Website held hostage in cyberspace 2

[kundrol]

I found out today that I can't FTP changes to my friend's website that I'm editing for him because the password has apparently been changed by the guy who built the site and who has now disappeared.

What to do? We could build a new website, but the old one would still be there, which would be a conflict. Is there a way to take it down? Or do we just have to wait until the domain name dies for lack of payment?

 

[trollacious]

Have you contacted the web hosting service to see if you can get them to reset the password? If you tell them the company that the domain is registered through they should be willing to send email to the listed email address of the owner with the current password. Then you can reset it to something different, which I highly recommend.

If the guy who has evaporated is the one who is listed as owner, then your friend doesn't really own the domain name anyway, and that's another story.

Lee

 

[kundrol]

Thanks, Lee. Yes, that's the problem. He doesn't own the domain name. He is Russian and doesn't speak English very well and foolishly relied on this guy to do everything. So his website is now just sitting there full of out of date info, etc., and he can't do anything about it. Very frustrating.

 

[tviman]

If he can get to the domain registrar, he can change the Name Server and host it with another hosting company.

There's always a better way. The fun is trying to find it!

 

[trollacious]

If he doesn't own the domain name, then there's not much you can do. A domain name is like car license plates, and if you're name isn't on the registration, it's not yours to do anything with.

Lee

 

[DaRNCaT]

I would suggest you get him a new domain name and host, and when the old domain name expires he can purchase it.

Even if he paid for the domain if his name isn't on it he doesn't own it. (try doing a whois on it to check if it is possible his name is attached to it somewhere)

----------------------------------------
Sometimes, when my code just won't behave, I take it outside and make it listen to britney spears music, and when it comes back it's really well behaved. I wonder if it's suffering from post tramatic stress syndrome now..

 

[kaht]

This is completely off topic, so I apologize to everybody for hijacking the thread.

But this question is directed toward tviman, I was curious about your handle. I work for a rather large and well known company and one of the applications the employees use is called TVI, just curious if you might be one of the developers.

-kaht

...looks like you don't have a job, so why don't you get out there and feed Tina.

 

[kundrol]

Thanks everybody!

Don't know how to go about contacting the domain registrar. Maybe he can find a hosting company that will help him with this? Any suggestions about a reasonably priced one? Mine sucks, so don't want to send him there!

 

[trollacious]

Your web hosting company CAN'T help your friend because, according to what you've written here, he doesn't own the domain. It'd be like you trying to do something with pepsi.com or any other domain that you don't own.

You can download the site legally and use that as a base for a new site, but you won't get anyone to provide the assistance you've asked for because of ownership problems. DaRNCaT gave you good advice in his post.

It'd be like you going to a restaurant with valet parking and asking the parking attendant for a car that you don't have the keys to and the title and registration are in someone else's name.

Lee

 

[kundrol]

OK, but if I copy the pages from the existing site and make it into a new very similar site, won't that be some kind of problem? Because the old site will still be there. If that's not a problem, then OK, I guess that's what we'll do. I'll have to ask him when the domain name expires, because I suspect that when it does, the old site will disappear.

 

[DaRNCaT]

kundrol, got to somewhere like go daddy (

http://www.godaddy.com)

and use there who-is facility on the domain name (this is done by typing in the domain name and asking for the whois information when they say it's already taken.)

This will tell you a few things like
who the registered owner is
when it expires
and who is the contact for the domain name

any of this information could be useful to you.

As for domain expiration dates, if the domain says it will expire in may, then you will not be able to purchase it till august as they tend to have a 90 day holding period where they allow the original purchaser to re-new the domain before anyone else is allowed to buy it.

I don't know about companies overseas, but in NZ I would highly recommend hostme as a hosting company (

http://www.hostme.co.nz)

they are cheap ($10pm nzd- php mysql etc), VERY helpful (even helped me with non hosting problems at one stage), and their uptime is very good.

I wouldn't take the code from the old site unless the person you are helping out has paid for the use of it and is legally entitled to take it and modify it as he sees fit.

Personally I'd start again from scratch and try to re-brand what he is doing, and attract customers back by letting them know about the re-branding etc. Once the domain name expires then he can purchase it and point it to the new site as well.

----------------------------------------
Sometimes, when my code just won't behave, I take it outside and make it listen to britney spears music, and when it comes back it's really well behaved. I wonder if it's suffering from post tramatic stress syndrome now..

 

[kundrol]

Thanks for all the good info, Darncat! I'll check out that go daddy cite right now. And of course you're right about using this guy's code. I was just going to copy images into Photoshop, write new text, and try to format the pages in a similar way. I wouldn't know what to do with his javascript stuff anyhow!

As for webhosting, I think my friend needs a US company. We both live in Berkeley, CA.

 

[BabyJeffy]

You can host your site in any country in the world.... regardless of your physical location. How do you think Pro-Nazi sites are still around? They are hosted in countries where they don't care about such things or where the law is a little less "restrictive" than you are used to (like Russia).

I have sites hosted in Scotland (co-located in the US I believe), New Zealand and in Australia. All you need is a credit card (no you can't use mine).

Cheers,
Jeff

 

[kundrol]

Thanks Jeff. I guess you're right. I haven't really had a chance to research the situation. I was looking at Go Daddy last nite, and they are certainly inexpensive, and local as well. Seems like one drawback to dealing with one that's out of the country would be phone access.

 

[tsdragon]

GoDaddy has one cool, and relatively inexpensive option that I really like. Remember how the people above told you to do a whois to see who owns the domain name? Anyone can do that, and get your name, address, and telephone number. You can't use fake ones to register the domain name, it's against the law. However, godaddy offers a service called "domains by proxy" (

http://www.domainsbyproxy.com)

wherein the domain name is registered thru them, and their info is what shows up on the whois. Any email sent to the domain owner they will forward to you, and any requests for information by law enforcement also go through them. It's a great way to preserve your privacy, and it doesn't add a great deal to the cost of the domain name registration.

Note: I am not affiliated in any way (other than as a satisfied customer) with either godaddy.com or domainsbyproxy.com


Tracy Dryden

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
For you are crunchy, and good with mustard.

 

[tsdragon]

One thing to be careful of with BOTH godaddy and domainsbyproxy: they have a BUG in their web software where you create your account and choose your password. It will truncate your password after (I seem to recall) 11 characters, WITH NO WARNING. Needless to say this creates a HUGE problem when you try to sign back on. Also their program to email you a link to change your password doesn't seem to work right (at least not with my email address, which ends in .net). I never did get the email from godaddy, and only figured out what the problem was due to many years of experience and some intuition (I started dropping characters from the end of my 13-character password until it worked). I emailed them about the problem, but never got a response.

After you create your account you can go in and set the password to something longer than 11 characters and it works. It's just the account creation screen that has a problem.


Tracy Dryden

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
For you are crunchy, and good with mustard.

 

[kundrol]

Thanks for the info, Tracy. I have a relatively short password - 8 characters - so probably not a problem. I hope they don't have any other even more pesky bugs, though. My problem with my current web host (Successful Hosting) is that they are often totally inaccessible - like no response to email, phone or chat. And they charge twice as much as Go Daddy!

 

[tviman]

Kaht...

I wish!!!

There's always a better way. The fun is trying to find it!

 

[tsdragon]

I don't know about their hosting (I work for an ISP, we host our own sites), but that's the only problems I've had with them.


Tracy Dryden

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
For you are crunchy, and good with mustard.

 

[kundrol]

Thanks! Guess I'll give godaddy a call next week and check them out.

Cheers,
Kundrol