Update: Verashni has since written a story on the matter.
Many non-technical people don't realise how easy it is to manipulate many of the core internet protocols. 2008 Was a particularly bad year for it with some key weaknesses being pointed out in critical protocols such as DNS, SSL and BGP (again) which have joined the ranks of SMTP, Ethernet and in-line SQL as broken. However, with all the technofeats, I forget how easy it is to do something simple that appears to be manipulation to the general public. A journo friend of mine, Verashni, noticed (amoung others) that visiting www.malema.co.za will take you to the DA's website. For any forein readers, this is funny as I'm sure Julius Malema has a dartboard with, opposing political party leader, Hellen Zille's face on it. I did a quick check of who had registered the domain and it was fairly obvious this was a prank:
2f. billingaccount : The ANC
2g. billingemail : neveranc@gmail.com
2i. invoiceaddress : Not 54 Sauer Street, Johannesburg, 2001
2j. registrantphone : +2774 115 9505
2k. registrantfax :
2l. registrantemail : neveranc@gmail.com
This isn't a technical feat, or particularly difficult to do. It likely cost the prankster R50 and 30 minutes of her time. For example back in 2007, I pointed out that thesource.ofallevil.com mirrored Microsoft's website (and still does), and a commentator pointed out that theroot.ofallevil.com did the same for Verisign (but not anymore).
However, the almost magical qualities attributed to technology by the general public have lead to some very amusing conspiracy theories. My favourite so far is: "The DA is trying to profit from Julius' popularity!" Unfortunately, there is no proof that the DA is behind this, and until we can rule out the rest of the planet as suspects, we'll just have to smirk and read Classic Malema.
This does have some domain squatting implications though. If Julius ever decides to take his "unique" brand on-line, he'll likely need to go through some legal procedure to get "Not the ANC" to relinquish it. You can read more about "Cybersquatting" on Wikipedia.