Those of you following the blog at http://thetradersden.livejournal.com/ , already know that my godaddy account was hacked and our domains thetradersden.org and thetradersden.com were transferred away from me. They were taken in a matter of a couple of hours, and I've been working to get them back ever since. Funny how it doesn't take much to take them away, but boy am I having to jump through hoops to try to get them back!

This asshat has now been trying to blackmail me to get our domains back. He started at an asking price of $2500, but has since come down to the bargain price of $1750. I was stringing him along for a bit, letting him think I was gonna pay him, but finally just dropped all communication with him.

He did try to grab our servers also, but our host realized something fishy was going on and refused to change the root password for him.

According to our host, he came from behind a proxy at The Planet (another hosting service - a HUGE one) and so it is doubtful he will get caught. However, that hasn't stopped me from reporting him to godaddy, register.com (where he transferred the domains), icann, and the IC3. Of course, they get tons of reports all the time, so no one has contacted me to get all the details yet.

I'll update this post as I have more information to give out.

4-17-2009: It looks like we'll be here for a little while longer. As much as I might push godaddy, they don't seem to understand the urgency of my wanting to get our domains back. I continue to provide paperwork; they continue to think it's not good enough or they want something else. Luckily, the place the asshat moved the domains to seems to understand a bit of my frustration and has locked them down so they can't be transferred right now. I will continue to work this issue, but they don't work over the weekend, so it's gonna be a bit longer.

4-23-2009: Just an update - it's now in the hands of the new registrar, register.com. GoDaddy has official asked for the domains back, but they say the new registrar can say no. I had talked to them last week and they are well aware that they were stolen from me and that the guy who took them was sending me emails to extort money for their return. Since they have all that background already, and since they were kind enough to lock down the domains so they guy couldn't transfer them again, I'm hoping they are going to give them back.

5-01-2009: I wish I could give some update, but unfortunately it seems that the legal department over at register.com has taken lessons from godaddy in how to drag their feet. I didn't call them today cuz I was taking the day off from this stuff.

5-5-2009: Well, the domains finally have my name back on them instead of this Fred guy, but I now need to get them transferred back to GoDaddy so I can actually access them and point them back to our site.
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This is my impression of GoDaddy.com fighting a hacker:
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Is there anything we can do as members to help?

Anything at all?
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Gee whiz, I thought maybe I'd done it
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I noticed on your blog that you suggested we change our passwords... is that still the case...?
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so did we.



go get 'em, Lynne!
we can ask Wolf to sic the giant squid on him!
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I've found you again, but none of my Trader's Den torrents show any seeders/leechers. How do I keep seeding after this problem?
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Itīs on the top of the page:

"Our host is allowing us to use their nameservers for another one of our domains (one that wasn't stolen) while I get the issue of our stolen domains resolved with GoDaddy. What this means is you will need to redownload your torrent files in order to get the domain we are currently using into your torrent file. If you are uploading a new show, you do NOT need to change the announce url - the site will do that for you upon download. Some links will not work if they have thetradersden.org in them. If you manually change the url to tradersden.org in the browser window, it should work fine."
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So is Fred M. a good guy or the bad guy?
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EVIL, he issss
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Sorry to hear this has happend! I hope you get things under your control again soon for your own piece of mind.

internet extortion is bullshit and godaddy should be ready to listen to those who keep them in business
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I wasn't talking about your password specific to TTD, but rather your passwords in general. The password he used to hack my account was one that I have used on and off for a couple of years. I hated the idea of always having to memorize a new one, so I was kinda rotating them from account to account. Not anymore. It's worth having to memorize new passwords after the hassle I've been going through!
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I hope you find the scum. Nail his ass when you do!
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I am so very sorry you have had to undertake this crap, Lynne. Thank you as always for keeping the TTD vision, and for doing what you feel is necessary to extricate from this situation. Again, please let us know if there's *anything* we can do...and try to stay cheerful amid it all...

Peace,
~Steve in Tokyo
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Lynne, I'm truly sorry this happened. I realized that something was going on when a torrent I was downloading, turned red (the arrow that is), and the message said "Http error 404". I'm glad to know what the problem is and also have to say what others said: one takes something for granted until it disappears. I'm glad to say it's reappearing again. I have one legal question, though. Obviously, we here are trading inofficial stuff (not counterfeited, though, mind you). Would you be able to sue that guy if need be?

Thanks for everything (should be said much more often, I know), and keep up the DAMN great work!

Cheers.
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