Mar 8, 2016: No wonder the Forbes list of billionaires is brimming over with oligarchs, monopolists, thugs, miscreants, and hustlers. Not to mention right-wingers, narcissists, and parasitic predators – only things missing are the fishy kings of drug and war lords, whose assets are evidently too hard to calculate. There are hundreds of garden-variety jerks to choose from, along with likes of GoDaddy’s Bob Parsons. Patents are to clamp down on emerging competition and new services. If a startup grows too successful, it is usually accused of violating one or more patents belonging to a larger rival, green to launch state-sponsored missiles, ban or nip it in the bud!
US domain registrar GoDaddy has applied for more than a dozen patents specific to the Domain DNS world, covering everything from searching a domain name to register, to recommending a specific domain based on user input. Even Verisign has applied for patents covering domain name systems, enhanced privacy protections, abuse protections etc. Hats off to patenting common customs and practices, so that few dozen egregious cronies control ownership keys and keep looting the world forever.
Take a southy example of cronies taking over web domain space, mostly with stealth and if caught go on bribing activists to comply. A Mexican website was set up in the wake of a set of controversial December 2012 protests against the inauguration of the new President of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto. For a year, the site served as a source of information, news, discussion and commentary from the point of view of the protestors. As the anniversary of the protests approached, the site grew to include organized campaign against proposed laws to criminalize protests in the country, as well as preparations to document the results of a memorial protest, planned for December 2013.
On December 2nd, 2013, the site disappeared offline thanks to Mexican cronies and great daddy. GoDaddy, suspended the domain with no prior notice and told its owners that the site was taken down as part of an ongoing law enforcement investigation. The office in charge of this investigation was listed as “Special Agent Homeland Security Investigations, U.S. Embassy, Mexico City.” The contact email pointed to “ice.dhs.gov” implying that this agent was working as part of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement wing, who have been involved in curious domain name takedowns in the past, just like many other agencies working to save cronies worldwide. Now that daddies have learned exposes and losses due to campaigns like #MoveYourDomain, they will use different ways and places to colonize.
Recently, US granted patent for validating user control over contact information in a domain name registration database. It is declared some invention and granted to Uncle Sam’s beloved Internet Goliath. Outrageous patent on ways to verify that people do not spoof whois records by using another entity’s contact information and ways to prevent someone from pointing their domain to someone else’s name servers without permission. Matching of domain registrant information against third-party databases, or sending a verification SMS code.
No human ever thought about these simple measures in the past except few exotic daddy monopolies? Nor can others dare to think such ways in future with an American Congress Stamp! What cronies way of brazen indirect colonization with help of like minded governments! Next patent will be on choosing a name or even a celestial object, that pattern is mine as I’m god’s own creation, I deserve a patent for it !!
EFF as advocate for digital rights, representing an enduring legacy in which we are proud to have played any role. Reference and source link.
One thought on “Daddy’s patent to threat competition – oligarchies / thug predators of Internet!”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Domain hijacking is not a new problem, but it is one that gains strength if it is not countered effectively, and we have seen some disturbing trends recently.
Cyber criminals are increasingly relying on legitimate and well established domains in order to carry out their maliciousness on the internet. Because of a recent sharp increase in “Business Email Compromise” (BEC) we are seeing more and more domain hijacking.
– The criminals carrying out this activity are using many weapons in their arsenal to gain access to legitimate domains: phishing, social engineering, exploiting vulnerabilities in DNS management software, and delivering malware that gives them access to the unsuspecting user’s information.
– Once they have gained the access to manipulate the DNS of the targeted domains, they will create new hostnames (domain shadowing) that point to a different IP range that is not associated with the root domain, while keeping the root domain intact. Alternatively, they will change the name servers of the domain to point to a new location.
– After they have changed the DNS, they use the positive and well-established reputation of these domains to carry out large scale spam sending and malware hosting campaigns. These are meant to gather more user credentials, infect systems with malware, or disrupt users and businesses to suit their own needs. Using the positive reputation of the stolen domains allows them to evade spam filters and other protection methods that depend on reputational data.
What is going on over at GoDaddy?
Spamhaus researchers observed a large number of domains that were being abused by miscreants who were adding hostnames to be used for their own malicious purposes (domain shadowing): Spamhaus observed over 10,000 domain-shadowed legitimate domains that were pointing to Russian infrastructure. Our researchers reported these domains to GoDaddy directly and received no response. Only when we began reporting the issue to a wider audience did we see domain shadowing resolve itself…but still received no public response from GoDaddy.
When we find these hijacked GoDaddy-registered domains, we list them, and then their users reach out to ask us why. We’ve found that some users have implemented best practices, only to be hijacked again. No useful explanation has been provided to them by GoDaddy.
Ref: https://www.spamhaus.org/news/article/797/the-current-state-of-domain-hijacking-and-a-specific-look-at-the-ongoing-issues-at-godaddy