Ask HN: Domain taken over temporarily during transfer?
I think I just encountered ephemeral DNS pirates or something.<p>Is it common?<p>Here is the story.<p>I was transferring a domain name from some registrar to AWS. The configurations etc. there were untouched for years (so it was always just &quot;page doesn&#x27;t exist&quot;). So the request went out, now &quot;waiting for confirmation, can take up to 10 days etc.&quot;. For some cosmic reason I decide to check the URL of that domain in the browser. To my astonishment it loads and it&#x27;s some crazy half-swedish half-turkish (I think) SEO bot page with some JPGed-out pics of belly-button and a working boot.<p>There is an email address in the footer - abada@goodprizwomen.com (maybe not abada but similar sounding). I whois my domain - all DNS lookups, Nameservers look ok. I whois goodprizwomen.com - it is registered with Alibaba domain service. I contact the support of my registrar, that I am transferring the domain from, who after some 15 minutes admits that they have no idea how that has happened or who are those goodprizwomen.
My (now ex-) registrar expedites the transfer, it clears and everything looks good now.<p>So as I see this now - there are bots out there looking for domains with unlocked DNS, that they can take over for a couple minutes &#x2F; days it takes for the transfer to clear.  Ephemeral DNS pirates.