Acro.net – Technology Rants & Raves by Acroplex®

A little over a year ago I started consolidating my domain names at a single registrar. At that time, I decided to use Fabulous.com for a number of obvious reasons: low pricing, extensive backend to manage the domains, great tech support.

As time passed by, I still have domains in a handful of other registrars, but the big exodus from eNom is in its final stages. Despite the equally great backend manager, eNom lacks in a couple of fields that I’ve found Fabulous.com to win hands down.

Mass-acquisition of EPP codes is not available via eNom’s interface, thus making the mass transfer of domains a pain in the butt. Fabulous offers that and in general such mass-handling features are where you expect them to be, including renewals via the Expiry Control section.

Secondly, when it comes down to billing notifications, Fabulous.com is second to none. You get emails for every activity, including very well-thought invoices with detailed break down of the charges involved. The mere fact that PDF files are attached, makes my life so much easier around this time of the year.

Tax time is around the corner and if you can’t manage the volume of your transactions anymore, consider hiring a CPA for the job. Stay away from the H&R Block guys.

Fabulous.com retains detailed records of all your charges and expenses – and revenue, if you park domains with them. It’s just a matter of printing out the monthly PDF files for the entire year. Meanwhile, at eNom you have to run a report, which is generated in the background. Although eNom has improved in the past year and can now generate reports older than 6 months, there are errors that frustrate the heck out of me, e.g. no renewal dates are included in the CVS files.

For the remaining domains of my eNom portfolio, I have to do a lot of manual labor in order to produce the documents I need for tax purposes. Not so with Fabulous.com which I thoroughly recommend as a registrar for domainers.

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From behind the iron curtain of a middle Eastern nation known for its anti-American sentiment, a self-proclaimed hacker seems to be the perpetrator of a series of recent, high profile purchases of domains – using stolen credit cards.

Using proxy servers located in Iraq, he took control of a Network Solutions user account and its main domain, Get-Hosted.com. Then, using either a credit card associated with the account or other stolen credit cards, he made purchases of domains offered for sale via the Network Solutions marketplace. These domains are brokered by two major players in the domain after-market field, BuyDomains and Fabulous.

Apparently, he tried the fraud scheme first at Fabulous, as their domains are typically priced lower. After testing the waters of his process by making several small purchases, he turned his attention to the higher-priced domains offered by BuyDomains. A week or so later, his appetite was large enough that one of these purchases made it on DNJournal: DomainTools.net was sold for $4,088.

Fabulous reacted quickly, reversing between 5 and 6 purchases of about $350 each and regaining control of the domains within days of the incident. The perpetrator, having gained experience from this test run, then decided to alter his process; the roughly 6 large purchases he made from BuyDomains were immediately transfered out to the compromised Network Solutions account and WHOIS protection was added.

Having used stolen credit cards – in other words, other people’s money – it was time now for the hacker to capitalize on the value of the assets; an estimated $25,000 worth of domains. Not too shy about declaring his location (Iraq), he created two accounts at DNForum and offered the domains for a quick sale, at extremely low prices. These aged or otherwise generic names were being offered for $200 to $500 each, with a couple of others seeking offers.

The DNForum sales thread about one of these domains, xdev.com, had a short lifespan; the domain was still listed for sale at Afternic by BuyDomains with a hefty $9,700 price tag on it. And yet, the seller was eager to take any amount of money, ranging from $1,500 up to a BIN price of $5,000. After all, he never paid a penny out of pocket for these domains. The DNForum community was quick to determine that the sale was extremely suspicious and to alert the moderators about the ongoing scam.

Other domains offered for sale included Getting.net, DomainTools.net, DoTrust.com and OrbitPay.com – all of them were being offered at unreasonably low prices. Thankfully, DomainTools.com maintains historical data on domain ownership; it was easy to see that all these domains followed the same pattern: they were sold recently by BuyDomains and were instantly transferred to Network Solutions, to an account with WHOIS shield.

It’s probably the first time that several major players in the domain market were involved as the direct victims of a scam:

• BuyDomains and Fabulous were defrauded, giving up domains in exchange for stolen funds
• Network Solutions & potentially Afternic were used as a Trojan Horse to facilitate the purchases through their respective marketplaces
• Sedo was consequently used by the scammer as a point of sale for some of these domains

Additionally, Visa and Mastercard obviously had to reimburse funds and to reverse charges to the legitimate owners of these credit cards.

Currently, all of the domains appear to have been recovered in a special trust account at Network Solutions. The investigation is ongoing, with regards to the legal ramifications of this act which could amount to tens of thousands of dollars in billable time. It would not be surprising if finally the FBI and Interpol are involved in this case.

Over the course of recent years, Internet scams have proliferated into segments of the global market that were left untouched by traditional crime. It’s imperative that international politics ensure a smoother relationship and cooperation between nations, instead of leaving predatory “black holes” such as Iran, Iraq and North Korea. These criminals operating from such countries feel untouchable by the lack of law and punishment in their own countries and often engage in these acts as a “sport” or a “hobby” – gaining bragging rights among their peers.

However, when other people’s money is involved, it’s not a game anymore.