Godaddy shuts down site for password file

[gonzo]

How come we dont see everyone on Godaddys nuts?

On the morning of Jan. 24, Fyodor Vaskovich awoke to discover that his Web site, SecLists.org, had been transformed into a giant error message. The message said his domain couldn't be resolved. This troubled him greatly: SecLists is an archive of several computer security-related mailing lists that contains more than 50,000 pages of technical information. It has thousands of visitors per day and nets Vaskovich a fair amount of income from Google ads. Where had the site gone? He checked with the registrar that sold him his site, GoDaddy, and discovered the megacorporation had changed the site's name servers -- addresses that tell your browser how to find the place where a Web site is hosted. Instead of his Web host's name servers, he found this name server: ns1.suspended-for.spam-and-abuse.com

What the hell? Vaskovich checked his answering machine and found a message from somebody in the abuse department at GoDaddy telling him they were going to pull the plug on his domain. Based on his logs, it appeared that his name servers had been changed less than a minute after the call was made. Essentially, he'd been given a few seconds' notice before a major Internet resource (and source of revenue) was shut down.

For the rest of the day Vaskovich was on the phone with GoDaddy trying to untangle what had happened. Luckily, he kept careful records, which he later showed to reporters at CNet and Wired News. These records corroborated his story that he'd been given less than a minute's notice and that GoDaddy repeatedly refused to give him customer service for several hours. At last he learned that SecLists had been yanked offline because MySpace contacted GoDaddy and requested it. One of the 50,000 pages on SecLists contained an e-mail in which somebody had listed the names and passwords of several MySpace users. Instead of asking Vaskovich to take down the page with passwords -- which is standard industry practice -- MySpace asked GoDaddy to squash the whole site. GoDaddy didn't have to do it, however. They could have contacted Vaskovich first, and they could have asked for a legal takedown notice from MySpace. Essentially, they could have provided minimal customer service and oversight. But they didn't.

What makes GoDaddy's actions even more disgusting is that the passwords in question had been leaked about 10 days before GoDaddy took SecLists down. They appeared on dozens of other security-related and hacker Web sites. Security expert Bruce Schneier had even written a column in which he analyzed the quality of about 30,000 of the leaked passwords. (Among the top 10 popular passwords was "fuckyou," which completely mirrors my feelings for MySpace.) So the point is the cat was out of the bag. The passwords were circulating, and MySpace needed to tell its customers to change their passwords. Squelching SecLists wasn't going to help protect anyone. And yet GoDaddy's general counsel, Christine Jones, defended its actions because she believed pedophiles would get access to children's names and passwords. "For something that has safety implications like that, we take it really seriously," she told Wired News editor Kevin Poulsen. "I think the fact that we gave him notice at all was pretty generous."

More of the story

[softball]

Originally Posted by gonzo

How come we dont see everyone on Godaddys nuts?

On the morning of Jan. 24, Fyodor Vaskovich awoke to discover that his Web site, SecLists.org, had been transformed into a giant error message. The message said his domain couldn't be resolved. This troubled him greatly: SecLists is an archive of several computer security-related mailing lists that contains more than 50,000 pages of technical information. It has thousands of visitors per day and nets Vaskovich a fair amount of income from Google ads. Where had the site gone? He checked with the registrar that sold him his site, GoDaddy, and discovered the megacorporation had changed the site's name servers -- addresses that tell your browser how to find the place where a Web site is hosted. Instead of his Web host's name servers, he found this name server: ns1.suspended-for.spam-and-abuse.com

What the hell? Vaskovich checked his answering machine and found a message from somebody in the abuse department at GoDaddy telling him they were going to pull the plug on his domain. Based on his logs, it appeared that his name servers had been changed less than a minute after the call was made. Essentially, he'd been given a few seconds' notice before a major Internet resource (and source of revenue) was shut down.

For the rest of the day Vaskovich was on the phone with GoDaddy trying to untangle what had happened. Luckily, he kept careful records, which he later showed to reporters at CNet and Wired News. These records corroborated his story that he'd been given less than a minute's notice and that GoDaddy repeatedly refused to give him customer service for several hours. At last he learned that SecLists had been yanked offline because MySpace contacted GoDaddy and requested it. One of the 50,000 pages on SecLists contained an e-mail in which somebody had listed the names and passwords of several MySpace users. Instead of asking Vaskovich to take down the page with passwords -- which is standard industry practice -- MySpace asked GoDaddy to squash the whole site. GoDaddy didn't have to do it, however. They could have contacted Vaskovich first, and they could have asked for a legal takedown notice from MySpace. Essentially, they could have provided minimal customer service and oversight. But they didn't.

