Pinboard (guardiantech)

The Pirate Bay moves to .sx as prosecutor files motion to seize domains >> TorrentFreak

guardiantech — 2013-05-01T20:57:59+00:00

Swedish authorities have filed a motion at the District Court of Stockholm on behalf of the entertainment industries, demanding the seizure of two Pirate Bay domain names. In addition to the Swedish-based .se domain the motion also includes the new Icelandic .is TLD. In a rapid response, The Pirate Bay has just switched to a fresh domain, ThePirateBay.sx, registered in the northeastern Caribbean island of Sint Maarten.

Bet you didn't know where .sx was before that. (Thanks @IvanIvanovich for the link.)

DoItQuick: Fast Domains for Dirty Deeds >> Krebs on Security

guardiantech — 2012-07-23T05:50:25+00:00

A new service offered in the cybercriminal underground is geared toward spammers, scammers and malware purveyors interested in mass-registering dozens of dodgy domains in one go.
The service — doitquick.net — will auto-register up to 15 domains simultaneously, choosing randomly named domains unless the customer specifies otherwise.

Krebs doesn't specify whether it's done cheap, but kudos anyway for getting the AC/DC reference in there.

Go Daddy Lost 21,054 Domains Yesterday

guardiantech — 2011-12-26T20:57:08+00:00

"According to TheDomains, 21,054 domains were transferred away from Go Daddy on Friday alone. At $6.99 a pop, that would make for a loss of $147,167, not taking future renewals into account. The day before wasn’t a good one for the company either, with 15,000 people taking their domains elsewhere. That means that even though Go Daddy changed its stance, people have had enough." Easier than lobbying politicians, of course, to move a domain. But doesn't really get to the root of the problem.

Apple gets control over porn domain names >> Domain Name Wire

guardiantech — 2011-11-22T22:01:43+00:00

Web-blocking, the Apple way.

Top level domain explosion could wreak MAYHEM on NET >> The Register

guardiantech — 2011-07-04T21:59:48+00:00

"A plan to populate the internet with hundreds or thousands of new top-level domains has security researchers pondering some of the unintended consequences that could be exploited by online criminals. Some of the scenarios aren't pretty.
"Consider the mayhem that might result from addresses that end in “exchange,” “mailserver,” “domain,” or other strings that are frequently used to designate highly sensitive resources on corporate and government networks."

Consider that they'd have to stump up hundreds of thousands of dollars to begin with. Non-starter. But there are certain security foibles which make some scenarios slightly worrying.