Hi Jeff, Bill and all The problem as I see it, is that I am not a citizen of the USA. The structures set up by the USA are primarily aimed at protecting USA citizens. I can not fault this. However, what about a victim in the outback of Australia? The scammer is in Africa. The domain was registered via an Asian registrar. The whois details claims UK, but is known to be fake. The loss is about $40,000. I have many more real life examples. They have been reported via the appropriate authorities. Reality is it is not worthwhile launching an international investigation and LEA has limited resources and many reports of similar activity. This is a problem. This victim is doomed to become a statistic. LEA's across the world do not have the resources and many times do not the know how to deal with these criminals. This is hard reality. At the moment I am researching a criminal living in Nigeria that habitually registers spoof domains of UK banks, abuses hosting reseller accounts and populates them with content stolen from real banks, then sells domain and websites to 419 scam gangs. The evidence is easily verifiable. I am even able to supply his true identity. Fact is he has been extremely stupid and his Internet footprint is a mile wide. I have notified the appropriate parties with details, the banks spoofed, LEA in NG as well. Nothing, he merrily continues along. From the UK side, unless the spoofed bank takes action, nothing can be done. However, they are not the targets of the fraud. Alternatively a victim must file a complaint at LEA. However, LEA will most likely not investigate (see above), the victim is sure to loose his money since LEA will not recover the money, another fact of life. While I am sure we have some readers here with "special" contacts that could make something happen, the normal internet users do not. The bulk of the victims among these users will never have justice. Recently Izumu and others were discussing the meaning and merits of silence. In my case, it would either mean indifference, or total disgust. The current enforceable polices regarding online fraud can be likened to car manufacturers designing faulty cars, blaming drivers for for driving them and making it the responsibility of ambulances, paramedics and hospitals to take care of the victims. The problem starts long before fraud is reported. Results are reported to LEA. Why not try a bit of prevention? Regards Derek http://www.aa419.org Jeffrey A. Williams wrote:
Bill and all my friends,
Well Bill, you can always contact the opoc for any registrant that isn't specifically listed. As for reporting spam, use the FTC spam reporting Email address, spam@uce.gov to address your spamming problems. For phishing report you attempted recieved phishing to either or both US-CERT and antiphishing, see:http://www.us-cert.gov/nav/report_phishing.html for instructions and http://www.antiphishing.org/report_phishing.html accordingly.
Any and all ligitimate businesses or individuals should be very concerned regarding their privacy regarding personal information due to stalkers, ID thieves ect... This would include protecting their personal information from even LEA's. See for example:http://www.eff.org/blog and most especially from other businesses with well known online business recognition such as Google or LEA's such as the FBI, in some instances...
Bill Silverstein wrote:
In fact, registrant privacy is not good enough yet and needs strengthening. We also need to remember that all registrants are users as well... It depends on your definition of user. If it is user of ICANN services, then users are the same as registrants.
I am against Whois privacy, except in individual/non-commercial cases. I fight spam and I use whois as an attempt to track down spammers. No legitimate business operates anonymously. In the USA, a DBA is a public record -- If you operate a business, who the business is is public.
Law enforcement tends to be slow to act (unless it is a hot political item). Try getting law enforcement to take a report on an e-bay fraud, bad check, etc. In some places you practically have to put a gun to their head to take a report. If you look at the recent criminal prosecutions for spamming, you have Ralksy/Bradley who had been civilly sued a few times before the Feds got involved. With Robert Soloway, Microsoft and others had gotten judgments against him before the feds got involved.
Regards,
Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 277k members/stakeholders strong!) "Obedience of the law is the greatest freedom" - Abraham Lincoln
"Credit should go with the performance of duty and not with what is very often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt
"If the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B; liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by P: i.e., whether B is less than PL." United States v. Carroll Towing (159 F.2d 169 [2d Cir. 1947] =============================================================== Updated 1/26/04 CSO/DIR. Internet Network Eng. SR. Eng. Network data security IDNS. div. of Information Network Eng. INEG. INC. ABA member in good standing member ID 01257402 E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com My Phone: 214-244-4827
_______________________________________________ ALAC mailing list ALAC@atlarge-lists.icann.org http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/alac_atlarge-lists.icann.org
At-Large Official Site: http://www.alac.icann.org ALAC Independent: http://www.icannalac.org