bittorrent site. Despite a government raid, large fines and jail time, the site is more popular than ever. But according to TorrentFreak, the United States government planned an operation in coordination with ICANN to seize thepiratebay.org. As part of a campaign called ‘Operation In Our Sites,’ the government has already …
Read More »Hungarian police seize 50 servers in piracy raid
Budapest police conducted a raid late last week targeting torrent sites. Visiting several hotels and a technical college, it seized 50 servers containing 500 TB of data. According to police, some of the data was used to aid in the illegal distribution of copyrighted material. Many of Hungary’s BitTorrent sites …
Read More »ICANN publishes report on seedy registrars
ICANN, which seems to be cracking down on rule-breaking registrars lately, has published a new report criticizing a number of well-known registrars for unwholesome practices. Some of the firms mentioned in the document include UK2, Tucows, France Telecom, Enom and AOL. Among other things, ICANN lashed out against several of …
Read More »Russia changes rules for .ru registration
The .ru ccTLD has a long-held reputation as a haven for spam and cyber crime, but recent changes made to the domain’s registration requirements could clean it up. It used to be very easy for criminals to register .ru names with fake identities. But as of April 1, all registrants …
Read More »Symantec: China is number-one source of malware
According to a recent study conducted by Symantec, more malware originates from China than any other country– 28.2%, in fact. Close behind China is Romania, which is responsible for 21.1% of malware. Next was the United States at 13.8%. Symantec found that although the majority of malware appears to come …
Read More »SOCA calls for better WHOIS accuracy
Citing recent statistics issued by ICANN stating that 3/4 of WHOIS data is inaccurate, Britain’s Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) is calling for more rigorous accuracy requirements. SOCA says it is too easy for organised crime to fake domain contact data and wants ICANN to make falsifying contact data more …
Read More »WIPO rules against cybersquatter
In yet another domain dispute victory for Google, the WIPO has ruled against a cybersquatter and in favour of theMountain View company in a case involving the domain googlenetbiz.com. As is generally the norm, Google contended that the domain violated its trademark and that it was being used in bad …
Read More »Cybersquatting may be on the decline
Data collected from a number of arbitration panels, including the WIPO and National Arbitration Forum, show that cybersquatting may be on the decline. Last year saw a 9% decline in the number of cybersquatting cases filed overall, a three-year low. Unfortunately, this decrease does not necessarily mean the number of …
Read More »Domain scammers take advantage of Haiti earthquake
Millions from around the world have donated to help earthquake victims in Haiti. With people so readily giving money, it’s no surprise that domain scammers are trying to take advantage of the situation. As is the norm after all disasters in the Internet age, unscrupulous con artists are registering domains …
Read More »Chinese government takes two popular domains offline
Yesterday evening, Chinese web portal IT168.com and a similar social networking site, 51.com, both went offline. This is not normal downtime, however. Rather, the registrar of the two .coms is claiming the names were “rendered unable to resolve” at the request of the Chinese government. China has a long history …
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