LONDON, ENGLAND — Centuries ago a wise man wondered who would watch the watchers. The question is as valid today as it was before the days of the internet website, but now the answer includes double checking hyper links to make sure they don’t go to the wrong site.For instance, when updating the Home Office website concerning the Regulation of Investigative Powers Act (RIPA) site.
In what can easily be called a bit of irony, nobody bothered to check the status of old links to ensure that they continued to lead to where they claimed. Alas for the RIPA site, a link to TechnicalAdvisoryBoard.org.uk had been allowed to expire in February without renewal – and was promptly snapped up by a Japanese porn site.
Whoops.
Further registering on the irony meter is the fact that the accidental traffic source was initially reported by a surprised site visitor who contacted the BBC – not the government. The BBC then dutifully reported the matter to the Home Office, which initially insisted that the site had been hacked, but then woke up to the fact that it had forgotten to renew the domain in question.
Apparently still not as refined in matters investigative as one might a site concerning investigative powers to be, the Home Office insisted that all links had been removed only to have Sophos insist otherwise, pointing out the existence of hyperlinked PDF files. Further, OFSCOM, the UK’s broadcasting regulator has links to the now not-so-governmental TechnicalAdvisoryBoard.org.uk.
This is not the first time that the government has forgotten to renew a domain. The National Hi-Tech Crime Unit domain was purchased after its registration lapsed during integration with the Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA).
