I read through about 5 different LOST forums, and nearly every single one of them has 10 to 15 posts about the different websites associated with LOST and its probably a good idea to delete many of the duplicate threads that are currently running.
Official Sites
With the exception of the sites associated with The Lost Experience, the official sites have the Disney Disclaimer: http://disney.go.com/corporate/privacy/pp_abc.html linked from them. This is usually the first tip that a site is a legitimate site tied to the LOST program. ABC has to cover its ***, so it will throw a disclaimer and a terms of use up on all the sites associated with it.
Secondly, they will be hosted on one of Disney's WDIG Servers (Walt Disney Internet Group) or the Seattle based Disney Worldwide Services,
Before you post, do a search
Ok so I figured I would throw together some quick links for those of you who are not uber-web savvy. These links will help you pull all of that readily available information about the site registrars and owners and where the sites are located. Everyone who "finds a new website" should run through these quick steps to determine if its something put up by fans who are getting in on the fun of LOST and its use of the web as an information dump.
1. The Whois database: http://www.whois.sc is probably one of the better sites for looking up website registration records because it pulls from most of the current domain registrars, plus it pulls in locational data from ARIN as well. You can find out where a website is hosted (locality) and how many other sites are hosted on that server all in one page. It used to be that only one company (InterNic) could register a web domain, but this has since been changed and now there are a plethora of domain registrars out there.
Typical whois data looks like this:
Quote:
Domain ID:D106939446-LROR
Domain Name:THEHANSOFOUNDATION.ORG
Created On:18-Jul-2005 19:25:55 UTC
Last Updated On:17-Sep-2005 04:05:12 UTC
Expiration Date:18-Jul-2007 19:25:55 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:Tucows Inc. (R11-LROR)
Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT UPDATE PROHIBITED
Registrant ID:tu8XYzBd1Q9n6Trn Registrant Name:ABC, Inc.
Registrant Organization:ABC, Inc.
Registrant Street1:77 West 66th Street
Registrant Street2:
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:New York
Registrant State/Province:NY
Registrant Postal Code:10023
Registrant Country:US
Registrant Phone:+1.8186233200
Registrant Phone Ext.:
Registrant FAX:
Registrant FAX Ext.:
Registrant Email:wdigdomainreg@dig.com
See simple information about who the site is supposed to belong to. Now there is nothing that says that people wont put false information into their registration, technically this is illegal, but its not generally enforced unless someone is cybersquatting. Regardless, this should be your first course of action for checking out sites legitimacy.
Hopefully this will help clear up some of the “OH LOOK AT THIS WEBSITE IS IT REAL” threads that are cluttering up the boards.
The official sites have the Disney Disclaimer: http://disney.go.com/corporate/privacy/pp_abc.html linked from them. This is usually the first tip that a site is a legitimate site tied to the LOST program. ABC has to cover its ***, so it will throw a disclaimer and a terms of use up on all the sites associated with it.
This is not accurate. Anyone can put a link to any disclaimer or to any site for that matter! In fact, the link in the paragraph above is a link to the disclaimer.. that does not make this post a legitimate site. If anyone goes to any legitimate site and copies the image linked to the URL link - they can have the image on any page with a link to anywhere. Any site can be spoofed. And any image can be used as a link to any site - it's all in the code.
Quote:
Mrclucks.com has the disclaimer, but the site is too new to have a full history with the registrar. More likely its an official site put together by the group who runs www.redbunny.com (web design group) for ABC, but I want to wait for a little more information to show up since the site is so new.
Redbunny.com is a regular person's site. It has no affiliation with ABC. When you REGISTER a site, all the information is there - there's no need to wait for a site to be aged - the registrar does not gain information over time. ABC has it's own webdesigners who work for the company - mostly as independent contractors, but all with access to upload to an official ABC computer where any new code is then disseminated. Portland Web Design - the name the person (Jason Ruby)gave to his site is not a web design group for ABC.
