MelbourneIT Lapse Permitted Panix Hijack

McSpew writes "Netcraft reports MelbourneIT's CTO, Bruce Tonkin, has admitted the Panix domain hijacking occurred because of a loophole in MIT's domain transfer process. He doesn't go into detail about what that loophole was, or how it was closed. As a Panix user, I'd like more detail, and I'd like to know what can be done to stop this sort of nonsense happening to other domains."

Comments

Not very surprised

[dbIII]

I'm not surprised - not long ago they had the monopoly for the "com.au" domain and very very slow to respond about anything - even ignoring emails form ICANN for a couple of weeks at the start of September 2000. If one person goes on holidays your business in not supposed to stop working for the duration. They used to be a money making sideline for a government run university, and it shows.

They also have all the integrity to be expected of the major ".cx" registrar.

Re:Overworked

[ajd1474]

I have had my share of problems with Melbourne IT.

My father registered a domain name with them under the company name " Brothers Inc." But on the form mispelled Brothers as Borthers. On top of that, no such company ever existed.

When it came time to transfer the domain name to me, Melbourne IT wouldnt have a bar of it. They wanted proof of my association with this "fictional" company before i could take contral of the domain. When i pointed out that no such company existed, they argued and insisted that i produce a permission of transfer on the company letterhead of "******* Borthers" before they would allow me to move the domain.... even though they acknowledged that no such company exists.

So what did i do? I created a fake letterhead, signed it and faxed it. They then gave me full control of the domain the same day!