What makes GoDaddy's actions even more disgusting is that the passwords in question had been leaked about 10 days before GoDaddy took SecLists down. They appeared on dozens of other security-related and hacker Web sites. Security expert Bruce Schneier had even written a column in which he analyzed the quality of about 30,000 of the leaked passwords. (Among the top 10 popular passwords was "fuckyou," which completely mirrors my feelings for MySpace.) So the point is the cat was out of the bag. The passwords were circulating, and MySpace needed to tell its customers to change their passwords. Squelching SecLists wasn't going to help protect anyone. And yet GoDaddy's general counsel, Christine Jones, defended its actions because she believed pedophiles would get access to children's names and passwords. "For something that has safety implications like that, we take it really seriously," she told Wired News editor Kevin Poulsen. "I think the fact that we gave him notice at all was pretty generous."

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This sounds all too familiar.

[spazlabz]

godaddy is quick to pull a site down with just the slightest provocation and very little if any investigation. one spam complaint and your shit is shut down pronto. However for a very generous fee that will offer to protect your site from being shut down that fast again in the future... it'll still get shut down if you don't kiss every inch of their ass after a complaint, but at least they will give you a little more time to pucker.

fuckyougodaddy is my new password of choice


spaz

[gonzo]

Originally Posted by spazlabz

godaddy is quick to pull a site down with just the slightest provocation and very little if any investigation. one spam complaint and your shit is shut down pronto. However for a very generous fee that will offer to protect your site from being shut down that fast again in the future... it'll still get shut down if you don't kiss every inch of their ass after a complaint, but at least they will give you a little more time to pucker.

fuckyougodaddy is my new password of choice


spaz

Godaddy will offer you every upsell known to man if you register there.

[JoesHO]

closed my godady account months ago, those guys are idiots.

domain registrars are pretty fucked up these days, at least some of them.

Moniker is a good place to us. and I here good things about tucows

[gonzo]

Originally Posted by JoesHO

closed my godady account months ago, those guys are idiots.

domain registrars are pretty fucked up these days, at least some of them.

Moniker is a good place to us. and I here good things about tucows

Mine are spread just like hosting.
Moniker, Buy Domains, and DirectNic.

[raymor]

Originally Posted by gonzo

How come we dont see everyone on Godaddys nuts?

I think we don't see a lot of people making much noise, especially Godaddy users,
largely because we know Godaddy. They are the cheapest and their service reflects that
in everything they do. To me, it's like hosting your site with geocities and expecting
customer service like you'd get from a normal web host who hosts professional sites.
Godaddy sells domains for $9 or sometimes even less. Bulkregister sells them for $12.
Others sell domains for $15. If you really need to save the $3 per year by going with the
cheapest service around, expect to get cheapo service. That's not a suprise.

[gonzo]

Originally Posted by raymor

I think we don't see a lot of people making much noise, especially Godaddy users,
largely because we know Godaddy. They are the cheapest and their service reflects that
in everything they do. To me, it's like hosting your site with geocities and expecting
customer service like you'd get from a normal web host who hosts professional sites.
Godaddy sells domains for $9 or sometimes even less. Bulkregister sells them for $12.
Others sell domains for $15. If you really need to save the $3 per year by going with the
cheapest service around, expect to get cheapo service. That's not a suprise.

Very valid point. Thank you

[Jace]

Originally Posted by raymor

I think we don't see a lot of people making much noise, especially Godaddy users,
largely because we know Godaddy. They are the cheapest and their service reflects that
in everything they do. To me, it's like hosting your site with geocities and expecting
customer service like you'd get from a normal web host who hosts professional sites.
Godaddy sells domains for $9 or sometimes even less. Bulkregister sells them for $12.
Others sell domains for $15. If you really need to save the $3 per year by going with the
cheapest service around, expect to get cheapo service. That's not a suprise.

unfortunately I have to disagree. domains are not expensive anymore

basically, what you just said is that if I pay $30 for a domain registration, i should expect some superior support and not get fucked around. but we all know that isn't true, hell, look at netsol.

I have NEVER had an issue with godaddy, in fact they contacted me about a year ago regarding a dmca notice they got, and they even played mediator for the dispute at no charge.

once again, domains are cheap...REALLY cheap, so those people charging $15-20 per domain reg are just making more money ripping you off, but that doesn't always mean they are providing you with more support.....yes, there are always exceptions to every rule, which is why there shouldn't be any generalizations made, and that everything should be on a case by case basis

out of the hundreds of thousands of people I have known over the years that register domains with godaddy, I have heard VERY little negative first hand accounts about how godaddy did anything out of the ordinary

[Jace]

Originally Posted by gonzo

Godaddy will offer you every upsell known to man if you register there.

of course they will, so do the other top 10 results in google for "domain registration"....domain registrars don't make all their money from domain regs, they make it from upselling hosting and other shit

[Jace]

sorry, I keep thinking of more shit

out of ALL the registrars I use right now, Godaddy is the ONLY one that CALLS me to see if everything is great on my end....about every 2-3rd domain reg I do through godaddy, they call me and make sure I am doing fine and that I am satisfied with their service....directnic never did that, moniker never did that, just godaddy

