8Chan & Epik

MapleDots · Aug 5, 2019

Controversial web forum 8chan has moved its domain name to a new registrar after it was linked to at least one of the two mass shootings that occurred in the US over the weekend.

According to Whois records, it’s just jumped to racist-friendly Epik, having been registered at Tucows since 2003.

The switch appears to have happened in the last few hours. At time of writing, you’re going to get different results depending which Whois server you ping.

Some servers continue to report Tucows as the registrar of record, perhaps using cached data, but Epik’s result looks like this:

http://domainincite.com/24593-after-more-racist-shootings-take-one-guess-which-registrar-8chan-just-switched-to?

Paul · Aug 6, 2019

@Rob Monster, do you think this decision will have a broader impact on our industry beyond the incident at hand? What are the consequences for us onlookers?

JayT · Aug 6, 2019

hey @frank-germany, right from the start you can see the negative bias to the wiki post for epik. They can't get the 'racist' bit out there fast enough. A lot of company are more dirty than this epik, you think? GAB.com isn't any big deal, how is this gab doing anything bad that others aren't?! IMO others are worse! Just a lot of social justice warriors loyal to fb and keeping people on the 'right' sites that mod this wiki post.

They claim he is hosting counterfeit meds and all that. Give me a break. The hyperlink ISNT EVEN A CITATION, just a link to what counterfeit meds are! DECEPTION. Spammers spam my forum with that crap, im always shutting that stuff down!! If not, guess what? FBI shuts it down. Guy can't help ppl put this junk on domains they buy there. So he's a good guy, and won't go banning sites every-time crybabies act up. They're going to go SOMEWHERE, those bad people, and they're everywhere, wake up!

Tired of playing 'who's the victim today' when these justice warriors go to change the world by shouting words like 'racist', 'shut them down' over the internet, and nothing more. The type that RUN from some mass killer. Let me tell you, that's shallow thinking, it takes A LOT more than that to win.

PS: your next post, he will probably answer you. It should be obvious a lot of that is fake, OVER-EXAGGERATED, misleading etc etc. It SHOULD be plain as day IMO.

frank-germany · Aug 6, 2019

JayT said:
hey @frank-germany, right from the start you can see the negative bias to the wiki post for epik. They can't get the 'racist' bit out there fast enough. A lot of company are more dirty than this epik, you think? GAB.com isn't any big deal, how is this gab doing anything bad that others aren't?! IMO others are worse! Just a lot of social justice warriors loyal to fb and keeping people on the 'right' sites that mod this wiki post.

ok
its biased

but where is the lie?

Larion · Aug 6, 2019

mAd MaX said:
What if next lunatic mass shooter publishes his/her crazy manifesto on Google doc?

if that happens, just shut down Google.com and all its services.
Should not be a big deal to do that...

Rob Monster · Aug 6, 2019

Paul Buonopane said:
@Rob Monster, do you think this decision will have a broader impact on our industry beyond the incident at hand? What are the consequences for us onlookers?

I will say this -- there are very few companies in the world that likely have the combination of resources needed to withstand the level of multi-vector deplatforming pressure that was applied in the context of 8Chan. This was highly coordinated.

The reason why we did not announce our decision to no-route on Monday is because it would have implied that we did it because we had no choice. We demonstrated overnight that we were able to fully recover, and start routing, including on our own IPs.

As for our infrastructure, it is resilient. Epik.com was barely impacted. Our CDN is decentralized and multi-vendor by design. We can add as many nodes as we like and are doing so, but were disappointed by Voxility, and Vultr. They were both weenies.

I believe the consequence for "onlookers" is that even though forum sites, including NamePros, can claim CDA 230 immunity, the fact is that there are organizations with vast resources that are in a position to destroy you, and possibly worse.

Personally, I am not really one who is governed by fear, so that was not a driving force here. However, I do care a lot about the wellbeing of our other clients and think that their interests are best served by Epik not being a martyr for unmoderated free speech.

Arfy · Aug 6, 2019

I have to say Epik recovered remarkably quickly and it sounds like none of their core services were affected. Rob and the company have taken a huge step in utilizing decentralized technology and it is great to see it in action. After all one of the main benefits of blockchain technology is constant, undefeatable uptime. Not really related to the topic but being the Crypto King I wanted to give a nod to decentralization.

blank · Aug 6, 2019

Fast service recovery indeed. This makes me trust epik services even more.

@Rob Monster - bold not to announce the decision on Monday. You guys did prove a point from the technological point of view but you also fueled some discussions that might be less than ideal for epik.

As for my co-nationals at voxility ... quite disappointing from more than one point of view.

Internet.Domains · Aug 6, 2019

First I am pro decentralization. Although, like all technologies, it can be used in good ways and bad ways. Ironically, users of 8chan are now moving to a decentralized platform based out of ZeroNet.IO. Per BBC:

"A copycat version of 8chan has already appeared on ZeroNet. And in theory any messages posted cannot be removed by administrators or law enforcement, because the content is shared across so many different devices."

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/technology-49249574

Will the ball continue to roll? Will ZeroNet.IO do something? Will Namecheap, as the registrar, step in?

Something tells me this is not over.

Brian L. · Aug 6, 2019

This might have already been mentioned, but I don’t see how a registrar should be held accountable for the actions of a particular website. That would be like holding a phone company accountable for a threat made from a particular phone number. It’s just not practical for every company to police everything their customers are doing at all times.

Arfy · Aug 6, 2019

Internet.Domains said:
First I am pro decentralization. Although, like all technologies, it can be used in good ways and bad ways. Ironically, users of 8chan are now moving to a decentralized platform based out of ZeroNet.IO. Per BBC:

"A copycat version of 8chan has already appeared on ZeroNet. And in theory any messages posted cannot be removed by administrators or law enforcement, because the content is shared across so many different devices."

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/technology-49249574

Will the ball continue to roll? Will ZeroNet.IO do something? Will Namecheap, as the registrar, step in?

Something tells me this is not over.

Interesting. I guess the power is with the people when it comes to decentralization. If you are bad you can participate in a bad network if you are good then you can participate in a good one. When I say participate I mean be a node in the network. The age long good vs evil will continue until the last day. Not saying anyone mentioned is bad or good just mean in general.

branding · Aug 6, 2019

Crypto King, post: 7342091, member: 992121"]Interesting. I guess the power is with the people when it comes to decentralization. If you are bad you can participate in a bad network if you are good then you can participate in a good one. When I say participate I mean be a node in the network. The age long good vs evil will continue until the last day. Not saying anyone mentioned is bad or good just mean in general.

It will also protect you in a more sophisticated way against DDOS attacks. They have been becoming a real problem over the last decade.

Https://cybermap.kaspersky.com paints a nice picture.

@Rob Monster how big in terms of Gbit/s was the attack? If you can't disclose this info I understand as a lot of companies are a bit hesitant to share info about their mitigation capacity.

Internet.Domains · Aug 6, 2019

The users of 8chan are still using services of Vultr through the ZeroNet gateway.

In other words, they have done nothing to deplatform 8chan.

You can't make this stuff up folks.

Rob Monster · Aug 6, 2019

NameDeck said:
It will also protect you in a more sophisticated way against DDOS attacks. They have been becoming a real problem over the last decade.

Https://cybermap.kaspersky.com paints a nice picture.

@Rob Monster how big in terms of Gbit/s was the attack? If you can't disclose this info I understand as a lot of companies are a bit hesitant to share info about their mitigation capacity.

We have withstood attacks, including Layer 7 attacks, and attacks involving more than 1 million unique IPs. That was not the attack vector used here. We could defend such attacks all day long and we just end up cataloging DDoS IPs and sharing that with others. That strategy has limited firepower these days. The vector of this attack was a high level influencer who likely warned our providers to drop us or suffer the consequence. I would bet that we are almost talking "Deep State" stuff. As much as I think free speech is cool and people should have the option to sift through the digital garbage, that scenario was not going to be on the table here.

Brian L. · Aug 6, 2019

Rob Monster said:
We have withstood attacks, including Layer 7 attacks, and attacks involving more than 1 million unique IPs. That was not the attack vector used here. We could defend such attacks all day long and we just end up cataloging DDoS IPs and sharing that with others. That strategy has limited firepower these days. The vector of this attack was a high level influencer who likely warned our providers to drop us or suffer the consequence. I would bet that we are almost talking "Deep State" stuff. As much as I think free speech is cool and people should have the option to sift through the digital garbage, that scenario was not going to be on the table here.

I certainly don’t envy your job sifting through the detritus.

Lox · Aug 6, 2019

Video [Epik 02:50 >>]
cbsnews.com/news/8chan-struggles-to-stay-online-after-links-to-mass-shootings/

Rob Monster · Aug 6, 2019

Lox said:
Video [Epik 02:50 >>]
cbsnews.com/news/8chan-struggles-to-stay-online-after-links-to-mass-shootings/

This was a pretty decent show actually. I declined all press interviews, including the request to be interviewed for TV for CBS among many others. The lead interviewer correctly drills down on total anonymity. That's the issue. Free speech works with personal accountability. Total anonymity is fine for whistleblowing but it becomes a challenge when it becomes an anonymous echo chamber.

Internet.Domains · Aug 6, 2019

Further research is showing that because of the Cloudfare Bandwith Alliance the users of 8chan are now back on the original technology that they were booted from.

Amazing what happens when the onion is peeled.

The hot potato is now back on Cloudfare's lap.

Rob Monster · Aug 6, 2019

Internet.Domains said:
Further research is showing that because of the Cloudfare Bandwith Alliance the users of 8chan are now back on the original technology that they were booted from.

Amazing what happens when the onion is peeled.

The hot potato is now back on Cloudfare's lap.

Well, check who is routing 2Ch.net, 5Ch.net, et. Someone specifically wanted 8Ch.net off the Internet for an extended period of time, that also coincided with 2 high profile mass murders involving high capacity guns.

CloudFlare has a vast number of cringeworthy clients -- 8Ch.net is not the worst, and of that I am sure. I won't bother to prove it.

Paul · Aug 6, 2019

Internet.Domains said:
Further research is showing that because of the Cloudfare Bandwith Alliance the users of 8chan are now back on the original technology that they were booted from.

What do you mean? The Cloudflare Bandwidth Alliance is a peering agreement; I'm not seeing any indication that it impacts or is impacted by 8chan at the moment. For the time being, no peering agreements affect 8chan because there are no IP addresses associated with their website.

Internet.Domains · Aug 6, 2019

Paul Buonopane said:
What do you mean? The Cloudflare Bandwidth Alliance is a peering agreement; I'm not seeing any indication that it impacts or is impacted by 8chan at the moment. For the time being, no peering agreements affect 8chan because there are no IP addresses associated with their website.

Based on the BBC news that users are going to the ZeroNet platform, it can be concluded:

ZeroNet uses Vultr
Vultr uses Cloudfare

https://www.cloudflare.com/bandwidth-alliance/vultr/

Paul · Aug 6, 2019

Internet.Domains said:
Vultr uses Cloudfare

No, Vultr doesn't use Cloudflare; they peer with each other. Cloudflare has no influence over them beyond that. It may very well be that Cloudflare uses Vultr (in part), though.

Rob Monster · Aug 6, 2019

blank said:
Fast service recovery indeed. This makes me trust epik services even more.

@Rob Monster - bold not to announce the decision on Monday. You guys did prove a point from the technological point of view but you also fueled some discussions that might be less than ideal for epik.

As for my co-nationals at voxility ... quite disappointing from more than one point of view.

If we had announced on Monday, it would have been from a position of weakness. I want the folks who were behind the heavy-handed takedown operation to know that we stood down of our own volition, but were not taken down. They already know that our DDoS mitigation can burn up their IP arsenal with relative ease. So, the takedown was of necessity based on supply chain interruption. They should fully know that we are also capable of licensing BitMitigate open source to anybody on the planet. So, we settle for a stand-off. The result is that much of 8Chan's community goes to the Dark Web. I don't think that is a great outcome but I did what I could to prevent it. In the meantime, perhaps 8Chan will be improve their content moderation practices.

Internet.Domains · Aug 6, 2019

Paul Buonopane said:
No, Vultr doesn't use Cloudflare; they peer with each other. Cloudflare has no influence over them beyond that. It may very well be that Cloudflare uses Vultr (in part), though.

"At Vultr, we strive to provide the most predictable cloud platform to all of our customers. Joining the Bandwidth Alliance, in partnership with Cloudflare, furthers our vision by being able to provide zero egress to our mutual customers."

Paul · Aug 6, 2019

Internet.Domains said:
"At Vultr, we strive to provide the most predictable cloud platform to all of our customers. Joining the Bandwidth Alliance, in partnership with Cloudflare, furthers our vision by being able to provide zero egress to our mutual customers."

Yes, that's a peering agreement. It's a price negotiation for bandwidth between two autonomous systems (AS). While it's possible Vultr utilizes Cloudflare's services or vice versa, that's not what a peering agreement indicates.

Internet.Domains · Aug 6, 2019

Paul Buonopane said:
Yes, that's a peering agreement. It's a price negotiation for bandwidth between two autonomous systems (AS). While it's possible Vultr utilizes Cloudflare's services or vice versa, that's not what a peering agreement indicates.

I agree with what your saying, but am unable to understand how you don't see the connection. Particularly how you don't see that Cloudfare could mitigate the distribution of content, just as they have done previously.

By definition:
"Peering is a process by which two Internet networks connect and exchange traffic. It allows them to directly hand off traffic between each other's customers, without having to pay a third party to carry that traffic across the Internet for them."

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