As ICANN presented a new plan to expand the Internet as never before, by opening new possibilities to choosing an Internet domain name, Turkish hackers decided it was time to send them a message. Four ICANN and IANA sites have been hijacked this week by an organization called “NetDevilz.”

The official sites of the two international organizations in charge of regulating and supervising the Internet, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), have been hijacked.

The prank was reportedly made by a Turkish group called “NetDevilz,” according to researchers from Zone-h, an organization that tracks hacking movements on the Internet. The hackers apparently also left a message at a hosting space called “atspace.com:”

“You think that you control the domains but you don't! Everybody knows wrong. We control the domains including ICANN! Don't you believe us?”

The hackers turned against two organization that are normally responsible for Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and Top Level Domain name system, among other tasks. IANA deals primarily with IP address allocation, DNS root zone management and Internet protocol assignments, and is operated by ICANN.

According to Zone-h, the hijacked domains included “icann.com,” “icann.net,” “iana.com” and “iana-servers.com.” They managed to contact the hackers, but they refused to say how they changed the DNS record.

Hackers redirected the four domains mentioned above at “atspace.com” hosting site after Thursday's announcement that ICANN will expand the domain names, allowing an unprecedented customization of web address suffixes.

This week, The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers took the most important decision of the last 40 years, that of expanding the Internet domain names. A final version of the implementation of the new regulations is expected to be published in early 2009.

The proposal gives companies the possibility to use their brand name as domain name in a way that best suits their needs, as well as the needs of their customers.

The potential of the new changes is huge, Paul Tworney, President and CEO of ICANN, explained. It will give people the possibility to express themselves and at the same time, it will stimulate an increase in the “real estate” of the Internet.