If you always wanted to have an email address that made you sound like a spy, this is your lucky day. You can now get an NSA.org email address for just $100.
The owner of the NSA.org domain is selling email addresses and subdomains (think edwardsnowden.nsa.org) to anyone willing to pay $100 — what he calls a "bargain price."
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The man behind the site, Chris Fisher, is a 40-year-old IT consultant who registered the domain in 1995, because he was involved in the hack scene and "it was a fun domain to irc [an Internet chat protocol] from for trash talking and bustups with rival hackers (yeah, LOL)," he told Mashable via email.
At the time, since they were cheap, he said, he harvested various domain names. Fisher claims he even registered tacobell.com.
Since then, he has kept the domain, and even turned down offers from people who wanted to buy it. Fisher declined to specify the largest offer he received, saying that most offers came from non-profits, although "one of the highest offers I received was from the National Smokers Association in the late 1990s," he said.
He is now selling NSA.org email addresses to make a few bucks and take advantage of the sudden notoriety of the NSA, thanks to Edward Snowden and his top-secret leaked documents.
"Since I am taking a break from the consulting, I figured this would be a decent source of income while living in super cheap Oregon," he said.
Fisher also said that he's been in talks with WikiLeaks. "We might do something together," he wrote in an email to Mashable, but he declined to say exactly what their plans are.
"I personally feel it would be pretty hilarious to have dox [documents] coming out from the domain," he said, adding that he might also do something with the Internet advocacy group Fight For The Future.
A quick search with the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine reveals that the website has never had a very specific function. For most of 2007, for example, all you could see when visiting it was a giant asterisk. And, before that, the site apparently was some sort of parody or critique of the NSA.
If you're wondering whether you should bite the bullet and buy an NSA.org email address, Fisher has posted a tongue-in-cheek FAQ on the site that answers precisely that question.
"Why should I give you money?" asks the FAQ. "Because you are vain."
Image: Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images