warbucket.com siezed by the DoJ. Is this for real?

[vibrotronica]

Check out this link:

http://www.warbucket.com/

In a nutshell, it claims that the site has been siezed and shut down by the Department of Justice. I am not familiar with this website, but it was just pointed out to me on a blog I frequent. I know the Department of Justice siezed a couple of websites selling drug paraphenalia, but the pages they put up their place looked nothing like this one. Some of the wording strikes me as suspicious, too. For example:

Such violations include, but are not limited to: written commentary suggesting condemnation of actions by the United States, cartoon strips satirizing the nation’s role in foreign affairs, and improper display of the American flag.

None of which I thought were a crime.

Is this a hoax, or should I start digging a heavily fortified rec room for myself?

[Jayrot]

Must be a hoax. When I follow your link, all I get is a brown page and a smiley-face.

[scm1001]

no text on site for me?

[Duck_Duck_Goose]

No text for me, either, just a purple smilie face and a brown page.

Seems to me that if the Feds really had shut down the website, it would be giving me a “Page Not Found” instead of a purple smilie face.

[toadspittle]

Maybe they got hacked or something … there’s just a big smilie there right now. (2:50 PM ET)

Isn’t Warbucket a Warcraft strategy site?

[Nametag]

It’s a joke. Check out The In Clan, or just google for Warbucket – you can access the rest of the site from Google’s cache.

[vibrotronica]

OK. Mystery solved. It is, as I suspected, a hoax. It was presented to me as deadly serious Big Brother-type stuff. It sounded fishy to me, but these days, who knows? So naturally, I came to the SDMB–your online clearinghouse for all of your ignorance-fighting needs.

[John_Kentzel-Griffin]

*from WARBUCKET DOT COM *
Man, the DOJ prank sh0t thought up of was just too hard to resist. To those of you who fell for it: *it was a joke. . . . *

At least that’s what I got a minute ago. Now I get a page of SQL errors and a note at the bottom saying they should have the site up in a few hours.

[Kalashnikov]

*Originally posted by Duck Duck Goose *
**No text for me, either, just a purple smilie face and a brown page.

Seems to me that if the Feds really had shut down the website, it would be giving me a “Page Not Found” instead of a purple smilie face. **

Not necessarily a “page not found”. I know of some cases where sites really were shut down, but they were allowed to put up a short, single page telling what happened.

[Q.E.D]

For those interested, this is the image used for the practical joke. Does look pretty official and all. Heh.

[winklerjj]

The hoax is based on Isonews.com, which really was shut down by the Department of Justice around a month ago.