Parler, the beleaguered social network advertised as a “free speech” alternative to Facebook and Twitter, has had a tough month. Apple and Google removed the Parler app from their stores, and Amazon blocked the platform from using its hosting services. Parler has since found a home in DDoS-Guard, a Russian digital infrastructure company. But now it appears DDoS-Guard is about to be relieved of more than two-thirds of the Internet address space the company leases to clients — including the Internet addresses currently occupied by Parler.
The pending disruption for DDoS-Guard and Parler comes compliments of Ron Guilmette, a researcher who has made it something of a personal mission to de-platform conspiracy theorist and far-right groups.
In October, a phone call from Guilmette to an Internet provider in Oregon was all it took to briefly sideline a vast network of sites tied to 8chan/8kun — a controversial online image board linked to several mass shootings — and QAnon, the far-right conspiracy theory which holds that a cabal of Satanic pedophiles is running a global child sex-trafficking ring and plotting against President Donald Trump. As a result, those QAnon and 8chan sites also ultimately ended up in the arms of DDoS-Guard.
Much like Internet infrastructure firm CloudFlare, DDoS-Guard typically doesn’t host sites directly but instead acts as a go-between to simultaneously keep the real Internet addresses of its clients confidential and to protect them from crippling Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks.
The majority of DDoS-Guard’s employees are based in Russia, but the company is actually incorporated in two other places: As “Cognitive Cloud LLP” in Scotland, and as DDoS-Guard Corp. based in Belize. However, none of the company’s employees are listed as based in Belize, and DDoS-Guard makes no mention of the Latin American region in its map of global operations.
In studying the more than 11,000 Internet addresses assigned to those two companies, Guilmette found that approximately 66 percent of them were doled out to the Belize entity by LACNIC, the regional Internet registry for the Latin American and Caribbean regions.
Suspecting that DDoS-Guard incorporated in Belize on paper just to get huge swaths of IP addresses that are supposed to be given only to entities with a physical presence in the region, Guilmette filed a complaint with the Internet registry about his suspicions back in November.
Guilmette said LACNIC told him it would investigate, and that any adjudication on the matter could take up to three months. But earlier this week, LACNIC published a notice on its website that it intends to revoke 8,192 IPv4 addresses from DDoS-Guard — including the Internet address currently assigned to Parler[.]com.
A notice of revocation posted by LACNIC.
LACNIC has not yet responded to requests for comment. The notice on its site says the Internet addresses are set to be revoked on Feb. 24.
DDoS-Guard CEO Evgeniy Marchenko maintains the company has done nothing wrong, and that DDoS-Guard does indeed have a presence in Belize.
“They were used strongly according [to] all LACNIC policies by [a] company legally substituted in LACNIC region,” Marchenko said in an email to KrebsOnSecurity. “There is nothing illegal or extremist. We have employers and representatives in different countries around the world because we are global service. And Latin America region is not an exception.”
Guilmette said DDoS-Guard could respond by simply moving Parler and other sites sitting in those address ranges to another part of its network. But he considers it a victory nonetheless that a regional Internet registry took his concerns seriously.
“It appeared to me that it was more probable than not that they got these 8,000+ IPv4 addresses by simply creating an arguably fraudulent shell company in Belize and then going cap in hand to LACNIC, claiming that they had a real presence in the Latin & South American region, and then asking for 8,000+ IPv4 addresses,” he said. “So I reported my suspicions to the LACNIC authorities in early November, and as I have only just recently learned, the LACNIC authorities followed up diligently on my report and, it seems, verified my suspicions.”
In October, KrebsOnSecurity covered another revelation by Guilmette about the same group of QAnon and 8chan-related sites that moved to DDoS-Guard: The companies that provided the Internet address space used by the sites were defunct businesses in the eyes of their respective U.S. state regulators. In other words, the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) — the non-profit which administers IP addresses for entities based in North America — was well within its contract rights to revoke the IP space.
Guilmette brought his findings to ARIN, which declined to act on the complaint and instead referred the matter to state investigatory agencies.
Still, Guilmette’s gadfly efforts to stir things up in the RIR community sometimes do pay off. For example, he spent nearly three years documenting how $50 million worth of the increasingly scarce IPv4 addresses were misappropriated from African companies to dodgy Internet marketing firms.
