[Vision2020] Holding government sites for ransom

[Paul Rumelhart]

I don't know if anything can be done if it's someone from China, but in 
the US the courts have occasionally slammed a "cyber-squatter" here and 
there.  Someone who is simply sitting on a domain name that is not using 
it can end up losing it if they end up going to court.  Of course, if 
someone is using the name legitimately, then there is nothing you can 
do.  Of course, the deeper the pockets you have the better you do in 
court.  I remember something about a guy named "Mike Rowe" that had a 
site called "mikerowesoft.com".  A large company in Redmond squashed it, 
if I remember correctly.

Google has this link:   
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/01/26/mikerowesoft.settle.ap/

So I guess he got an XBox out of it.

Also be aware that if you let a domain name lapse, whoever picks it up 
can make you look bad to your former audience, even if unintentionally.  
I had that happen to me.

Paul

Robert Dickow 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
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