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Internic takes Alternic to court

  • From: Cameo Wood
  • Date: Wed Jul 23 10:12:39 1997

     After  nearly a two-week  spree, the hijack of the  InterNIC  Web site
     ended when a lawyer  representing  Network Solutions Inc.  delivered a
     civil action lawsuit  against Eugene  Kashpureff,  who is scheduled to
     appear in court today at 9 a.m.  EDT.

     Kashpureff,   operator  of  the  renegade  top-level  domain  registry
     AlterNIC,  fooled  most of the Net's  nameservers  into  changing  the
     identity of the www.netsol.com and  www.internic.net  machines to that
     of his own.  Due to the  distributed  nature of the  network,  DNS may
     still resolve to AlterNIC  through some  nameservers - even though for
     Kashpureff, the gig is up.

     "I turned it off at 12 p.m.  yesterday  when that  lawyer  called me,"
     Kashpureff  said Tuesday, not sounding as chipper as he did in earlier
     times.  Network  Solutions  Inc.  filed suit in US  District  Court in
     Alexandria, Virginia, seeking to shut down Kashpureff.

     Kashpureff denies most of the allegations and accusations.  "I haven't
     had time to get ready [for the  hearing],  due to the  nature  and the
     speed of it," he said.  "We do not intend to redirect the domain names
     of the InterNIC or of Network  Solutions  any longer and will  promise
     the court not to do that, and hence they don't have any reason to take
     any immediate action against me."

     Network Solutions, which is still in its pre-IPO quiet period, refused
     to  confirm  or deny  anything:  "We  still  have no  comment  on that
     situation,"  a  spokesperson  said.  But  apparently,  it is swift and
     vehement action that Network Solutions has called for.

     "The part I really  want you to know,  and the part that I want you to
     care about," Kashpureff explains, is the contents of the 42-page civil
     action itself - which calls for a complete seizure of all his computer
     equipment, including any data on magnetic storage.

     "They're turning me into a child  pornographer,"  he said.  "Read just
     how bad they're  trying to rape me and the public - there's  some very
     inflammatory  statements  about .com, .net, and .org in this  document
     itself."

     While most network operators do not support Kashpureff's  actions, his
     protest  of the  InterNIC  monopoly  strikes  a common  chord in many,
     including Aaron Abelard, who cites Network Solutions' unwillingness to
     work toward a compromise in allowing more top-level domains.

     Karl  Denninger,   president  of  MCS  Inc.,  which  also  <  provides
     alternative top-level domains, agrees.  But he certainly doesn't agree
     with Kashpureff's tactics.  "I do not support this kind of terrorism,"
     he said.  "This won't make me very  popular  with  anyone  over at the
     AlterNIC camp, but I hope he does go to jail."