Sex.com Hijacker Captured in Mexico

Revvy wrote to mention that Stephen Cohen has finally been brought to justice. From the article: "Cohen, a multiple felon and longtime con man, had been on the run since before 2001, when a judge ordered him to pay a San Francisco entrepreneur for hijacking the Internet address Sex.com. In 1995, Cohen forged a letter to Internet authorities to gain control of the address, which he transformed into a highly profitable site for pornography ads. Cohen, who had been living in a Tijuana mansion, was arrested on an immigration violation by Mexican authorities and turned over to agents of the U.S. Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Marshals Service, according to Deputy Marshal Tania Tyler."

Comments

Blame the Internet Authorities (Verisign)

[cdn-programmer]

Yes - I think it was Verisign. This is a DNS entry which could have been fixed in a few minutes. This is not like he absconded with the website and couldn't be reached. The website is an address in a nameserver! People should understand this. The issue is beauracatic bungling and Verisign was doing a lot of this back then.

Re:Blame the Internet Authorities (Verisign)

[Anonymous Coward]

IMHO Network solutions should be held liable because it was their error.

They were held liable. Kremen sued, and won.

Re:Double standard?

[Somegeek]

That's no different than the way most western countries work. The US doesn't have laws or custom's officials to stop you from walking across the border into Canada or Mexico, it's just when you try to come back in that you have to go through US customs.

FWIW, the Mexician government doesn't like its citizens coming up to the US any more than the US governemnt does; they are losing potiential workforce and it just looks bad for them.

Re:Double standard?

[DaHat]

FWIW, the Mexician government doesn't like its citizens coming up to the US any more than the US governemnt does; they are losing potiential workforce and it just looks bad for them.

Unfortunately that is not true, hell, their economy depends upon the money being sent home from workers in the US.

Add to that the fact that by having so many people leave the country, it actually benefits the government further by removing a large number of lower class persons who might just vote for the other guy in the next election or worse.

Re:Double standard?

[Anonymous Coward]

The funny part is, the grandparent was marked insightful while being completely untrue. The mexican governement encourages their citizens to illegally go to the US. They give them instructions on how to do so.

Re:Double standard?

[ASCIIMan]

From the parent:
"FWIW, the Mexician government doesn't like its citizens coming up to the US any more than the US governemnt does; they are losing potiential workforce and it just looks bad for them."

Really?

Re:He was WHAT?

[Guppy06]

No, extradition doesn't involve "immigration charges," unless those immigration charges were from entering the United States, no Mexico.

Re:Double standard?

[oneiros27]

Wow ... you're uninformed.

You're right on the first point (they get a whole lot of money sent home), but you're wrong about the elections.

Mexico changed its election laws this summer, so it now allows absentee ballots from the US

Re:Double standard?

[Somegeek]

That is not a document encouraging Mexicans to sneak into the US, think of it as a public safety manual. Many Mexicans are killed each year trying to do this and their government is being realistic and publishing a document to warn those who will inevitably attempt it of the dangers and how to mitigate them. It's like a program to distribute clean needles to drug addicts; it doesn't mean that you are promoting drug use, you know that its happening and are trying to mitigate some of the dangers it causes.

You can also find the same document, with an english translation, distributed by a joint US/Mexican Government Commission, borderhealth.org. Does this mean that the US government is promoting illegal Mexican immigration into the US? No, and the existence of the document doesn't mean that Mexico is either, they are simply trying to protect their citizens, just as the US is.

http://www.borderhealth.org/view_article.php?id=15 0

NH doesn't have a sales tax, THAT'S WHY

[SuperBanana]

Uh, how do they not pay sales tax? Do they whip out their illegal-immigrant card at the supermarket and say "I'm not a citizen, please remove the sales tax from this purchase" ? Get a clue.

New Hampshire has no salestax, Mr. Knowit A. Dipshit.

My point is that they're doing absolutely nothing to contribute to the NH public; they pay no property, wage, or sales tax...pretty much the only way the government gets any money from you. They're not even spending the money here, they wire it home to Mexico or whereever.