The various interesting personalities on the lists have made me
suspicious over the years, and the apparent interplay from the two Jeff's
(I filter them both, so I only see this indirectly) got me
wondering, and about two weeks ago I did a little investigating.
On Aug 15 I sent a message to several friends, under the subject:
"fun with conspiracy theories", describing what I found. This has
been a game for some time, as you will see.
"Jeff Mason" had referred to various items at http://www.pccf.net.
But at the top level, http://www.pccf.net, the only thing that showed
at the time (two weeks ago) was a single, non-html text line that
said:
WIP = PCCF.NET = [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Very strange. I expected to be fixed quickly, so I sent email to
about 50 people so they could verify it before it disappeared. Sure
enough, the single text line has now been replaced with a "test
pattern".
Whois on pccf.net shows
Planet Communications Computing Facility (PCCF3-DOM)
498 Gladstone Ave.#1
Ottawa, ON K1R5N8
CANADA
...
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Hostmaster (HO3226-ORG) [EMAIL PROTECTED]
0-000-000-0000
Fax- 0-000-000-0000
Billing Contact:
Fanego, Francis (FF1156) [EMAIL PROTECTED]
613-230-1466 (FAX) 613-230-5352
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.VRX.NET 199.166.24.1 204.138.71.254
NS1.DIEBOLD.NET 205.189.73.10
vrx.net -- Richard Sexton (who needs no introduction)
diebold.net <--> diebold.com -- Gene Marsh (the head of the
prospective "prospective gTLDs constituency", the one that NSI
designated Richard Sexton to represent in the NC meetings.)
Whois on Francis Fanego shows:
$ whois FF1156
Fanego, Francis (FF1156) [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Rose FX
498 Gladstone Ave.#1
Ottawa, On K1R5N8
CA
Exactly the same address as "Planet Communications Computing Facility"
"Jeff Mason's" email provider is earth-net.net. earth-net.net,
however, appears to be yet another enterprise linked to richard
sexton. Note that altavista.net is a free email hosting service, and
note the phone numbers. The DNS servers, of course, are Richard
Sexton's:
$ whois earth-net.net
[rs.internic.net]
Registrant:
Earth-Nexus Internet Services (EARTH-NET5-DOM)
550 South First Street
San Jose, CA 95113
US
Domain Name: EARTH-NET.NET
Administrative Contact:
Network Information Officer (NI76-ORG) [EMAIL PROTECTED]
0-000-000-0000
Fax- 0-000-000-0000
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Hunt, John (HJ818-ORG) [EMAIL PROTECTED]
0-000-000-0000
Fax- 0-000-000-0000
Billing Contact:
Hunt, John (JH23622) [EMAIL PROTECTED]
0-000-000-0000 (FAX) 0-000-000-0000
Record last updated on 21-Apr-99.
Record created on 25-Apr-98.
Database last updated on 14-Aug-99 04:04:43 EDT.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.VRX.NET 199.166.24.1 204.138.71.254
NS3.VRX.NET 199.166.24.3
It's quite odd that a company that makes the claims it does on their
web site (www.earth-net.net) does not manage their own DNS.
Interestingly enough, "John Hunt" sent a query to the
poc-submit list about a year ago, asking some rather strange
questions and providing verifiably bogus identification information.
Here's a message from Bob Shaw replying to "John Hunt":
> From: Robert Shaw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 09:33:35 +0200
> To: John Hunt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> Subject: Re: IAHC TLD's
>
> John Hunt wrote:
> >
> > Hello:
> >
> > We are conducting research into existing and claimed TLD's for the
> > IFWP/IANA-2.
>
> Neither the IFWP nor IANA-2 are doing such research or requested such
> research.
>
> Robert
This exchange continued, with "Hunt" claiming to be working for the
IFWP, and the POC/PABers getting more and more suspicious, down to
the point where "Hunt" said "I type, therefore I am", and stopped
responding.
Here's whois on "Hunt":
$ whois JH23622
[rs.internic.net]
Hunt, John (JH23622) [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Earth Network Information Center
273 Charlotte Street
Peterborough, ON K9J 2V2
CA
0-000-000-0000 (FAX) 0-000-000-0000
Record last updated on 21-Apr-99.
Database last updated on 14-Aug-99 04:04:43 EDT.
Interestingly enough, iciiu.org was also using nameservers from vrx
at one point, though that has changed, and the only reference I have
is one of Bob Shaws notes, again:
> From: Robert Shaw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1998 13:10:29 +0200
> To: Kent Crispin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> CC: POC <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: More subterfuge...
>
> Kent,
>
> Do a whois on iciiu.org - remember this character,
> Michael Sondow? Sexton again...
One has to wonder who pays for all this?
--
Kent Crispin "Do good, and you'll be
[EMAIL PROTECTED] lonesome." -- Mark Twain
