Typo Squatters, HO!
2006-12-02 20:26 - Rants
Spam is reprehensible. There are a lot of kinds of spam. The most famous, of course, is e-mail. But the spirit of the original has crept into many other areas. People will forge a referrer URL in attempt to be listed in the common "Who linked here?" sections. Then, there's domain squatters.
Squatters are the reason that new companies these days come up with such crazy names. All the good ones are taken, usually by squatters. A particularly nefarious kind of squatting is typo-squatting. They just hope you type in the wrong address, and bam, you're at their pile of ads instead of the site you meant to get to. And, sometimes, they really go crazy. A Reddit submitter just pointed out that Google with 35 "o"s is taken. In fact, Google with too many "o"s is taken, almost no matter which number of too many "o"s you choose.
I quickly typed up this one-liner script at my bash prompt:
O=ooo; for i in `seq 1 70`; do echo -ne "${i}\t"; (host "g${O}gle.com"; echo) | head -n 1; O="${O}o"; done
And what did I come up with? This!
1 gooogle.com has address 66.249.93.104 2 goooogle.com has address 204.13.160.134 3 gooooogle.com has address 216.65.41.185 4 goooooogle.com has address 66.197.87.161 5 gooooooogle.com has address 194.154.164.82 6 goooooooogle.com has address 70.84.121.98 7 gooooooooogle.com has address 204.13.160.134 8 goooooooooogle.com has address 69.50.169.209 9 gooooooooooogle.com has address 204.13.160.131 10 11 12 13 gooooooooooooooogle.com has address 64.74.223.26 14 15 16 goooooooooooooooooogle.com has address 204.13.160.134 17 18 goooooooooooooooooooogle.com has address 212.227.34.3 19 gooooooooooooooooooooogle.com has address 68.178.232.100 20 goooooooooooooooooooooogle.com has address 69.25.212.153 21 gooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com has address 204.13.160.131 22 goooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com has address 204.13.161.124 23 gooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com has address 204.13.161.124 24 goooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com has address 204.13.161.124 25 gooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com has address 204.13.161.124 26 27 28 goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com has address 204.13.160.131 29 gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com has address 69.72.211.234 30 goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com has address 204.13.160.131 31 gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com has address 66.45.232.75 32 goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com has address 69.72.211.234 33 gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com has address 69.25.142.9 34 35 gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com has address 69.25.212.153 36 goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com has address 204.13.161.124 37 gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com has address 204.13.161.124 38 goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com has address 69.25.212.153 39 gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com has address 203.27.227.92 40 Host goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com not found: 2(SERVFAIL) 41 gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com has address 64.20.49.210 42 Host goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com not found: 3(NXDOMAIN) 43 gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com has address 204.13.161.124 44 Host goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com not found: 3(NXDOMAIN) 45 gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com has address 207.219.111.23 46 Host goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com not found: 3(NXDOMAIN) 47 Host gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com not found: 3(NXDOMAIN) 48 Host goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com not found: 3(NXDOMAIN) 49 gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com has address 204.13.161.124 50 Host goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com not found: 3(NXDOMAIN) 51 gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com has address 208.109.78.73 52 goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com has address 66.232.138.55 53 gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com has address 64.20.33.4 54 goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com has address 203.233.237.25 55 gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com has address 203.27.227.92 56 Host goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com not found: 2(SERVFAIL) 57 gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com has address 66.33.212.178 58 'goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com' is not a legal name (label too long)
So, 58 too many (60 total) is too many. I'm honestly unsure where this limit really comes from, but both my windows box (running Cygwin) and my linux box say the same thing. From 1-58 though, we see that all but 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 26, 27, 34, 40, 42, 44, 46, 47, 48, 50, and 56 are taken and resolve to an IP with this very basic check.
So, let's check into those others. With so many taken, it seems unusual that the rest wouldn't be, but they really are! See for yourself: 10 11 12 14 15 17 26 27 40 42 44 46 47 48 50 56 extra "o"s are all owned by someone, too! Don't ask me why they bothered to register it, and didn't send it somewhere.
Oh, and yes, I know that this has already been done.
