December 7, 2005 5:15 PM PST
ICANN told to clamp down on dodgy domain names
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The study, released Wednesday by the U.S. General Accountability Office, showed that 2.31 million domain names, or 5.14 percent of all domain registrations, have been registered with information "obviously and intentionally false" (such as a (999) 999-9999 telephone number, the report says). The GAO also found that 1.6 million, or 3.6 percent, contained incomplete data in one or more of the required fields.
The report drew a response from Rep. Lamar Smith, chairman of the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property.
"Vendors unwilling to identify themselves publicly are more than likely fraudulent," Smith, a Republican from Texas, said in a statement released Wednesday.
Smith concluded that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the standards body for Internet domain names, is failing to "weed out such fraudulent identifications."
The rise of phishing scams has prompted Congress to investigate. In such fraud schemes, Internet thieves lure consumers to counterfeit Web sites to dupe them out of vital information such as credit card numbers and passwords. Roughly one in four U.S. Internet users have been targets of phishing attacks, according to a study conducted by Time Warner.
Contact information for operators of Web sites is publicly available through the Whois Internet service. Data from Whois could help law enforcement officials track down Internet criminals--provided it's accurate.
The GAO said that ICANN is now requiring registrars to investigate and correct any reported inaccuracies in contact information. The Internet group continues to assess the operation of the registration process and look for ways to improve accuracy, according to the agency's report.
Attempts to reach an ICANN representative were not successful.
This is not the first time ICANN has been called on to monitor the accuracy of its registrations more closely. A study three years ago found that ICANN policies encouraged but did not require registration organizations, such as VeriSign or Go Daddy, to verify information from people who have submitted false information. It recommended that ICANN change those policies.
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As a sysadmin I cannot begin to tell you the number of security issues I have to deal with almost daily. Viruses, phishing, pharming, spam and even snail mail rip-off artists all attempting to con my clients. Every new domain I put up gets spammed with the first couple of days and the automated break in attempts begin shortly after that.
Knowing all these threats exist, how can ICANN insist domain owners publish their full, personal details online for all to see?
I belive domain registration information needs to be better protected and managed if ICANN wants to have any hope of compliance.
If ICANN truly feels all domain owners should comply with their out of date ARPANET rules then I suggest they should lead the compliance drive by publishing the full names, home addresses and home phone numbers of all the ICANN staff, including the board.
Simple: to avoid spam. What kinds-of spam you ask? All forms.
There are shady registrars out there -- some of which who have been taken to court in Europe for their shady dealings -- who peruse the WHOIS database (despite it being against the law) and begin sending unsolicited snail mail to any of the contacts listed.
One such company, who still does this even today, is the "Domain Registry of America" (DROA). You can visit their site here: http://www.droa.com/
Look on Google and Usenet for references to this company. All you'll find are complaints about how they send you spam, send you false "invoices" when a domain you own (NOT WITH THEM!) is about to expire, yadda yadda. In one case, I even received a telephone call from some random registrar (it was an automated message, yapping about one of my domain names -- maybe it was the DROA, I don't know. They didn't provide their company name!).
But as I said, I do keep a legitimate Email address in my contact records. This is necessary in case my own registrar has issues and needs to contact me, or if someone has concerns. Of course, the amount of Email-based spam I get to this address is through the roof (so much for the "DON'T USE THIS DATABASE FOR UNSOLCITED EMAIL" warning WHOIS outputs...).
ICANN, if you want people to put legitimate information in their records, then you need to stop jerking off and do something about outfits like the DROA and many others. Until then, good luck getting myself and many others to put accurate snail mail or telephone contact information in our records...
Any way they could force them?
ICANN are promoting combine harvesting of email addresses & private information.
I would be happy to provide such information if it wasnt going to published to every tom, dick and spammer harry.
She posts pictures of herself and family and dog and
shows pictures of her new house and car sicne they won the million dollar lotto.
Then anyone can drive by their house and ask if they can have some money since they are so rich.
Or people would google them and then call them at all hours of teh night and pedos would be driving by and looking and using the registers email and add it to their instant messenger to hook up with them later online.....
ONLY THE NAME, CITY, STATE should be shown and
If you want to contact the domain owner then have it work like craigslist for permission and it will be the persons discretion if they want to talk or email with whomever.
If you are with a GOVT agency then network solutions or go daddy should have a form like MSN passport that lets you log in as the feds so you can bypass and see the domain info instantly.
This is soooooooo easy to do! Why hasn't anyone fixed it?!?!?!
Here is an article about it:
http://www.alovelinksplus.com/info/blacklist/how-to-combat-spam.htm
I have had success in having more than a dozen domains taken offline that I received SPAM from.
Outside the Internet, business identities are public record. Here in the U.S. business registrations to state government are public information. The corporation commissions in many states make these records searchable on the Internet. U.S. corporations that are publicly owned must file information to the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC). See the SEC web site for the type of information that's public. Search for Ticker Symbol AAPL, for example.
http://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html
Moreover, it's unacceptable for a business, whether privately or publicly owned, to transact business anonymously. Revealing one's correct, verifiable contact information is the price of doing business with the public. Every business domain registration must be accurate and verifiable. Dealing with the possibilities of unwanted solicitations, fraudulent transactions, etc. is common to both offline and online business and can't be solved by allowing Internet anonymity.
There's no way to enforce this with them either. Sure, they claim to comply with law enforcement, but then again, it doesn't matter if you agree to comply or not -- you WILL comply with a subpoena.
Companies like Domains By Proxy that exist solely *because* of the problems associated with putting up real information in one's WHOIS records. They admit this freely on their site. I'm disgruntled that someone's in the business of *making money* off of people's desire for privacy (it runs along the same lines as spam, in my opinion).
Proxy registrars should be shut down + taken offline. I'm amazed ICANN lets them stay around. You can't find any information about who owns their companies, either. I don't trust them simply because they don't disclose on their own site who calls the shots, where the money goes, who runs the place, yadda yadda. For all I know it's some IRC packet kid running a "business" out of his bedroom, collecting thousands upon thousands of credit cards which will eventually be sold to the highest bidder.
Wouldn't be the first time...
This article and all the comments so far have only looked at one half of the story. It should be remembered that there may be good reasons to allow people to hide their identity even from governments as well.
The question then is how to set a balance between the need to shut down sites which prey upon people vs how to protect people against bad government.