Eugene Kashpureff, the domain-name hacker and founder of the alternative DNS registry AlterNIC who recently added FBI fugitive to his resume, is languishing in a Toronto jail pending a Wednesday hearing on extradition to the United States.
Kashpureff's troubles - he was picked up by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in a Toronto suburb on Friday and has been locked up in Toronto's Metro West Detention Centre ever since - grow out of last summer's repeated hijacking of Web traffic trying to find Network Solutions Inc.'s InterNIC domain-registration site. He redirected users from www.internic.net to his own www.alternic.net in a "protest of the so-called 'ownership' of domain names."
A one-time repo man, Kashpureff had called the redirect a "repossession" of InterNIC's domain name.
Although he settled out of court with Network Solutions and made an apology to the Internet community, the FBI pursued criminal charges against him.
A 14-page affidavit details the government's wire fraud and computer fraud case - felony charges that could bring serious jail time and fines.
Kashpureff attorney William R. Gilmour said his client was brought before a Canadian immigration board on Monday, but it was adjourned. "There are two hearings coming up," he said. "One on how to get him out of the country, which is tomorrow, and one on whether or not he gets bail, which is Monday."
