The domain for 1broker has been seized by FBI

[blackrain]

Their company is https://1pool.ltd/  and they say funds are safe.
Time will show whether they take the road to hell or the road which btc-e took after their experience with FBI.  That guys formed a new domain and gave back all the users funds. We will see.


https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-218

update 1: only the domain has been seized. As I see from the about page, the company is registered at Marshall Islands where the jurisdiction of FBI does not exist.


update 2:  They have opened a mirror site but only read only version : https://1broker.io    
Source:  https://twitter.com/1Brokerio/status/1047421765482434560



update 3 : They have enabled withdrawals by asking some data(name, surname, country of origin) and accepting an agreement. 
source : https://twitter.com/1Brokerio/status/1050365723435040769

[moe00]

how seized by FBI and they came back and they refund?
that's impossible!

[AdolfinWolf]

how seized by FBI and they came back and they refund?
that's impossible!

Because it wasn't actually the servers that were taken, but rather just the domain, which is usually registered somewhere where the US have some sort of jurisdiction.
It's a setback for sure, but nothing compared to the FBI actually taking their servers and thus their funds.

I'm wondering if there are any domains that are so to speak "unseizable". Apart from .onion ones, i don't think there are?

[tim-bc]

I'm wondering if there are any domains that are so to speak "unseizable". Apart from .onion ones, i don't think there are?

You're right. Every traditional TLD must be registered and has the potential to be seized. Only .onion and .i2p domains cannot be seized.

[squatter]

how seized by FBI and they came back and they refund?
that's impossible!

Because it wasn't actually the servers that were taken, but rather just the domain, which is usually registered somewhere where the US have some sort of jurisdiction.

It's possible the servers were seized. That's what happened in the case of BTC-e -- they relaunched the site from backup servers. I hope we get some clarity on that. It'd be good to know for peace of mind whether customer logs are in the hands of the US government.

Whether or not the servers were seized, the funds should be safe if they took the right security precautions.

I'm wondering if there are any domains that are so to speak "unseizable". Apart from .onion ones, i don't think there are?

Since the DNS is highly centralized, they would be few and far between. Some country code top-level domains are probably unseizable by the US -- in uncooperative or sanctioned countries like Russia, Iran and North Korea.

For sure, anything on .com or .net can be seized very easily. Those TLDs are controlled by VeriSign, who always complies with the US government.

[Baofeng]

Their company is https://1pool.ltd/  and they say funds are safe.
Time will show whether they take the road to hell or the road which btc-e took after their experience with FBI.  That guys formed a new domain and gave back all the users funds. We will see.


https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-218

addition: only the domain has been seized. As I see from the about page, the company is registered at Marshall Islands where the jurisdiction of FBI does not exist.

I'm under the impression that the servers are also seized by FBI because the servers are located in the US . Its just scary though how Uncle Sam can seized anyone even without proper jurisdiction just like what they did on BTC-e.

[1Referee]

the company is registered at Marshall Islands where the jurisdiction of FBI does not exist.

I don't think the FBI really cares about jurisdiction related limitations of that sort. We have had enough examples already of how they just act as the world police to get what they want, and all countries even considering working against them have no choice but to abide by whatever the US thinks should be done. If you as questionable platform serve US investors, it's basically done and over for you and there is nothing that will help you to change that.

We have entered a time where authorities are planting their sharp teeth into your neck instead of just endless domestic-dog-style-barking. In the end, I think it's about time that they start acting, because the shit going on in this industry isn't helping anyone other than a bunch of con artists to grow further (financially).

[LeGaulois]

When your site is seized by the SEC, it then transfers the domain, the database, and the whole server/backup to itself. The site is also supposed to be shut down or an image uploaded with an American logo "this website is seized by the US jurisdiction bla bla bla"
Maybe today is too soon since it's 24 hours or less, but by Monday be ready to see the site gone

[debuni]

I managed to withdraw funds from their website, even though it took almost 24 hours, but the bottom line is that they still have the BTC.

But there are still complaints on telegram about missing withdrawals.

[BitHodler]

I managed to withdraw funds from their website, even though it took almost 24 hours, but the bottom line is that they still have the BTC.

May I ask how you managed to withdraw funds from their site?

According to 1Broker's Twitter statement they are waiting for the SEC's permission to process customer withdrawals. Till that time, they won't process any withdrawals. The 1pool.ltd website doesn't indicate any option to withdraw funds either.

It will probably take weeks or even months before the SEC allows them to activate withdrawals, and that's assuming the SEC won't try to seize these funds one way or another. You never know what they are up to when they smell money.

[debuni]

I managed to withdraw funds from their website, even though it took almost 24 hours, but the bottom line is that they still have the BTC.

May I ask how you managed to withdraw funds from their site?

According to 1Broker's Twitter statement they are waiting for the SEC's permission to process customer withdrawals. Till that time, they won't process any withdrawals. The 1pool.ltd website doesn't indicate any option to withdraw funds either.

It will probably take weeks or even months before the SEC allows them to activate withdrawals, and that's assuming the SEC won't try to seize these funds one way or another. You never know what they are up to when they smell money.

I made the withdrawal request a hour after the tweet, website was still online but unstable. It took about 24 hours to arrive.
On their telegram, many people confirmed that their withdrawal arrived.

However, I have no idea what happened to those who did not withdraw their funds before the site was taken offline.

