Many Domains Registered With False Data

bakotaco writes "According to research carried out by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) many domain owners are hiding their true identity. The findings could mean that many websites are fronts for spammers, phishing gangs and other net criminals. The report also found that measures to improve information about domain owners were not proving effective." From the article: "The GAO took 300 random domain names from each of the .com, .org and .net registries and looked up the centrally held information about their owners. Any user can look up this data via one of the many whois sites on the net. The report found that owner data for 5.14% of the domains it looked at was clearly fake as it used phone numbers such as [phone]; listed nonsense addresses such as 'asdasdasd' or used invalid zip codes such as 'XXXXX'. In a further 3.65% of domain owner records data was missing or incomplete in one or more fields."

Been running into this for years

[cprael]

Including the spammer who was trying to forge email from my domain a few years ago. Registered his domain with a non-existent yahoomail account, amongst other false data. Backed off when I lit up the yahoo account and seized control of his domain.

In other news.....

[Null537]

It has been found that a/s/l data is not always truthful.

You Think?

[TechJones]

Maybe some people just want to be Anonymous Cowards.

Will the phone calls/letters ever stop!

[saboola]

I happen to be at the home of [phone] on asdasdasd street in XXXXX area code and I get so much junk mail/telemarketing calls you would not believe it.

I would rather let the terrorists win...

[shaitand]

Personally I would rather let the terrorists (cyber or otherwise) win than give up my privacy. Domain owners are justified in wanting anonymity.

Re:In other news.....

[DrSkwid]

sorry petal, too skinny

> I wasn't born to a human mother!

Macbeth better start worrying then. Got any twigs in your hat ?

Re:You could go to jail

[DrSkwid]

I'm still waiting for my extradition notices.

But what if your name really is

[Shadow Wrought]

Biggus Dickus?

Re:And then there's outdated data

[grub]

Rent the office where they used to be.

That'd be tough if they were in the World Trade Center.

In other news...

[ajlitt]

... a new study finds that 99% of anonymous FTP users give out '[e-mail]' as their email address.

Re:Or attempts at "Privacy"

[Anonymous Coward]

But then you're paying for a PO box rather than an anonymizing service. Why not just point the address to your unsuspecting neighbor for free?

Re:wow

[krakelohm]

You waited 30 seconds to post that?

Re:I call BS - 3 pieces of junk mail 5 yrs

[Anonymous Coward]

"I have a number of domain names registered. I have received a total of 3 pieces of junk mail in the 5 years I've held the domains"

Perhaps you aren't as important as you think you are

You're lucky

[Anonymous Coward]

I've gotten tons of junkmail. From registrar of america alone I probably get 1 piece of mail per domain per month trying to con me into switching.

I did find a solution I used temporarily that put a stop to all the junkmail.

In your Address Line 2 use: "THIS MAIL PROBABLY CONTAINS ANTHRAX"

I stopped doing that after a while because I wasn't sure if that was legal but it was effective either way.

Re:the phishers have won

[immortal]

I heard a rumor that someone is inventing a data processing machine that will analyze information. I think they are nicknaming it 'computer'.

Re:Calculations

[tompaulco]

What I can't figure out is how they looked at 900 domains total and found that 46.26 of them had bad information.

Re:Do they check valid looking addresses?

[ShawnDoc]

If they aren't on the east coast how do you explain the navy episode where a boat sailed from Springfield harbor to NYC in a very short time?