Time to vent (TSW stolen)
 

So, some of you are aware of TotalSportsWorld, a site Mark Cooley and I founded a couple of years ago. It was a collection of online leagues in many different sports and many different genres. There were two FOF leagues there, two BBCF leagues, a few OOTP leagues, etc. It was a thriving site, and a great place to spend your hobby time.

Yesterday, someone from San Diego decided that hobbytime was over. He hacked into Cooley's account, and transferred all of his domains to himself. He then turned TSW into a hardcore porn site.

The guy even went so far as to call Cooley last night, and gloated about it.

Normally, one would think that GoDaddy could fix this. But, because the guy did it from Cooley's account (despite the fact that this guy did it from an IP address different from Cooley's account, and one that has never accessed his account before), there is nothing they can do.

TSW will return, I think, as will all of the other sites that were stolen. But they'll return under different names, of course, and the work that has to be done in order to get them running again is going to be insane. This comes at a time when the leadership of TSW was under transfer.

I'm ridiculously pissed off. The fact that we are totally helpless here has me frustrated more than anything.

Call the FBI, or even your local police department which will often have a cybercrimes unit.

How can nothing be done! This seems ridiculous.

I read up on the issue, which seems to help this d-bag. The interstate transfer here gets things a little muddied.

GoDaddy basically told Cooley that it would cost him a hefty chunk of change to try to get the names back.

I found this link of something happening now, which further illustrates the difficulties the law has in these issues:

BREAKING: First Ever Criminal Prosecution for Domain Name Theft Underway | Domain Name News

By the way, if anyone is living in San Diego, call up 619-365-8390. A douchebag with an Indian accent will answer you.

Hell, look at this:

Sex.com - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yes, do what gstelmack said. Find a way to get the fucker that did this. I hate shit like this, people who hack into stuff and steal are nothing but bottom feeders of society. :rant:

If you have a phone number that would seem to immeasurably help police, as that may break open other cases they may have open.

Or just hand him over to The Smoking Gun...

Of course it blew up like that. Look at how much the site was making.

The point here is...the commishes of the leagues were chipping in a few bucks of month for hosting. We weren't making any money off the site. The value of our site was in the enjoyment everyone got from the community and joining multiple leagues under one roof.

Nobody has the fiscal ability to go after this guy. If we were making a severe profit, of course we would pursue action. But because the cost to anyone at TSW of pursuing civil action (which seems to be the extent that one can pursue here) would cost far more than they would see back...well, you get the idea.

again, call the cops.

+1 - at least do this. Shouldn't affect any potential legal recourse you can take later, and should make his life uncomfortable/focus some attention on him.

(619) 365-8390
Type: Land Line
Provider: Time Warner Communications
Location: Coronado, CA

call cops. give cops phone number.

I put in a complaint with the FBI's cybercrimes division.

The problem on MY end is that the domains were not in my name, but Cooley's. So, where I sit...my hands are kind of tied. Cooley may already have tried the police. When he's on again, I'll find out.

This is just the domain, right - not his account with his provider (which would have league data, etc)?

Just the domains. I think there were four of them in all. We got some workaround to get back to the forums. I don't remember it at the moment.

Call Time Warner and inform them they have a customer violating their terms of use of their internet policy.

Do you know if he did this via a Time Warner / RR IP addresss? Hit me up on PM if you know, I might be able to get you in touch with the San Diego abuse department. I'm looking into contact info in SD now, hopefully we can get this guy.

Good move. It's not just domain main stealing, but potentially identity theft as well. Maybe there's nothing that can be done, but at the very least, let this be a another number/complaint with the FBI, so it's known how big a problem this is.

And yes you need to contact the FBI or your local police immediately.

Also I was really digging the pictures until the very last two, of the chick smashing cupcakes on her boobs and the one that had nipples the size of a penis...

It may go without saying, but all owners of the domain should put a lockdown on their credit cards, especially the ones on file with the domain registrar.

I'm certain LB and Cooley did that immediately.

Dan, I have your IM. I'll have to wait to find out from Cooley if we have an IP from him. If we do, I'll send it your way.

Great, I have a contact at the SD abuse department, once the story is fleshed out a bit more with information I can work with you on contacting them.

this is when i really <3 having DanGarion on the board (actually i'm not one of those people who ever dislikes having him).

Dan, I IMed you...but am not sure if you are near that, so I PMed you too.

Interestingly enough, we have a lawyer down in the SD area now. So we're gonna try to get the ball rolling on this, and see what we can accomplish.

Another thing you can do and it could be fun work is contact every one of his affiliate programs he is a member of and notify them of his violation of their ToS.

