After we here, (telecom and Townson) accidentally lost the internet-history.org domain and the company in Geneva, CH grabbed it (and still have done nothing with it other than illegally squat on it to prevent _us_ from using it), we did hear from the guy who grabbed it, offering to return it for $800. At first, it sounded a lot like the panix.com hijacking, and it does bear some similarities, but the key distinction is that Panix ownership never "expired", so there was no legal validity whatsoever to any other person's claims. But if Panix hadn't had powerful and ugly friends helping them, no doubt they'd have heard things like "well, it'll take a month or two to resolve, but if we put our expert programmer on it, at $500/day, you'll have it back in 48 hours"
Two articles worth reviewing to get more aquainted with the hijacking at Panix are these:
There's a half hearted article over at:
But an official statement from me might be "The internet just is not fun to use any longer. The piles of s*it through the barnyard have long since exceeded the green pastures of the commons I have heard through ancient tales used to be here instead."
Lisa Minter