this, calling for class action against Microsoft over this whole overreach. I did not publish it at the time as I was waiting to see how much damage was done overall. The services had not been restored by that time. Some services were down for several days. Now, let's try to estimate the damage. If we assume $1000 compensation for 1.8 milion servers, then that's $1.8 billion, which Microsoft can probably borrow from one of its offshore havens to pay in reparations. Microsoft should be sued in an organised fashion and prepare to pay billions of dollars in compensation, just as they were forced to pay fines after browser-related crimes.

"So, to go after 2,000 or so bad sites, [Microsoft] has taken down four million,” Gogun said. Gogun is a senior employee at NoIP.

Here is some press coverage of interest and feedback from victims, including:



How can Microsoft gain the power to just shut down parts of the Web without an open legal process? Watch IDG's (partly Microsoft-funded) coverage of the No-IP fiasco (tilted in favour of Microsoft to make it look like innocent "error").

Tux Machines, which used to be No-IP-managed, went down around the same time that I repeatedly protested about this online. Interestingly enough (and that's a fact), DDOS attacks on Tux Machines (by Windows-running PCs) began just a few minutes after I repeatedly ranted about Microsoft's sabotage of No-IP. I can't prove the correlation, but it was curious enough to note. The botmaster/s attacking Tux Machines was not stupid. There was hammering on different parts of the site each time one was blocked/denied (I had to manually block huge chunks of IPs and addresses). Following Microsoft's logic, many of its back-doored (for NSA) Windows PCs attack Web sites, so it's fine to just shut down Windows PCs universally.

Here is some other and later coverage of developments and an official response from Microsoft (face-saving lies). 1.8 million customers are said to be affected and "Microsoft Insists That No-IP 'Outage' Was Due To A 'Technical Error' Rather Than Gross Abuse Of Legal Process," says TechDirt:

Microsoft Insists That No-IP 'Outage' Was Due To A 'Technical Error' Rather Than Gross Abuse Of Legal Process



Earlier today, we wrote about a ridiculous situation in which Microsoft was able to convince a judge to let it seize a bunch of popular domains from No-IP.com, the popular dynamic DNS provider, routing all their traffic through Microsoft servers, which were unable to handle the load, taking down a whole bunch of websites. Microsoft claimed that this was all part of a process of going after a few malware providers, though No-IP points out that Microsoft could have easily contacted them and the company's fraud and abuse team would have cut off those malware providers.


To quote the conclusion: "That's not a "technical error." That's Microsoft blatantly making an extreme claim that convinced a judge to hand over a whole bunch of domain names without any kind of due process or adversarial hearing. While Microsoft may have then had a technical error on top of that, what kicked this off was a very, very big legal error."

Microsoft probably knows that it's about to be sued, so it is making up stories about "errors" while Microsoft-funded press repeats the lies. Here is AOL coverage:

Microsoft seized 23 domains this week from No-IP, a provider of dynamic DNS services, after filing a civil suit alleging that the domains in question were used to distribute malware.

The domains, according to Microsoft, were used 93 percent of the time for distributing the Bladabindi and Jenxcus malware families. A court granted Microsoft custodianship — DNS authority — of the digital properties so that it could “identify and route all known bad traffic to the Microsoft sinkhole and classify the identified threats.”


This was an abuse of the Court. Microsoft deceived the Court to take over what one writer called "universe" (millions of domains). Microsoft broke the Internet for several days, having abused or bamboozled a court.

To quote one of our readers, Microsoft "is getting the heat for the attack against No-IP. Yes, they failed by trying to run Microsoft products in a production situation but the actual anger needs to be directed at the court which handed, ex parte, No-IP's business over to Microsoft. How on earth was that allowed? That's the real question and one that Microsoft appears to what to distract from with stupid side tracks on 'technical issues' to bring the attention away from legal issues. Fraud. There was no accidents involved: Microsoft took over the domain on purpose after a lot of work manipulating the court.

"Then underneath the technical side is Microsoft inherent, built-in vulnerability. Without Microsoft there would be no botnets."

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Defeating LLM Abuse (State-of-the-Art Plagiarism) in the Area of Linux and GNU, Free Software, BSD, Security and So On
The aim is to get them to stop using LLMs to rip off other people's work
Digital Sanitation Good Practices
leave behind Microsoftism
10 Days Ago Richard Stallman Gave a Long Interview in French (linuxfr.org)
English translation
Science, Not Fast Food/Junk Food
The commercial exploitation of users won't stop until users exercise full control over their software or - more broadly - their computing (including data)
 
