{"id":995,"date":"2010-08-12T18:01:48","date_gmt":"2010-08-12T22:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acro.net\/blog\/?p=995"},"modified":"2014-03-27T22:04:03","modified_gmt":"2014-03-28T02:04:03","slug":"was-sedo-used-to-launder-hijacked-domain-oxi-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acro.net\/blog\/was-sedo-used-to-launder-hijacked-domain-oxi-com\/","title":{"rendered":"Was Sedo used to launder hijacked domain OXI.com ?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you thought that the incident I reported about the stolen domains jis.com, Leading.net, Southeast.net and Jaxnet.com<\/strong><\/a> is isolated, you’d better guess again.<\/p>\n

While that case involved the acquisition of FloridaDigital.net on Namejet in order to gain unlawful access to jis.com and eventually the other – bonus <\/em>– domains, in the case I’m about to describe the domain was sold via Sedo.<\/p>\n

Three letter .com domains are often targets of domain hijackers, as they represent a domain “coinage” that more or less retains its value. Three letter .com domains have seen better days, however there is no reason why a LLL .com would not sell for mid five figures or more.<\/p>\n

In the case of OXI.com the domain changed hands several times, legitimately, and eventually was acquired by Australian corporation “Smsburst Pty Ltd” in August of 2008.<\/p>\n

The domain name, OXI.com has been recently offered for sale on forums and on Sedo. Each time, the seller obscures the name, attempting to space apart the letters so as not to get it spidered by search engines – in two occasions he used an image to display the domain name, OXI.com<\/p>\n

After doing some research on OXI.com after SMSBurst bought it, I discovered that “ghutcheson@smstech.com.au” was the handler email.<\/p>\n

Until June 12, 2010 the same entity controlled the domain, OXI.com with no changes to the WHOIS.<\/p>\n

Here comes the interesting part: In January 2010, smstech.com.au expired and dropped. However, it was re-registered and the owner set up a web site. In July, I contacted the owner and his response was:<\/p>\n

\n
I only recently registered this name, that email address doesn’t exist. It is either fake or quite old. Sorry I couldn’t be of more assistance. Cheers, Chris.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I decided to consult Mike Robertson of Fabulous on the status of SMSTech. After hearing back from the Australian Registry, Mike relayed to me that the domain dropped on January 25, 2010 and the Aussie current owner of SMStech.co.au registered the domain on March 28, 2010.<\/p>\n

Let’s add some more clues to the OXI.com puzzle.<\/p>\n

According to Domain Name Wire<\/strong><\/a>, OXI.com was sold on Sedo for $6,000 in the first week of July, 2010.<\/p>\n

Indeed, DomainTools.com<\/strong><\/a> confirms that OXI.com first had its registrant email changed on June 22, 2010 to “mymobilewatch1@gmail.com”. The only person that could facilitate such a change would be “Chris” – the current owner of SMStech.co.au<\/p>\n

The domain OXI.com was then sold on Sedo; WHOIS history at DomainTools shows that on July 7, 2010 the domain was in Sedo’s escrow. On July 16, 2010 the domain OXI.com is in the possession of the apparent buyer, a person from Turkey.<\/p>\n

This new buyer tried to sell it – albeit, by masking the actual domain name as I explained – at DNForum and NamePros recently. The NamePros.com thread has been deleted but the cached version can be viewed right here<\/strong><\/a>. It is not known why NamePros deleted the thread.<\/p>\n

