Sound far fetched? Well, this is exactly what happened when Fairbanks-based Spiritual Crossroads, a non-profit education and service organization, had its domain name high-jacked by an adult entertainment (pornographic) website.

It’s referred to as “cyber squatting” -- a nasty practice of registering someone else’s domain in order to profit from it in some way. The squatter waits for a domain to expire and quickly snags it in hopes of reselling the kidnapped name for profit or increasing the visits to their own sites by stealing the squatted domain’s traffic.

Local governments and church organizations are especially vulnerable to this tactic. Pornography providers will often take family-friendly names in attempts to mislead unsuspecting web surfers.

A prime example of this can be found at www.whitehouse.com. By registering a domain name that closely resembles the real White House homepage (www.whitehouse.gov), this pornography site surprises many unsuspecting visitors from around the globe.

Other squatters will capitalize on current trends by registering domains that relate to world and national events. After the 911 disasters, for example, cyber squatters registered domain names such as WTCcrash.com, Pentagondisaster.com and WTCcollapse.com in order to capitalize on the rush for information and the wave patriotism. Some of the domains were used for legitimate memorial sites, but many were sold for profits of up to $500,000.

Currently, there are federal laws being passed to prevent cyber squatting. Teen Magazine, which has 2 million subscribers (average age of 15), recently found its name being used in the web address of a porn site operated by Blue Gravity Communications. It wasn’t long before teenaged girls started contacting the magazine puzzled about the website content.

Thanks to new laws, a federal judge was able to order the operators of the Internet pornography site to stop using Teen magazine's name in its Web address. (For more on Internet Pornography laws, including issues on free speech and protecting children, go to the American Center for Law and Justice website at: www.aclj.org/resources/pornography/internet/index.asp).

All of this leaves me to question: why would anyone want to take the domain name of a small non-profit like Spiritual Crossroads? With roughly 200 members, the website got a modest 30 hits per day. This won’t do much to increase anyone’s web traffic. And any attempt to ransom the domain name would be fruitless. Spiritual Crossroads budget goes into its newsletter and event planning. The website (as I can attest) is run by volunteers.

So, there must be a lesson in this somewhere. At least, that is what everyone keeps telling me. Things do happen for a reason, right? But is it more important how you explain the lesson or how you respond to it?

We can do everything right – pay our bills, feed the kids and never be late to an appointment. We can follow all the rules and never break a law. We can eat well; get 8 hours sleep and 30 minutes of exercise a day. Still, there is always that element of the unknown – that uncontrollable force that acts with its own will and possesses its own intentions. It may reveal itself as a traffic accident, sudden illness, job loss, the death of a puppy or an ending of a relationship.

It’s that unknown force with unknown reasons that pushes us to become who we are. It forces us to respond, each in our own way.

It may seem ironic, but for many the loss of the domain name has actually brought Spiritual Crossroads and its community closer together. All felt the pain of losing the domain name. And its subsequent replacement by a porn site was devastating. Through the efforts of a strong support group, however, the website is being rebuilt at a new location. Links are posted to help educate people on spiritual matters as well as how to protect themselves and their children from those on the Internet with bad intent.

It’s a lesson learned that hopefully won’t repeat itself. But knowing how the Spiritual Crossroads board and its members reacted, I am confident that the reward of the next crisis will be what’s put into action through the response. When your intentions are good, then, eventually, so are the results.