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engadget taking on a piece of news from motherboard
Internet domains are becoming increasingly desirable, especially as the web becomes crowded and it becomes harder to find memorable addresses. However, one man unfortunately took this to a violent extreme. Iowa resident Sherman Hopkins Jr. has been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for attempting to steal control of doitforstate.com (which doesn't currently point anywhere) in an armed robbery.
Hopkins pleaded guilty to invading a home in June 2017 and demanding that that [sic] the victim (Ethan Deyo) transfer the domain through GoDaddy while pointing a pistol at his head. When Deyo asked for the mailing address and phone number he needed to complete the domain, Hopkins pistol-whipped and tased him several times. Deyo managed to get control of the gun and shoot Hopkins, but only after Hopkins had shot him in the leg.
Domain name armed hijacking?
[Updated to correct typo in title: replaced "Robery" with "Robbery"... glad you had some fun at our expense in the comments!]
(Score: 3, Informative) by edIII on Thursday July 19 2018, @07:38PM (2 children)
All the new TLDs mostly solve that problem by greatly expanding the market. Sure, you don't get a .com, but then again, those squatters just lose money each and every year. The newer TLDs are sometimes $40-$50 for renewal, but $10 to get the first time. Others are in the hundreds. I knew somebody trying to make money off domain names. They didn't sell practically any of them, were sued by anything coming close to a major corporation, and backed out when the registrar asked for $50,000+ on the 3rd year.
Domain squatters are the new suckers because I also don't know ANYONE that would purchase from them. I've been there when somebody is trying to start up a new business and wants a website. It's always taken as if this people are highwaymen trying to rob them, and almost none of them are willing to spend anything over $100 to get the domain. Only exceptions are the top end of the market with sex.com or something, and those have venture capital (read other people's money) to waste on acquisitions.
Almost everything has caught up with support for the newer TLDs, especially email servers. I've been using an new TLD for several years now without any major issues. The only issue left, AFAICT, is to have the companies making the web browsers stop assuming a .com if it is missing, and return an error. However, that's not a fundamental problem with using the domain, like regex strings not supporting it on input fields.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday July 19 2018, @10:47PM (1 child)
Alas, when the .eu market opened, by 00:00:10, asdf.eu had already been registered by a robot. Fuck it, I don't need all these TLDs, in particular new fangled modern ones that I don't even believe in!
And you wouldn't believe the amount of spam these asdf.* domains get, it's almost as if people are just strumming randomly on their keyboards when asked for email addresses :(
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday July 19 2018, @10:59PM
Well that was weird. I replied to you, but it was on the main thread. I need coffee :)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.