There’s an interesting article on TechCrunch about a new Firefox plugin called Firesheep that exploits some websites’ non-usage of the secure https for logins. The jist of it is that if you log in to a website that is known to Firesheep from an unsecured network (think a domain conference or a Starbucks), and someone has Firesheep installed, they can access your account.

According to the Firesheep website, it’s this easy:

After installing the extension you’ll see a new sidebar. Connect to any busy open wifi network and click the big “Start Capturing” button. Then wait.

As soon as anyone on the network visits an insecure website known to Firesheep, their name and photo will be displayed

Double-click on someone, and you’re instantly logged in as them.

Further, according to the TechCrunch article, a number of large websites have vulnerabilities: “to give you a sense of Firesheep’s scope, the extension is built to identify cookies from Amazon.com, Basecamp, bit.ly, Cisco, CNET, Dropbox, Enom, Evernote, Facebook, Flickr, Github, Google, HackerNews, Harvest, Windows Live, NY Times, Pivotal Tracker, Slicehost, tumblr, Twitter, WordPress, Yahoo, Yelp.”

eNom, Demand Media’s domain registrar and partner company of NameJet, is listed as a website whose cookies could be captured by Firesheep.

I don’t know if it would be possible for someone to log in on someone else’s account using the Firesheep plugin, but that’s what the article seems to imply. Perhaps there are other domain registrars that are vulnerable as well?

I sure hope domain registrars know about this plugin, and if not, I hope they learn about it quickly. I for one generally don’t log in to secure websites while at domain conferences or in public places, but when I do, I change my passwords quickly after.

I am headed back to New York in a few minutes, but I would like to thank you for choosing my blog as the best domain blog at this year’s Traffic awards. It’s an honor to receive the award since it was voted on by my peers, and especially because of the other great blogs that were also nominated.

The Traffic show was a success with somewhere around 3-400 people in attendance. I will try to provide more of a recap later.

I really appreciate your voting for me and thank you for the honor.

I just wanted to give a short update on the server migration. I changed hosting last night after a couple of years. The site has grown quite a bit since I first started, and it was using a whole lot of bandwidth. I am now using Liquid Web, which has been reliable for me on my other websites, and their 24/7 technical support is unbeatable.

I want to thank Kevin Leto (Big Ticket Domains) for his help in migrating the blog. He did the heavy lifting in making sure that all of the articles and comments were successfully moved to the new site.

I also want to thank Michael Sumner for his support with a couple of minor issues that I noticed. Michael is a WP expert and has been helpful on a few of my projects that needed coding and programming expertise.

The site may still be propagating for several more hours, so if you notice something funky or a comment doesn’t post, that’s probably it. The Retweet button is still attempting to read the old server, which is why old posts are able to be retweeted but newer posts aren’t yet. This should be resolved soon.

As always, thanks for stopping by.

I am currently in the process of migrating my server to a new hosting company. If you post comments on articles, they may not post.

Please try to post a comment here and let me know if you have any trouble.   Also, if you can note whether the footer says “LW Server” or not, that would be helpful. If it doesn’t say LW, it’s a propagation issue.

If you don’t see your comment for the time being, it’s likely a propagation issue and your comment is being directed to the old server.

THANKS FOR YOUR HELP!