Structured Thought . ORG

Now that you have all the prerequisites together from the previous article, it’s time to set up the target instance that will be used for the rest of these articles.

Starting the base AMI

For managing our server instances, EBS volumes, and Elastic IPs, we will be using the Amazon AWS Management console, which provides a nice web-based front-end to all of the necessary functions.

The default EC2 Console View

The first step is to choose the AMIs menu item on the left of the console window. An AMI is a base image that can be booted into an EC2 instance. Think of it as a backup of a running system that can be restored to another system in the event of a failure. This link will bring up a selection list of available AMIs, which will be used to create our default instance.

The initial list of available AMIs you are shown covers all public AMI images. Any one of these can be booted into an instance. We are going to filter this list so we see only the types of images we want. To do so, click the dropdown arrow next to the ‘All Platforms’ item, and choose ‘Ubuntu’. This will filter the list for only Ubuntu-based AMIs. Then, in the filter box, type ‘intrepid’. This will further filter the list so that we only see the most recent fully-released version of Ubuntu, titled ‘Intrepid Ibex’. Check the box next to the AMI with the ID ‘ami-255bbc4c’.

Choosing the Proper AMI

To start an instance based off of this AMI, check the box and click the ‘Launch’ button at the top of the display window.

NOTE: Using Amazon EC2 is NOT FREE. When you launch an instance, you will start the clock, which will run at $.40/hour in the US (other zones vary) in the case of this configuration. While not initially expensive, if you forget to stop an instance, the cost can add up quickly.

When you launch the instance based off of the chosen AMI, you will be presented with a menu. Since we’re launching an x86_64 instance, your choice is a ‘Large’ or ‘Extra Large’ configuration. In rough terms, the ‘Extra Large’ instance is twice as powerful as the ‘Large’ instance. It also carries twice the cost, so beware. If you feel you’ll be able to utilize the additional horsepower and memory, feel free to use the ‘Extra Large’ instance, as it does not affect the configuration steps.

You will also be asked to choose or create a keypair, which will allow you to do the initial connections via SSH. In the example configuration, we will not be using (and will actually be removing the requirement) a keypair, but we need it initially to access the instance after it has been started. Once you create a keypair, you need to download your personal certificate, which will allow you to access your running instance. If you lose this file, there is no way to retrieve it, and you will need to create a new pair.

You also have the option of creating and using Security Groups, which allow you to segment your EC2 virtual network for security and operational customization. For the purpose of this tutorial, we are only using one server, and therefore do not have a need for custom Security Groups.

Choose the number and type of instances

After launching your instance, you will be presented with your Instance status window. The rotating icon on the left indicates that the status window will update automatically. If you change to a different view, and then come back to the instance status window, that icon will switch to a checkbox, and the status will not update automatically. At this point, you can update manually by clicking the ‘refresh’ button in the upper right of the instances window.

When your instance is started, you will see a status of ‘Running’, and an entry in the ‘Public DNS’ field.

Customizing the instance – Pass 1

To access your newly started instance, use your favorite SSH program (I personally use Putty). You will need to utilize your downloaded key file. Upon login, use the id ‘ubuntu’. You will not be prompted for a password, as the key file acts as the pass.

The first thing we’re going to do is remove the passkey portion from the SSH configuration. Since we’re going to be configuring this server for multiple client use, we want them to use passwords. To change this, edit the file /etc/ssh/sshd_config file using the command ’sudo vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config’. This will open the file in the vi editor with root authority, allowing you to make changes. To enable password authentication, change the line that reads ‘PasswordAuthentication no’ to ‘PasswordAuthentication yes’.

Before restarting the ssh daemon, which implements the change, we want to set a password for the Ubuntu user so we don’t lose our ability to connect. To do so, use the command ’sudo passwd ubuntu’. This will allow you to set a new password for the ‘ubuntu’ user.

Once the password is changed, restart the sshd daemon using the following command ’sudo /etc/init.d/ssh restart’. Before closing the existing connection, be sure to connect via a new session, using your new password for the ‘ubuntu’ user. Once you are confident you can connect reliably, feel free to close the initial window that used the keypair for authentication.

The next thing we want to do is update the system to the latest patch levels. Since the AMI was built when Intrepid Ibex was released, we want to make sure any existing security issues have been repaired. To check for new updates, use the command ’sudo apt-get update’. When the command completes (should only take a few seconds at the most), use the command ’sudo apt-get upgrade’, which will start the upgrade process. The system will check against the updated package list, and build a list of packages to be updated. When it is ready, it will ask you if you wish to update. Type ‘Y’ to confirm.

