8Chan & Epik

[MapleDots]

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?

 

[Rob Monster]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

"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]

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."

 

[Paul]

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."

The peering agreement in question only affects sites hosted at Cloudflare; Cloudflare is unable to interfere with sites hosted at Vultr unless they are also Cloudflare customers. Basically, it means that if you host your website with Vultr and you also want to use Cloudflare as your CDN, your bandwidth will be free. It has no impact beyond that. Anything else won't be routed through Cloudflare.

 

[Internet.Domains]

The peering agreement in question only affects sites hosted at Cloudflare; Cloudflare is unable to interfere with sites hosted at Vultr unless they are also Cloudflare customers. Basically, it means that if you host your website with Vultr and you also want to use Cloudflare as your CDN, your bandwidth will be free. It has no impact beyond that. Anything else won't be routed through Cloudflare.

The alliance was spearheaded by Cloudfare. Cloudfare distributes the benefits that Vultr utilizes through the alliance. Cloudfare is at the top of the tree.

 

[Paul]

The alliance was spearheaded by Cloudfare. Cloudfare distributes the benefits that Vultr utilizes through the alliance. Cloudfare is at the top of the tree.

That's not how it works. The traffic never travels through Cloudflare; Cloudflare has no say in the matter. Want a picture?

 

[Paul]

@Internet.Domains This is a simplification, but it's accurate enough in this context. In reality, there are more intermediary ISPs in both scenarios. BitMitigate's diagram looks different because they're not an AS (or, at least, they weren't last I checked).

Basically, CBA just means example.com doesn't have to pay for bandwidth if they use Cloudflare because Vultr doesn't have to pay for bandwidth. If example.com doesn't use Cloudflare, then Cloudflare is completely out of the picture, including CBA.

CBA only has an impact when example.com opts to use both Cloudflare and a hosting provider that participates in CBA.

Edit: Oops, found a mistake. Fixed and re-uploaded.

 

[frank-germany]

@Rob Monster is not a fan of Cloudflare

I still don't understand exactly why

I use cloudflare on some domains
I have no issues using them

namepros uses cloudflare too
as far as I noticed

can't be THAT bad, isn't it?

 

[frank-germany]

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

in my view, it's not such a stroke of genius
to host separate web entities
with separate hosting companies

 

[dirk]

in my view, it's not such a stroke of genius
to host separate web entities
with separate hosting companies

It isn't. You'd be surprised how many hosting companies do host their own websites on the same nodes clients are on though.

 

[dirk]

@Rob Monster is not a fan of Cloudflare

I still don't understand exactly why

I use cloudflare on some domains
I have no issues using them

namepros uses cloudflare too
as far as I noticed

can't be THAT bad, isn't it?

They're not bad. They ain't special either unless you have a business subscription and let's face it. Most don't.

Their DDOS protection works but when shit gets real you're on your own. Here's some (slightly biased) article
https://tech.tiq.cc/2016/01/why-you-shouldnt-use-cloudflare/

The reverse proxy is great and most use them to hide the origin ip of their server but that's nothing that can't be done in another way.

I take my hat off for what they're doing as from a technical point of view it's a highly sophisticated setup. They push the use of IPV6 also but they certainly do have their own flaws.

Most of the security/privacy issues is probably why Rob doesn't like them that much.

 

[frank-germany]

They're not bad. They ain't special either unless you have a business subscription and let's face it. Most don't.

Their DDOS protection works but when sh*t gets real you're on your own. Here's some (slightly biased) article
https://tech.tiq.cc/2016/01/why-you-shouldnt-use-cloudflare/

The reverse proxy is great and most use them to hide the origin ip of their server but that's nothing that can't be done in another way.

I take my hat off for what they're doing as from a technical point of view it's a highly sophisticated setup. They push the use of IPV6 also but they certainly do have their own flaws.

Most of the security/privacy issues is probably why Rob doesn't like them that much.

as far as I understand
that's not the reason
@Rob Monster doesn't like cloudflare

when I recall rightly
it has to do with black vans

 

[blank]

in my view, it's not such a stroke of genius
to host separate web entities
with separate hosting companies

As far as I understand, epik as a registrar did not fail so there was nothing to recover from.
I was referring to the the fast recovery of the other services they offer.