Iso News Still Functioning

The U.S. Justice Department seized the Iso News site , which features info on bootlegged video games and movies, but it is still up right now. I am looking at it.

Reuters reports:

The Justice Department said it had taken over the Web site (http://www.isonews.com) after its owner pleaded guilty to selling computer chips that would enable users to play bootleg video games on Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O). Xbox consoles.

Some visitors to the site found a warning against copyright infringement and a link to the Justice Department’s computer-crime division, but others were able to reach a version of the original site, which serves as a meeting place for Internet users.

A Justice Department spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

The site, which claimed up to 140,000 hits each day, does not contain illegal copies of video games, software and movies, but instead contains message boards where Internet users can trade tips about such “warez,” and visitors continued to post messages there early on Wednesday afternoon.

A computer network engineer explained to Reuters that the domain name pointed to at least two numerical Internet addresses, only one of which was controlled by the government. Users would encounter differing versions of the Web site depending on which address was stored by their “name servers,” which match domain names to numerical addresses, the engineer said.

Those guys at Justice are super tech savvy – maybe we shouldn’t be so worried about the Patriot Act.