‘Domain Registry of America’ Scam

category: Site
by Soph, 4 Comments »

I was sent a letter today from the ‘Domain Registry of America’, urging me to renew my domain name as it is due to expire on the 18th February 2008. This is perfectly true, and they also had my address and domain name details and the name of the person to be billed correct. However, there were a few things that I found slightly suspicious about this letter:

- My domain name is registered with ‘MyValueHost.com’ and I have never heard of the ‘Domain Registry of America’, nor received any letters or emails from them in the past.

- The cost of renewal for my domain name has always been around £2, and yet DROA have asked me to pay £18 for the year’s renewal.

- I have only ever received emails asking me to renew my domain name - never letters. What’s more, I’ve had plenty of scam emails about it in the past which also made me a little suspicious.

The letter implies that what you are paying for is a simple renewal of your domain name - however, what actually happens when you pay the money is that your domain name registration is moved to the Domain Registry of America.

What’s clever about the DROA scam is that it’s actually quite a legitimate letter - it does inform the reader that the letter simply offers ‘an easy means of payment should you decide to switch your domain name registration to the Domain Registry of America‘. However, the bulk of the information given in the letter and the huge amount of (very, very) small print on the back is extremely misleading and it is easy to see how someone could be duped into thinking that what they are paying for is just an ordinary renewal of their domain name. DROA obtain your account details through WHOIS, which makes your domain name information available to everyone. So don’t be fooled by the fact that they know lots of information about you - unless you want to pay an extortionate amount of money to have your domain name renewed and moved to another registrar (and then have to pay the expenses for moving it back, thanks to their lovely terms and conditions on the back of the letter), ignore this letter as soon as you receive it!

17

November
2007

A little vent

category: Writing
by Soph, 5 Comments »

I haven’t had much to blog about lately which is why there’s been a lack of posts here, but right now I need to have a bit of a vent. My housemate went to a creative writing course today from 10am to 4pm. He’s just come back and told me that he’s been asked to write some poems and a couple of haiku for next time - this obviously interested me because poetry and haiku are two things I’m really keen about in the world of literature. However, I had a feeling as soon as he started to talking to my other flatmates about ‘haikus’ (haiku is its own plural) that he may not have been taught about this poetic form very well. I asked if he’d been told that haiku have to written in 5-7-5 format, and his answer was ‘yes, of course’.

This makes me die a little inside.

If you read my post a while back about what a haiku is, then you’ll know that many English-speaking haijin believe that haiku should not be written in the 5-7-5 format that is so often taught in schools (and apparently even at university level, which I find really distressing). Haiku should also always be about nature, and yet my friend read us one that he’d written during the day which had nothing to do with nature at all. I know it’s obviously not his fault and I’m not angry at him - just extremely irritated that he was taught how to write this delicate form in a way that is just wrong. Whoever was leading the course probably didn’t even teach the students who Basho was - the father of haiku - and perhaps hadn’t even heard of him themselves. I wonder if the people on the course even know that haiku is a Japanese form?

I didn’t tell my friend any of this because I don’t really want to start a debate about how to write haiku, especially as it’s not supposed to be a form with rigorous rules and regulations (eg. 5-7-5!) - I just had to let some of this out here. All done.

05

November
2007

Reading Week

category: Academic, Reading
by Soph, 5 Comments »

This week is reading week at university, which means I have no lectures or seminars and am able to focus on catching up on my work and reading. Today I’ve been enjoying not having to go to any seminars and I haven’t really done that much work. I’ve nearly finished reading ‘The Knight’s Tale’, which I’ll try to finish tonight so that I can start my translation work on it. My plan for the next few days is to try to get as much of my French work done as possible, including the pieces that don’t have to be handed in until Thursday or Friday of next week. I’m not sure how successful I’ll be in doing this - only time will tell! I do need to get into my new French text, which is a play by Racine called ‘Phèdre’. Today I went to the university bookshop with the hopes of finding an English translation of it to read first, but it looks like they’ve sold out. I’ll try to find something in the library or online instead, because reading Racine is a bit like reading Shakespeare, except not only is the language old fashioned, it’s also in French… tricky!

I’ve put up all of my HaikuWriMo entries in the poetry section - they can now be found under ‘Autumn Haiku’. Last year the organiser of the HaikuWriMo used lulu.com to create a booklet of HaikuWriMo highlights, featuring five of the best haiku written by each person involved. Only about fifteen of us did it last year, whereas there were about forty haijin involved this year. I’m not sure whether that makes this more or less likely to happen, but it would be nice to get another little booklet of HaikuWriMo works.

Everyone seems to be doing very well on their NaNoWriMo exploits…keep it up chaps!

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