Websites on Yahoo (don't do it)
Monday, 21 June 2004 01:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spqrbluesHere's a new bit of fun.
I've been attempting to pay for an domain name my ex-housemate and I still have, for some reason, on Yahoo Website Services. I'd forogtten the domain name was there until there was a glitch in the monthly payment. I figured I'd bring the account payments up to date, then move the domain name to another server.
Yahoo's system has made it quite literally impossible for me to pay the account maintenance (I did try speaking to various manager types). However--and, in my disbelief, I made customer service confirm this several times--anyone at all can, without verifying who they are, remove a domain name from the Yahoo server and delete all its files. With a little more trouble, you could transfer someone else's domain name access to your Yahoo ID. In other words, I have to verify who I am through an arcane and impenetrable process in order to keep the account in status quo; but I could be any yahoo off the street, and destroy or hijack an entire website.
This wouldn't transfer actual ownership of the domain name with the registrar, but it does blithely give control of the actual files and access to them over to any hacker with a hankering for fun.
So as not to encourage any waves of net-destruction, I won't explain the really quite simple process to do this, but I do suggest you spread the word to anyone with a domain name hosted on Yahoo to switch to another service at once.
I've been attempting to pay for an domain name my ex-housemate and I still have, for some reason, on Yahoo Website Services. I'd forogtten the domain name was there until there was a glitch in the monthly payment. I figured I'd bring the account payments up to date, then move the domain name to another server.
Yahoo's system has made it quite literally impossible for me to pay the account maintenance (I did try speaking to various manager types). However--and, in my disbelief, I made customer service confirm this several times--anyone at all can, without verifying who they are, remove a domain name from the Yahoo server and delete all its files. With a little more trouble, you could transfer someone else's domain name access to your Yahoo ID. In other words, I have to verify who I am through an arcane and impenetrable process in order to keep the account in status quo; but I could be any yahoo off the street, and destroy or hijack an entire website.
This wouldn't transfer actual ownership of the domain name with the registrar, but it does blithely give control of the actual files and access to them over to any hacker with a hankering for fun.
So as not to encourage any waves of net-destruction, I won't explain the really quite simple process to do this, but I do suggest you spread the word to anyone with a domain name hosted on Yahoo to switch to another service at once.
