Iowa Man Receives 20-Year Prison Sentence for Attempted Armed Domain Name Theft
A 43-year-old Iowa resident has been sentenced to 20 years in prison after breaking into a victim’s home and attempting to steal a domain name at gunpoint. According to a report by Motherboard, the incident took place in June 2017.
The perpetrator, Sherman Hopkins, entered the home of 26-year-old Ethan Deyo, threatened him with a pistol, and tried to force him to unlock his computer and transfer ownership of the domain name doitforstate.com. Deyo resisted, managed to wrestle the gun away from Hopkins, and shot him several times in the chest.
Hopkins was found guilty of illegal possession of a firearm, breaking and entering, and attempted armed robbery. While domain theft is not uncommon, Hopkins is reportedly the first person to attempt such a crime in person and with a weapon, rather than online.
Background on the Domain Name
According to Deyo’s personal website, he owns several domain names that are up for sale. Investigators have not disclosed why Hopkins specifically targeted doitforstate.com.
The phrase “do it for state” became a meme among American college students in 2017, spreading on social media as a toast or a call to do something wild. The doitforstate.com website is currently offline, with only a 2015 screenshot available in web archives. Headlines suggest the site was dedicated to college life and included a link to a Twitter account, @doitforstate, which belongs to an Iowa-based recording company called Elite Sound and Design Studios. The company has not responded to media inquiries.
Why Was doitforstate.com So Sought After?
The domain name doitforstate.com translates to “do it for the state” and references a local meme popular among college fraternities. It appears that Iowa State University students would often shout phrases similar to the domain name during various pranks or wild antics, making the domain especially desirable to Hopkins.
Currently, attempting to visit doitforstate.com results in a DNS error. However, the Wayback Machine contains a 2015 copy of the site, which featured stories, videos, and photos of student life. The archived site also links to the Twitter account of an Iowa recording company. The website ceased to exist about a month after the incident in Cedar Rapids.