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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."
couldn't he have just paid off the right people in the Mexican government to get them to look the other way??
It's a little more complicated than that. The Mexican government has gone out of its way to try to get special protections for Mexican nationals living and working (often illegally) in the US. Of course, this isn't surprising considering the Mexican economy heavily depends on the funds sent back home from workers in the US.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Meanwhile, a New Hampshire Sherriff is charging illegal immigrants with trespassing. Why? Every time his department finds one (and he finds himself running into a LOT of them), he finds they're not here legally and calls the INS- the INS says "sorry, we don't have time to pick them up." So they're part of a revolving door.
That revolving door runs off tax dollars. Guess what? Illegal immigrants don't pay a dime in taxes (not even sales in NH) and he's having to spend an increasing amount of time dealing with them. So he and the DA decided to throw them in jail and charge them $50 a pop, and wouldn't you know- a bunch of "immigrant rights" activists threw a hissy fit.
Please help metamoderate.
The "state of the art" in streaming video that we had in 1995-96 was basically a tiny postagestamp-sized jpeg multipart/x-mixed-replace slideshow -- which the dominant netscape browser supported perfectly, but IE no longer does -- pushed out by our "exclusive" sun sparc video server boxes.
This was hot tech and this guy Steve Cohen approached us about getting our stuff setup in Mexico for sex.com. I'm not exactly sure about all the details, but we ended up with some sort of deal where we would provide a dozen video servers + installation & support in exchange for rights to the video feeds he was going to operate with the talent in Mexico. We also paid a bundle to setup a microwave link across the US/Mexico border.
So then he turns slimy: Mr. Cohen failed to provide the promised feeds (guess he wanted to be exclusive). And he never payed for our expensive equipment either. My boss flew down there to talk things out and apparently back then Mr. Cohen was cozy with the federalis and had him thrown in jail for a few days before he could fly back out. I then get a call from El Slimeball wherein he tries to BRIBE me into a) not remotely disabling the servers since I was the admin, and b) coming to work for him in sunny Mexico (enticing me with pathetic stories of how the blowjobs flow freely from his slutty girls.)
I guess he didn't know that his techs had already locked me out, or maybe he thought I had some backdoors, but I couldn't stop him remotely; all I remember finding was some useless hostbased rlogin accounts. I also wasn't about move to mexico, and I was (*gasp*) loyal, so I declined the hefty bribe (by not giving my account info for the wire transfer).
Anyway - that's my little anecdote of the famous Steve Cohen asshole. Hope there'll be a live jailcam video feed. :)
Power to the Peaceful
It would be pretty funny if the US annexed Canada. Sure, at first, there'd be a lot of bad blood, but afterwards, you'd basically have added 25 million people who (by American standards) all inhabit the extreme left wing, what with our belief in national health care and cheap post-secondary education.
At best, that'd be 25 million new Democrats, and at worst, 25 million... well, whoever's most left-wing while still remaining capitalist and democratic.
Mexico, Central America? I don't think so. Last time such a thing happend was in the 1850 with William Walker and his Fillibusters who where sponsored by the Southern States and had the ultimate goal of enslave Central America under the Southern States rule. To make the story short: They failed establishing the Republic of Sonora (Mexico) and after that they went to invade Central America. In Nicaragua they managed to take over the goverment (due to the political inestability) but when the Costarican president Mora saw the manace because of the multiple skirmishes in the border and the constant threats, he organized an army (the Costarican army didn't even had more than a handful of cannons) and defended the country when war was declared. Incredibly the Costarican army managed to defeat the Fillibusters in Nicaragua (with heavy losses) and with the help of the other Centralamerican countries Walker was defeated and forced out Central America. Whem he returnde with another sponsored force he was captured by the British, handed over to the Hondureans and EXECUTED. That is what happens when you mess wiht Costa Rica and Central America.
I needed to change servers for a company I was working for back in 96 or 97... of course I didn't have any of the domain registration information, because the guy who had all the info got fired. So what was the high-security way to get access to change my domain registration information? I had to fax a request on company letterhead! Yes, that is right, anyone could steal anyone elses domain name, simply by making a faxed request on company letterhead! Of course, I was not stealing the domain, I really was authorized by my employer to make the changes. But it was SIMPLE beyond comprehension.
Yes, I know those were the 90s wild west days of the Internet, but come on? Company letterhead as a security device? I am shocked that domain highjacking wasn't far more of a problem than it was!