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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."
From sex.com to prisonrape.com. A fitting end to this story.
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couldn't he have just paid off the right people in the Mexican government to get them to look the other way??
He was living in a MANSION in mexico. How hard did they even look for this guy.
... where turnabout is foreplay.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet
In the nineties, it wasn't about just any domain name. Keyword domain names were worth millions at least. Someone had the foresight to get sex.com (which you can't deny is and was an incredibly profitable keyword on the web) fast and lost that opportunity. He fought to keep the domain and pointed out the errors in NSI's policies and even when demonstrated to them he was the rightful owner, they did nothing to undo their mistake.
The real perpetrator in this case is NSI for essentially violating their agreement with the original owner to keep his domain in his control, but you can't deny that the original owner wasn't a victim.
-Neil
I've nothing to say here...
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.
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.
And as you tread the halls of sanity, You feel so glad to be, Unable to go beyond. I have a message, From another time..
...or is this a case of somebody crossing the border to get INTO Mexico?
Oh, yes, there's definitely a double standard in here somewhere. I mean, Mr. Cohen is a fugitive from justice while those braceros just want to send enough money back to their families so their kids can get ahead, but Mr. Cohen is rich. Rich guys with light skin shouldn't be treated as common criminals.
...
As the inimitable Mr. Boortz would say, the rich are responsible for creating prosperity, not those dirty laborers creating cheap agricultural surpluses. You need only look at their relative pay and their value to society will be made plain. And so the first seats in the lifeboat should rightfully belong to the rich. You might go so far as to say that they are entitled to them. Don't you love that word "entitled"? It's so redolent of nobility (feudal nobility, not that sticky romantic kind). I also love the word "privelege": rich people have a privileged status in our society, because they are law unto themselves (privilege: form the latin prvus, single, alone + lx, lg-, law).
Bringing the wealthy under the same laws as the rest of us is of course the ultimate double standard, because it takes so much more effort. We should expend the same effort on everybody, no matter what their ability and resources to evade are. It's cost efficient. You get many more people into prison that way. And everybody knows that the higher the number of people behind bars is, the greater your objectively measurable progress against crime is. We should not ask governments to make extra effort to bring the wealthy to account, when the result could only be fewer people in prison per dollar spent. As we've been told repeatedly, the government has too much "hard work" on its plate already.
Excuse me, was I ranting?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Just because he registered sex.com to take advantage of a profitable opportunity doesn't mean he can't be a victim. He didn't try to squat (in this case) on what might be a trademarked name just to squeeze money from a corporation. He registered a name with the intent to make money. Nothing wrong with that. That someone else took it and that NSI refused to admit thier mistake and make it right makes him a victim.
While that may sound like a pretty crazy idea, in reality, it would probably benefit both countries. American entrepenuers would immediately rush into Mexico, creating millions of jobs. No longer would Mexicans have a reason to migrate north, many illegally.
Other benefits:
1) Access to all Mexican oil/natural resources, eliminating dependence on imported oil/resources
2) Illegal immigration from Mexico stopped
3) No more terrorist entry into Mexico
4) Increased tax base
5) Increase military - absorb existing and recruiting more - we could finally become the imperialist nation everyone accuses us of being...starting with Canada, then Central America. Cuba? Gone.
The beneifts seem limitless. I am sure there are some drawbacks, but I think they would be outweighed.
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?
"Maybe the time is right to invite Mexico to become U.S. States 51-54?"
First off, there's 31 states in Mexico, not counting the Distrito Federal. Why are you arbitrarily cutting them down to 4?
Secondly, they hate us. A good deal of them are still screaming bloody murder about the last war we had with them 160 years ago and cheer what Pancho Villa did up here. We're mutually convenient neighbors but not necessarily friends.
"Easier extradition of criminals"
Perhaps, perhaps not. Besides, the only way you're going to stop people from fleeing south to avoid extradition is to extend the US down to Tierra del Fuego.
"Better environmental laws there would help get toxic cleanup started"
First off, guess which one of us signed Kyoto. Second, a lot of their problems with toxic waste are because we put it there.
"Consistent employer laws to better protect employees"
Ignoring details like whether they'd all be "right to work" states, what makes you think Mexican labor laws will be adjusted "up" instead of US labor laws being adjusted "down?"
"Great real estate opportunities!"
Yeah, that's what they said last time. Not much prime real estate in Arizona or New Mexico, though.
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.
Your lack of faith in "diversity" is disturbing, citizen-unit. Stop questioning and return to your simple life of mass media induced stupor!
... wussies that we are, this guy would just get some prison time (since internet fraud isn't regarded a class A felony) and a fine (not even coming close to what he earned).
I really hope they take away all his money and he gets 30 years. It's about time these criminals get what they deserve.
Have I fallen into some kind of alternate universe?
If so, is it the one where Spock has a goatee, or do I get treated to Nana Visitor in tight leather pants?
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
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
And as you tread the halls of sanity, You feel so glad to be, Unable to go beyond. I have a message, From another time..
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
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!