Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that's reasonable. I was thinking in terms of cutting out the gaming aspect when I made that statement. I probably should have been more specific. The premise of the entire conversation was based on someone making an unjustified accusation without even following it through and testing it to begin with.
>without even following it through and testing it to begin with You do realize that many companies will prosecute people just "following through and testing it", right? Though the person you did say it to very likely has an international warrant out for them anyway for pissing off the DoD, so I guess it's all water under the bridge.
Namecheap CEO offers $10k bounty for changing someone else's domain via helpdesk
81–90 of 99 posts
Re: Namecheap CEO offers $10k bounty for changing someone else's domain via helpdesk
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or qualify with "harmless changes", like inserting a TXT entry with your name.
Namecheap's primary business is as a domain registrar. Sensible customers don't let their domain registrar act as their authoritative DNS, you'd need to change something else; but maybe mild defacement of the contact name or address in whois would qualify, without being harmful.
Are you saying that based on quality of the service or something else?
Re: Namecheap CEO offers $10k bounty for changing someone else's domain via helpdesk
#83Really glad I moved my domains to Porkbun recently. This is Namecheaps second blunder this year in terms of being a reliable service provider. First engaging in politically cheap racial discrimination (their ban on Russia seemingly having hit anyone who ever in their history used a Russian IP adress and demanding evidence of a users current location before lifting it), now giving hackers carte blanche to screw with e…
Oh yeah, it’s truly shocking that a company with most of their staff in Ukraine decided to cut off Russia. What unreliable pieces of shit. How dare they?
Cutting off Russia on it's own already subjects a bunch of probably already very stressed out Ukranians to the stress of dealing with angry Russians, most of whom have nothing to do with the war in Ukraine. These customers mind you, used Namecheap to host content the Russian regime disapproves of; they were pretty much the only reputable registrar offering domains to Russian customers that wasn't ran by the state. Getting rid of those customers pushes those people to Russian state registrars, who will gladly come knocking for contact details if someone hosts something that the Kremlin disapproves of.
Adding to that, the actual methodology used was basically the dumbest method. It seems they targeted everyone who ever had Russian bank details in their account, anyone who ever accessed the site over a Russian IP address and anyone who had a Russian last name. This included hitting several thousands of people who fled the regime over a decade ago, who upon contacting Namecheap support were told to hand over proof of their permanent housing outside of Russia, people who used their account over a VPN, people in neighboring countries because GeoIP isn't an accurate science and people who have Russian roots but haven't even set foot in the country.
The only way to prove this was to send fairly specific details of your housing to Namecheap support (reports at the time even indicated that affected customers had to send photographs of their own house to remain a client), something which can be very sensitive for some people, wrt OPSEC and it's also data they could easily verify with existing KYC data, but they categorically refused to do that.
Like, the methods employed and the complete lack of perspective on what Russians used Namecheaps domains for are what make it racial discrimination, the decision itself is justifiable enough, many companies dropped Russia after the invasion.
Re: Namecheap CEO offers $10k bounty for changing someone else's domain via helpdesk
#84Really glad I moved my domains to Porkbun recently. This is Namecheaps second blunder this year in terms of being a reliable service provider. First engaging in politically cheap racial discrimination (their ban on Russia seemingly having hit anyone who ever in their history used a Russian IP adress and demanding evidence of a users current location before lifting it), now giving hackers carte blanche to screw with e…
Namecheap cut ties with a country (Russia), not a race.
Namecheap has no ban on Russians outside of Russia using their service, and they very likely employ Russians, since so many Ukrainians have Russian backgrounds.
Re: Namecheap CEO offers $10k bounty for changing someone else's domain via helpdesk
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh yeah, it’s truly shocking that a company with most of their staff in Ukraine decided to cut off Russia. What unreliable pieces of shit. How dare they?
The problem isn't the decision itself. The problem is all the context surrounding it. Namecheap is a Californian company with it's support staff outsourced to Ukraine. Cutting off Russia on it's own already subjects a bunch of probably already very stressed out Ukranians to the stress of dealing with angry Russians, most of whom have nothing to do with the war in Ukraine. These customers mind you, used Namecheap to h…
I know for a fact that this isn’t true.
>anyone who had a Russian last name.
I seriously doubt this too, but maybe my last name just isn’t Russian enough.
Re: Namecheap CEO offers $10k bounty for changing someone else's domain via helpdesk
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem isn't the decision itself. The problem is all the context surrounding it. Namecheap is a Californian company with it's support staff outsourced to Ukraine. Cutting off Russia on it's own already subjects a bunch of probably already very stressed out Ukranians to the stress of dealing with angry Russians, most of whom have nothing to do with the war in Ukraine. These customers mind you, used Namecheap to h…
> anyone who ever accessed the site over a Russian IP address I know for a fact that this isn’t true. >anyone who had a Russian last name. I seriously doubt this too, but maybe my last name just isn’t Russian enough.
Some Australian companies that used a VPN service that had a Russian exit node got hit with termination notices. There were a couple of reports from people in the UK and the US as well with similar patterns.
> I seriously doubt this too, but maybe my last name just isn’t Russian enough.
Admittedly that is one of the shakier ones, but there was at least one report from France that had a customer who had nothing to do with Russia beyond a very distant family member that caused them to have a Russian last name being hit with a termination notice.
Sorry for not having any references, this all was like... 6 months ago. I found the decision awfully shortsighted and made very ad-hoc rather than properly thought through. (Hell, the termination itself was ludicrously short-notice; people had less than a week to find a new registrar for their domains. Most companies give you at least the time to sit out your renewal period/contract expiration before they tell you to shove it.)
Re: Namecheap CEO offers $10k bounty for changing someone else's domain via helpdesk
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh yeah, it’s truly shocking that a company with most of their staff in Ukraine decided to cut off Russia. What unreliable pieces of shit. How dare they?
The problem isn't the decision itself. The problem is all the context surrounding it. Namecheap is a Californian company with it's support staff outsourced to Ukraine. Cutting off Russia on it's own already subjects a bunch of probably already very stressed out Ukranians to the stress of dealing with angry Russians, most of whom have nothing to do with the war in Ukraine. These customers mind you, used Namecheap to h…
Re: Namecheap CEO offers $10k bounty for changing someone else's domain via helpdesk
#88https://twitter.com/ReneReh1/status/1564349884106477573
There's at least one customer name in there.
Re: Namecheap CEO offers $10k bounty for changing someone else's domain via helpdesk
#89If the result of this tweet is that one of my domains is altered, and that I lose income, users, or other useful metrics to measure the value of my site, this seems like a great piece of evidence to be litigious towards Namecheap
How is this different from any other bug bounty program as an incentive to compromise live functionality/user data always exists?
Re: Namecheap CEO offers $10k bounty for changing someone else's domain via helpdesk
#90Guess I should move elsewhere. What is everyone using for domains and DNS these days?
Time to move somewhere else because the CEO is so confident they can't be hacked he publically offers money to anyone who can do it? You want to be with one that thinks it is insecure?