His complaints about those findings to the African Network Information Centre (AFRINIC) resulted in an investigation that led to the termination of a top AFRINIC executive, who was found to have quietly sold many of the address blocks for personal gain to marketers based in Europe, Asia and elsewhere.
And this week, AFRINIC took the unusual step of officially documenting the extent of the damage wrought by its former employee, and revoking discrete chunks of address space currently being used by marketing firms.
In a detailed report released today (PDF), AFRNIC said its investigation revealed more than 2.3 million IPv4 addresses were “without any lawful authority, misappropriated from AFRINIC’s pool of resources and attributed to organizations without any justification.”
AFRINIC said it began its inquiry in earnest back in March 2019, when it received an application by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) about “certain suspicious activities regarding several IPv4 address blocks which it held.” So far, AFRNINIC said it has reclaimed roughly half of the wayward IP address blocks, with the remainder “yet to be reclaimed due to ongoing due diligence.”
I am about both sides having free speech. This guy has too much time on his hands. Go volunteer at some shelter if you need to be productive. To all my fellow techies you all know only one side is being silenced and lied about and that is the truth. All voices not only one. Stop this cancel culture immaturity
Well said! The ridiculous needs to stop. Don’t care what side of the aisle you’re on, be a decent human being.
So ignoring the presence of QAnon and 8chan qualifies you for the “decent human being” club. Wow. The guy (Guilmette ) deserves a medal for his efforts.
I must have missed when you and Guilmette were made the arbiters of free speech. If you don’t want to see something, don’t go there and see it, read it, or hear it and allow all others the same.
Since where was Guilmette the arbiter of anything?
He can’t force anyone to do anything. All he can do is inform providers of an issue (which in this case isn’t speech per-se), it’s up to the providers to decide what to do.
I noticed you left out Antifa.. Odd as they are responsible for burning down cities and actually killing people.. not to mention going to antifia.com takes you to the whitehouse.gov … You would think that would warrant some investigation.. but no..
Antifa is a boogeyman.
Just like Hitler blaming the communists for the burning of the Reichstag.
In reality, Antifa is a very loose organization with surprising few real members.
In fantasy, Antifa is everywhere. Everyone wearing black is antifa.
Right wing militias and white supremacists outnumber antifa by huge margins, and primarily organize and recruit on the Internet.
The fact that antifa has no significant presence on the Internet, should be a clue that they aren’t a real threat, but rather a scapegoat for whataboutism.
Antifa not a real threat? Tell that to the people whose businesses they and their supporters looted and burned.
Only a moron Trump voter like Bob thinks Antifa is dangerous and were the ones burning buildings.
Bob, Trump is gone, it’s time to start thinking for yourself; if it is a capability within your thin grasp.
You mean the Boogaloo Bois who burned the Third Precinct in Minneapolis were antifa? Or maybe you’re referring to Umbrella Man (who started the destruction in Minneapolis), the member of a white supremacist gang, is antifa?
Bob, who do you think burned the Reichstag? Because Hitler said it was the antifascists… he said it was the Communists.
So do you believe him?
Oh, yes, antifa definitely does not exist and is just a bogeyman.
I mean obviously cities burned themselves down, not antifa.
Obviously stores burned themselves down, not antifa.
Store owners murdered themselves, not antifa.
Antifa doesn’t exist.
Am I right, comrade?
The threats are real… but your attribution to a group called Antifa, is not real.
The threat was rioters. Very few were antifa. Yes, rioters who burned and looted need to face justice just the same.
Was antifa present during the race riots in the 1990’s? What about violent riots in the 1960’s???
Same level of violence and same basic cause.
It’s not antifa, it’s your imagination.
That is why people were claiming antifa broke into the Capitol.
Occam’s razor time. Is antifa everywhere but somehow so good at being super secret ninjas they infiltrate and vanish without a trace?
Or is it just a regular boogeyman that personifies every real/existing threat so you have a clear enemy to hate?
In September 2020, the FBI director told a Senate committee that “Antifa is a real thing. It is not a fiction.”
He continued that the FBI has seen Antifa engage in “organized tactical activity” at the local and regional level. Its adherents have coalesced and worked together in “nodes” rather than a structured hierarchy across the country.
In that same testimony, the FBI director said “We don’t view how nationally organized something is as a proxy for how dangerous it is.”
Based on what you are posting, it appears that you have significantly more insight into the size, scope and activities of Antifa than the FBI.
