Are You Afraid Yet? I Am.

[Bill K]

HI,

This to me is scary stuff... [or am I just being an alarmist?]

I recently started a newsletter for our small church congregation. I use several different online platforms to put together the monthly email, namely MailChimp, Vimeo, FileDen and JotForm. Well the jotform.com domain was shutdown yesterday by the US Secret Service. Apparently someone used the form building platform to do something illegal. As I read it kinda like shutting down Yahoo or Google because someone did something illegel using their email service. Maybe some political statement made here on KahrTalk would qualify this site for the same treatment?

Read for yourself... http://www.geek.com/articles/news/form-creation-site-jotform-seized-by-us-government-due-to-user-content-20120216/

http://www.jotform.net/blog/45-JotForm-com-Suspended

http://www.webpronews.com/jotform-suspended-us-feds-2012-02

[TriggerMan]

HI,

This to me is scary stuff... [or am I just being an alarmist?]

I recently started a newsletter for our small church congregation. I use several different online platforms to put together the monthly email, namely MailChimp, Vimeo, FileDen and JotForm. Well the jotform.com domain was shutdown yesterday by the US Secret Service. Apparently someone used the form building platform to do something illegal. As I read it kinda like shutting down Yahoo or Google because someone did something illegel using their email service. Maybe some political statement made here on KahrTalk would qualify this site for the same treatment?

Read for yourself... http://www.geek.com/articles/news/form-creation-site-jotform-seized-by-us-government-due-to-user-content-20120216/

http://www.jotform.net/blog/45-JotForm-com-Suspended

http://www.webpronews.com/jotform-suspended-us-feds-2012-02

I'd comment but ...

[Bill K]

I just emailed a heads up to the news director of a major national news organization. Hopefully they'll investigate and do a feature on this incident.

[muggsy]

This couldn't possibly have happened. The liberal progressive champions of free speech are currently running the government. You must be mistaken. Someone must be pulling your chain.

[JFootin]

This couldn't possibly have happened. The liberal progressive champions of free speech are currently running the government. You must be mistaken. Someone must be pulling your chain.

Oh, they are only concerned about THEIR freedom of speach. But they are also convinced that the government (them) has the right to wield it's power however they see fit.

[TucsonMTB]

I recently started a newsletter for our small church congregation. I use several different online platforms to put together the monthly email, namely MailChimp, Vimeo, FileDen and JotForm. Well the jotform.com domain was shutdown yesterday by the US Secret Service.
I am curious. Were you able to recover your forms and move them to the jotform.net domain?

Sadly, after reading the comments on the JotForm support site, it is clear that many of their users have no clue how this technology works and probably won't be successful.

[TriggerMan]

This couldn't possibly have happened. The liberal progressive champions of free speech are currently running the government. You must be mistaken. Someone must be pulling your chain.
Thank God we all support the ACLU who will be getting into this ASAP!

[TriggerMan]

I just emailed a heads up to the news director of a major national news organization. Hopefully they'll investigate and do a feature on this incident.It would be good to contact the ACLU

[Bill K]

I am curious. Were you able to recover your forms and move them to the jotform.net domain?

Sadly, after reading the comments on the JotForm support site, it is clear that many of their users have no clue how this technology works and probably won't be successful.

For me it was very easy. I've only built 4 forms so it was a simple matter of editing the URLs in my newsletter email within MailChimp. Where I had ".com" I changed to ".usa". I believe that JotForm responded very quickly to the shutdown of their ".com" domain but little doubt this, in my opinion, excellent form building site has been financially damaged.

[getsome]

It is scary but a fact in the modern internet based world we take for granted today....I'm positive Big Brother monitors gun web sites, militia sites or anything to do with anti government ideas, plans or uprisings for any and everything that might be of interest to them...

Everything we do is monitored somehow from the groceries we buy to the books we check out from the library to what toilet paper you use and how often you use it....Everything written on the internet can be monitored and is permanently on record for law enforcement to collect and use against you...

Facebook has become one of the first places looked at by law enforcement when looking at a suspect in a crime because no warrent is needed and some fools like to brag about their crimes and what they did to whom...

