aljazeera.net domain owned.

Thu Mar 27 20:33:21 UTC 2003

On Thu, 27 Mar 2003, Abdullah Ibn Hamad Al-Marri wrote:
> aljazeera.net domain owned.
>
> Per what the Chief Editor of www.aljazeera.net told me in the phone a while
> ago the domain isn't in their control anymore.
>
> all the info got changed and they are wondering how did this happen.

Probably one of the usual methods.  Al Jazeera forgot (or the security
consultant Al Jazeera hired) to implement approriate security controls
for their domain records, and someone forged a registry update.  This
has happened in the past to numerous other domains, such as AOL.COM,
SEX.COM and others.

There are several levels of security controls a domain name holder can
optionally use.  The default level of security is extremely low, and
easily spoofed.  The domain name holder must take steps to implement
additional security controls.  Unfortunately, relatively few domain name
holders take those additional steps, leaving their domain names
vulnerable to unauthorized updates.

It appears Al Jazeera is learning the same lessons that other highly
visible web sites, e.g. Ebay, CNN, MSNBC, Yahoo, etc, learned years ago.
If Al Jazeera doesn't have the in-house expertise to maintain its service,
I'm sure there are numerous consulting firms looking for business which
could assist them for a moderate fee.