ZomboCom stolen by a hacker, sold, now replaced with AI-generated makeover
Comments
shagie
Sophira
> the domain name expired
It's possible to tell from an rdap call that this isn't the case:
Event:
Action: registration
Date: 1999-10-10T10:57:47Z
Event:
Action: expiration
Date: 2028-10-10T10:57:47Z
Event:
Action: last changed
Date: 2026-02-09T20:34:17Z
If it expired in 2025, then that expiration would have occurred in October.
That said, you are probably correct that it wasn't a hacker as such. GoDaddy was indeed offering it for sale in February, according to a Reddit thread from that month[0]. That makes me wonder why...
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/oldinternet/comments/1qy566h/is_zom...
bananaboy
Thank you for the explanation!
DANmode
That’s what the current page claims, legitimate registration by “New Management”.
> Welcome to… New Management. This domain was purchased openly via GoDaddy. We come in peace (and with a wallet): we’d love to also purchase the rights to the former site's content to help revive the infinite. Until then, everything here is new & unique. Old content rights owners, please reach out. Anything is possible.
paularmstrong
html5 zombocom still exists, for your viewing pleasure. you can do anything at zombocom. anything at all. the only limit is yourself.
iugtmkbdfil834
It will never, ever, get old.
jancsika
Ooh, I really want to change those svg paths to svg circles. :)
tengbretson
I knew anything was possible at ZomboCom, but damn. I never expected this. Guess that's ZomboCom for ya.
samplatt
I didn't think I'd be the first person in this (or the reddit) thread to call this new site ZombieCom, but not gonna lie I'm pretty happy about it.
tombert
I never imagined this happening. I guess the limitation really was my mind.
OuterVale
That's a shame. Now I can't do anything at ZomboCom.
nnx
The only limit is yourself!
modriano
*was
coldtea
That's like when the Library of Alexandria was burned
webjac
I guess the hacker could do anything… at zombocom
TurdF3rguson
How does a hacker steal a website? So many questions.
silisili
You steal the domain name, not the website so to speak. Which would mean someone got their registrar credentials most likely.
TurdF3rguson
And transferred it away? Registrars make it really hard to do that if you're not the actual person. I'm finding it hard to believe someone can do this anonymously.
iwontberude
Yeah that’s because it’s not what happened. It’s a common expiration snipe.
TurdF3rguson
That's neither hacking nor stealing
coldtea
Legally and technically no, but it borders on both...
rezonant
Except the domain did not expire, if you check WHOIS.
sleight42
I mean... anything is possible at zombocom
RevEng
Registration expires, someone snaps it up immediately. It happened to a customer of mine with a domain that was their name. It pointed at a page saying it was available for sale for $4000.
gitaarik
Don't domain registars auto-renew domains for you?
shagie
If your credit card is current. One of the "oh, this gets into trouble" is when you do a 10 year registration paid in advance and the credit card on file expires before the auto-renewal time.
The registrar will poke you, and put up warnings when you log into the server to check on your account that your auto renewal is coming up soon and the card on file has expired.
But if you're not paying attention to your domain registrations, or the renewal reminder emails get sent to the spam folder, or you've lost access to the original email address that you had to register it a decade ago, then godaddy is quite happy to put up a lander page with some inflated price on it and sell it to someone else.
callbacked
if there is any consolation, this is still up
Kim_Bruning
Crappy flash gets replaced by crappy ai gen. Truly the art of the previous generation surpassed by the art of the next.
I ... honestly have very limited grounds for complaint here.
mattoxic
Another little corner of the internet is gone.
Had to check... but this is still here https://dack.com/web/bullshit.html
fred_is_fred
The thread is lacking any detail on how the site was stolen and sold. Perhaps the "OG owner" as the poster calls it sold it for money?
bananaboy
Yeah I'm not sure. I haven't found anything else yet about this. The reddit poster posted this screenshot of an email with the (apparently) original owner https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd....
Retr0id
A more direct source for the screenshot: https://old.reddit.com/r/InternetIsBeautiful/comments/1qz3it...
spullara
shoot i show that to people every once in a while
ParadisoShlee
This is a real shame and I hope the original owners get it back... but that ai slop song is actually a banger
Kim_Bruning
Right? I grabbed it! Noticed the text says they're willing to host the original content and they'll pay for it?
The last week of January, the site was intermittently serving back a 429 response (too many requests) as recorded by the wayback machine. https://web.archive.org/web/20260000000000*/Zombo.com
In the first week of February, the site was down.
On the 8th, it was serving an error page from centos.
On the 9th, it was serving the new content. https://lookup.icann.org/en/lookup for zombo.com shows that it was updated on 2026-02-09 20:34:17 UTC
I believe that a more reasonable explanation would be that the domain name expired, someone saw that being the case, bought the domain name and hosted their own version of it.
I'm not sure that "stolen" is the proper verb to use, or that "hacker" is the appropriate attribution.