In a bizarre case of mistaken identity, the website of a British advertising agency based in Brighton was redirected — effectively seized — by U.S. Department of Homeland Security. And the agency is still in the dark as to why their site was ever targeted.
The Register reports that when Designate.com stopped receiving external emails, it turned to its IT support company for answers. They soon discovered that anyone trying to visit the company website – designate.com – met a landing page with the United States’ Department of Justice, Homeland Security and New York Police Department logos and a stern message:
This domain name has been seized by ICE-Homeland Security Investigations, pursuant to a seizure warrant issued by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The feds seized control of the website by changing the dot-com’s DNS records, allowing them to redirect traffic to their landing page as well as snaffle emails. The ad agency received no warning, and has still not received an explanation.
Ingenious said: “We’ve never seen anything like this and to do it without any prior contact, or even the most cursory investigation, is pretty bad. And then hold it to ransom until you signed a form. As to why, it’s anyone’s guess, although I suspect clerical error or someone just not paying attention to what they were doing.”
Jason Triandafyllou, director at Designate, finally got hold of a special agent at Homeland Security and discovered the site had been seized as part of an investigation into illegal prostitution.
After persuading them that it was a case of mistaken identity, it then became a matter of dealing with a U.S. attorney and signing a waiver reneging any claim against the U.S. government for damages.
Oh, and waiting for a court hearing in New York after which the innocent company finally got its website back.
It will take a little time for the world’s domain name system to update with the restored DNS records for the site, though for most people Designate.com is back online and the company is receiving emails again.
He added that it was hard to quantify the damage done. “Anyone looking for a creative agency who headed for our website during the 10 days that this was going on might well have been spooked (pun intended). And we may have missed important emails from prospective clients too. Our SEO has also been floored – we’ll have to build up our rankings from scratch.”
