Namecheap. Surprise. They seem to be the preferred DNS provider for this sort of thing.
From HN threads about registrars, they seem to be a preferred registrar in general - it's not hugely surprising that scammers share similar preferences.
The short tale of an online scam
11–20 of 98 posts
Re: The short tale of an online scam
#12Namecheap. Surprise. They seem to be the preferred DNS provider for this sort of thing.
In what world can a DNS provider verify every single domain purchaser’s intent and activities post-sale? I don’t understand your argument at all…
in what world is that the only possible thing a provider could do against abuse? Scam domains always are on a timer, a big part of it is if a registrar is responsive to abuse reports or not.
Re: The short tale of an online scam
#13"Always, always look at the url bar". How will that help the non-tech savvy out there?
Re: The short tale of an online scam
#14Namecheap. Surprise. They seem to be the preferred DNS provider for this sort of thing.
In what world can a DNS provider verify every single domain purchaser’s intent and activities post-sale? I don’t understand your argument at all…
I've written a little bit about why NameCheap is so beloved by scammers. See https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/05/why-do-scammers-love-namech...
They allow anonymous payments and they're slow to respond to takedown requests.
They've started monitoring registrations now - so you can't register domains like `hsbc-co-uk.biz` without going through some extra checks.
Re: The short tale of an online scam
#15Scammers really have stepped up their game in recent years. I keep getting spam emails that say "we have your data, click here to see the list..." Of course, the link wants to authorize against my (nonexistent) gmail. Nice try. The people I feel bad for are the elderly: I know two that have been taken in by these things. They really aren't mentally equipped for the complexities of the modern Internet.
>Scammers really have stepped up their game Here's an innovative one. I got an sms impersonating my cell phone provider telling me they're going to change my plan. They'd decided which one is the best for me but I have until next month to chose one 'of the new plans' clicking on a bit.ly link. That links points to an Amazon affiliated link, and it's totally unrelated to my provider.
That is pretty decent for an affiliate scam.
Re: The short tale of an online scam
#16An obvious red flag for me is always an opening message with "I'm interested in X", where "X" is verbatim copied off the title of the ad.
Re: The short tale of an online scam
#17Anecdotally, my SMS scammers have gotten so lazy these days and that they are just sending me IP addresses to click
Unsurprisingly, the IP addresses all resolve to Russia
Re: The short tale of an online scam
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
In what world can a DNS provider verify every single domain purchaser’s intent and activities post-sale? I don’t understand your argument at all…
I've written a little bit about why NameCheap is so beloved by scammers. See https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/05/why-do-scammers-love-namech... They allow anonymous payments and they're slow to respond to takedown requests. They've started monitoring registrations now - so you can't register domains like `hsbc-co-uk.biz` without going through some extra checks.
>They allow anonymous payments and they're slow to respond to takedown requests.
things that might also be liked by non-scammers.
Re: The short tale of an online scam
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
In what world can a DNS provider verify every single domain purchaser’s intent and activities post-sale? I don’t understand your argument at all…
I've written a little bit about why NameCheap is so beloved by scammers. See https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/05/why-do-scammers-love-namech... They allow anonymous payments and they're slow to respond to takedown requests. They've started monitoring registrations now - so you can't register domains like `hsbc-co-uk.biz` without going through some extra checks.
That just sounds like they maintain an exclusion list that triggers a manual review or additional checks.
Nice, but it's effectiveness depends on the completeness of the list.
Re: The short tale of an online scam
#20The only odd thing I noticed was around 4000 requests were sent in perhaps a short time. That would indeed tip off the scammer.
Might've been better to send in two or three a day, and ramp it up slowly until you get caught.