He will immediately lose all his money making capacity. The Adult affiliate systems are way against this as it does give their webmasters a bad name and they are trying to fight it at all costs.

Thanks! :), I'm trying to change people's views about TWC one person at a time! j/k

oooh yes!!! this sounds like a GREAT idea!!!

hit him in his pocketbook where it hurts!!

There's a thread over at the OOTP forums about this too. The wheels are moving.

I hadn't even thought of that one, but that is an awesome one to do.

you should get time warner on it too - that way he'll lose his money-making ability and his internet

From my understanding, TWC can only help at this time if there is proof that he used TWC internet services to transfer the domains. I could be wrong but that is how I understand it. Just because he calls from a phone # that is owned by TWC doesn't really say much yet, other then that he could be or have been a TWC digital phone customer.

right right *nods*

Since I'm not too up on the internet porn industry, how would I go about finding out who his affiliates are? I'm going to give that one a try.

Basically, each one of those main images are going to a sub gallery, then in the sub gallery click on the one of the pictures....

It will pull up a thumbnail gallery showing an ad towards his sponsor and it might show his affiliate ID up top..

For example....I noticed frozenjag was one of his names in one of the galleries...

He also has an affiliate ID of 1883422 with one of his other ones.

I saw the frozenjag too...I have that email. I wasn't sure if I should email that.

I don't understand how Mark cannot send identification verification to GoDaddy and have them transfer the account information back to him.

I think it is because of legal reasons. Whatever GoDaddy's confirmation system is, they have to do it before the transfer is done. Once they have verified to their own liking that the person doing the transfer is allowed to do so, they process the request.

The domain is then transfered to a completely different registrar for ownership and GoDaddy no longer has any authority to do anything at all with it. They can't tell some other company what they should do. So if there is any fault with GoDaddy here, it is perhaps their security (I have no idea how the account was broken into and if it was Mark's fault or GoDaddy's fault), or their confirmation system (of course whoever did this hack could have hacked Mark's email and then went from there which is what allowed them to do this entire transaction perhaps).

So it is hard for me to fault GoDaddy in this, I actually don't legally know how they can do much here. If anyone can help it would be the new registrar that now owns this domain, but I'm not sure what type of information they will need to be able to do much. (Who is to say that mark didn't sell these accounts and is now trying to rip their customer off for instance)...

So this type of thing can be tough to handle unfortunately I fear and almost always involves some kind of legal battle.

That makes sense - I thought the thief still had the domains registered through GoDaddy - didn't realize they had been transferred.

I coach a kid whose dad is a higher up at Network Solutions and he said that GoDaddy is notorious for lax security.

I don't know...I think it is still hosted with GoDaddy after I ran a whois on the domain name it looks like it.

That's because they spend all their money getting Danica Patrick to show off her cleavage.

It might be, sometimes it takes a few days for updates on registrar information to get updated though, so I was assuming that is not the case.

If it is, I am guessing GoDaddy has more ability to help, but I can't speak for what their policy is on this type of thing. They are one of the more affordable registrar options out there for a reason.

But I was assuming it was transfered out of there.

Are you sure that the domain didn't just expire and this guy came swooped in and grabbed it? That happens a lot more frequently than someone stealing a domain.

If it's stolen, your best bet is to contact the registrar and tell them of what happened. FBI and police don't give a shit. Whoever did it is probably in Russia somewhere.

FBI doesn't care unless it's linked to terrorism in some way.

The greatest TV show of all time taught us that!

The person who did it is in San Diego. He has an Indian accent. As said above, he called Cooley last night and gloated about the acquisition.

The domain did not expire. This guy stole it.

The registrar (GoDaddy) was already contacted, as also stated in the original post, and told Cooley there's nothing they can do.

reading FTW

To get stolen, the guy would have to essentially transfer the domain to his own account. You would have received e-mails about this most likely.

Nonetheless, I'm talking about the new registrar which is NameCheap. Calling them with a detailed account of what happened. Explain to them the ludicrousness of that domain becoming a porn site. How it's extremely unlikely that you would transfer a domain to a porn site. If they say there is nothing they can do, inform them that you will be contacting ICANN and filing a complaint about them.

How did you get this guys phone number? I've essentially found out who he is online and am working on either getting his full info or him dropped from various affiliates. I used to be a large affiliate in adult years ago so I do have some good contacts there still.

I'm sure you told that to all the ladies, didn't you? ;)

Your assistance is cool, but your reading comprehension is ghastly, man.

From the OP:

Sorry. Been a long day of work. My mind is fucking fried right now.