You mean Trump’s sycophant Bill Barr directed the FBI to boost the national profile of Antifa so that Trump can pretend to be a “law and order candidate”?
Those were quotes from Joe Biden’s choice for FBI director.
And who was standing right behind him when he said it?
Bill Barr.
The FBI is supposed to be an independent agency,… but the past 4 years has had a LOT of interference from the DOJ and the WH.
Even so, I agree with Wray. They are not organized, still a threat. But he specifically did NOT attribute specific crimes to Antifa. Unlike the FBI listing of Proud Boys.
The point is… yes, Antifa exists, and they are violent extremists (against fascists, just like we all were in the 40’s).
But no, they are NOT “everywhere”, doing “everything”, and pretending to be Trump supporters.
Would Wray confirm your theory about Antifa? Or would he agree with mine?
I never expressed a theory about Antifa.
The quotes from the FBI director were simply to demonstrate that the FBI viewed them as a serious threat.
If that is your “theory” then we both agree with the FBI.
Did the FBI attribute any of the many accused acts to Antifa? Or did they make a general statement that Bill Barr was pushing to the Senate?
The statements were made by the FBI director for the Biden administration.
And who was standing right behind him when he said it?
Bill Barr.
The FBI is supposed to be an independent agency,… but the past 4 years has had a LOT of interference from the DOJ and the WH.
Even so, I agree with Wray. They are not organized, still a threat. But he specifically did NOT attribute specific crimes to Antifa. Unlike the FBI listing of Proud Boys.
The point is… yes, Antifa exists, and they are violent extremists (against fascists, just like we all were in the 40’s).
But no, they are NOT everywhere, doing everything, and pretending to be Trump supporters.
Would Wray confirm your theory about Antifa? Or would he agree with mine?
I never expressed a theory about Antifa.
The quotes from the FBI director were simply to demonstrate that the FBI viewed them as a serious threat.
If that is your “theory” then we both agree with the FBI.
From a June 4, 2020 press release by the director of the FBI:
“In recent days, the violence, threat to life, and destruction of property that we’ve seen in some parts of the country jeopardizes the rights and safety of all citizens, including peaceful demonstrators. It has to stop. We’re seeing people who are exploiting this situation to pursue violent, extremist agendas—anarchists like Antifa and other agitators. These individuals have set out to sow discord and upheaval, rather than join in the righteous pursuit of equality and justice.”
Here here. Thank you. But we all better start using encrypted email because big brother is watching. Welcome to 1984.
antifa.com going to the whitehouse.gov site means literally *nothing*. Any domain or web site owner can arrange their web site to redirect anywhere, including parlor, kgb.ru or whitehouse.gov. The destination has literally NO control over it whatsoever. It’s tantamount to putting a sign on your house with an arrow pointing across the street and saying “I live over there”.
As for antifa and violence …
https://acleddata.com/2020/09/03/demonstrations-political-violence-in-america-new-data-for-summer-2020/
Congratulations you guys! You hit all of the buzz words!
The issue isn’t “cancel culture”, which has existed in all of history, but deplatforming violence and terrorism. The first amendment does not protect ALL speech, and it definitely does not protect hate speech and places where terrorism is formented.
I didn’t see you trolls out in force when the FBI closed down websites where Al Qaeda was operating in the interest of “free speech”.
Let’s get real, your issue isn’t free speech, which is why it is in quotes, your issue is that it is “your team” that is being targeted. My team is America and its people personally, and I’d rather see less right-wing violence, which is the purpose of actions such as these….
Alex get it.
Well said, Alex.
And yet Facebook and Twitter which have far, far more violence, terrorism, and conspiracy theories are still in operation. I’m sure that has nothing to do with their massive support and donations to liberal politicians. Despite your protests, this is entirely about cancel culture.
Who made you the arbiter of free speech? Also, when did we all agree that you get to decide what is and what is not ‘hate speech’?
This is contract law, not free speech. You may need to brush up on your high school government class to recall who can and cannot abrogate free speech. The company lied when they applied for this block of IP’s, and they’re paying the price for lying.
No one Daniel, no one at any point said I was the person who determines anything related to free speech. I leave that to congress to pass laws, the supreme court to interpret the laws and the constitution, and the executive branch to carry out those laws.
