[Vision2020] Holding government sites for ransom

[Donovan Arnold]

Robert,
   
  Yes, people try to make money this way. Everyday websites expire. If the original subscriber fails to renew, anyone can buy the domain name. I was taught this in some of my computer courses. 
   
  Imagine if you got ownership of WaltDisney.com, Coca-Cola.com, Pepsi.com, or even ABC.com. You could make a lot of money. I don't think it works well for smaller businesses, but you hit a gold mind if you could get the registered name of a large company or organization. 
   
  Best,
   
  Donovan

Robert Dickow <dickow at uidaho.edu> wrote:
      I have just encountered another example of an old scam: site hijacking and ransoming.
   
  I won't divulge the domain, but a former web domain used by an Idaho government agency was acquired by an unknown person or persons in China. There, an 'adult' site was put up under the domain and then the domain was offered to be sold back again at a fee. The 'porn' site itself is probably even a bogus one at that, set up solely to embarrass the former domain owner. WWW users who had put in links to the government site, or had that URL as a favorite bookmark in their browsers end up unwittingly going to the porn site instead, so that forms the incentive for the buy-backs. Now, the governernment requires all organizations to use a .gov domain, which is controlled through their DNS so they can be shut down instantly if they want.
   
  Be aware too, if you ever buy domain names for your business or club, that if you just buy something like "MyMagicClub.org", there will probably be a bot or person out there lurking and will buy up "MyMagicClub.com" and "MyMagicClub.net" in order to hold the names ransom and offer to sell it to you at a high price. That happened to me, though I didn't want the other high level domain extensions anyway, so I actually got the better of the scam, because it's costing the other guy money. Ha!
   
  Bob Dickow
=======================================================
List services made available by First Step Internet, 
serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994. 
http://www.fsr.net 
mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
=======================================================

       
---------------------------------
Ahhh...imagining that irresistible "new car" smell?
 Check outnew cars at Yahoo! Autos.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20070420/a21f5d60/attachment.html