Thank God there are some registrars who do not submit to the tyranny
of outfits like ICANN. One for example is UNONIC where you get the
'us.tf' and 'net.tf' names. Go to http://www.unonic.com and register
all you want at no charge. They are all set to re-direct to wherever
you want.
Someone pointed out to me in private email:
> "I wouldn't make any long term plans about a us.tf domain. All the
> two-letter domains are assigned to countries and country-like hunks of
> territory, like .ca for Canada and .jp for Japan and .to for Tonga.
> The.tf domain is assigned to "French Southern Territories" which are a
> bunch of uninhabited islands in the Indian Ocean. A while ago the
> French government contracted with the English company Adamsnames to
> run it as a vanity domain, but now I see at www.adamsnames.tf that the
> French want it back, and I expect that sooner or later the us.tf
> registration, which was made in 1999 by some guy in Greece, will
> expire and since he is nowhere near those islands, they won't let him
> renew it. See http://www.taaf.fr/ to find out where .tf really is."
I noted that in fact "French Southern Territories" is in the Indian
Ocean but getting down in the direction of Antarctica as www.taaf.fr
explains. Those people don't give a hoot about what ICANN wants or
does not want. None of the 'two letter domains', i.e. .ca or .jp care
either way. ICANN claims to own it all, but no one pays any attention.
I continued in the private email correspondence asking,
> I wonder what the good people at ICANN would do if someone went to
> us.tf and took out web sites like Microsoft,Coca Cola, General
> Motors, White House, etc, then pointed them all to the most
> scurrilous sex web sites there are.
He replied: > "That would be fun. Most likely it would get Mr. us.tf
> shut down since he and the .tf registrar are in Europe so the big mean
> companies all have local lawyers there."
I asked:
> And why do the registrars have to go along with whatever ICANN has
> to say? And why do you feel .com or .org is safe for the long term
> but ca jp and those are not?
He responded:
> "Actual registrations in .ca and .jp are fine so long as you meet the
> rules (actual presence in Canada and Japan, in those two cases). But
> when you use phoo.us.tf, you're actually using a subdomain of us.tf
> and it appears that the random registrations like us.tf are allowed.
> "ICANN claims that they are in charge of all the domains, but the
> two-letter domains have so far been ignoring them. The three and more
> letter domains (ever hear of .coop or .museum or my fave .aero?) are
> all in bed with ICANN."
-----------------------
Yes, I have heard of those also. But let us now consider and contem-
plate a perfectly dreadful, perfectly evil scenario: it is so dreadful
and awful and evil and even illegal in some jurisdictions, that I
certainly cannot recommend it. It goes like this: first, make a list
of your 'favorite' large companies; Microsoft, SBC, AT&T and McDonalds
come to mind. Next, you go to UNONIC (United Names Organization) at
http://www.unonic.com . It is an automated process where you are asked
to sign up for a domain name. You get a drop down menu of all the
available sub-domains available, such as '.us'. '.net', etcetera, all
of which end in the domain '.tf' You sign up your favorite large
companies one by one. You are then asked to identify the administrator
of the domain. Now this must be your own name and address, and an
email address. **DO NOT** REPEAT **NOT** put down something fictious
like 'Bealo Group SA' with an address in Switzerland or an email
address such as @www.promotechnology.com. Use your own name/email.
Pick an easy to remember password, because when you sign up other
companies with their own 'web sites' also, if you use the same name of
administrator and same email address, you will be told 'already have
that one; provide the password and this new one will take control
of your domain group. ' Naturally, for additional companies you sign
up, you will want to use your correct name on them as well. Don't
get in the habit of just putting down 'Bealo Group SA' and some
address in Switzerland.
Now as you sign up each of your favorite companies you will be asked
where to redirect calls to that URL. Re-direct the calls to wherever
they should go; some nice web site which reflect the proper spirit.
Don't just redirect to some crude, rude, or lewd or pornographic
website. Remember, it is a fully automated process; no one is going to
be spying or checking up on you. And be sure to cloak the true URL you
send callers to. By 'cloaking' it, your new title goes on the page,
and your alias URL name appears on the caller's browser
window. Basically what happens is a new window opens where you take
zero 'frames' and the picture which was there gets a hundred percent
of the 'frames' when you 'cloak' it or hide the re-direction. So now
you have a 'web site' all set up in the form brandname.us.tf or
companyname.net.tf ... and callers to that URL go to the nice web
site they should be at.
Ah, but the best fun is yet to come. Now your new web site has to
be promoted; customers need to know where to find you. For this,
you spam *massively*. Every domain in the world you can think of.
Every name you can think of; maybe use a brute force dictionary
appoach. But try hard to skip past those spam filters: A nice, clean
unassuming short letter such as Subject: Our change of email address
brandname.com now receives its email at brandname.us.tf or
companyname.com now receives email at companyname.net.tf. Check out
our improved, easy to use web site at www.brandname.us.tf **Make
certain** this change of email address letter *at the very least*
gets to the key executives at brandname or companyname. Even if
you prefer not to spam the whole world, at least get it to those
important officials in that company or agency, such as their
lawyer, their president, their VP, etc. You know they are going to
want to check out their 'new email address' or 'new web home' which
is why the cloaking is very important. I mean, you are much too modest
to have them wind up looking at a page on _your computer_ if that
is where the pages are at you wanted them to see. Maybe you could
use a throwaway account.
Now someone at brandname is going to want to meet you personally, to
discuss what you have done, and some one or more lawyers or
investigators will want to counsel you about your work and this is
where _accurate_ information regards the name of the administrator in
the files of unonic.com is so important. They are not going to go
chasing off to some uninhabited island in the southern Indian Ocean
around Antarctica when they could do 'whois' and find out the details
as they prepare their lawsuits against that person.
If you had filled in the registration purporting to be Bealo Group SA
that would be wrong. Bealo Group is known to be cybersquatters and
hosts of numerous sex sites, so when brandname or companyname lawyers
get to that point and see Bealo Group as the contacts, it is going to
be a bit awkward to say the least for Bealo Group to explain it all.
*YES* we are cybersquatters, *YES* we do operate sex sites as per
http://promotechnology.com, and *YES* we try to trick guys into
measuring their penises and buying our worthless pills and potions for
which we have no medical license to sell or treat anyone, but *NO* we
did not confiscate the brand names Microsoft, or Coke, or McDonalds or
SBC and try to trick the public into coming to those redirected sites
which have our name as the administrators.
So now I trust you can understand why it is so important, so critical
when going to a fully automated, no questions asked, no fees charged
registrar like http://unonic.com to only select brandnames over which
you have control and to make sure you enter the name of the site
administrator correctly and to make sure you do the redirection
correctly. Do not put down Bealo Group in Geneva,CH at the phone
number +41.227347.210, because you might cause them to get sued by
angry brandnames and companynames.
PAT
Patrick Townson (ptownson@telecom-digest.org)