To those lamenting about Facebook and Twitter as some kind of retort, I think there’s a problem there too. Propaganda is a wartime measure that has been co-opted by pretty much everyone in the information age. What many countries have started doing is teaching critical thinking skills in school from an early age so a populace can understand what is and what isn’t propaganda.
That being said, it’s still a huge problem that any platform is being used for terrorism, such as the acts of Jan 6th. Those platforms deserve every bit of scrutiny they get.
Comparing Parler to Al Qaeda? Why not deplatform Twitter and Facebook, since they have been proven to be used by extremist groups
Twitter and Facebook ARE the platforms. Who would you contact to deplatform them?
If deplatforming terrorists and conspiracy theorists is the issue, why does Facebook and Twitter survive? They have been hotbeds of violent event planning for years.
Opsie!
You’re asking questions that people don’t want to hear.
Terrorist and conspiracy theorists are the content creators. Facebook and Twitter are platforms.
You can deplatform content creators, but how do you deplatform a platform?
I couldn’t have said this better myself! Nailed it! I’m not against any form of conservatism, but to see the constant badgering of who has the correct information has got me off my retirement, back to school to refresh my IT skills, to focus on this particular issue. It’s like a swarm of gnats in your face.
Just to be clear, you’re comparing the recruitment propaganda of a declared enemy that the USA is actively killing in a country on the other side of the planet…. with the political opposition of your neighbors.
Maybe that’s really the problem here that people are getting at. You view your neighbors as enemies and therefore your neighbors are starting to view you as one too. You set yourself against them, they have no choice, do they?
Your team isn’t America. America is based on freedom of speech. The founders had a lot of very intelligent things to say on why speech should be kept free and why it is more important than security. That’s America.
Go ahead and try to find a definition of “hate speech” that the constitution bans. The problem with “hate speech” is that “hate” is a natural emotion every human has. What is “hate” is not a static concept and varies depending on context and person. Therefore it is truly open to the interpretations of whomever holds the power. Something you love. True Americans don’t and never have. True Americans that like to know who the Nazi’s are by having them say so. True Americans that like to know the opinions of their neighbors so they can correct and be corrected in the process of forming a more perfect union. You can’t stop a person from hating something without talking to them.
Politics IS dialogue.
I am comparing recruitment propaganda for an enemy of America to what was happening on Parler; recruitment propaganda for enemies of America. Not all of it is that, not by any means. But it definitely happened there, that is irrefutable. The most ironic part is they thought they were being patriots when they stormed the capitol in an act of terrorism.
Actually, hate speech is 100% protected by the first amendment. Move to communist EU if you don’t like that.
The Supreme court actually protects so called hate speech. In fact, the Supreme Court has called the few exceptions to the 1st Amendment “well-defined and narrowly limited.” They include obscenity, defamation, fraud, incitement, true threats and speech integral to already criminal conduct.
Recall the Nazi marches in Skokie Il, were determined to be protected.
My concern is like a few others here, who other than the SCoTUS gets to determine what is appropriate speech and what isnt. You dont have to like the speech or the speaker, but in my America, I will defend their rights to speak.
Excellent point.
SCOTUS does determine what the 1st amendment means when it says, “freedom of speech”.
It protects hate speech… which, as you mention, also protects marches/protests/demonstrations in public.
But that is exactly the point. Facebook, Twitter, internet infrastructure, etc… are NOT the public square. As much as people make that analogy… it isn’t strictly true.
SCOTUS has no jurisdiction to tell private companies that they are now a virtual public domain… and must allow all speech.
That would be the equivalent of telling the owner of a stadium, they MUST allow a neo-nazi group to hold a rally inside.
100%, Alex. Suppose its not a surprise that the loudest people in the room complaining are the ones who are members of those channels themselves LOL.
I’d like to see radical LEFT platforms get the same treatment. I don’t condone extreme right miss behavior but I certainly am not thrilled at all about the rants from the left.
Conspiracy theories on the left do exist. For a long time… anti-vaxxers were the dominant left nutjobs. They too have been censored and silenced online.
I have been looking for “radical left” platforms on which there are active discussion of either vandalism, or the murdering members of congress, or the violent overthrow of the U.S. government. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to locate any such. If you or anybody else can point me at those, I’d most certainly like to deploy my unique skill set with an eye towards making life maximally inconvenient for those also, in addition to my one and only original goal, which was just to try to get the utter lunacy of this QAnon nonsense off the Internet.
