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CyanogenMod Domain Hijacked

Posted by Soulskill on from the greed-is-the-silent-enemy dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The team behind CyanogenMod, one of the most popular community-driven, Android-based operating systems for phones and tablets, has announced that they're moving to Cyanogenmod.org after their .com domain was held ransom by a community member. He had been in control of the .com domain name for some time, but the team found out he was impersonating Cyanogen to make deals with community sites. When they removed his access to other parts of the CM infrastructure, he demanded $10,000 to relinquish control of the domain and threatened to change the DNS entries. When they refused to pay, he went through with it. The team is now disputing control of the domain with ICANN. They said, 'We will continue to be open about the what, when, how, but unfortunately, we may never know the "why" – though greed comes to mind. The team itself has not made a profit off of CM and that is not our goal. But to have one of our own betray the community like this is beyond our comprehension.'"

9 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. Nice guy! by Threni · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sounds like a real asshole. Enjoy the domain why you can - it'll be taken from you, or it'll be rendered worthless when the responsible adults get their own domain. Either way it's worthless.

    1. Re:Nice guy! by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Sure, he's a jerk. But he cant really hold something he owns hostage.

      There's no utility in "owning" a listing in a public directory for an organization that you're not a part of beyond misrepresenting yourself and deceiving the public. If the existing rules don't recognize that, that doesn't that we need to distort reality and pretend that what he's doing is perfectly right and good, it means that means the rules need to be fixed.

      --
      -1 Uncomfortable Truth
    2. Re:Nice guy! by screwdriver · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Cyanogenmod is not an official Android release. You can't get it from the google store, it has to be installed on a device that you've rooted. If you jailbreak your iPod, expect similar results if you download unofficial unsigned apps.

  2. Scumbag by bigwheel · · Score: 2, Insightful

    A real community member would be proud to shell out the 10 bucks for the domain name nenewal and donate it back to the project.

  3. Re:Defamation of trademarks can be a criminal matt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This guy is in England... the country where you get arrested for posting a photo of a burning paper flower on facebook.

  4. Re:Name and shame again and again. by vinehair · · Score: 2, Insightful

    He's just blocking people on Twitter now (myself included.) I usually find 'you don't understand what's going on' with no attempt to educate to be an excuse used by the guilty party. The fact that he later said on said twitter feed that 'he owns the domain name' seems to solidly imply that he is guilty of this dick move, and he thought he's morally in the right to do what he did because of it.

  5. Re:Name and shame again and again. by Opportunist · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'd love to hear both sides, but if one side just says "The other side is wrong" without telling me what happened in their view, I kinda doubt said side.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  6. Re:This all looks to now be resolved by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Dudes still a shit bag for trying to get the money from a non profit org in the first place.

  7. Re:Name and shame again and again. by Kwyj1b0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Did you not read the summary or did you recently get a lobotomy? The summary clearly lays out the dick moves he pulled. Nothing in his lame excuse drivel clears any of that shit up other than saying other people are wrong.

    And who submitted the entry? An AC. And with the high editorial standards at slashdot, I'm sure they did a thorough investigation and fact-checking before posting.

    As to the fact that his excuses were lame - that is exactly what the previous poster said. So congratulations on missing the whole point (while implying he/she is an idiot).