Is the .to (Tonga) domain completely rogue and should be removed?

Wed Sep 30 20:14:22 UTC 1998

I have a legit .to domain. I paid $100 for it like any .com domain,
which of course has no porn sites. 

or something...

Sincerely,
Andy Walden
System Administrator
MTCO Communications
1-800-859-6826

On Wed, 30 Sep 1998, Barry Shein wrote:

> 
> We've been having increasing problems with one or more porn sites in
> the .to domain promoting itself by massive spamming of AOL customers
> using one of our domains in their From: header thus causing both
> complaints to us and thousands of bounces from AOL due to bad AOL
> addresses in their spam lists.
> 
> Looking at the .to domain I can't help but notice it's heavily laden
> with what appear to be porn sites (sexonline.to, come.to,
> xxxhardcore.to, etc.)
> 
> 1. Performing traceroutes and other analyses seems to indicate that
> this domain is NOT being used for communication with entities
> legitimately located (legally, not only geographically) within the
> sovereignty of the Kingdom of Tonga, as intended.
> 
> 2. Clearly criminal and malicious activites are arising from sites to
> which Tonga has provided comfort and sanctuary.
> 
> 3. Therefore, I call for a process whereby it can be determined as to
> whether or not it is appropriate to decommission the Tongan domain due
> to negligence, mismanagement, and having allowed it to become an
> attractive resource for criminal activities. I do not believe the
> Tongan domain serves any legitimate purpose as an internet resource.
> 
> In support of this assertion I want to show you an SMTP conversation
> with what claims to be the Consulate of the Government of Tonga in San
> Francisco (This San Francisco office is listed as an official Tongan
> contact point for visas etc by the US State Dept):
> 
> world% telnet sfconsulate.gov.to 25
> Trying 209.24.51.169...
> Connected to sfconsulate.gov.to.
> Escape character is '^]'.
> 220 colo.to SMTP ready, Who are you gonna pretend to be today?
> VRFY postmaster
> 500 Bloody Amateur! Proper forging of mail requires recognizable SMTP commands!
> 
> --------------------
> 
> Viewing the web page for the Tongan Consulate in the US
> (http://sfconsulate.gov.to) reveals nothing but an ad for a software
> company, this page ends with:
> 
>    Need a domain name? Contact the Kingdom of Tonga Internet domain name
>                                  registry.
> 
> --------------------
> 
> Consequently, I assert there is no reason for this domain to exist and
> it should be removed from the root name servers.
> 
> 
> -- 
>         -Barry Shein
> 
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