NOTE: EC2 instances are not static. If you shut down your running instance without following the next steps to save your configuration, you will need to go through the beginning of this article again.

Finally, to prep the system for the LVM (Logical Volume Management) setup we’ll be using for user data, LVM packages must be installed. To install LVM, simply execute the command ’sudo apt-get install lvm2′

Archiving the instance – Pass 1

Once the updates are complete, it is time to do the first ‘backup’ of the running instance into a usable AMI in your personal S3 storage location.

If you do not already have one, you will need to create an x.509 certificate keypair, which will allow you to upload your image to S3 and keep it for storage.

EC2 creates what is referred to as an ‘ephemeral’ storage location which allows you to store temporary data, which is ideal for creating our AMI. The storage is mounted by default at /mnt. We will be using this storage as our default location for the next several steps. To access it, simply type ‘cd /mnt’.

Next, we want to create an image of the running instance in an archive format that is understood by EC2 and can be registered as an AMI that can further be launched as a new instance.

To enable the bundling of an image and registering as an AMI, we need to make sure the appropriate x.509 keypair exists on the system. Upload the two files you should have downloaded when you created your certificate to the /mnt folder on the instance. If you bundle the image with incorrect keypair information, you will be unable to unbundle and register an AMI.

The default location for bundling is in the /tmp directory, which unfortunately exists under / in the default EC2 configuration. This is not a big problem, necessarily, but it necessitates us choosing a different default location as more information is added to the running system. Since the ephemeral storage mounted in /mnt is about 400GB, that’s plenty of space for our needs. To keep things separated during the bundling process, create a folder called ‘bundle’ under the /mnt directory using the command ’sudo mkdir /mnt/bundle’.

To bundle the running image for upload to S3, you will issue the command ’sudo ec2-bundle-vol -k /mnt/pk-<your private key string>.pem -c /mnt/cert-<your cert string>.pem -d /mnt/bundle -s 1000 -u <your account number>’. The account number is your Amazon AWS account number without the dashes. When you hit enter, confirm that you are creating an x86_64 instance, and the program will chug along, creating an image of instance, and placing the files in /mnt/bundle.

With this nice powerful instance, the bundling process takes about two minutes. When it completes, you will see a list of image.part.x files in the /mnt/bundle folder, along with a file called ‘image.manifest.xml’. This is the file you will use for uploading your image to S3 for storage.

To upload the files to an S3 bucket, issue the command ’sudo ec2-upload-bundle -b my-bucket -m image.manifest -a my-aws-access-key-id -s my-secret-key-id’ from the /mnt/bundle folder. The bucket must be an existing bucket within your S3 store. The access key and secret key for your S3 account can be found on your AWS account page.

When complete, you should be able to see the image.part files and your image.manifest.xml in your previously-mentioned S3 bucket.

To register your newly bundled AMI, return to your AWS EC2 console, and click the AMIs entry again in the left. At the top of the AMI display window, you will see a button labeled ‘Register New AMI’. The popup starts the URL for your manifest file. All you need to do is fill in the name of the bucket and the filename. The resulting URL should look like ‘http://s3.amazonaws.com:80/my-bucket/image.manifest.xml’. The registration process should be almost instantaneous. If you receive any errors, go back over the previous steps and make sure your keypairs and other identifying information match appropriately.

Before shutting down the previous instance, we need to boot the new instance and make sure that our configuration and updates have been carried over. In the AMI window of your console, you should already be set to view ‘Owned By Me’, which should show you your new AMI. If not, click the dropdown and select ‘Owned By Me’.

Testing the new custom instance

Launch the AMI into a new instance using no keypair and wait until you see a public DNS entry in your console window.

If you can access your new instance appropriately (using ‘ubuntu’ and the password you created), and you see that the instance has it’s updates (’sudo apt-get update’ shows no available updates), you can safely shut down both instances by checking their boxes and selecting the ‘Terminate Instance’ option in the instance display window.

Next time, we’ll look at configuring EBS volumes and Elastic IPs.

TinyChat is a great little tool that allows you to create and manage text and video chat rooms, all using an easy-to manage interface. The basic operations are free, but they limit some of the control and capabilities to paid membership. Subscribing gives you the options of creating persistent chatrooms, password-protecting those rooms, recording your video, and retrieving that video for later use.