[gentlemand]

I'm wondering if there are any domains that are so to speak "unseizable". Apart from .onion ones, i don't think there are?

What about Namecoin's .bit domains?

Since I've never come across one in my entire life I will take that as a sign that it's a failure or an absolute obscurity.

This type of thing makes me wonder about decentralised exchanges. They'd be far better off skipping any type of conventional hosting at all and going straight to in wallet or on blockchain.

[1Referee]

What about Namecoin's .bit domains?

They are impossible to seize once claimed by whatever entity, but by rolling back the chain, you technically can make sure X entity has no longer the control over a specific .bit domain. It is however very unlikely that someone is able to roll the chain back with how Namecoin is being merge mined mostly, which means that it accounts for an immense amount of hashpower thanks to Bitcoin.

https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/namecoin-hashrate.html
https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-hashrate.html

Since I've never come across one in my entire life I will take that as a sign that it's a failure or an absolute obscurity.

It's very niche still, and something most average joes don't give a shit about. People want to access websites in an instant, and not by first visiting a proxy site to open .bit domains, or even to install software. No chance. It will only become a viable option when the whole internet has turned into one centralized shithole.

[blackrain]

They have opened a mirror site but only read only version : https://1broker.io     

Source:  https://twitter.com/1Brokerio/status/1047421765482434560

[leopard2]

what a horrible example of a perfectly fine company, serving their customers needs, being attacked by criminal imperialistic filth  

they were in the Marshal islands...just because an FBI agent used them 2 years ago (probabyl against their terms of service) they are now under attack!!

imagine a restaurant in the US would be bombed by agents from Iran, because it has served an Iranian citizen alcohol 2 years ago?

It is blatant imperialistic aggression, and only works because the Marshal islands are weak. What does this mean, will exchanges outside the US who (correctly) work under the law of their location, not US law, only be able to survive in countries that are too powerful to be attacked by US imperialists? Russia maybe?

Changing the domain will probably not be enough because that is not the only attack vector...

[carlfebz2]

imagine a restaurant in the US would be bombed by agents from Iran, because it has served an Iranian citizen alcohol 2 years ago?

Only countries that are capable on doing this might be Russia & China and the rest would be just like dogs when a superpower country make such decisions and they cant react for that one.
This is somehow anticipated and these doings aren't new anymore when we do talk about US involvement into the things when they do saw someone violates.No matter which country if they look
it doesn't have the capability then expect similar things would happen on this one.

[gentlemand]

what a horrible example of a perfectly fine company, serving their customers needs, being attacked by criminal imperialistic filth  

It sucks but they should've been clever enough to reject Americans. They knew what the score was but did nothing about it. It was a foolish move on their part. The US willingness to screw anyone no matter where they are is grim but it should be well known enough to account for it.

[Kemarit]

I managed to withdraw funds from their website, even though it took almost 24 hours, but the bottom line is that they still have the BTC.

Looks like you are few of the lucky ones. As per their update:

When will withdrawals be available?
It depends on the authorities and we cannot estimate this yet. Any updates will be posted here as soon as we have them.

https://1broker.io/?c=en/content/sec

It also says that Federal Bureau of Investigation was able to create trades on 1Broker in the year 2016.  So it looks like they have been a case against them for many years before finally taking it down. US authorities is clearly sending signals to the rest of crypto trading platform. And even though that the company is registered on Marshall Islands,, US really don't care, we have seen that they're capable of by-passing any political/economic firewall as long as they served their purpose. This just going to drag for many months, but at the end of the day, US actions is justified,

[shield132]

how seized by FBI and they came back and they refund?
that's impossible!

Because it wasn't actually the servers that were taken, but rather just the domain, which is usually registered somewhere where the US have some sort of jurisdiction.
It's a setback for sure, but nothing compared to the FBI actually taking their servers and thus their funds.

I'm wondering if there are any domains that are so to speak "unseizable". Apart from .onion ones, i don't think there are?

That's hard to say and to be fair I can't understand well. For example thepiratebay changed their domains but finally returned back to original one, how did this happen? Everyone knows it's pirate, just seize every domain they own, why don't they do that? Another example is rutor.org <-- this domain was seized but they move on new-rugor.org <-- why isn't it seized? Domain is still .org

[AdolfinWolf]

how seized by FBI and they came back and they refund?
that's impossible!

Because it wasn't actually the servers that were taken, but rather just the domain, which is usually registered somewhere where the US have some sort of jurisdiction.
It's a setback for sure, but nothing compared to the FBI actually taking their servers and thus their funds.

I'm wondering if there are any domains that are so to speak "unseizable". Apart from .onion ones, i don't think there are?

That's hard to say and to be fair I can't understand well. For example thepiratebay changed their domains but finally returned back to original one, how did this happen? Everyone knows it's pirate, just seize every domain they own, why don't they do that? Another example is rutor.org <-- this domain was seized but they move on new-rugor.org <-- why isn't it seized? Domain is still .org

I think you could argue for ThePiratebay that they're not actually hosting any copyrighted content, they're simply providing a tool/list for users to use.

But even then, you're right, i don't see how that woul be legal in the US anyway..

https://venturebeat.com/2015/12/28/the-pirate-bay-is-down-four-domains-have-been-suspended/

Looks like the main argument for not seizing their domains is that it doesn't matter/it being a lost cause. "They'll simply use another TLD & another domain anyway".