CyanogenMod Domain Hijacked 143
An anonymous reader writes "The team behind CyanogenMod, one of the most popular community-driven, Android-based operating systems for phones and tablets, has announced that they're moving to Cyanogenmod.org after their .com domain was held ransom by a community member. He had been in control of the .com domain name for some time, but the team found out he was impersonating Cyanogen to make deals with community sites. When they removed his access to other parts of the CM infrastructure, he demanded $10,000 to relinquish control of the domain and threatened to change the DNS entries. When they refused to pay, he went through with it. The team is now disputing control of the domain with ICANN. They said, 'We will continue to be open about the what, when, how, but unfortunately, we may never know the "why" – though greed comes to mind. The team itself has not made a profit off of CM and that is not our goal. But to have one of our own betray the community like this is beyond our comprehension.'"
Re:Surprised it was available (Score:4, Informative)
Whoa... Whoops, turns out I was wrong. https://plus.google.com/u/0/103583939320326217147/posts/A8mtUUpdEH8 [google.com]
This would seem to be the guy (Score:5, Informative)
This is the first whois data from that domain 3 years ago:
Administrative Contact:
Deveci, Ahmet webmaster@metserve.com
Third Floor
152-156 Lower Clapton Road
Clapton, London E5 0QJ
GB
+442081232629
Re:Name and shame again and again. (Score:5, Informative)
The name is Ahmet Deveci. https://plus.google.com/u/0/103583939320326217147/posts/A8mtUUpdEH8 [google.com]
Re:Already Fixed? (Score:4, Informative)
“Hi, so you think by removing all my access across the infrastructure was going to be a great idea? We had a chat yesterday, you’ve decided to end this bitter. How about I just change the DNS entries right now. CM will practically go down.”
Refusing to be extorted for funds, and then being threatened is “ending it bitter”? Today, it happened: all of our records were deleted, and cyanogenmod.com is slowly expiring out of the Internet and being replaced by blank pages and non-existing sites.
(emphasis mine)
Not fixed, just hasn't been broken yet for a steadily decreasing number of people.
Re:This would seem to be the guy (Score:5, Informative)
His Twitter, with relevant comments:
https://twitter.com/MrADeveci
Registrant info (Score:4, Informative)
And this is why you make sure of who's listed as the registrant. Not just the administrative contact, the registrant is the one who owns the domain. You can set the billing, technical and administrative contacts to whoever needs to run things day-to-day, but make sure the registrant contact information's set for the organization, not one single person within it. That way when someone goes rogue you don't need to involve ICANN, you can just contact the registrar as the registrant and get control back. It's still hassle, but much less hassle than a dispute proceeding.
Re:Wait. Oh my god. (Score:4, Informative)
Just wait 'till you find out what Cyanogen actually is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanogen [wikipedia.org] :)
Re:Nice guy! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Name and shame again and again. (Score:2, Informative)
Ahmet's page is here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/116028512018932696380
He works for MetServe Enterprises http://www.metserve.com/ whose site is currently down - strangely :)
Which makes this post ironic: https://plus.google.com/u/0/117025707475158348263/posts/W68Z3GyCmce
This all looks to now be resolved (Score:5, Informative)
This all looks to now be resolved - http://www.cyanogenmod.org/blog/domain-situation-has-been-resolved [cyanogenmod.org]
From the cyanogenmod blog -
(ciwrl wrote this, I’m just posting on his behalf so this is resolved)
So earlier today we put up a post on what prompted us to transition to our new CyanogenMod.org domain. We refrained from identifying the ex-member out of respect for his privacy and career outside of CM. Suffice it to say you guys aren’t slouches, and figured it out on your own.
With that said, the ex-member in question contacted us and has agreed to hand over control of the CyanogenMod.com domain. This was done as amicably as these things can be, and CM did not pay the fee he requested.
We will still be using CyanogenMod.org as our primary domain, and the .com address will simply redirect to this new domain. Ironically enough, ‘.org’ is better than ‘.com’ as we are not a commercial entity, and is far more in line with how CyanogenMod is structured.
We received a common question, that we’d like to take a moment to answer. Some of you contacted us mentioning that you had previously donated to a different address. When the forum began, up until about 3 months ago, the forum utilized this other address as the mechanism for forum donations and establishment of the ‘Donator’ badge. Donations made to this address prior to three months ago were used for the CyanogenMod forum IPB licence and forum related costs and were not misappropriated.
On a side note, we have also gone through internal restructuring to make sure that this sort of thing doesn’t happen again. Nobody has control over everything, and there is no longer such a large single-point of failure. Our lessons have been learned.
We ask that you please not perform any vigilante actions, we do not condone any such thing; just let this fade.
We want to move on, get you the builds you expect from us, and not mess around with distractions.
Re:Already Fixed? (Score:5, Informative)
Confirmed: http://www.cyanogenmod.org/blog/domain-situation-has-been-resolved [cyanogenmod.org]
Re:Name and shame again and again. (Score:5, Informative)
He claims that he has transferred it back to CM:
"Ahmet Deveci8:22 PM - Public
For the record, regarding: cyanogenmod.com
Following the saga from : http://www.cyanogenmod.org/blog/psa-transition-to-cyanogenmod-org [cyanogenmod.org] it would appear that I have been labelled a 'thief' an 'extortionist' a 'liar' and a bunch of other somewhat degrading comments.
The domain name has since been transferred to the CM Team, but I wanted to make a few things clear.
I purchased the CyanogenMod.com domain name 3 years ago and have been responsible for the renewal fees ever since. This means I (my company) legally owned the domain name. It was fully registered in the United Kingdom. I hear people saying about âtrademarkâ(TM). Yes, CyanogenMod is now a registered trademark in the US. But the domain was registered in the UK well before that trademark. I donâ(TM)t want to get into any legal battles here, but US trademarkâ(TM)s are not valid in the UK unless they are registered here with the IPO.
The term 'hi-jacked' is just wrong, the domain name was always in my control. I didn't hijack anything. I initiated a transfer out process with my registrar today who restored the DNS entries to their own. This in turn deleted all MX entries and other records. The term 'hi-jacked' has just derived from tech blogs creating stories for link bait.
The term 'extortion' is also wrong. If I was out for the money, why an earth would I have transferred the domain to the CM Team for free?"
https://plus.google.com/116028512018932696380/posts [google.com]
Re:Name and shame again and again. (Score:4, Informative)