Cops seize 36 carder domains

The FBI and UK Serious Organised Crime Agency have seized 36 domain names that were allegedly being used to sell compromised credit card information.
As well as seizing the domains and a number of computers, SOCA said it has arrested two men “suspected of making large scale purchases of compromised data” from the sites.
The sites all used what SOCA calls “automated vending cart” software to process the sale of credit card information. Judging by the video below, some of the operations were fairly professional.
One of the seized domains was cvvplaza.com. SOCA provided the following video which really has to be seen to be believed.

I wonder if the spokesmodel had any idea what she was getting into when she accepted this gig.
While the full list of domains was not released, a SOCA spokesperson said the breakdown by TLD was as follows:

.name – 2
.net – 11
.biz – 4
.us – 5
.com – 11
.org – 3

These are all TLDs whose registries are based in the United States, so I’m guessing the US authorities did the actual seizing.

ANA demands TAS bug probe

Never one to miss the chance for a bit of trouble-making, the Association of National Advertisers has demanded a full independent probe into ICANN’s TLD Application System bug.
Writing to ICANN today, ANA president Bob Liodice has pointed to the TAS outage – now in its 13th day – as an example of why the new gTLD program needs to be scaled back.
“Doesn’t this situation demonstrate the need for a pilot project/test roll-out of the new Top Level Domain process to resolve any such problems before a major roll-out?” he asks.
In a press release, he added:

We are urgently requesting that the Department of Commerce and its National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) exercise their oversight of ICANN and encourage ICANN to engage an independent IT expert to fully investigate this serious and inadequately explained vulnerability.

The ANA has of course been the loudest objector to the program, forming the Coalition For Responsible Internet Domain Oversight last year to lobby against the gTLD expansion.
Liodice’s latest letter puts 10 questions to ICANN, several quite sensible and precisely the kinds of things I plan to ask just as soon as ICANN changes its mind about doing media interviews.
But it also asks for the release of information ICANN has already provided or has said it intends to provide, such as the number of affected TAS users or the date of the first reported incident.
The ANA also does not appear to be aware that the ICANN board new gTLD subcommittee recently passed a resolution calling for more work on the defensive registration problem.
Liodice notes that ICANN has not responded to its demands for a “Do Not Sell” list that would enable brand owners to block others from registering their trademarks in the DNS.
You can read the letter in PDF format here.
ICANN currently plans to provide its next big update on the TAS outage before the end of Friday.

ICANN vows to fight TAS bug “monkey business”

ICANN chief security officer Jeff Moss has pledged to fully disclose what new gTLD application data was leaked to which users via the TLD Application System security bug.
Talking to ICANN media chief Brad White in a video interview, Moss said:

We’re putting everyone on notice: we know what file names and user names were displayed to what people who were logged in and when. We want to do this very publicly because we want to prevent any monkey business. We are able to reconstruct what file names and user names were displayed.

ICANN has been going through its logs and will know “very specifically” what data was visible to which TAS users, he said.
The bug, he confirmed, was related to file deletions:

Under certain circumstances that were hard to replicate users that had previously deleted files could end up seeing file names of users that had uploaded a file… Certain data was being revealed to users that were not seeking data, it was just showing up on their screen.

The actual contents of the files uploaded to TAS were not visible to unauthorized users, he confirmed. There are also no reasons to believe any outside attacks occurred, he said.
He refused to reveal how many applicants were affected by the vulnerability, saying that ICANN has to first double-check its data in order to verify the full extent of the problem.
The interview reveals that the bug could manifest itself in a number of different ways. Moss said:

The problem has several ways it can express itself… we would solve it one way and it would appear another way, we would solve it another way and it would appear a third way. At some point we were just uncomfortable that we understood the core issue and that’s when we took the system offline.

TAS was taken down April 12, just 12 hours before the new gTLD application window closed.
ICANN has been providing daily updates ever since, and has promised to reveal tonight when TAS will reopen for business, for how long, and whether April 30 Big Reveal day has been postponed.
Applicants first reported the bug March 19, but ICANN did not realize the extent of the problem until later, Moss said.

In hindsight now we realized the 19th was the first expression of this problem, but at the time the information displayed made no sense to the applicant, it was just random numbers… at that point there were no dots to connect.

