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: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