New Age Islam May Suddenly Go Offline: Even If That Happens We Will Be Back Online Soon, Insha Allah; Please Bear With Us
Dear Readers,
Ever since we started our journey about five years ago, we have been under attack. First it was a series of hacking attempts. Then numerous attacks on our newsletter mailing system. Our site was once deleted from the server at a time when we were just not prepared for this. We didn’t have backups. However, we recreated and have been going on since then. Once we managed to provide the site with some security, though nothing online is ever completely safe, complaints to domain registrars and webhosts started pouring. All sorts of complaints from hate-mongering to spamming. One domain registrar even suspended our domain name without any notice. As propagation of this suspension throughout the internet takes a few days, what started happening was that some computers in some parts of the world will show NewAgeIslam.com, some others would say it did not exist. We had no idea for a couple of days what was wrong. We kept shifting from one domain registrar to another, one webhost to another.
So it has gone on. I was hounded out of India. I shifted my domain name as well as hosting to America. But our enemies have long arms. Businessmen of any country are only concerned with money-making, not even prepared to spend a minute glancing through the newsletters sent to them as “proof” of our “hate-mongering” or “spamming”. Now I have notice from my webhost that the site has been suspended and can be removed any moment. Another set of complaints. Notice came in my inbox 15 days after the suspension. During this time I was frantic not able to understand certain things that were happening with the site. I have not been able to send any newsletter for more than a week. Our mail server is not working. Other systems are functioning so far. Solution is to have a private server and manage it ourselves. But buying and managing a private server capable of handling a million or more hits per day is not easy for us, a group of professionals, somehow eking out an existence. We are thinking of various solutions. But I can assure you, that Insha Allah, we will be back, even if we do go offline suddenly. I thought I must warn you of this possibility, while I can. God has always helped. He will help again. I am certain. Do please bear with us, pray for us or send us good wishes, according to your belief systems, in the event of a sudden shutdown.
To give you some further perspective, I am quoting below a few paragraphs from a speech I made on issues of internet governance and cyber security at a parallel seminar in The United Nations, Geneva.
“However, there are also issues we have to face that directly concern internet governance. For instance, again as happened with New Age Islam, our domain names can be suspended without any notice or enquiry just because someone sends a patently false complaint to the domain registrar. Similarly the website host can suspend our operations, again as happened to New Age Islam several times, on similar patently false accusations. The argument the domain registrar or website hosts offer is this. They are business organisations and don’t want to get involved in unnecessary disputes. They also say that they do not have people who will evaluate complaints. So, they find it easier to take action and suspend websites when a complaint of whatever nature comes.
“When I asked my domain registrar to at least read the complaint that had come to him and which he had forwarded to me unread, he said simply: “I have no time to argue with you or read unnecessary mails. However, I am un-suspending your domain name for a few days, but please transfer your domain to another domain registrar in the meantime.” I did this but my website remained disturbed for several weeks.
“However, when I thought about it coolly, I couldn’t blame the registrar. If you see the economics involved, you will see, the registrar has a point. He leases the domain name to me for 12 to 15 dollars annually. He probably earns a profit of 5 to 7 dollars from me in a year. How can he afford to spend more time arguing with me or resources to investigate complaints against my website or endanger his business in any way? He has nothing to gain. Businesses are run on simple profit-loss calculations.
“So, I hope, when United Nations committees discuss larger issues of internet governance, they would also look at issues that face millions of individual users and website owners. After all it is us netizens that make internet the information highway that it is. We too need to be protected.”
Sultan Shahin, Editor, New Age Islam
20 Dec 2012