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Category: Proxy

WHOIS, Proxies and the GDPR – how consumers lost Security and Privacy

WHOIS, Proxies and the GDPR – how consumers lost Security and Privacy

Artists Against 419 has to say this very clearly: There can be no consumer privacy and security while ICANN Registrars are the custodians of trust on the internet. ICANN has allowed a situation to develop that’s had the exact opposite effect of what the European privacy regulators aimed for, the protection of natural consumer privacy. In turn, this has further not only created a situation where consumers may be trivially deprived of privacy, but also security. Let’s look at this situation with quick examples.

DNS Abuse Dominoes

DNS Abuse Dominoes

While ICANN, the regulators and the various interest groups are debating the definitions of DNS abuse, what constitutes a security threat and is within their responsibility (or rather not), what’s wrong in this area, fraudsters don’t care about these shenanigans. They’re exploiting DNS to their own advantage in well defined illegal activities. The rules made when the Internet was young, seems unable to keep the steps with current realities. The divide between the ideal Internet in the regulators’ model and…

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Avast highlights the failing in consumer protection

Avast highlights the failing in consumer protection

Sometimes we can learn a lot from what experts in their field of operation publish. Ironically we saw this yesterday again when Avast, a large anti-virus vendor, quoted an article by John Wasik on Forbes: All online scams have one thing in common: They want to tap your greed to get at personal information they can steal. These “phishing” ruses are happening 24/7. A typical banking scam will ask for information so the scammer can access anything from your credit…

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The GDPR and blanket privacy: Hold on – who watches the guardians ICANN?

The GDPR and blanket privacy: Hold on – who watches the guardians ICANN?

ICANN had two complaints they closed, escalated back to them last week. One was a Registrar Standards complaint, one was regarding a rogue reseller proxy at the registrar which is the subject of the first complaint. Why? What happens where we have a registrar that serially accepts and has been accepting weak unverified registration details, for at least the past four years into the registries, in violation of the ICANN RAA and this leads to mass abuse? What happens if…

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Alert: fastweedonline.com: What you might need to know

Alert: fastweedonline.com: What you might need to know

Domain fastweedonline.com  is currently registered with ICANN accredited registrar Namesilo: Domain Name: fastweedonline.com Registry Domain ID: 1944472965_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.namesilo.com Registrar URL: https://www.namesilo.com/ Updated Date: 2017-05-10 Creation Date: 2015-07-04 Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2020-07-04 Registrar: NameSilo, LLC Registrar IANA ID: 1479 Registrar Abuse Contact Email: abuse@namesilo.com Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.4805240066 Status: clientTransferProhibited This domain is shielded via Namesilo’s associated PrivacyGuardian.org proxy service. Registrant Name: Domain Administrator Registrant Organization: See PrivacyGuardian.org Registrant Street: 1928 E. Highland Ave. Ste F104…

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Understanding the Cameroonian Pet Scam

Understanding the Cameroonian Pet Scam

In a previous article we mentioned that not much is known about the Cameroonian Pet Scam or this type of fraud emanating from West Africa. We mentioned the pet scam, the weed scam and stolen credit card details. This article quickly looks at one scammer found that will illustrate this type of cyber-crime.

Whoisguard: A proxy for crime targeting the USA from the USA?

Whoisguard: A proxy for crime targeting the USA from the USA?

 Background: A domain proxy is a system whereby a domain owner, the registrant,  hides his or her details for a domain registration behind a registrar or reseller’s proxy. The proxy owner substitutes his own details for those of the registrant, the domain owner. This is a great shield for legitimate users wishing to protect their privacy, but also attracts malicious registrants using fake registration details.