Ask HN: Who runs News.YCombinator.net and hackerne.ws?

#1

Post by bowman » Sun, Aug 23, 2009, 2:38 AM UTC

These sites seem to be exact mirrors of this site. I got distracted during a google search and logged onto one thinking it was this site. I quickly freaked out and changed my password but I would like to know their relationship with this site. A phishing scam, or something innocent?

http://news.ycombinator.net/ http://hackerne.ws/

Re: Ask HN: Who runs News.YCombinator.net and hackerne.ws?

#2

Post by bkrausz » Sun, Aug 23, 2009, 3:03 AM UTC

yc.net seems to be registered by PG and pointing to the same server, though hackerne.ws is a godaddy domain hosted on godaddy servers, which seems a lot sketchier.

Re: Ask HN: Who runs News.YCombinator.net and hackerne.ws?

#3

Post by profquail » Sun, Aug 23, 2009, 3:07 AM UTC

You can do a DNS lookup on the domains:

http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=ne...

http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=ha...

Compare it with the real HN domain (news.ycombinator.com): http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=ne...

I dunno about hackerne.ws, but the ycombinator.com and .net domains look like they've got the same information. Perhaps someone with more DNS experience can do a little more digging.

EDIT: Here's the WHOIS info for the contact email (dns@jomax.net) for hackerne.ws: http://who.godaddy.com/whoischeck.aspx?Domain=JOMAX.NET

Re: Ask HN: Who runs News.YCombinator.net and hackerne.ws?

#4

Post by staunch » Sun, Aug 23, 2009, 3:12 AM UTC

Nothing nefarious going on: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=84039

Previous discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=524470

Re: Ask HN: Who runs News.YCombinator.net and hackerne.ws?

#5

Post by PieSquared » Sun, Aug 23, 2009, 3:12 AM UTC

bkrausz wrote: post #2

yc.net seems to be registered by PG and pointing to the same server, though hackerne.ws is a godaddy domain hosted on godaddy servers, which seems a lot sketchier.

I think it was a Christmas present to the HN community at some time.

Re: Ask HN: Who runs News.YCombinator.net and hackerne.ws?

#6

Post by joshu » Sun, Aug 23, 2009, 3:43 AM UTC

It's still nefarious. Websites should not service any hostnames that aren't whitelisted. It's a good way to get linked to and traffic and so on.

Re: Ask HN: Who runs News.YCombinator.net and hackerne.ws?

#7

Post by stse » Sun, Aug 23, 2009, 5:28 AM UTC

Secondary domains should use 301 redirect.