New hijacking - Done via via good old-fashioned Identity Theft

Thu Oct 7 01:25:39 UTC 2010

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Heath Jones 
> Sent: Wednesday, October 06, 2010 3:24 PM
> To: nanog at nanog.org
> Subject: Re: New hijacking - Done via via good old-fashioned Identity
> Theft
> 
> Wouldn't it have to be illegal before punishments could be determined?
> Isn't this kind of key to the whole issue of fighting spam?? (Is there
> even a point if you cant nail them for it?)

This conversation isn't really about spam.  It is about being able to
obtain the number resources of a defunct organization by masquerading as
that organization by registering an identical business entity or
operating name.  So foo.com has legitimately obtained number resources.
Foo.com goes broke and those resources are no longer in use.  Joe Blow
registers an operation he calls foo.com and claims the right to use
those number resources.  I don't care if those resources are being used
for spam or giving away free money to the needy, that is beside the
point.  The issue as I see it is to raise awareness that just because
foo.com wants to announce resources and just because that WHOIS says
those resources belong to foo.com, it doesn't mean that the two are the
same foo.com

Having an organization come to you wanting to announce a /18 of network
space (that was allocated 10 years ago) and their domain was only
created a week ago might be a clue.

G