趁火打劫 (Loot a burning house)

趁火打劫 (Loot a burning house) is one of the Thirty-Six Stratagems (三十六计). This stratagem basically teaches one to "attack" when the "enemy" is at the weakest, troubled by internal problem such as natural disaster.

As many of you may know the state of Victoria in Australia has seen the worst bushfires ever. The death toll seems to hit over 300 and it seems that the fire were deliberately lit. Some people are using this "opportunity" to carry out a "Loot a burning house" stratagem.

Many domains, that may sound relevant to the bushfire, are registered. Websites requesting for donations starts to appear. These people are trying to profit from this event either by sell those potentially demanded domain or by posing as collectors for charities.

There are some suspicious websites that are claims to collect donations and forward them to respective organisations.

- bushfireappealqld.org


This site claims to be collecting donation for Australian Red Cross.


Each donation is AUD$15 using Paypal


From the Whois record, the site belongs to "Yasin Odeh from Queensland"

- bushfirevictims.com


This site seems to be selling CD and donate AUD$10 from each CD sold to the bushfire. But he did not state which organisation he will donate to. The website also accept donation for the bushfire.


From the Whois record, the site belongs to "Bayram Kudret from Victoria"

There are other suspicious domains that have yet to put up any webpages such as:
- bushfirebunker.com
- bushfirerelief.info
- bushfireshelters.co
- bushfireactionplan.com
- bushfirehomes.com
- bushfirehomes.org
- bushfirehousing.net
- bushfiresafety.net
- victorianbushfires.info

There are others domains that are reserved. Maybe to make profit from the demand of the domain or to be reserved for organisation to use. To name afew,
- bushfireappeal.org
- bushfirerelief.com
- australianbushfires.com
- victorianbushfirereliefvolunteers.org

Besides all the suspicious domains and websites, there are also many that provide support for victims, or information and either do not ask for financial donations or redirect donations to the red cross or Salvation Army.
- victorianbushfire.com
- victorianbushfireforum.com
- bushfireappeal.com
- bushfirehousing.org
- victorianbushfires.com

If anyone want to donate for victims of the Australia Bushfire, i encourage them to use the official Australian Red Cross site or the Salvation Army websites.

Lastly, i wish to dedicate this post and my regards to all the victims and their family.