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First Ever Criminal Arrest For Domain Name Theft

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the slowly-catching-up-with-the-times dept.

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?"'"

14 of 294 comments (clear)

  1. Met One of The OG Domain Thiefs by gbulmash · · Score: 5, Funny

    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
    1. Re:Met One of The OG Domain Thiefs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well of course he returned the VCR. How could you steal sex.com and not know that you can get all the porn you want for free off the internet. Who needs a VCR.

    2. Re:Met One of The OG Domain Thiefs by dhermann · · Score: 4, Funny

      Wow, what an amazing but totally unverifiable story!

  2. Oh, Those Dumb Police Officers! by RobotRunAmok · · Score: 4, Funny

    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?

    1. Re:Oh, Those Dumb Police Officers! by RobotRunAmok · · Score: 4, Funny

      I don't think it was intended to be calling police officers dumb. Rather, I think the whole idea is that of law enforcement having to deal with obscure technical things that are totally outside of their expertise. Which is why this story is so interesting. The line is starting to blur between cyberspace and meatspace.

      So long as the cop never uses the term "meatspace" he'll be a better man than both of us.

    2. Re:Oh, Those Dumb Police Officers! by Mordok-DestroyerOfWo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The same fascist pigs that you won't hesitate to call if you hear someone breaking into your house at 2:00 in the morning?

      --
      "Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
    3. Re:Oh, Those Dumb Police Officers! by similar_name · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Well yes, if he lives in the jungles of Bolivia I guess he could get away with shooting a trespasser.

      Or he could live in Texas. See Make My Day Law or Castle Doctrine. Of note is it gives you the right to defend your property against intrusion which may lead to violent attack.

      I've often wondered does this mean that if someone sneaks into your back yard at 2 in the morning and drown in your pool, are you responsible? But if you shoot them as they come onto your property then are you within your rights?

  3. nice stereotype. by gandhi_2 · · Score: 5, Funny

    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
  4. What he actually did by fiannaFailMan · · Score: 4, Informative

    Quoth TFA:

    Daniel Goncalves, the 25 year old law firm computer technician arrested on Thursday, reportedly hacked in to the Angelâ(TM)s AOL email account, used that information to retrieve the login details for the P2P.com from the Godaddy.com domain account. Goncalves performed an internal âoedomain pushâ transfer,which in effect transfered the domain name to another Godaddy account that he owned. Goncalves reportedly also falsified Paypal.com transaction records in an attempt to cover his trail and provide evidence that made it appear that he purchased the domain name for $900 from the Angels. The domain was listed in the name of Daniel Louvado during this time period (a bogus name consisting of Goncalves first name and his fiances last name).

    In late 2006, Goncalves put the domain name P2P.com up for sale on eBay.com and on September 24, 2006 the eBay.com auction for the domain P2P.com closed in the amount of $111,000.

    --
    Drill baby drill - on Mars
  5. Come on... by CWRUisTakingMyMoney · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:Come on... by Roogna · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You know, it didn't sound like they were trying to imply the cop was dumb. But that the legal system itself isn't able to redirect these kinds of reported crimes to the proper people within. Such as this, where for a domain name theft, they sent a officer, to the door of a house. Obviously that would be his first question, because he was the incorrect layer of law enforcement to even have responded to such a report, not because he was dumb. Now on the flip side, they probably shouldn't have been calling local police over it in the first place, but instead probably (and this is my guess, I may very well be incorrect myself) the FBI. But that's more the point, depending on the "crime" one may have to contact any of a number of different places and it's not all that clear, I think even to law enforcement professionals, let alone those -not- in law enforcement, on who to contact for what.

  6. Headline should read... by arcsimm · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "Sleazy Well-Funded Ex-Attorney Domain Name Speculator Pushes Arrest Of Crooked Hacker." Seriously, the victim here is a cybersquatter.

    1. Re:Headline should read... by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yeah, I was thinking that too. There really aren't any good guys in this case.

      I know it would open up a huge can of worms, but I've often thought that domain name ownership ought to be like land owenership under the Homestead Act. That is, if you're the first person to apply for a domain, you get it for free, but you have to "improve" it, i.e., do something with it other than just sitting on it and hoping someone will pay you a bunch of money, in a certain amount of time or you don't get to keep it. Impractical, I know, but the whole idea of domain name squatting is just irritating as hell.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
  7. Why we need to break the govt's monopoly by MikeRT · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    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.