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First Ever Criminal Arrest For Domain Name Theft
Domain Name News writes "Until recently, there hasn't been a case of a domain theft where the thief was caught and arrested. However, on July 30th, Daniel Goncalves was arrested at his home in Union, New Jersey and charged in a landmark case, the first criminal arrest for domain name theft in the United States. 'Cases of domain name theft have not typically involved a criminal prosecution because of the complexities, financial restraints and sheer time and energy involved. If a domain name is stolen, the victim of the crime in most cases would need experience with the technical and legal intricacies associated with the domain name system. To move the case forward, they would also need a law enforcement professional who understands the case or is willing to take the time to learn. For example, the Angels told us that in their case they called their local law enforcement in Florida who sent a uniformed officer in a squad car to their home. The first thing you can imagine the officer asked was, "What's a domain?"'"
Back in 1995, I was working as a salesman at Circuit City and sold a VCR to Steve Cohen, the guy who stole sex.com. He was bragging to me about how he'd been offered a million bucks for it but wasn't going to sell. Then he ended up returning the VCR. What a tool.
Start a happiness pandemic
The first thing you can imagine the officer asked was, "What's a domain?".'"
Why can't they be smart and well-versed in all things, like IT Professionals?
The first thing you can imagine the officer asked was, "What's a domain?".
Right before the cop knocked your pocket-protector-wearing geek ass out.
THL phish sticks
Quoth TFA:
Drill baby drill - on Mars
The first thing you can imagine the officer asked was, "What's a domain?"
I get it! Cops are all dumb, lazy, and technically illiterate!
Seriously, everyone. I know we all resent cops, but to imply that a whole department can't find a single officer who knows what a domain is is ridiculous and insulting. Let's try to keep our government/authority-hate at least sort of grounded in reality.
Those who anthropomorphize science and/or nature already believe in an intelligent designer.
Is anybody else in shock that there is actually a website devoted entirely to Domain Name News?
"Sleazy Well-Funded Ex-Attorney Domain Name Speculator Pushes Arrest Of Crooked Hacker." Seriously, the victim here is a cybersquatter.
Several references to "Angel's" in TFA should be "Angels'," meaning the possessive form of the plural proper noun Angels.
So much for my positive karma... [sigh]
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Mind you, I heard the story from the person who had the domain name stolen and then returned. The story may have been embellished for effect. But it's still darn good.
Someone I know owns a highly profitable and highly desirable domain name for shall we say, marital aids. He got smart and registered it in the early days and it's very much a thriving site. One day, someone stole it along with about a dozen other highly profitable domains.
This gentleman contacted some of the other victims and they were willing to help out with catching who did this and with getting their domains back.
The thieves were employees of Network Solutions and had planned on skipping the country very soon after the incidents. However, the victims pooled their money and hired a 'bounty hunter' to track down and find the thieves. He did, and for a little extra money the domains were returned without question.
The person who told me the story has been silent on what happened to the thieves. He's leaving that to the imagination but I have a feeling they're at least quite sorry that they tried this stunt.
I think that was much more satisfying than going through the court systems, etc. Not that I endorse taking the law into your own hands but when the courts aren't set up to deal with this type of crime sometimes you have to deal with it through side channels.
And this is why businesses shouldn't email out customer passwords in emails.
I get angry every time I get an email sayign "thanks for joining, your password is : xtyzseh85". REALLY? Like I just didn't enter that on your site. Also it suggests that the password is stored in clear text in their database, a big worry.
What if you forget your password, you might ask? Well then you email out a temporary password, and set a flag in your database that the person is required to change their password when they log in. This vastly reduces the window of opportunity a thief would have (technically they could follow the "forgotten email?" path on the website, and intercept the emailed temporary password. Maybe the solution is temporary passwords sent by text to account holder phone, or one of those "what is your favourite colour?" questions before the password email is sent).
Second issue - people using poor passwords. These people clearly had the keys to their $100k+ accounts available behind a paper screen door. Should we blame Yahoo! for this?
Note that the crime is still entirely down to the criminal who did it, and not the people for having poor passwords, nor the registrar who allowed the domain transfer in good faith (although there must be questions asked about their notification procedures, the owners should have got an email about the transfer, and thus should have been able to get this sorted out BEFORE the domain auction was finished).
This may come as a real shock to a lot of Americans, but it used to be that if you and your attorney could make a reasonable argument to a general district court judge that a crime had been committed, YOU could bring criminal charges. You and your attorney would be the prosecution.
*Cue platitudes about our litigious society*
The general posse comitatus approach was superior to what we have today. It had its abuses, but people tend to not grasp just how utterly powerless they are today to get wrongs corrected, to fight back against corruption, etc. In this day, it is literally impossible to bring charges against the powerful without the support of other powerful people who are sympathetic to your argument. Back in the day, if a powerful man were hiding behind his wealth and cronies, 20 armed men could haul him out of his house, shoot up the sheriff if he were on the take, and dump the SOB in a court if they had evidence.
Asking a question about the ethnicity of a name does not automatically make one a racist.
I know. Calm down people. Go have some beers and make up.
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
we had a domain stolen a few years ago at a board i mod. it was active and we lost all traffic instantly. like tfa it was also a p2p domain and also an email diversion. to get back up the admins registered "p2p-zone.com" and felt lucky to get it, but it wasn't the same. i was so po'd i wanted to throttle the arrogant nyc prick who did the snatch. instead i handed it off to the cops and eventually got it back through negotiation, but it took many months. it was our identity for years and we felt terrible when it was taken from us. what a pita. unfortunately because of the time that passed and a new name we were forced to adopt, we have never formally reincorporated it. we resolve to it but it really isn't "us" anymore as far as the public's concerned.
- js.
According to Slashdot in every piracy article, this is actually "theft", because you are taking away something from its rightful owner, who will not be able to make use of it any more. Thanks for playing.
My 0.02 cents