Stephane Van Gelder

Interested to read a story in Thanh Nien, a Vietnamese news site, about a failed attempt at blackmailing a local steel company through an infringing domain name.

The company, called the Hoa Sen Group and which is also known as the Lotus Steel Sheet Company (LSSC), had refused to buy the domain tonhoasen.com from 24 year old IT graduate Huynh Chi Hieu, who had registered the name and asked them around USD 3,000 for it.

Undeterred, the cybersquatter then proceeded to put a fake LSSC website behind the domain and contacted the company again. This time, they agreed to buy (for USD 2,500).

But unbeknownst to the web crook, LSSC also contacted the police. When Hieu went to LSSC's office to collect the money, he ended up being "collected" by the cops instead.

Don't know if the story's true (tonhoasen.com does point to what looks like the official Lotus Steel website now, but the name's Whois doesn't seem to have been updated), but I certainly hope it is. Considering what it feels like to be held hostage by some Internet scammer, it's great to see one brought to justice every now and then…