Where have itsmfi.org, itsmf.org and itsmf.com gone?

[Updated:] A lot of people are Apparently nobody at all was wondering where the itSMF International website has gone (it took about 9 days for me to see a mention of it). There appears to be no announcement (Where would they announce it? here for a start and via local chapters woudl have been nice) but here is what i can work out so far. It is cause for concern, including a security concern.

[Update: the itsmfi.org website is back on 25th July. I guess they went through and removed all mentions of itsmf.org, which is still - and presumably will remain - a Japanese dating site].

itSMF.org has been re-registered by a Japanese owner who has replaced it with a multi-page dating advice site in Japanese.

Originally itsmf.org was registered to a Dutch owner, itSMF Netherlands, on 6th December 2000.

As a small number of readers will know, the trademark for itSMF was originally owned by the Dutch, and after much negotiation was sold to itSMF International for a buck, I believe, in recent years.

So as part of that transfer I infer itSMF International got use of the itsmf.org domain. They used it on some webpages interchangeably with itsmf.com and itsmfi.org to denote the homepage. itsmf.com and itsmfi.org are registred to IT Service Management Forum (itSMF) Ltd but it appears itsmf.org registration was never changed.

Then on 18th January 2013 the itsmf.org domain has come up for renewal and it appears has not been renewed. The address on the domain had never been changed and still pointed to

    Registrant Name:I. Nederland
    Registrant Street1:Dorpstraat 3
    Registrant City:Lunteren
    Registrant State/Province:
    Registrant Postal Code:6740AB
    Registrant Country:NL
    Registrant Phone:+31.0318488455
    Registrant Email:info@itsmf.nl
    Tech Name:Edwin Cornelissens
    Tech Organization:Easyhosting BV
    Tech Street1:Kabelweg 21
    Tech City:Amsterdam
    Tech Postal Code:1014 BA
    Tech Country:NL
    Tech Phone:+31.0204750009
    Tech FAX:+31.0204750010
    Tech Email:helpdesk@easyhosting.nl

Presumably either or both of those email addresses got the renewal notice.

For whatever reason it was not renewed and on 23rd Feb 2013, Domaincomesaround.com took control of the lapsed ownership and registered it to SnapNames.com
They redirected the domain name server to NS1.INTERIMNAMESERVER.COM on 23rd February, which one would think took the domain down???

On 27th Feb the domain was registered to

    Registrant Name:Makoto Kobayashi
    Registrant Street1:20-7 tunatorimotomachi
    Registrant City:isesaki-shi
    Registrant State/Province:gunma-ken
    Registrant Postal Code:372-0818
    Registrant Country:JP
    Registrant Phone:+81.08010761259
    Registrant Email:webstyle@globe.ocn.ne.jp

He has been careful to register it to a real person, as required by the rules of registration. All perfectly legit, no hacking, no hijacking.

The domain records are a bit opaque, but it looks to me that on 27th February the domain name servers were changed to NS1.IQ-SERVERS.COM. So I think he has had control of itsmf.org URLS since then. Possibly he has been redirecting back to the original domain servers until recently since I hadn't heard the itsmf.org links were dead or in Japanese since February, so I guess it is possible that he has been able to examine all itSMF.org traffic in the meantime. Or best case, he didn't even realise what had happened, the itsmf.org links have been dead since February, nobody reported it or nobody could work out why, then suddenly the Japanese site burst into life.

No wonder itsmfi.org has been taken down. It doesn't even ping. I think all itSMF email addresses are dead. Reportedly it went down on 16th July, a week ago.

the itSMF.com URL redirects to itSMFi.org though itsmf.com pages don't, they still work, e.g. this one.

The itSMFI forum is still up.

Bit of a mess really.

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