Here’s the video:

US reopens IANA contract re-bid

ICANN’s key contract with the US government is open for proposals again, a month after ICANN was told its first bid wasn’t up to the expected standards.
The US National Telecommunications and Information Administration yesterday posted a revised request for proposals, looking for a new IANA contractor.
The IANA contract is what gives ICANN its operational powers over the domain name system root database.
Based on a quick comparison of the new RFP with the old, there have been few notable, substantial changes, giving little indication of why ICANN’s previous response fell short.
The RFP has a strong emphasis on accountability, transparency, separation of ICANN/IANA powers, conflicts of interest and the “global public interest”, as before.
While many of the requirements have been edited, clarified or shifted around, I haven’t been able to spot any major additions or subtractions.
The RFP now envisages a contract running from October 1, 2012 until September 30, 2015, with two two-year renewal options, bringing the expiry date to September 30, 2019.
The deadline for responses is May 31.
The current contract had been due to expire at the end of March but the NTIA unexpected extended it by six months just before ICANN’s meeting in Costa Rica kicked off last month.
The NTIA said it canceled the first RFP “because we received no proposals that met the requirements” but neither it nor ICANN has yet provided any specifics.
Over a month ago, at an ICANN press conference in Costa Rica, CEO Rod Beckstrom said: “We were invited to have a debriefing with [the NTIA] to learn more about this. Following that discussion we will share any information we are allowed to share.”
Since then, no additional information has been forthcoming.
The new RFP can be read here. For comparison, the old version can be downloaded here.

ICANN reopens defensive registration debate

ICANN’s board of directors wants more policy work done on the problem of defensive domain name registrations.
In a resolution passed at a meeting on Tuesday, the board’s newly created New gTLD Program Committee, made up exclusively of non-conflicted directors, said it:

directs staff to provide a briefing paper on the topic of defensive registrations at the second level and requests the GNSO to consider whether additional work on defensive registrations at the second level should be undertaken

The decision was made following the debate about “defensive” gTLD applications ICANN opened up in February, prompted by a letter from US Department of Commerce assistant secretary Larry Strickling.
That in turn followed the two Congressional hearings in December, lobbied for and won by the Association of National Advertisers and its Coalition for Responsible Internet Domain Oversight.
So this week’s decision is a pretty big win for the intellectual property lobby. It’s managed to keep the issue of stronger second-level trademark protection in new gTLDs alive despite ICANN essentially putting it to bed when it approved the new gTLD program last June.
The GNSO could of course decide that no further work needs to be done, so the champagne corks should probably stay in place for the time being.
At the same meeting on Tuesday, the ICANN board committee voted to disregard the GNSO Council’s recent decision to grand extra protections to the International Olympic Committee, Red Cross and Red Crescent movements. The rationale for this decision has not yet been published.

Facebook gTLD ruled out by ICANN director vote?

While Google recently confirmed its new top-level domain plans, an ICANN director has given a big hint that rival Facebook has not applied for any new gTLDs.
Director Erika Mann, head of EU policy at Facebook in Brussels, voted on ICANN’s “digital archery” method of batching new gTLD applications at the ICANN board meeting March 28.
Because ICANN’s new conflict of interest rules require directors to recuse themselves during votes on matters affecting their own businesses, this could be taken as a pretty strong indication that Facebook is not applying for a new gTLD.
If Mann was aware of a .facebook or other Facebook gTLD bid, I think there’s a pretty strong chance she would have not have participated in the digital archery decision.
At least one director whose employer is believed to have applied for a dot-brand gTLD, IBM’s Thomas Narten, did not attend the March 28 meeting.
Sébastien Bachollet, Steve Crocker, Bertrand de La Chapelle, Ram Mohan, George Sadowsky, Bruce Tonkin, Judith Vazquez, Suzanne Woolf and Kuo-Wei Wu also did not attend.
The March 28 board meeting was the first one with new gTLD program votes that Mann has participated in since the new conflict rules were introduced in December.
The news is obviously a couple of weeks old, but I think it’s worth mentioning now in light of the fact that social networking competitor Google revealed earlier this week that it will apply for some gTLDs.

NAF loses UDRP market share again

If UDRP forum shopping is a real phenomenon, the market share statistics don’t bear it out.
The National Arbitration Forum today announced a sequential decrease in the number of cybersquatting cases it handled in 2011, widening the gap between itself and the World Intellectual Property Organization for at least the second year in a row.
NAF said it handled 2,082 complaints last year, down 4% from 2010. That’s over the same period WIPO saw a 2.5% increase to 2,764 cases.
NAF is occasionally accused of being the more complainant-friendly of the two major UDRP dispute resolution providers, which some say encourages “forum shopping”.
While that may or may not be true in certain fringe cases, it’s certainly not helping NAF win a flood of business. WIPO is still handling more cases, and growing its share while NAF’s shrinks.
As Mike Berkens observed over on The Domains, NAF’s press release attempted a bit of lame spinning, comparing 2011 to 2009 in order to lead with an 18% increase stat.
The release also includes the following quote from director of internet and IP services Kristine Dorrain, which seems to be designed to subtly address the “complainant-friendly” allegations.

Our experience tells us parties, particularly domain name registrants, prefer the National Arbitration Forum because documents are easily accessible in our online portal. Complaint or Response filing is accomplished in just a couple of minutes.

It’s a somewhat irrelevant statement, given that it’s the complainant who gets to choose the venue.
One of NAF’s 2011 highlights was being picked as exclusive provider of Rapid Evaluation Service cases by .xxx manager ICM Registry. It processed 10 RES complaints in 2011.
RES cases, as well as 73 .us cases, were counted in its headline statistics.