Earlier this summer, I was looking for an all-in-one solution for video-conferencing and broadcasting. There were plenty of tools that allow you to do one or the other, but none that really do both well. Along comes TinyChat with the option to do both. I gave it a test, it worked like a charm, and I was instantly sold. I subscribed, and didn’t look back to my former tools.

Fast-forward to August: I created a recording, went to the download page, and was unable to find it. I e-mailed support, and go no response for a few days. Then, when I did get the response, it was simply “Well, that seems to happen sometimes, sorry about that.” While this might work well for the average regular user, that’s not the response a paying customer should receive. I pressed a little, and was told that sometimes, if there is corruption in the incoming stream (which they believed there was), recordings will fail. This response, while not really fixing my issue, at least let me know that someone had looked into it, and I could do a few checks at my end before starting a recording to help keep the process stable.

Fast-forward again to last week: My subscription payment goes through on 9/2 just like it should. To verify, I go to my TinyChat members page, only to find that my subscription is not active. I immediately contact TinyChat’s support with the details. After a few hours of waiting, I tested the waters and tried to send a Twitter DM. Since TinyChat is not following me back, I’m not able to do that. I give it a day and try again.

On 9/3, I get an @reply asking what the problem is, as the message may have gotten lost. I reiterate what I can in 140 characters, and they ask for the e-mail I have attached to the account. I reply, asking for them to DM me a contact e-mail. They reply with a request to send an e-mail, ATTN: Support, which I send on the morning of 9/4.

That afternoon, I got a response, again asking for the e-mail address the account is registered to, explaining that sometimes the PayPal response can get messed up going into their system. I replied immediately with the details.

That was the last e-mail response I got from them. Over the entire weekend, I sent e-mails and twitter messages attempting to get any kind of response. Finally, on Sunday afternoon, I send in a request for 3 things: Access to my account so I can download previous recordings, cancellation of my subscription, and a refund of the payment that was taken on 9/2. Since it was a holiday weekend, I didn’t hold out much hope for a response.

After zero contact by yesterday, I sent out another Twitter message, hoping to get some type of response. This morning, I receive a response from @harknesslabs: “I am going to take care of it today and hook you up with a free lifetime account. Will email you after its done.”

Finally, a real response. I check out the Twitter account, @harknesslabs belongs to Daniel Blake, the CEO of TinyChat itself. Later today, I also see the following message: Hired someone to handle support for @tinychat today. So it seems that Dan has known for a while that they have needed someone to handle support duties, this looks like a good sign.

As of this writing, my account has been re-activated, and I’ve been able to access my rooms and recordings. I haven’t gotten the e-mail from Dan yet with the notice that everything’s done, but at this point, it doesn’t really matter. I appreciate the gesture, and I will definitely use TinyChat for certain things, but not for anything that has any real critical bearing, at least not for a while. For my broadcast needs, I managed to put together an Adobe Flash Media Server instance that I can fire up and take down at will via Amazon EC2 (I’m going to detail the steps for this at a later time), which I will use when I need something to work just right.

I hope that TinyChat can get these issues resolved and, in the end, turn out a great product that people will line up to pay for. I’ll be keeping an eye on their future development, and will be sure to let anyone know how things are going if they have an interest.

Thanks, Dan. I hope you don’t have to do this type of thing much more/at all.

The news has been out lately that the Mozilla Foundation is considering dropping support of Firefox for all Windows versions below XP SP3. This would mean that all non-updated XP installations, Win2k, and anything else older than that will no longer be able to install or run whatever the latest version of Firefox is when it arrives.

Good. If I had my own way, I’d personally drop support for anything below Vista SP1 for the latest versions of Firefox, and keep the previous version updated within reason for a predetermined amount of time. I’ll get into why I feel that shortly. But for now, back to how I feel about the situation.

As I said, good. Windows 2000 has been available to developers for more than 10 years now. It’s been available to the public for 9 years as of this summer. It’s time to burn out and/or fade away. People will complain that there are still valid reasons to have a Win2k system hanging around due to some compatibility issues with newer software, which I’m personally ok with. The problem I have is when these people insist on also being able to run the most current versions of non-OS software. If you’re one of these people, listen carefully to what I’m about to say next:

YOU DON’T NEED TO RUN THE LATEST FIREFOX IF YOU’RE STILL RUNNING A 9-YEAR-OLD OS. Period.

