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It's funny -- I saw the headline and immediately did a CTRL+F for NameCheap. It's the same registrar again and again[0] for what seems like years now[0]. [0] h

It's funny -- I saw the headline and immediately did a CTRL+F for NameCheap. It's the same registrar again and again[0] for what seems like years now[0]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32626618 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32626618 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24231307 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24231307

eli 3y ago
It's the largest registrar after godaddy, and godaddy is overpriced
- px43 3y ago
  Godaddy is also, IMO, way worse. After a forum I was on got flooded with CSAM shit, I did some hunting and found out it was all hosted on Godaddy hosting. I collected all the info and sent it to them, and got silence. I checked around, and it sounds like tons of people had done the same thing, and the ones who got responses were along the lines of "not our problem, call the FBI", and people who reported through FBI/NCMEC still saw zero action. I was looking at years old threads of people reporting the same exact sites I was trying to report, with no one getting anywhere. These are straight up child porn sites, hosted by GoDaddy hosting (not just the domains), which were up for years on the plain internet, not on Tor, or even something where passwords were required or something. This wasn't a long time ago either, this was like, a few years ago, and no one at GoDaddy gave a shit. Absolutely infuriating.
  - unethical_ban 3y ago
    What could be the rationale? Not wanting to validate the CSAM for fear of becoming responsible for it, or not wanting to hire the staff/buy the infrastructure to "cleanly" handle such stuff?
  - neilv 3y ago
    I wouldn't expect GoDaddy to care, unless they'd had a compliance fear of G-d put into them. But if the proper US authorities were knowingly permitting that material and activity to persist on a big US company's servers, one theory would be that they're using it to map out people who produce, distribute, and seek that material. This resulting in more people encountering the evil material might only increase political support for this and other surveillance efforts. Or maybe this is actually small potatoes among the tasking of the authorities, and they don't have enough resources for all of it, so they have to triage.
slig 3y ago
It's not even funny [0]. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30506581 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30506581
- scythe 3y ago
  Being charitable, it's plausible that they read the Tweet, did some recon on their end, determined that the websites were abusive, and banned them based on that. Just because the Tweet was the only public information preceding the ban doesn't mean it was the only information.
  - slig 3y ago
    Could be, but they reverted the decision after getting sh*t on twitter. It feels like they acted without much recon.
chewmieser 3y ago
That's unfortunate :/, good to know. I wonder why their name keeps coming up here? Just because they're so large? If anyone is looking for an alternative, CloudFlare domains are super cheap!
- alwaysrunning 3y ago
  yeah but it's cloudflare.
  - chewmieser 3y ago
    I think Google Domains was the second cheapest option last I looked but we know how that ended up going... Glad I didn't migrate there!
KomoD 3y ago
Okay? Namecheap is a massive registrar, abuse is bound to happen, but they actually deal with the abuse and in an incredibly short amount of time, most reports I submit are taken care of in less than 30min. If you actually look into the history of the domains linked to "Josef Bakhovsky" and registered with Namecheap you can see they've got put on serverHold A lot of registrars don't deal with abuse at all and simply say "report it to the hosting company", example here (domain in question was a Redline Stealer C2): > Please, be aware that we, as a domain-only provider and not providing any content, hosting or e-mail services, are not in a position to judge the content of a website. For that reason, our normal procedure is that we inform our reseller and the domain holder, but will not suspend the domain names without an official WIPO decision or court order. And an example from the article, NameSilo didn't take the domains down even after talking to Krebs? > dig +short 1ox.us > 167.71.25.56 > 157.245.248.19
- TylerE 3y ago
  Back-off-ski? Too funny.
  - Applejinx 3y ago
    joe! back-offski!
- autoexec 3y ago
  > hey actually deal with the abuse and in an incredibly short amount of time, most reports I submit are taken care of in less than 30min. I don't know what your secret is. I'll admit they're a bit better than they used to be, but I regularly see stuff I report to them left online for weeks! Is there something that works better than their online reporting form? Domains used for things like URL shorteners or free form/survey/website builders that get abused by phishers over and over and over again stay online too. Domains that eventually take down a single URL within a few weeks after it's reported, but do nothing to prevent the next one or the next one or the next one. Namecheap seems perfectly happy to keep taking money from what are basically safe havens for scammers.
  - 3y ago
tallanvor 3y ago
Or if you read the article, it seems that this group was previously using NameCheap, but instead has moved on to NameSilo. So maybe NameCheap has gotten better about combating fraud?
- some_random 3y ago
  It's funny because yeah that's exactly what happened. NameCheap still isn't _amazing_ but is way more responsive now.
waihtis 3y ago
Blaming Namecheap for this is like blaming a car manufacturer for a terrorist driving into people
- koolba 3y ago
  More like blaming the Department of Motor Vehicles for issuing a car registration for the vehicle, owned by a rental agency, that the terrorist used to drive into people.
zzyzxd 3y ago
I am not familiar with regulation in this space, but why should a domain registrar care about a URL shortener that has a pointer to another malicious domain? They can ban the destination malicious domain obviously, but censoring an URL shortener feels like asking a DNS service to not to resolve a website, which is commonly criticized on HN.