ICANN approves “digital archery” gTLD batching

It’s official. ICANN’s board of directors has approved the widely derided “time target variance” procedure for batching new generic top-level domain applications.
It’s now being officially called “digital archery”.
The ICANN board met on Wednesday to vote in favor of the system, which was first outlined by senior VP Kurt Pritz at the Costa Rica meeting earlier this month.

Resolved (2012.03.28.01), the Board confirms the approval of secondary timestamp/digital archery as the mechanism for sorting new gTLD applications into batches, and directs that the operational details of the mechanism be communicated to applicants and the public as necessary and appropriate.

The digital archery system outlined in the resolution is pretty much identical to what Pritz described at ICANN 43.
New gTLD applicants will be asked to select a target time, then log into a special page of the TLD Application System to hit a “Submit” button as close to that time as possible.
The applicants whose clicks are recorded closest to the target time get to be in the first batch. ICANN will rotate through applicants from its five regions to avoid geographic bias.
There’ll also be an opt-out for those applicants for whom time to market is less important.
“The closer to zero the secondary timestamp is the more likely the application will be processed in the earliest batch, assuming the applicant has opted in to the earliest batch,” the resolution reads.
The system still appears to favor applicants skilled in drop-catching and other domainer disciplines.
Judging by screenshots released by ICANN today, there will be no Turing test (such as a CAPTCHA), which suggests that a scripted virtual “click” may be the best way to get a good timestamp.
It’s also not yet clear how ICANN plans to address the problem of network latency, to prevent applicants “renting a room at the Marina Del Rey Marriott” and thereby reducing the number of network hops between themselves and ICANN’s servers.
The resolution’s rationale reads: “Latency concerns are addressed in a fair manner so that applicants are not put at an advantage or disadvantage based on their geographic location”.
The digital archery system was met with borderline disbelief by many ICANN 43 attendees.
ICANN’s board resolution suggests that the system may have also been controversial within the board. It notes:

some members of the community have expressed concerns about whether the digital archery proposal is sensible and fair, and an informal subgroup of the Board has studied the feasibility, benefits, and risks of the proposal as well as alternative batching mechanisms such as auction.

How to get a $180,000 new gTLD refund

ICANN will give new gTLD applicants a $180,000 refund on their application fee if they withdraw before May 2, it has emerged.
This refund is not mentioned in the Applicant Guidebook, in which the maximum refund available is $148,000. Nor could I find any reference to it on the ICANN new gTLDs microsite.
However, in response to an inquiry from DI last night, an ICANN customer service rep said:

Applications withdrawn prior to the posting of the applied-for strings are qualified for a $180000 refund (if such payment has been made and reconciled by ICANN). The USD5000 registration fee is non-refundable.
The posting of the applied-for strings occurs approximately 2 weeks after the end of the application window, which closes on 12 April 2012. Applications withdrawn after the posting of the applied-for strings will receive refunds according to the refund schedule in section 1.5 of the Applicant Guidebook.

At least one other person, new gTLD consultant Michael Palage of Pharos Global, was told substantially the same thing by the new gTLD service center earlier this week.
I believe ICANN is currently targeting May 2 for its Big Reveal, when we all find out who’s applying for what. May 1, I believe, has been ruled out because it’s a public holiday in some parts of the world.
I don’t think this apparently obscure refund opportunity significantly increases the risk of gaming, but I can see how it might alter some applicants’ strategies.
It’s possible, for example, that in some cases it might now make more sense for an applicant to announce its bid between April 12 and May 2.
After April 12, nobody will be able to file a competing, gaming application, but revealing a strong bid might be enough to scare already-competing applicants into dropping out for a 97% refund.
I don’t think it really helps reluctant dot-brand applicants, which have asked for the $180,000 refund to be available after they know what the competitive landscape for similar strings looks like.

ICANN asked to protect the names of body parts

There’s been no shortage of special pleading in relation to ICANN’s new generic top-level domains program, but this has to be the wackiest yet.
The National Health Council, an American advocacy group, has written to ICANN to ask for extra brand protection for the names of body parts, disabiliies and diseases.
Seriously.
NHC president Myrl Weinberg wrote:

Because it is not possible to trademark a body part (e.g., lung, liver) or a disease category (e.g., arthritis, diabetes), it is difficult for the patient advocacy community to protect the use of such words.
…
We strongly urge ICANN to set forth a process that investigates the potential for misunderstanding, confusion, and harm when awarding gTLDs utilizing the name of a body part or disease/disability.

The letter was inexplicably sent to ICANN’s public comment period on the Universal Acceptance of TLDs. Needless to say it’s completely off-topic, not to mention extremely late.
What seems to have happened is that the NHC’s members received a briefing recently from an ICANN staffer as part of its outreach program and what they learned gave them the willies^TM.