On August 19, 2015 hackers released a huge amount of data from the breach at AshleyMadison.com and the race was on.
Several websites were set up to allow users to “search” the data, allowing users to see if a specific email address was included in the release.
One of those websites, according to TheHill.com is CheckAshleyMadison.com. That domain name was registered, well, yesterday on August 19, 2015 at eNom under privacy protection according to whois records.
Well, it was also TAKEN DOWN today via the DCMA
For those that are not familiar with the DCMA it stands for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and you can read more about that law here.
Stated in TheHill.com articles is:
A Chicago software developer replied to the email, telling The Hill he and a partner bought the domain Tuesday night after finding out about the dump. The developer said he runs an automation consulting company that works with financial services firms.
The site had piled up more than 24,000 unique users and 33,000 total visits by early afternoon Wednesday.
24K unique visitors on 33K visit by early afternoon!
BTW, it doesn’t appear they bought the domain Tuesday night based on my data source or maybe it simply was a long night and felt like it was still “Tuesday”.
I am not certain to when the actual website was launched but I do know the domain name was registered at 04:02:34 AM on Wednesday morning of the 19th!
To note: some whois sources are showing an “update” date earlier than the “creation” date. Not sure how that could be but some are:
Updated Date: 2015-08-18T21:02:34.00Z Creation Date: 2015-08-19T04:02:00.00Z Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2016-08-19T04:02:00.00Z
Anyway…
Wired.com also ran a story yesterday, highlighting 3 other services that have popped up offering a search feature to search the released database of 30+ million email addresses.
That story didn’t even mention the above CheckAshleyMadison.com!
The 3 mentioned were:
- Trustify.info/check
Ashley.cynic.al
Ashleymadisonleaked.com (registered on July 24, 2015)
AshleyMadisonLeaked.com was not resolving at the time of this story, so another potential DCMA?
According to Verisign, the registry for .com and .net domain names. 88 .com domains containing “ashleymadison” and 3 .net domain names were registered between August 18, 2015 and August 19, 2015.
To note, the term Ashley Madison is a trademarked term by Avid Dating Life, Inc. and using the term in a domain name can create legal issues for the registrants!
Speaking of the trademark for Ashley Madison, look at what class of service it got its international trademark based on:
“Personal and social services rendered by others to meet the needs of individuals; security services for the protection of property and individuals. – Personal and social services rendered by others to meet the needs of individuals; security services for the protection of property and individuals.””
Amazing.
