[registrars] Re: panix.com hijacked

[Bruce Tonkin]

Hello Mark,

> 
> 
> There's a thread on NANOG to the effect that panix.com has 
> been hijacked from Dotster over to MelbourneIT and it has 
> pretty well taken panix.com and its customers offline, see 
> http://www.panix.net/ 

Melbourne IT has restored the DNS nameservers and restored the contact
details.

We are organising with Dotster to have the name transferred back to
Dotster.


> 
> Looks like this may be among the first high-profile 
> unauthorized transfer under the new transfer policy.

We are investigating the chain of events.  The matter is further
complicated by the fact that the transfer seems to have been initiated
by a customer of a reseller of 
Melbourne IT.

> 
> It begs the question, despite the existance of the dispute 
> policy under the new system, what provisions should there be 
> for a situation like this where every hour causes untold 
> damage to the party in question.
> 
> Maybe there needs to some sort of emergency reversion where 
> at least the nameservers can be rolled back immediately while 
> the contesting parties sort it out.
> 

You raise an important issue here.  I think the existing processes (both
through cooperation amongst registrars, as well as dispute resolution
processes) allow tranfers that have been incorrectly initiated to be
reversed, there is still the potential for damage to an organisation
while these processes are initiated.

Regards,
Bruce