[spazlabz]

Originally Posted by Jace

out of the hundreds of thousands of people I have known over the years that register domains with godaddy, I have heard VERY little negative first hand accounts about how godaddy did anything out of the ordinary

want one? I have two first hand experiences with being fucked over by GoDaddy with two seperate companies and I have heard a few other first hands........
someone I know registers with GoDaddy I go
I see a GoDaddy commercial I go

my opinion is they suck and they suck bad if you have adult. they are just another company quick to take adult industry money but stab ya in the back fast and pull the knife out for a really large fee


spaz

[gonzo]

Originally Posted by Jace

sorry, I keep thinking of more shit

out of ALL the registrars I use right now, Godaddy is the ONLY one that CALLS me to see if everything is great on my end....about every 2-3rd domain reg I do through godaddy, they call me and make sure I am doing fine and that I am satisfied with their service....directnic never did that, moniker never did that, just godaddy

Its a domain registration.
I dont want a call from them. All I want from a registrar is to purchase the domain, for them to secure it and make it easy for me to move if I wish.

Domain registrars dont have a service intensive job.
He was calling you for the upsell bubba!

[Jace]

Originally Posted by gonzo

Its a domain registration.
I dont want a call from them. All I want from a registrar is to purchase the domain, for them to secure it and make it easy for me to move if I wish.

Domain registrars dont have a service intensive job.
He was calling you for the upsell bubba!

never mentioned an upsell once, each time they just make sure my registration went smooth

[Jace]

Originally Posted by spazlabz

want one? I have two first hand experiences with being fucked over by GoDaddy with two seperate companies and I have heard a few other first hands........

ok, what happened?

[SirMoby]

Originally Posted by Jace

out of the hundreds of thousands of people I have known over the years that register domains with godaddy, I have heard VERY little negative first hand accounts about how godaddy did anything out of the ordinary

Interesting. Almost every time I hear a complaint about a stolen domain, not allowing transfers or something crazy it seems to involve GoDaddy. I know a number of places where webmasters air out complaints and if you do a search for Go Daddy you'll find plenty. I'm sure that you could search for stolen domain or something like that and find the same results.

I'm not saying that you should stop using Go Daddy as it's a free market and they seem to be good to you.

Personally I'll never use them simply from so many complaints that I've read. However, I've never given them a chance so I don't have any first hand experiences with them at all.

[Jace]

Originally Posted by SirMoby

Interesting. Almost every time I hear a complaint about a stolen domain, not allowing transfers or something crazy it seems to involve GoDaddy. I know a number of places where webmasters air out complaints and if you do a search for Go Daddy you'll find plenty. I'm sure that you could search for stolen domain or something like that and find the same results.

I'm not saying that you should stop using Go Daddy as it's a free market and they seem to be good to you.

Personally I'll never use them simply from so many complaints that I've read. However, I've never given them a chance so I don't have any first hand experiences with them at all.

Most of the complaints I have heard are from people that used their hosting OR didn't lock their domains....I have used them for going on 7 years now, never had one issue, and like I said previously someone sent them a legal doc trying to get my site shut down and they called me the minute they got it and we worked something out

I have used their transfer system hundreds of times to buy and sell domains, and there is NO possible way for someone to steal a domain without the domain being unlocked or the email being wrong on their whois

[spazlabz]

Originally Posted by Jace

ok, what happened?

the first first hand experience i had with them that was totally fucked was can be seen in all its glory here
http://www.greenguyandjim.com/board/...hlight=godaddy
(sorry for the link to the other board gonzo but as you can see from that date it was awhile ago and had almost the whole story.

The second instance was another spam complaint against another company I worked for. No notification, the sites were turned off. when we contacted godaddy and let them know the affiliate who spammed our content had been dealt with they turned us back on and offered to give us protection from spam complaints in the future. For something like, I dint recall exactly but I want to say $250, they would arbitrate with the complaint and give us 24 hours to resolve it before shutting us down.... gee thanks, we moved the domains.

bottom line for me is they are exceedingly quick to turn sites off without any notice at all and once they effect someones business like that they should have better support. Anyone can make a spam complaint to them to any site that pisses them off and get the thing turned off.


spaz

[Hell Puppy]

They're all getting too heavy handed.

And again, I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, but when you start making your own editorial decisions about SOME things, you open yourself up to being responsible for ALL content using your service.

[spazlabz]

Originally Posted by Hell Puppy

They're all getting too heavy handed.

And again, I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, but when you start making your own editorial decisions about SOME things, you open yourself up to being responsible for ALL content using your service.

agreed, and unfortunately you also set precedent for other companies to do the same


spaz

[Hell Puppy]

I'm not overly enamored with ANY of the registrars at the moment, which leaves me diversified.

Growth has decreased, that market is becoming a commodity. So we're going to see a shake out I think, maybe some consolidation. And perhaps some desperation moves like making it very difficult to transfer.