This is about a month old, so, apologies if you heard this one already, but the article below (from Science) explains how several academic journal websites (24 at the time of the investigation) had been effectively stolen when publishers allowed their Internet domain registrations to lapse. Domain registrations are required to translate URLs into IP addresses, so a stolen registration can be redirected to any site the thief chooses. Of the stolen journal sites, most were replaced with prank sites, but several had fake articles and subscription links! As if it wasn’t already hard enough to explain to students how to identify authoritative sources…
- Jeff Schneidewind
Cynthia says
December 21, 2015 at 12:02 pmReally interesting — thanks Jeff!