eli 3y ago

It's the largest registrar after godaddy, and godaddy is overpriced

px43 3y ago
Godaddy is also, IMO, way worse. After a forum I was on got flooded with CSAM shit, I did some hunting and found out it was all hosted on Godaddy hosting. I collected all the info and sent it to them, and got silence. I checked around, and it sounds like tons of people had done the same thing, and the ones who got responses were along the lines of "not our problem, call the FBI", and people who reported through FBI/NCMEC still saw zero action. I was looking at years old threads of people reporting the same exact sites I was trying to report, with no one getting anywhere. These are straight up child porn sites, hosted by GoDaddy hosting (not just the domains), which were up for years on the plain internet, not on Tor, or even something where passwords were required or something. This wasn't a long time ago either, this was like, a few years ago, and no one at GoDaddy gave a shit. Absolutely infuriating.
- unethical_ban 3y ago
  What could be the rationale? Not wanting to validate the CSAM for fear of becoming responsible for it, or not wanting to hire the staff/buy the infrastructure to "cleanly" handle such stuff?
- neilv 3y ago
  I wouldn't expect GoDaddy to care, unless they'd had a compliance fear of G-d put into them. But if the proper US authorities were knowingly permitting that material and activity to persist on a big US company's servers, one theory would be that they're using it to map out people who produce, distribute, and seek that material. This resulting in more people encountering the evil material might only increase political support for this and other surveillance efforts. Or maybe this is actually small potatoes among the tasking of the authorities, and they don't have enough resources for all of it, so they have to triage.

slig 3y ago

It's not even funny [0]. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30506581 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30506581

scythe 3y ago
Being charitable, it's plausible that they read the Tweet, did some recon on their end, determined that the websites were abusive, and banned them based on that. Just because the Tweet was the only public information preceding the ban doesn't mean it was the only information.
- slig 3y ago
  Could be, but they reverted the decision after getting sh*t on twitter. It feels like they acted without much recon.

chewmieser 3y ago

That's unfortunate :/, good to know. I wonder why their name keeps coming up here? Just because they're so large? If anyone is looking for an alternative, CloudFlare domains are super cheap!

alwaysrunning 3y ago
yeah but it's cloudflare.
- chewmieser 3y ago
  I think Google Domains was the second cheapest option last I looked but we know how that ended up going... Glad I didn't migrate there!

KomoD 3y ago

Okay? Namecheap is a massive registrar, abuse is bound to happen, but they actually deal with the abuse and in an incredibly short amount of time, most reports I submit are taken care of in less than 30min. If you actually look into the history of the domains linked to "Josef Bakhovsky" and registered with Namecheap you can see they've got put on serverHold A lot of registrars don't deal with abuse at all and simply say "report it to the hosting company", example here (domain in question was a Redline Stealer C2): > Please, be aware that we, as a domain-only provider and not providing any content, hosting or e-mail services, are not in a position to judge the content of a website. For that reason, our normal procedure is that we inform our reseller and the domain holder, but will not suspend the domain names without an official WIPO decision or court order. And an example from the article, NameSilo didn't take the domains down even after talking to Krebs? > dig +short 1ox.us > 167.71.25.56 > 157.245.248.19

TylerE 3y ago
Back-off-ski? Too funny.
- Applejinx 3y ago
  joe! back-offski!
autoexec 3y ago
> hey actually deal with the abuse and in an incredibly short amount of time, most reports I submit are taken care of in less than 30min. I don't know what your secret is. I'll admit they're a bit better than they used to be, but I regularly see stuff I report to them left online for weeks! Is there something that works better than their online reporting form? Domains used for things like URL shorteners or free form/survey/website builders that get abused by phishers over and over and over again stay online too. Domains that eventually take down a single URL within a few weeks after it's reported, but do nothing to prevent the next one or the next one or the next one. Namecheap seems perfectly happy to keep taking money from what are basically safe havens for scammers.
- 3y ago

tallanvor 3y ago

Or if you read the article, it seems that this group was previously using NameCheap, but instead has moved on to NameSilo. So maybe NameCheap has gotten better about combating fraud?

some_random 3y ago
It's funny because yeah that's exactly what happened. NameCheap still isn't _amazing_ but is way more responsive now.

waihtis 3y ago

Blaming Namecheap for this is like blaming a car manufacturer for a terrorist driving into people

koolba 3y ago
More like blaming the Department of Motor Vehicles for issuing a car registration for the vehicle, owned by a rental agency, that the terrorist used to drive into people.

zzyzxd 3y ago

I am not familiar with regulation in this space, but why should a domain registrar care about a URL shortener that has a pointer to another malicious domain? They can ban the destination malicious domain obviously, but censoring an URL shortener feels like asking a DNS service to not to resolve a website, which is commonly criticized on HN.