Quote:
Dharmainitatives.com is more than likely legit given that it has a direct pointer to the hansofoundation.org. I would think that someone at Disney registered it on the fly (out of official channels) so that someone wouldn’t snag it before them and since it currently has a pointer, I’d look for this one to be active in the future.
A direct pointer is nothing more than a link! Having links does not a legit site make.
After checking the http://www.oceanicflight815.com/ again for any changes, if you click on the "light" it takes you to the Hanso website....just a fyi.
* Dimples #10 Sweetcheeks & OutKaSt #3
The Quest - Commander Anne The Temptress
...Hunter 8 and Chief of Archives - DOLT#176
Lady Protectress of the Whispers (the lovely damsel)
This is not accurate. Anyone can put a link to any disclaimer or to any site for that matter! In fact, the link in the paragraph above is a link to the disclaimer.. that does not make this post a legitimate site. If anyone goes to any legitimate site and copies the image linked to the URL link - they can have the image on any page with a link to anywhere. Any site can be spoofed. And any image can be used as a link to any site - it's all in the code.
True, but, all of the official sites have the disclaimer. Its a simple clue to a sites legitimacy. You will note that I put Mrclucks into the still disputed list. I didn't say that having the disclaimer is the sole factor in making the site official, I said that official sites will have it.
Quote:
Redbunny.com is a regular person's site. It has no affiliation with ABC. When you REGISTER a site, all the information is there - there's no need to wait for a site to be aged - the registrar does not gain information over time. ABC has it's own webdesigners who work for the company - mostly as independent contractors, but all with access to upload to an official ABC computer where any new code is then disseminated. Portland Web Design - the name the person (Jason Ruby)gave to his site is not a web design group for ABC.
A direct pointer is nothing more than a link! Having links does not a legit site make.
I didn't say that Redbunny was a webdesign group for ABC.
Secondly, DNS records take time to replicate through the various DNS servers across the internet. Usually 12-72 hours before changes will be fully reflected in most locations. The registration information (which is fake) for mrclucks shows the intitial registrar, but the DNS information is still updating.
As to sites pointing from one domain to another. You are correct, thats why I put Dharmaintiative in the disputed group.
I'd also point out that less than 12 hours ago dharmaintiative.org/net/info were all retgistered to various people. The same group that regged dharmaindustries.com regged dharmaintiative.info. dharmainiative.net was regged to the group who owns gsjdesign.com (webdesign group much like the same people who own redbunny)
Once again, official sites are listed above as official because they can be verified as either being on a Disney server, or regged directly to Disney/ABC. Disputed sites are in the disputed list and debunked sites get put in the non-official list.
Just look at the resigtrant in the WHOIS lookup. The ABC disclaimer was an easy way to tell, but the fan sites have caught onto that and started using it themselves. Once you do a WHOIS, it's obvious who the website belongs to. Just make sure it says this:
Registrant Name:ABC, Inc. Registrant Organization:ABC, Inc.
Registrant Street1:77 West 66th Street
Registrant Street2:
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:New York
Registrant State/Province:NY
Registrant Postal Code:10023
Registrant Country:US
Registrant Phone:+1.8186233200
And it should be an official ABC site. I haven't found any official Lost sites that aren't registered that way. Has anyone else?
People should know that the Driveshaft website is a FAN run site. After all this time I still see posts from people thinking its 'real' and using the info there for theory speculation.
People should know that the Driveshaft website is a FAN run site. After all this time I still see posts from people thinking its 'real' and using the info there for theory speculation.
Good call. I see that pop up as well as an official source of information.
I will try to keep this thread updated because there is a lot of mis-information out there. About 10 different Dharma related websites have been regged over the last 5 days. If you have a link thats in dispute, post it in this thread, and I will update it.
I would add http://www.thedharmainitiative.org to the list of fakes, even though it shows the orientation movie. It is registered to someone in Scottsdale, AZ.
Thanks for the info on how to check on these sites.
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