The Echelon Government super computer has around since the 60's and used to monitor telephone conversations and the so called Patriot Act has opened up many new forms for Big Gov to keep an eye on us....

They love acronyms, check out ADVISE..Stands for Analysis Dissemination Visualization Insight and Semantic Enhancement...Yep, your tax dollars at work to keep us all safe from ourselves I guess....

There is also a Government funded program called Carnivore that looks for and collects key words used on the internet and social media sites looking for anything that might be interesting or suspect to them....

Get used to it folks, we aren't alone anymore and privacy is a thing of the past....Hey you won't beleive this but the black helicopters stopped following Henry Hill from Goodfellas and they are flying right outside my building right now pointing some kind of red spot on my chest....:eek:...I GOTTA GO...later dudes

[Bill K]

It is scary but a fact in the modern internet based world we take for granted today....I'm positive Big Brother monitors gun web sites, militia sites or anything to do with anti government ideas, plans or uprisings for any and everything that might be of interest to them...

Everything we do is monitored somehow from the groceries we buy to the books we check out from the library to what toilet paper you use and how often you use it....Everything written on the internet can be monitored and is permanently on record for law enforcement to collect and use against you...

Facebook has become one of the first places looked at by law enforcement when looking at a suspect in a crime because no warrent is needed and some fools like to brag about their crimes and what they did to whom...

The Echelon Government super computer has around since the 60's and used to monitor telephone conversations and the so called Patriot Act has opened up many new forms for Big Gov to keep an eye on us....

They love acronyms, check out ADVISE..Stands for Analysis Dissemination Visualization Insight and Semantic Enhancement...Yep, your tax dollars at work to keep us all safe from ourselves I guess....

There is also a Government funded program called Carnivore that looks for and collects key words used on the internet and social media sites looking for anything that might be interesting or suspect to them....

Get used to it folks, we aren't alone anymore and privacy is a thing of the past....Hey you won't beleive this but the black helicopters stopped following Henry Hill from Goodfellas and they are flying right outside my building right now pointing some kind of red spot on my chest....:eek:...I GOTTA GO...later dudes

I hear you, understand and believe what you say but this goes beyond monitoring. It is like I wrote something seditious on this site and before my post could be deleted by the moderator the site was shut down - because of what I posted. That is the issue I see with JotForm. Suppose there is a form on their site that an entity uses for some sort of emergency dispatching - I know I'm being dramatic (to try and make my point) but think of the damage that could result.

[johnh]

This is also an argument against businesses, organizations, and individuals posting important information they need control over on all these various free, outside hosted services. I have been adamant at my workplace that we not do that because if the service goes down, we would lose access to all such information and have no contractual agreement with the site obligating them to assist us. I have seen some organizations burned by that already. If the government is willing to shut down entire services because of the content of a singe users account, this makes it even more risky. Think of how many documents they might find "illegal" in some way on Google Docs for example.

[Bill K]

Well, no explanation from the Secret Service but JotForm is back up...

"JotForm.com is Back Online
We’re happy to share a good news with you. The domain suspension at jotform.com has been lifted. If you have changed your forms to one of the alternative domains, you can keep them as they are. We will keep the new domains permanently.
I wish we could provide more details about what happened, but we are also in the dark. We have not been given any information by Godaddy or the Secret Service, other than our domain being suspended “as part of an ongoing law enforcement investigation”. You can read more details about it on Arstechnica, Wired, Forbes, CNET, Techdirt, and TheNextWeb."

[Anger]

Thank God we all support the ACLU who will be getting into this ASAP!

Personally, I plan on adding an extra $500 to my sizable federal income tax bill this year with a thank you note to the ACLU asking them to spend my money wisely. I normally wouldn't care if they spent it on free cars for their employees, or donuts, or stealing time from work. However, in this case since I'm giving them the $500 I was going to buy a new Kahr with, I'm extra concerned my money be well spent !!! I think my concerns are a bit off based however, as they're doing such a wonderful job protecting my liberties, there is very little room for improvement if u ask me. That's why I'm more than happy to give up my long waited Kahr purchase for such a good cause !!