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 18, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, October 18, 2025
The Term "AI" is Not New and What Today's Media Calls "AI" Isn't Even AI
Only the hype was new... and totally artificial
Gemini Links 18/10/2025: "Planetary Rings", Steam, and PSU Replacement
Links for the day
Links 18/10/2025: Russell Vought in Charge, US Government Leans to Russia Again
Links for the day
Credit Where It's Due: LinuxConfig.org Quit Doing LLM Slop, Back to Original and Real Articles
We waited for a while to say this, now it seems conclusive
Of Note: UbuntuPIT Aware of Critics of Slop, Adds Disclosure of Use of LLMs
We appreciate the honesty
Links 18/10/2025: Madagascar's President Flees and ICE Arrests Protest Comedian Robby Roadsteamer
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Near the European Patent Office (EPO) in 3 Days From Now
It'll be a good opportunity for patent examiners to listen, ask questions, and maybe greet him in person
From Scholar to Booster of Slop (and Even Slop in His Own Blog)
We're going to keep an eye on future posts of his
End of Vista 10 Also Good News for the BSDs
There are many news sites that recommend trying GNU/Linux this month
What's Wrong With Liking Parrots or Birds as Pets?
They'd demonise people for speaking about freedom, no matter what they say or do
The Free Software Foundation, Which Has Appointed a 43-Year-Old President, is Looking to Add Another Board Member (or Treasurer)
expect the FSF to add more people
Richard Stallman Confirms Next Week's Talk at Technical University of Munich, We Urge EPO Staff to Attend
That's probably late enough for EPO staff to attend after work
Gemini Links 18/10/2025: Notifications and Geminaut
Links for the day
Many Red Hat People Are Leaving, But It'll Be Framed Publicly as Leaving IBM
Similarly, IBM layoffs (or "RAs" as they're called) include Red Hat layoffs
Expect More Waves of Microsoft Layoffs This Month (at Least Two Rounds Confirmed Already)
From what we can gather, assuming the recent rumours about XBox are true, there will be at least 3 waves of Microsoft layoffs this month alone
Security Issues in Cisco and Jenkins Passed Off as "Linux" Problems
Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD) tactics
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 17, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 17, 2025
[Video] Dr. Richard Stallman at Technické Univerzitě v Liberci
New/via libre-liberec.cz
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Linux Journal (Slashdot Media), UbuntuPIT, and Google News (Noise)
egregious plagiarism
Links 17/10/2025: Better Answers Sought After Air Crashes, "China Fans Patriotic Sentiment as Trade War With U.S. Heats Up"
Links for the day
Security is Desirable, But Not When the Term Security is Misused to Imply Centralisation of "Trust" (Whose?)
'Security' is not an excuse for vendor lock-in
Links 17/10/2025: Fentanylware (CheeTok) Causing Problems, Japanese Government Blasts Slop
Links for the day
The Linux Foundation Seems to Have Turned Linux.com Not Only Into a Spamfarm But Also LLM Slopfarm
it's polluting the Web, even important domains like Linux.com, with spam and LLM slop
Links 17/10/2025: UK’s Largest Breach Penalty and Windows TCO Examples
Links for the day
Go Watch Video About Librephone, Get Microsoft Ads
Very ethical company...
Campaign of Defamation Against the People Who Built NixOS (and Are Now Pushed Out From Their Own Project)
We've already grown familiar with - and resistant to - such tactics
Links 17/10/2025: Nestlé Crisis, Canada Post Versus 'Gig Economy' [sic] and Vista 11 Breaks Itself
Links for the day
Tux Machines Has Helped Separate Opinions/Analysis From News
In September 2023 we decided to split things apart and not repeat links in both sites
Tux Machines Has Improved Navigation of GNU/Linux and BSD News
Some more 'wiring' work
What a World Would Look Like If Everyone Used Free Software Only
Freedom is what matters, not "Open".
The Media Helps Microsoft, Amazon and Others (GAFAM and Beyond) Lie About Mass Layoffs Amid Valuation Bubble
The media, instead of saying that there's an "AI bubble" crashing the economy might instead choose the narrative of "jobs replaced by AI"
Bad Tempered? You Might Have Just Given Away That You're Losing the Argument
Brett Wilson LLP is fully aware that it is being investigated
Richard Stallman (RMS) is a Target of Defamation Campaigns Because of His Views on Software (But Politics Are the Excuse for Defaming Him)
Here in this site we try to refrain from politics, except in Daily Links
End of Vista 10 and Rise of GNU/Linux as Client Side Operating System
It seems certain GNU/Linux will grow in popularity over time
Taking Stock of a Week's Worth of EPO Leaks
We remain committed to exposing EPO corruption as long as it keeps happening
Mathieu Parreaux claims FINMA knew since day one
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Calumny, Libel, Joerg Jaspert & debian-private untouchable cyberbullies
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 16, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 16, 2025
Techrights Turns 19 in 3 Weeks
coverage of suppressed topics and protecting all sources/whistleblowers
International E-Waste Day Same Day as End of Vista 10
message from Akira Urushibata
The EPO's Central Staff Committee Presents Evidence That Staff Compensation Lowered While the Office Increases Income by Illegally Granting Invalid Patents
These people become millionaires by doing illegal things
Second or Third Wave of Microsoft Mass Layoffs in October 2025, This Time Portugal
Those are just the ones we know about, there may be several more
'Help Net Security' (helpnetsecurity.com) May Have Become a Slopfarm as Well
Zeljka Zorz, Editor-in-Chief at Help Net Security, was reported to us
Gemini Links 17/10/2025: Rant About Network Solutions, Strange Anomaly on Lagrange
Links for the day