And I honestly don’t think this would be an issue. Sure, while there are people around like Steve Gibson who are so paranoid that they won’t run an OS that they haven’t personally combed through every single bit of code with their own hands, they are extremely few. And these are the same people who probably aren’t running Firefox at all, anyway, let alone trying to run the absolute latest and greatest version (which would probably run like a dog as it is, since any hardware that’s still running 2k on a desktop is likely at least 5 generations behind today’s market).

So, yes, I think it’s pretty simple. If people can’t even allow themselves to be bothered with keeping their systems updated. SP3 for XP was released to the public 50 weeks ago. Anyone who hasn’t updated to it yet either has a really good reason for running older software (see my previous point), or is just plain lazy, and very likely doesn’t even run Firefox to begin with.

Now, with my point about dumping support for anything prior to Vista SP1. There are multiple facets to my argument here.

1. If you are using a computer less than 2 years old, there is almost absolutely no reason for you to still be running XP in any form. It’s old, it’s outdated, and it can’t exercize the full potential of the system for which you very likely paid pretty good money for. Stop listening to the “Hurrr… Vista is teh suck! It eats all your RAMs!” people and do some of your own research. Vista is a good OS, particularly so post-SP1. I use it personally on my primary system. The 64-bit version, which I run, is excellent, and light-years beyond the capabilities of XP64. Stop listening to Apple commercials as your only source of Vista information and do some real research. You’ll find that most of the things people complained about have either been fixed, or are a part of the system’s function that people just simply didn’t understand at first. If you’d like to know some of these arguments and my rebuttals to them, let me know, and I’ll create a separate post about it.

2. If you’re running Vista, and you haven’t updated to SP1 yet. Stop reading this and do it now. It’s ok. This post isn’t going to go anywhere. Outside of the blatant misunderstanding that was propagated during Vista’s early life, SP1 fixes many (if not all) of the legitimate problems that were in Vista at launch. SP1 is more stable, faster, and more secure than pre-SP1 Vista, and you’re only hurting yourself if you haven’t updated yet.

So here it is. Stop trying to make every software developer bend to your own will. Mozilla has been putting out a quality product that has fundamentally changed the browser market, and they’ve done it all for free. It’s about time you did them a favor and made a bit of their job just a touch less painful. By dropping support for REALLY old OS installs, it frees them to work on developing a package that is the best it truly can be. Stop holding them back. Update your system, do some research, stop purchasing/installing downgrades, and start really using TODAYs software, not the stuff you installed 8 years ago because you fear change and can’t handle something that works better and more efficiently.

Trust me, you’ll be better off.

I’ve mentioned before that Twitter, the popular Micro-Blogging platform, is a beast, and the only way to keep it going is to feed it. I think that now, at this point, Twitter has reached a critical stage in its development. Usage is almost off the charts, celebrities of all types are using it daily, and the company has positioned itself as such that just about any revenue model they decide on will be wildly successful. Mainstream media (though, in many cases, they are doing so incorrectly) are talking about Twitter all the time. People like @garyvee and @leolaporte are continuously growing the public’s awareness of the service. The @reply has become almost ubiquitous even outside of Twitter itself.

It is at this point that I have decided to attempt a small Social Media experiment, utilizing all of the Social Media resources at my disposal. My goal is simple: Drive traffic to a bar in Los Angeles which just happens to be where my brother, an actor looking for his break, works. Specifically, if I can get people to go to Timmy Nolan’s in Toluca Lake on a Monday night and tell Steve the bartender “Alex sent me.” (my Twitter ID is AlexDeGruven. It’s a long story that I won’t get into right now), then I’ll consider my experiment a success. An extra bonus if any of these people are public figures of any type (Timmy Nolan’s is known to host quite a few celebrities from time to time due to its close approximation to the studios).

Why am I doing this? The answer is really quite simple, and twofold:

1. I love my brother, and I want him to succeed. I figure that any type of direct contact he can make in and around the industry will help him to get noticed, and if I’m in a position to help, why not?
2. I love Social Media, and any way to get people to understand how it works can only serve to help it.

So, keep your eyes planted here, as the experiment progresses, I’ll be sure to update.

I’ve been checking out (and posting to) Veritocracy over the last couple of days. It works kind of like Digg, in that users choose to push an article up or down the stack based upon their opinion. It’s a bit different than Digg in that you actually have three options: ‘I like this article, push it up’, ‘I have no opinion on this article’, and ‘I don’t like this article, push it down’. Being able to give an actual down vote to an article, rather than just making it disappear from view, is a real benefit that Veritocracy carries.

