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Guy Robs Someone At Gunpoint For Domain Name, Gets 20 Years In Jail (vice.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the domain-hijacking dept.

Yesterday, 43-year-old Iowa man Sherman Hopkins Jr. was sentenced to 20 years in prison for attempting to rob a domain name from another man at gunpoint in 2017. As Motherboard reports, "this may be the first time someone has attempted to steal a domain name at gunpoint." From the report: Last June, Hopkins broke into the home of 26 year-old Ethan Deyo in Cedar Rapids, Iowa one afternoon and demanded that Deyo to log on to his computer to transfer the domain name for "doitforstate.com" to another account. According to Deyo's bio on his personal website, he is a web entrepreneur who previously worked for the web hosting service GoDaddy. After seeing Hopkins enter the apartment, Deyo locked himself into his room and Hopkins kicked in the door. Hopkins kicked in the door and "pistol-whipped" Deyo, held a gun to his head and used a stun gun on him during the encounter. While he attempted to wrestle the gun away from Hopkins, Deyo was shot in the leg, but he eventually gained control of the firearm and shot Hopkins multiple times in the chest. It's unclear why Hopkins wanted the domain name or who he was transferring the domain name to.

23 of 134 comments (clear)

  1. wait, what? by war4peace · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "guy robs" ...
    "Deyo was shot in the leg, but he eventually gained control of the firearm and shot Hopkins multiple times in the chest."

    That doesn't count as "robs", but "attempts to rob".

    --
    ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
    1. Re: wait, what? by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 2
      Corporations are people you caveman.

      No. They may be "persons in law" but they are NOT people.

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    2. Re: wait, what? by sg_oneill · · Score: 2

      Whatever the case, the web developer guy is a goddamn badass. I ain't gonna lie , someone points a gun at me, I'm complying, to wrestle a gun off an armed home invader and win, that takes balls of cast iron.

      --
      Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
  2. Movie! by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 2

    Ocean's Eleven Chest Holes.

    --
    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    1. Re: Movie! by HornWumpus · · Score: 2

      I knew an old fat guy. His wife emptied the clip of a 25 into his chest. He beat the shit out of her, then drove himself to the emergency room. She went to prison.

      The 25 really is the lamest of all calibers. Like a 22 _short_, but even lamer.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    2. Re: Movie! by meglon · · Score: 2

      https://www.nytimes.com/2008/0...

      A .22 to the head at close range can also fail to penetrate the skull, and simply cause a minor concussion; it's less about what caliber, and more about the type of round.

      --
      Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
    3. Re: Movie! by wwphx · · Score: 2

      I used to do IT for a police department a couple of decades ago, and that included the crime lab. At the time I was quite a gun nut, and I always had fun waiting for people in the crime lab because they had these cases full of pistols and I could "ooh and ahhh" over them. One such pistol was a Raven .25 that has a 4x Tasco telescope sight mounted on it. I asked the guy I was meeting with what the story was.

      He said "That's our sniper model." His exact words.

      The story is that two dudes got in to a fight in a bar, bouncer evicts them. It eventually breaks up in the lot and the two guys walk in opposite directions to their cars. One decides he's still pissed, and when they're about 25 yards apart, he turns, pulls a Raven out of wherever, points it up in an arc and fires it. The bullet arcs over, hits the other guy in the head and kills him.

      Absolute freak, proverbial one in a million, couldn't do it again if you tried, shot. So the crime lab bought a cheap Tasco sight and mounted it on one of their sample Ravens as a joke.

      It was a good job, learned a lot, and got a fantastic collection of stories. Some of which I'll only repeat in very carefully considered company.

      --
      When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
  3. Re:Bad movie script by FFOMelchior · · Score: 5, Funny

    Plot for Taken 4. Terrorists steal Liam Neeson's domain name.

  4. 99 problems and a domain name ain't one... by Bozookajoe · · Score: 2

    He could have just added an 's' to the domain and bought it for .99 cents.

    1. Re:99 problems and a domain name ain't one... by magarity · · Score: 2

      He could have just added an 's' to the domain and bought it for .99 cents.

      I don't know if they still do but you used to go to cheap domain registration sites like GoDaddy and 'check domain availability', it would tell you whatever you searched for wasn't available, then within an hour you'd get an email offering to sell it to you for $1,000 or so.

  5. What do you mean no one knows? by Notabadguy · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Do It For State" is a millennial phrase out of Iowa State like, "Do it for the boobies" or "I did it for the nookie" or "Man up and do it."

    As for everyone saying that no one knows why Hopkins did it...

    Obviously he did it for state.

  6. Public Registration Information. by NoSalt · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is why it is a bad idea to have public registration information. It should really only be available with a court order; yet many domain name registrars charge you a fee to keep your information safe.

    1. Re:Public Registration Information. by encrypted · · Score: 3, Informative

      This story reminds me why I make sure to pay the fee to protect my privacy before complaining about my privacy...

      But yeah, it would be nice if privacy was included.

      Namecheap JUST announced free privacy on all domains. No more worried about your door getting kicked in and being shot. I didn't realize privacy was useful until now, I mean "doitforsate.com" is a pretty stupid domain name and if you can get shot for that...

    2. Re:Public Registration Information. by novakyu · · Score: 2

      Probably because Google Domains has been doing it since the beginning.

  7. ICANN should stop requiring physical address by Utopia · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is precisely why ICANN should stop requiring postal and/or phone number in the WHOIS records.

    1. Re:ICANN should stop requiring physical address by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 5, Informative

      I just use a PO box. It's not just your domain registration that makes an address public. It's a registration of businesses or charities, many things you do with the government. For a while Garmin GPS systems had business registrations programmed into the address database, and you could just type "Perens" in, and it would lead you to the address of my LLC, which was my home at the time. Now my business no longer has my name, and uses a PO box. Anyone who tried could find me anyway.

      --
      Bruce Perens.
  8. ICANN should start requiring PO Box. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Google number, and P.O. Box. Failing that, a small company front.

  9. Guns don't kill people ... by mnemotronic · · Score: 2

    Guns don't kill people, DNS kills people.

    Wellllll in this case nobody got kilt. And you could argue it was a domain name registration. But that just ain't bumper-sticker worthy.

    --
    The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
  10. Re:Bad movie script by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 3, Funny

    Plot for Taken 4. Terrorists steal Liam Neeson's domain name.

    Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson): "I have a particular set of skills -- and a Security+ certification..."

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  11. Re:So small caliber weapon? by MoralCharacter · · Score: 5, Funny

    I heard something about this before - he probably shot himself with smaller bullets to build up a resistance to larger ones.

  12. Re:So small caliber weapon? by gweihir · · Score: 2

    It was M. And Bond tried to steal the gun after that.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  13. Re: Bad movie script by enderwiggin7 · · Score: 2

    I don't know who you are but I will find you and I will whois you! â

  14. Re:So small caliber weapon? by mikael · · Score: 2

    Holistic body armour. There's a steampunk game which had the observation that of all the people who survived fighting in the trenches, 30% had a bible in their top left pocket, another 40% had a hip flask and the other 30% had a metal neck brace. Therefore, wearing all three simultaneously would provide 100% protection.

    --
    Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads