Internic Question (Off-Topic?)

[J Cusick]

I am assuming this is a little off-topic, however I'm curious about a
situation I'm in and would like to know how the system works and how this
scenario could have occurred.

I have a domain, cusick.ws registered through Register.com. It has one IP
address associated with it (208.31.47.196). The top-level nameservers for
this address are ns1.dns.ws, ns2.dns.ws, ns3.dns.ws, ns4.dns.ws and
ns5.dns.ws

Register.com's nameservers for their ws space are dns25.register.com and
dns26.register.com

If you were to dig at Register.com, the IP address is correct, but if
you were to dig at the top level servers the ip address comes out
216.35.187.246, which just happens to be a registrar known as e.ws

It seems someone, and obviously not me, has changed the ip records as of
Friday evening. I discovered this yesterday due to a customer complaint,
not to mention complete lack of email, etc.

Needless to say, I called Register.com and pointed out the situation and
they "are working on it". 

As of today (Sunday) there is still no change at the top level, which
means a minimum of another 24-48 hours of no connectivity.

I thought that only I (and Register.com) had the ability to change these
records, but apparently not.

Does anyone have any idea how a scenario like this can come about, and how
to avoid it in the future?

Regards,

John C