On the Veritocracy home page, you are presented with a clean, very AJAX-ified interface, with search capability and five primary topic headers (Politics, Technology, Entertainment, Business, and Veri). Each of these headers takes you to a list of sub-topics, under which are organized the articles themselves.

What I consider to be the ultimate feature of Veritocracy is the ability to syndicate your own content and publish your stories to the site, all through the easy interface. All it takes is providing Veritocracy with your feed’s URL and adding a flag to a post to verify that you are indeed the owner of the content. From there, Veritocracy will read your feed, and with two clicks, allow you to publish your article under the topic(s) of your choosing.

Veritocracy is currently in an invitation-only beta, but TechCrunch was able to snag some invites. If there are any left, hop over there for your invite code and check it out.

Personally, Veritocracy’s layout and content presentation fit pretty much perfectly with the way I want to get my information. I only have one tab left on my default Firefox screen (thanks to Google Chrome), and it now goes directly to Veritocracy. A nice, quick way to scan the latest goings on out there on the intertubes.

I’ve been running Google Chrome for a little while now, and it’s already beginning to supplant Firefox (3.0.x) as my primary browser (Internet Explorer hasn’t been a serious player in my book since Firebird 0.5). There are still a few things that will make me keep Firefox around for a while, yet.

1. Extensions - Firefox is the king of extensibility. I just can’t live without adblock, TwitterFox, and FoxMarks. Once reasonable equivalents begin to make thier way in, though. It’s going to be harder for Firefox to hang on to my system.
2. Supportability – A lot of sites don’t yet support Chrome, and give the good old “You’re using an unsupported browser, please use one of these…” message, even though the rendering engine is the same as Safari (Woopra’s monitoring script detects Chrome as Safari, even). This is a minor thing that will be fixed in due time.
3. Scrolling Issues – Scrolling using the edge of a touch pad, or by middle-clicking on the page are currently not working. This is pretty minor, as most of the time, I’m using a mouse, but it can be problematic when I’m expecting it to work and nothing happens.
4. Security – There are a couple of vulnerabilities in the version of WebKit that’s being used in current builds. These have been addressed in later builds, and it will be nice to have them implemented as things progress.

Other than these things, which are really minor for a .2-level product that has been out for 3 days, Chrome is a truly fantastic piece of engineering. I have heard from more than a couple of Googlers that they have been using earlier builds internally for quite a while. It’s nice to know that they eat the proverbial dog food before serving it to the rest of us. It really shows that they are committed to creating something with real quality, usability, and future usability.

One more thing, I think I kind of touched on this in the last post: Chrome (under the Chromium project) is OpenSource, meaning anyone can download all of the code written so far (minus the Google Trademarked stuff), and create their own browser project. It seems that Google is hoping for this to happen, counting on the Open Source community to make improvements and push them back into Google’s development stream.

The next few months are going to be interesting. I can’t wait.

I’ve been using Google’s Chrome browser for about 30 minutes now, and I just wanted to give people a few points of interest that I’ve found so far.

Rendering: This thing is unbelievably fast. I was impressed with the recode of Gecko that was released with FireFox 3, but the Webkit backend of Chrome is nothing short of insane. Gecko managed to expose what I call download lag (the time it takes for the first renderable chunk of HTML to come down from a server), but Chrome has managed to hang it out for all to see. Even historically fast pages now show some download lag because the rendering engine in Chrome literally snaps pages into place when they’re loaded.

Features: The ability to pop a browser window out and use it as a discreet application on your computer is phenomenal. Using GMail as an example, it really makes the web application feel as though you’re using something you actually installed. Couple that with the increased rendering speed of Chrome, and you have something that approaches or, in some cases, exceeds the performance of desktop applications.

Compatibility: This is something ongoing, and will improve over time, but even now, I’m having trouble finding a site that won’t render properly. I have been hearing scattered reports about plugins not working, but that’s about it so far.

Extensibility: It’s OpenSource. Don’t like it? Fix it. Want a new feature? Create it.

Security and Stability: Every tab has its own discreet process on the system. This keeps web pages from bringing down the entire browser when something goes wrong. It also appears to make memory management easier, as freed memory is flushed better than when the browser is re-using memory segments. This should show great benefits as power users that open tabs continuously don’t lose performance as quickly (or at all, as is the possibility)

I plan on playing with this a lot over the next few days, so keep checking back here for more details.

Google scores huge with this one.

Since I’m a sucker for free hits, and @UStreamTV asked, here are some thoughts on live video, specifically, live video on the web.