The DNForum sales thread about OXI.com<\/strong><\/a> still exists although it was closed because the domain name OXI.com is not listed in the post or the title.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong>: Someone took advantage of the lapsed domain SMStech.com.au, registered it again and gained access to OXI.com which they then sold on Sedo for $6,000. Whether the buyer and current owner was part of the plan in order to launder the domain, that remains to be seen. It’s very suspicious, however, that the current owner of OXI.com is ensuring the domain name does not get spidered by search engines.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you thought that the incident I reported about the stolen domains jis.com, Leading.net, Southeast.net and Jaxnet.com is isolated, you’d better guess again. While that case involved the acquisition of FloridaDigital.net on Namejet in order to gain unlawful access to jis.com and eventually the other – bonus – domains, in the case I’m about to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,3],"tags":[572,570,569,571],"class_list":["post-995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-domains","tag-domaintools-com","tag-hijacked-domains","tag-oxi-com","tag-smstech-com-au","entry"],"yoast_head":"\nWas Sedo used to launder hijacked domain OXI.com ? - Acro.net - A Domain Investing Blog by Theo Develegas<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/acro.net\/blog\/was-sedo-used-to-launder-hijacked-domain-oxi-com\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Was Sedo used to launder hijacked domain OXI.com ? - Acro.net - A Domain Investing Blog by Theo Develegas\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you thought that the incident I reported about the stolen domains jis.com, Leading.net, Southeast.net and Jaxnet.com is isolated, you’d better guess again. While that case involved the acquisition of FloridaDigital.net on Namejet in order to gain unlawful access to jis.com and eventually the other – bonus – domains, in the case I’m about to […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/acro.net\/blog\/was-sedo-used-to-launder-hijacked-domain-oxi-com\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Acro.net - A Domain Investing Blog by Theo Develegas\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-08-12T22:01:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-03-28T02:04:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Theo Develegas\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Theo Develegas\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/acro.net\\\/blog\\\/was-sedo-used-to-launder-hijacked-domain-oxi-com\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/acro.net\\\/blog\\\/was-sedo-used-to-launder-hijacked-domain-oxi-com\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Theo Develegas\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/acro.net\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/9c9625f061a0e603a87f5bf0f6f781fe\"},\"headline\":\"Was Sedo used to launder hijacked domain OXI.com ?\",\"datePublished\":\"2010-08-12T22:01:48+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-03-28T02:04:03+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/acro.net\\\/blog\\\/was-sedo-used-to-launder-hijacked-domain-oxi-com\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":614,\"commentCount\":18,\"keywords\":[\"DomainTools.com\",\"hijacked domains\",\"oxi.com\",\"smstech.com.au\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Business\",\"Domains\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/acro.net\\\/blog\\\/was-sedo-used-to-launder-hijacked-domain-oxi-com\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/acro.net\\\/blog\\\/was-sedo-used-to-launder-hijacked-domain-oxi-com\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/acro.net\\\/blog\\\/was-sedo-used-to-launder-hijacked-domain-oxi-com\\\/\",\"name\":\"Was Sedo used to launder hijacked domain OXI.com ? - Acro.net - A Domain Investing Blog by Theo Develegas\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/acro.net\\\/blog\\\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2010-08-12T22:01:48+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-03-28T02:04:03+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/acro.net\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/9c9625f061a0e603a87f5bf0f6f781fe\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/acro.net\\\/blog\\\/was-sedo-used-to-launder-hijacked-domain-oxi-com\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/acro.net\\\/blog\\\/was-sedo-used-to-launder-hijacked-domain-oxi-com\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/acro.net\\\/blog\\\/was-sedo-used-to-launder-hijacked-domain-oxi-com\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/acro.net\\\/blog\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Was Sedo used to launder hijacked domain OXI.com ?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/acro.net\\\/blog\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/acro.net\\\/blog\\\/\",\"name\":\"Acro.net - A Domain Investing Blog by Theo Develegas\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/acro.net\\\/blog\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/acro.net\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/9c9625f061a0e603a87f5bf0f6f781fe\",\"name\":\"Theo Develegas\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/6794630c371bee89f2b833c1f4b777d9ba75767b217c8fce2cfd6e6d7d90960d?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/6794630c371bee89f2b833c1f4b777d9ba75767b217c8fce2cfd6e6d7d90960d?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/6794630c371bee89f2b833c1f4b777d9ba75767b217c8fce2cfd6e6d7d90960d?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Theo Develegas\"},\"description\":\"Theo Develegas - News and opinions on domain name investing, brand development, design, and the occasional rant or two about life's challenges. 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