Dear B-Aers,
Interesting to note that the spam problem that Belinda Cassidy has just had originates from a Cocos Islands internet address. Not everything on the Cocos is birder friendly it perhaps.
Cheers,
Carl Clifford ===============================
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It just means someone’s bought a domain name with a Cocos suffix (.cc) This isn’t new – there was a Cocos (or Christmas Island?) domain called goatse, but I highly discourage anyone from googling that name.
Most of the .tv domains aren’t hosted on the island of Tuvalu, although that domain suffix is it’s number 1 foreign exchange earner. True story…
David,
I think Paul Dod’s explanation is much more likely. The world of internet domain names has become murkier and murkier. Cocos and Turkish Cyprus sharing the same domain? Next we will be sharing the .au domain with Austria. Ah, well lot of the world can’t seem to be able to tell the difference any way.
I did find it rather puzzling that the good folk of our Cocos should be up to that sort of shenannigans.
Cheers,
Carl Clifford
Hi Carl,
I’d be interested to know what evidence you have for that. The Cocos (Keeling) islands have a population of about 600 people, maybe 100 computers and not too many email adresses. There is only one service provider and they have excellent controls on incoming spam. Is it perhaps one of the other Cocos Islands, not the Australian ones? Or perhaps a bogus address?
Paul,
Yes, that makes more sense. I could more easily imagine a Svetlana from Moscow behind a dodgyhandbags.com site than a Cocos island resident. Should have thought to have done a whois myself. More likely Svetlana is a Bogdan in Ramnicu Valcea, Romania.
The domain name situation is sure getting messy. Oh for the good old days such as when I started using the net in ’94. At least then you could be pretty sure that a domain was kosher. And you had time to make a cuppa while you waited for a site to open. Well, perhaps that wasn’t that good.
Cheers,
Carl Clifford
Ah, not quite that simple, Carl. The .cc domain is used by both Cocos Islands and Turkish Cyprus – as such it is subject to considerable controversy. In a similar fashion to the .tv domain (technically a the top-level domain for Tuvalu), control of the .cc domain was passed to a VeriSign company, eNIC, who has gone about promoting it to all and sundry. So far, nothing unusual there.
The .co.cc “domain” is not a top-level domain in the usual sense. .co.cc is a domain owned by a Korean company trading under the name .CO.CC, funnily enough. This company sells .co.cc “domains”. In fact, it sells sub- domains to the .co.cc domain that this owns. As a result, it can charge anything it likes for these sub-domains – even nothing, if they feel like it. By selling sub-domains, they are also guaranteeing the purchasers anonymity – as there is no requirement to register sub-domains with any international registrar.
The spammer that used Belinda’s email address purports to be “designerhandbagdiscount.co.cc” – it is actually not possible to identify the registrant without having access to the records of .CO.CC – which is unlikely to happen.
Opening the link in a secure environment, it can be seen that it immediately redirects to a website “specialtypharmacydrugstoretablets.com” which purports to sell, you guessed it, Viagra and similar drugs. Running a whois lookup on this website indicates that the registrant is one Svetlana Grebneva, from Moscow in Russia. I think you could be reasonably sure that the spam originated from Russia, and not from the Cocos Islands.
Paul Dodd Docklands, Victoria
Hi Carl, I’d be interested to know what evidence you have for that. The Cocos (Keeling) islands have a population of about 600 people, maybe 100 computers and not too many email adresses. There is only one service provider and they have excellent controls on incoming spam. Is it perhaps one of the other Cocos Islands, not the Australian ones? Or perhaps a bogus address?