Intersango exchange (formerly Britcoin)

[piuk]

The /etc/hosts trick worked for me. I have a trade pending, should i move the coins out? Any word from the admin?

[bl0ke]

Hope this is fixed soon. Tried emailing webmaster@<ip> but it bounced. No doubt Amir is aware.

[fleming222]

I got online using the ip but my balance is 0 and my profile shows no previous trades :S
Hopefully this gets sorted out.

[Vladimir]

Amir, if you need some help or even just a second opinion on something technical let me know I'd be glad to help where I can.

[RyanPridgeon]

Just want to say I will definitely carry on using this service if it gets fixed back up to normal. I withdrew all my btc for now to be on the safe side.

[genjix]

Hey,

Nothing bad has happened. What basically happened was that when I first setup Britcoin, a US company (BrainChild Products) gave me the resources to create an exchange since they were planning to setup a legalised exchange using my software (something we've been pushing hard for).

Now we're consolidating everything under a single entity in order to get legal legitimisation for Britcoin (one of the conditions of our potential contract). To transfer ownership for a UK domain is different to other domains. Basically the owning company has to change the IPS tag and then relinquish control. Then we have to quickly snap up the domain on the other side.

During that interval, somebody (a domain squatter) would be able to grab the domain. Therefore we had to keep secret during this domain name ownership transfer.

Tonight the server will be down from midnight onwards for approximately 4 hours while we migrate our servers over. You can withdraw BTC from the site, but withdrawing GBP won't do anything and in fact might hinder the operating of the site. A little downtime was to be expected, since we're upgrading Britcoin to a more legitimate infrastructure (legally & technically). Hopefully this is the last non-smooth upgrade since there was no other way to do this non destructively for UK domain names.

[gigabytecoin]

Hey,

Nothing bad has happened. What basically happened was that when I first setup Britcoin, a US company (BrainChild Products) gave me the resources to create an exchange since they were planning to setup a legalised exchange using my software (something we've been pushing hard for).

Now we're consolidating everything under a single entity in order to get legal legitimisation for Britcoin (one of the conditions of our potential contract). To transfer ownership for a UK domain is different to other domains. Basically the owning company has to change the IPS tag and then relinquish control. Then we have to quickly snap up the domain on the other side.

During that interval, somebody (a domain squatter) would be able to grab the domain. Therefore we had to keep secret during this domain name ownership transfer.

Tonight the server will be down from midnight onwards for approximately 4 hours while we migrate our servers over. You can withdraw BTC from the site, but withdrawing GBP won't do anything and in fact might hinder the operating of the site. A little downtime was to be expected, since we're upgrading Britcoin to a more legitimate infrastructure (legally & technically). Hopefully this is the last non-smooth upgrade since there was no other way to do this non destructively for UK domain names.

As a webmaster. Everything you just said makes no sense at all.

I have never transferred a .co.uk domain... but that seems absurd that you must relinquish the domain to the public in order to transfer it. We are in 2011 here.

Also if a domain squatter has managed to gain control on the domain... because you gave it up... (which looks like what happened) you have no recourse now.

Are you telling me that it was you who put up the generic domain squatter/ad grabbing web page?

If this is all an innocent mistake... try sending your users and email next time/at least making a blog post before you yank a "bank" offline. That can really get under somebody's skin.

[genjix]

Now we're just waiting for the DNS to propagate.

[genjix]

As a webmaster. Everything you just said makes no sense at all.

I have never transferred a .co.uk domain... but that seems absurd that you must relinquish the domain to the public in order to transfer it. We are in 2011 here.

Also if a domain squatter has managed to gain control on the domain... because you gave it up... (which looks like what happened) you have no recourse now.

The transfer mechanism for .co.uk is totally different to any other domain name.

