EstDomains has been implicated in a host of cybercrimes
Scandal-hit EstDomains fighting for life
/v3-uk/news/2009563/scandal-hit-estdomains-fighting-life
30 Oct 2008, Shaun Nichols , V3
Scandal-hit registrar EstDomains is facing closure.
EstDomains was notified by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) that it would be stripped of its accreditation due to the legal troubles of its chief executive. Vladimir Tsastsin was convicted in February of credit card fraud, forgery and money laundering in Estonia.
The company has since appealed, claiming that Tsastsin had previously resigned his post and is currently appealing the conviction.
News of the decision was welcomed by many in the security community. The registrar has been implicated in many acts of cybercrime, particularly spam and malware attack sites.
"They've been on our map for years as they've been the largest registrar used by online criminals for their domain name registration needs," explained F-Secure chief research officer Mikko Hypponen.
"I never thought I’d see the day," wrote McAfee research scientist Chris Barton. "Icann found its dentures down the back of the sofa and taken a bite out of the criminals' domain registration empire."
The Icann declaration would strip EstDomains of the rights to some 281,000 domains. The company had previously planned to terminate the accreditation on 12 November, but on receiving EstDomains' appeal, Icann now says that it will postpone the move while it analyses the filing.
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Do you agree?
Hmmm
A couple of ideas for ICANN
1. Require a valid transparent address to be a registrar
2. Instead of attacking them on some minutia involving the history of an officer of the company perhaps attack them on their track record in addressing abuse....perhaps update the accredation agreements to set tangible metrics for this. Officers can and will be changed and obfuscated to protect the guilty. Activities of a criminal enterprise will continue to be criminal.
3. Perhaps have a period whereby ICANN provides experts to assist a registrar that is legitmately trying to but unable to battle fraud and a set of best practices to avoid it.
Posted by someDude, 04 Nov 2008