Keep Your Domains

October 8th, 2023

I was reading the TCP/IP Protocol Suite textbook, specifically the section about DNS registrars, and the textbook had a link to a list of all currently active registrars:

Section about DNS registrars

The website listed is http://www.intenic.net (visit with discretion). So, out of curiosity, I visited the website to see some stats, hopefully something like nTLD Stats. Unfortunately, that is not what I got. Instead I got a video of somebody saying "south 32 1 cent stock" for 7 minutes. What the hell?

The actual website is https://www.south32.net for the mining company, and the actual website for InterNIC is https://www.internic.net/. South32 is a self-described "globally diversified mining and metals company". That has nothing to do with the TCP/IP model, or anything related to it, so what gives?

Turns out this is a rabbit hole explained by this YouTube video. Looks like my textbook was a victim of domain squatting. I don't think this was typosquatting, because the domain was registered in 1997. Make sure to keep your domains or else this can happen.

Edit (10/10/23):

To provide a solution for keeping your domains, the best way is to park your domain. Domain parking is simply owning a domain, but not hosting anything with the domain. If you really need lower prices, you could try to see if your registrar offers discounted prices for parked domains, or transferring your domain to a different registrar with lower parking prices (if possible).

As a bonus, I discovered the website https://www.haveibeensquatted.com/, being in a similar fashion to https://haveibeenpwned.com/. If you'd like to check on the off chance that somebody may have typosquatted your domain, you can do so through the website. It's a crime!