70,000 Blogs Taken Offline by the FBI
19TH JULY 2010
Details have begun emerging as to why Burst.net were ordered by the FBI to shut down over 70,000 blogs on a free blogging platform called Blogetery. Latest rumours state that material on some of the blogs included messages from Osama Bin Laden, detatils of how to make bombs and explosives and lists of US citizens to be targeted for assassination by al Qaeda.
The FBI are using a law which allows them access to data without a court order under certain circumstances which include if there is "an emergency involving danger of death or serious physical injury to any person." One of the offending sites is believed to be 'Inspire' a site designed to recruit members to al Qaeda. Fox News reports that one article from the site was titled "How to Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom"
Another site Ipbfree which provides a platform for forums and message boards has also been closed down for similar reasons. iPBFree.com said they are "gone for good" and had "absolutely no warning" and that the reasons are "tied up in legalities".
Many regular customers of Blogetry are upset with Burst.net for removing their personal blogs along with the offending ones. They feel they were left in the dark for over a week with no explanation as to why their blogs had disappeared.
Bloggers who did not regularly backup their data may also lose part or possibly all of their posts which could mean years of hard work and effort. There was no prior warning from Blogetry or Burst to backup their data.
Last month threats from US authorities were targeted at several sites they claimed were connected to the streaming of videos which breach copyright laws. Shortly afterwards, the domain names of 7 sites were seized.
Visitors to Blogetery will find this message "After being BurstNet customer for 7 months our server was terminated without any notification or explanation." and are then being directed to a thread on WebHostingTalk for more information.
Ipbfree is no longer online, the domain is now parked with GoDaddy
Finding the Missing Blogetery Blogs using Google
