I know I'm not the sharpest knife in the technology drawer, but, can someone explain this.....?

[Catchawave]

I discovered today that if you type in
www.joebiden08.com, your browser will be redirected to
the official Barack Obama website.

How about biden08.com? Redirects to
www.BarackObama.com.

How about JoeBiden2008.com? Redirects to
www.BarackObama.com.

The DU homepage link works fine:

http://www.joebiden.com/

[Ezlivin]

1. Someone in the Obama camp bought and redirected these URLs

You can do the same. Buy something like "BushIsTheBest.com" and have it redirect to "BushSucks.com".

[David Dunham]

2. Dirty tricks by an obama fan

[w4rma]

3. The registrant on all three domans are: Fallon O'Brien. They are all for sale.

joebiden08.com
Registrant:
Fallon OBrien
2832 North Salsibury
DOMAIN FOR SALE
West Lafayette, Indiana 47906
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: JOEBIDEN2008.COM
Created on: 18-Jul-04
Expires on: 18-Jul-07
Last Updated on:

Administrative Contact:
OBrien, Fallon [email protected]
2832 North Salsibury
DOMAIN FOR SALE
West Lafayette, Indiana 47906
United States
7654637902 Fax --

Technical Contact:
OBrien, Fallon [email protected]
2832 North Salsibury
DOMAIN FOR SALE
West Lafayette, Indiana 47906
United States
7654637902 Fax --

Domain servers in listed order:
PARK31.SECURESERVER.NET
PARK32.SECURESERVER.NET

biden08.com
Registrant:
Fallon OBrien
2832 North Salsibury
DOMAIN FOR SALE
West Lafayette, Indiana 47906
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: BIDEN08.COM
Created on: 18-Jul-04
Expires on: 18-Jul-07
Last Updated on:

Administrative Contact:
OBrien, Fallon [email protected]
2832 North Salsibury
DOMAIN FOR SALE
West Lafayette, Indiana 47906
United States
7654637902 Fax --

Technical Contact:
OBrien, Fallon [email protected]
2832 North Salsibury
DOMAIN FOR SALE
West Lafayette, Indiana 47906
United States
7654637902 Fax --

Domain servers in listed order:
PARK31.SECURESERVER.NET
PARK32.SECURESERVER.NET

joebiden2008.com
Registrant:
Fallon OBrien
2832 North Salsibury
DOMAIN FOR SALE
West Lafayette, Indiana 47906
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: JOEBIDEN2008.COM
Created on: 18-Jul-04
Expires on: 18-Jul-07
Last Updated on:

Administrative Contact:
OBrien, Fallon [email protected]
2832 North Salsibury
DOMAIN FOR SALE
West Lafayette, Indiana 47906
United States
7654637902 Fax --

Technical Contact:
OBrien, Fallon [email protected]
2832 North Salsibury
DOMAIN FOR SALE
West Lafayette, Indiana 47906
United States
7654637902 Fax --

Domain servers in listed order:
PARK31.SECURESERVER.NET
PARK32.SECURESERVER.NET

[Duer 157099]

4. It's simply that someone purchased those domain names

and then set them up to redirect to Obama's site -- it's easy to do.

Now, whether it's an actual Obama supporter, or someone who just wants to make trouble, that's another question.

[Richard D]

6. someone who wants the Biden campaign

to give him a lot of money for the sites.

[TahitiNut]

5. It looks like the domain 'biden08.com' is riegistered thru GoDaddy

... and parked/redirected by the server at 64.202.189.170

05/05/07 15:52:43 Browsing http://joebiden08.com/
Fetching http://joebiden08.com/ ...
GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: joebiden08.com
Connection: close
User-Agent: Sam Spade 1.14
HTTP/1.1 302 Moved Temporarily
Content-Length: 0
Location: /?f674b120

05/05/07 15:52:11 dig joebiden08.com @ 4.2.2.1
Dig [email protected] (64.202.165.123) ...
Authoritative Answer
Query for joebiden08.com type=255 class=1
joebiden08.com SOA (Zone of Authority)
Primary NS: park31.secureserver.net
Responsible person: [email protected]
serial:2007022600
refresh:28800s (8 hours)
retry:7200s (2 hours)
expire:604800s (7 days)
minimum-ttl:86400s (24 hours)
joebiden08.com A (Address) 64.202.189.170
joebiden08.com NS (Nameserver) park31.secureserver.net
joebiden08.com NS (Nameserver) park32.secureserver.net
joebiden08.com MX (Mail Exchanger) Priority: 0 smtp.secureserver.net
joebiden08.com MX (Mail Exchanger) Priority: 10 mailstore1.secureserver.net
Dig [email protected] (208.109.80.74) ...
Authoritative Answer
Query for joebiden08.com type=255 class=1
joebiden08.com SOA (Zone of Authority)
Primary NS: park31.secureserver.net
Responsible person: [email protected]
serial:2007022600
refresh:28800s (8 hours)
retry:7200s (2 hours)
expire:604800s (7 days)
minimum-ttl:86400s (24 hours)
joebiden08.com MX (Mail Exchanger) Priority: 0 smtp.secureserver.net
joebiden08.com A (Address) 64.202.189.170
joebiden08.com NS (Nameserver) park31.secureserver.net
joebiden08.com NS (Nameserver) park32.secureserver.net
joebiden08.com MX (Mail Exchanger) Priority: 10 mailstore1.secureserver.net
Dig [email protected] ...
Non-authoritative answer
Recursive queries supported by this server
Query for joebiden08.com type=255 class=1
joebiden08.com A (Address) 64.202.189.170
joebiden08.com MX (Mail Exchanger) Priority: 10 mailstore1.secureserver.net
joebiden08.com MX (Mail Exchanger) Priority: 0 smtp.secureserver.net
joebiden08.com SOA (Zone of Authority)
Primary NS: park31.secureserver.net
Responsible person: [email protected]
serial:2007022600
refresh:28800s (8 hours)
retry:7200s (2 hours)
expire:604800s (7 days)
minimum-ttl:86400s (24 hours)
joebiden08.com NS (Nameserver) park31.secureserver.net
joebiden08.com NS (Nameserver) park32.secureserver.net

[Catchawave]

7. DKos diary up on this topic....

..whew..I know I'm not insane:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/5/143316/3323

[hedgehog]

8. For all we know, this was done by a third party out to hit both Biden and Obama!

For what it's worth, In the last two weeks two different sites visit often had their domain names temporarily snatched away by some kind of computer shark. Apparently, if you miss a payment, you're liable to lose your domain. I've also seen more google searches end up at web sites having nothing to do with the inquiry. Again, I don't know the details, but it sure looks like someone is paying for the privilege to have traffic directed to their site.

[Annces]

10. And considering how Biden made a faux pas regarding Obama

someone had a special interest in connecting them.

[BruceMcF]

11. That makes even more sense ...

... if this fellow that created the three domain names at the same time got sidetracked, they would likely all three be free to be re-aquired, and an Obama supporter with a perceived grudge against Biden based on the sloppy way he expressed himself could easily be doing a search on various Biden-related site names and get the kind of "do you want to buy this domain name? These are also for sale: ...." pitch that comes up when payment is not made to retain control of a domain name.

[Catchawave]

9. Thanks guys!

I'll crosspost this to the Kos diary :hi:

[drm604]

12. Other people have explained this

but I should add that I believe that this kind of cybersquatting may be illegal. I'm not positive about that but I thought I should mention it in case anyone on DU gets the clever idea to do this themselves.