You don't use an authorisation code. You simply change the IPS tag from one registrar to another. And the new registrar doesn't know who the domain is going to.

http://www.123-reg.co.uk/1and1.shtml
http://www.experienced-people.co.uk/1022-transfer-site-new-hosting/transfer-a-domain.htm

The actual process for .co.uk and .org.uk domains

It's a system quite different to the .coms. You don't change registrars as such. You need to get the IPS TAG changed to the tag of your new registrar and you need to fill in a form at Nominet to change the owner of the site. There is a fee involved to get the ownership change registered, but it makes sense to do it. If you're just "changing registrars" it can be done simply by asking your new registrar for their IPS-TAG and requesting your current registrar to change the TAG for your domain to the new one provided. That's it. If they don't comply, please visit this Nominet link where you can get the change enforced for a small fee. A more detailed explanation for uk domains. Note that you can't transfer the SLDs .ltd.uk and .plc.uk unless you're buying the LTD or PLC company the domain is attached to. More

Warning: If you have privacy settings on the .co.uk to prevent disclosure of your postal address etc., this can sometimes be lost when a domain is transferred and your details could become public. You can reset them to private but once they are out they'll always be available via WHOIS tools that track and record all changes.

We started the transfer process at midnight but it's taken all night. One of our guys was woken up 3 times.

[thirdlight]

So you transfered from one service provider to another, and that second provider didn't have their nameservers ready with your ip, so defaulted to a parking page?

Sounds understandable, but I would expect better from my registrar.

[fibble]

genjix, thanks for the update.


When will it be possible to make a GBP Withdrawl again? I will hang fire making any such requests until it wont cause any problems.

Thanks

Andy

[fleming222]

Got an ETA of when it's going to be back up?

[timsmith]

I did a funds transfer (GBP) into the account a few days ago, and have just noticed that it has been rejected by the recipient bank account. Not looking fantastic...

[genjix]

Got an ETA of when it's going to be back up?

3 hours hopefully.

For the time being I've turned off the server because people reporting 0 balance are probably logging in with google. Google changes your OpenID string based on the domain name so the site thinks you're a new user.

OpenID = lame. In the new exchange we're developing, OpenID will be gone.

Once the domain is back up, the site will be re-accessible.

From midnight onwards, it will be down until the migration to new servers is complete.

[genjix]

I did a funds transfer (GBP) into the account a few days ago, and have just noticed that it has been rejected by the recipient bank account. Not looking fantastic...

This was fixed 2 days ago due to an error on the bank's side.

[citydragoon]

I requested a GBP withdrawal yesterday..will this now fail or be delayed due to these issues?

[timsmith]

I did a funds transfer (GBP) into the account a few days ago, and have just noticed that it has been rejected by the recipient bank account. Not looking fantastic...

This was fixed 2 days ago due to an error on the bank's side.

Ok thanks for the reply. Will try again.

[fibble]

The IPS tag was changed, the new destination registrar inserted its default nameservers for the domain which were:

Code:

dns1.name-services.com
dns2.name-services.com
dns3.name-services.com
dns4.name-services.com
dns5.name-services.com

these servers were serving up: 69.64.147.243 as the A record for britcoin.co.uk

And then a few moments ago the WHOIS output shows the DNS servers have again changed to:

Code:

a.dns.gandi.net
b.dns.gandi.net
c.dns.gandi.net

These servers are responding with:

Code:

dig a britcoin.co.uk @a.dns.gandi.net
;; ANSWER SECTION:
britcoin.co.uk. 300 IN A 75.101.180.111

So once DNS caches have expired the site will work normally. The hosts file fudge i posted previously will work in the meantime if you still see the parking page.

Andy

[burtyb]

As a Nominet member and tag holder it isn't always easy moving domains around.  But I wouldn't normally expect any issue with the nameservers unless someone changes them   .

[fibble]

Having used a number of different registrars web control panels I know some of them can be quite illogical and mistakes like this can be easy to make the first time you use them.

Once the nameservers hit the WHOIS DB and resolvers around the world start caching queries you have yourself several hours of problems.

Andy