Monday, August 12, 2002, 5:33:32 PM, you wrote: <snip>
dmn> It seems a lot of domains have been 'stolen' recently. dmn> Here's an explanation: dmn> Recently, I formulated a technique to get hold of extremely valuable dmn> domains. dmn> What I did was this: dmn> 1. I ran a Word List of the 5,000 most valuable words/keywords in my dmn> WHOIS software. dmn> 2. I parsed the email addresses from the WHOIS details. dmn> 3. I ran WHOIS searches on those parsed email addresses. dmn> 4. Those domains that were available, could be registered and therefore dmn> be used to administer the previous domains. dmn> I found a number of extremely valuable domains (including top 2 letter dmn> ones) which had expired Admin contact domain names. dmn> I was tempted to register some, so I could gain control when the dmn> original domain expired, but I didn't want to risk any legal troubles. dmn> I actually disclosed this technique in certain domain chat rooms and dmn> forums. Perhaps a mistake? dmn> Of course though, those with no conscience out there, did follow it, and dmn> got control of the domains before they even expired. Therefore they dmn> would be 'stolen' then. dmn> ---------------------------------------- I am almost postive this just happened to a customer of ours who was trying to transfer their domain from NetSol to us--a five letter domain. The admin/tech/billing contacts were all the person who originally registered the domain and he was now nowhere to be found--not sure if his domain was expired or not. Two days after the customer called Verisign to see what they could do, the domain was transferred to iaregistry.com as the Registrar and verticalaxis.com is now listed as all the contacts. (beware of pop-ups if you go to either of these sites) Unfortunately, I don't have the prior WHOIS info. for the domain so I can't guarantee that this is what happened. I do know the domain was not expired and re-registered unless Verisign expired it early (wouldn't suprise me). dmn> Lock your domain. Take your keys. Be safe. Good advice. You may also want to alert your customers with domains at other Registrars (if you have any) that this is a possibility. -- Chris Scott Host Orlando, Inc. http://www.hostorlando.com/ 407-622-8955