I think the idea of being able to connect with people face to face (in a manner) instantly, from almost anywhere, is achieving a level of world-shrinking that hasn’t been seen since the early days of the telegraph and telephones. Before the telephone, realtime communication with someone more than a few feet away from you was pretty much unheard of. There was the telegraph, but morse code is slow, and sending messages was generally pretty expensive. When the telephone came along, suddenly people could communicate over astoundingly large distances, several thousand miles in some cases (New York to Los Angeles is almost 2,500 miles), instantly. Suddenly, your favorite cousin that moved to Texas a few years ago, was merely a few turns of the rotary dial (or a few plug changes by the switchboard operator) away.

The Internet itself has done much to accelerate this world-shrinking, but (in my own opinion) has not participated directly in the process, as it was originally built upon the infrastructure of the phone system in the first place.

Enter Internet video: Now, with about $30 of equipment, and a reasonably fast internet connection, anyone can create a video that is able to be distributed to the entire world in an instant. Video sharing sites like YouTube allow anyone to create a short video that is viewable by anyone in the world.

The next step, live video, has truly shrunk the world to the point that the only thing separating many of us is a time zone. Now, with that same $30 of equipment and internet connection, people can have live, realtime, face-to-face conversations, anytime, regardless of physical location. This new experience is the closest we have been able to come to actually being in the same room with someone so far away.

After thinking about it, I honestly think that there will not be any real world-shrinking technologies developed that will do what the telephone and live video have been able to do until we’re able to transport ourselves instantly from place to place.

I own quite a few domains. Many times, when I have an idea, I’ll snatch up the domain name, just because they’re cheap, and in case I decide to run with it. Many times, I end up doing nothing with the domain and just let it expire quietly.

How the Expiration System Works

When you register a domain name, the records for that DNS entry are locked so that you have complete control over where the various records for that domain name send requests. At the time of registration, you pay a fee that guarantees your control over this record for a specified amount of time. Typical registration is 1 year, but many registrars will allow you to purchase up to 10 years on a domain name.

After the registration period is up, there is a period where the domain goes into limited availability. Many registrars will count the first 30 days as a ‘grace period’, where you can renew the expired domain without incurring any extra costs, or with minimal additional cost. After that period, a couple of different things can happen:

1. The registrar can release the domain back into the public pool, making it available for anyone to register.

2. The registrar can set up a ‘redemption period’, where the domain goes for sale at an elevated price, but the original registrant has first option to buy.

3. The registrar can put the domain up for auction (the most common option), allowing the market to dictate the registration price.

If the domain is not registered within the periods defined by #2 and #3, the domain falls back into the public pool, available for anyone to register at any registrar.

The ‘Tasting Period’

Before the ‘tasting’ period was developed, one had to be extremely careful when registering a domain. Domain purchases were non-refundable, and simple typographical errors during the registration process could be costly. To help alleviate the pain of mistyping a desired domain name, the ‘tasting’ period was developed.

Tasting a domain entails registering it just as before, but now customers have a five-day grace period in which to ‘return’ the domain name for a full refund. This allows someone that mistyped a name to get their money back and register the correct domain name. It also allows for people to follow through with buyers remorse. If the five-day period expires, the domain can not be returned, and the registrant may no longer apply for a refund.

The five-day grace period applies for all domain purchases, even those at auction or during registrar redemption periods. So, anyone with enough credit can purchase any expired domain within their limits and get the money back within 5 days.

How Scammers Abuse the System

Unfortunately, scammers have found a way to abuse this system as well. There are now people that troll the expiration records, snapping up expired domains the moment they come available. They then take the original contact information from the registrant and spam them with an offer to ‘reclaim’ their domain at an extremely elevated price. I have seen these ‘offers’ as high as $300 for a simple .com that has no intrinsic value except to the original owner. If the original registrant is not gullible enough to be hooked in by the scam within the first five days, the scammer simply cancels the registration for a full refund.

What Can be Done?

Unfortunately, this type of scam is perfectly legal, and there is currently no real way to stop them. One can discourage tasters from abusing the system  by informing others, and making sure to NEVER buy a domain from a taster, ever. Just like spam, the very few people that do bite are enough to fund the operation, and make all of the failed attempts worth it.

I hope that some day we will see a logical solution to the tasting scam problem. Possibly, it may come down to disallowing tasting of domains purchased at auction. This would be an inconvenience for some, but it would keep the tasters away, and possibly help keep prices down so that the person that REALLY wants the domain can purchase it at a reasonable price.