Contrary to the somewhat inaccurate characterization which Brian has drawn of me, I am not a one trick pony, and I do not consider myself either a leftist or a rightist. The founding fathers formed a nation and a set of rules which required us all to talk to one another, rather than shooting one another or vandalizing each other’s stuff. I am a firm believer in that, and I would be only too happy to make as much trouble as I can for ANY party, regardless of political persuasion, who prefers to resort to either vandalism or violence rather than to what used to be our civilized political processes.
Exactly what Alex stated. Well done.
Hear hear Alex!
This has nothing to do with free speech.
It doesn’t matter if your right wing Qanon, or left wing vaxxers… conspiracy theory crap has plagued the Internet for far too long.
Free speech means that people and organizations have a right to NOT participate in giving other people a platform. Whether because they disagree, or because they violate their policy.
Anyone is allowed to go outside and stand on a soapbox in this country.
But this entitled generation thinks it’s their right to use and abuse the Internet as if the infrastructure was just gifted to them. It is not.
If you want to build your own platform, you are free to build the entire infrastructure to support it. Host on your own servers, sitting in your own data center, on land you own. Then build and provide your own DNS, DDOS protection, and pipeline to your audience.
Who determines what is or isn’t a conspiracy theory? The CCP commonly accuses political positions it disagrees with of being conspiracy theories, using that as grounds to censor those views. This is precisely the same.
NSA mass surveillance was widely regarded by the media as a conspiracy theory, even *after* Edward Snowden provided us with evidence. Your position would have led to the censorship of that story.
Independent fact checkers.
IFCN, the Poynter Instituted and many others. Fact checking is an important part of democracy. The legit news media did NOT disregard the NSA spying allegations. They protect whistleblowers too.
The Free Press is just as important as Free Speech.
They are as close as we have to arbiters of truth, and they SHOULD be as such.
To have an anarchists ideology regarding truth, is to say that either nobody is qualified to say what is fact or fiction, or that everybody (the will of the masses) is qualified in some kind of mob rule.
The Internet has put everyone with a camera, a desk and a green screen,… on equal footing with real journalists. This destroyed credibility in journalism, now that people think that pundits are journalists.
The real work of journalism still goes on, and we must put our trust in them again, to investigate and present the facts.
Facts and science. Got some news for you the earth isn’t flat and vaccines do not cause autism.
Nothing this guy is doing is about free speech.
Free speech is violated when the government uses its (near infinite) powers to suppress ideas for political or other gain.
When you don’t like what I say and get me kicked off the platform? That’s got nothing to do with free speech unless you’re a government agent acting in the capacity as a government agent.
I don’t believe in making it easy for people to spread hate and lies. Free speech has social consequences. It’s well past time these losers face the consequences instead of trying to hide behind provisions of free speech which has nothing to do with those consequences.
So Russia conspiracies good… Stolen election conspiracies bad… Got it..
If the Russian conspiracy took off like Qanon, then absolutely, shut it down with facts.
But there was like 37 indictments and jail time for 5 people. So it’s not like the whole Russia thing was completely unfounded.
Now, the pee pee tape thing seems to be unfounded, so if there are any blogs dedicated to that.. yeah, they can get deplatformed for all I care.
I don’t remember people with concerns about Trump asking Russia to search for Hillary’s emails storming the capital to stop the electoral process. Stopping the transfer of power is a coup and 5 people died that day. Don’t concuse political rhetoric with treason.
+1
Why do you get to decide for any other what is and what is not a lie?
Journalism is what is needed to distinguished truth from fiction.
Do you suggest that nobody is qualified to assess reality? Or that the ignorant masses determine truth by mob rule?
+1
When it all breaks one way, you see the agenda. With that said, I do appreciate bits of this blogpost. It saved me the click to Wikipedia for reflexive descriptions of some of the actors in this episode.
“Breaks one way”.
No, that’s observation bias.
Or discernment.
It is also discernment that 70% of all conspiracy theories are politically on the right. Probably some correlation with conservatism ideology that distrusts authority.
So any broad public rejection of conspiracy theories, are likely to be observed as biased against the right.
99% of all statistics are made up on the spot too. Pathetic. Is someone paying you to troll the comments section and carry water for totalitarians?
No totalitarians here… Just cult members of an authoritarian wanna be dictator who attempted a failed coup.
Much like a previous guy, Hitler failed at his coup in 1923 Munich. Millions of Germans followed his rhetoric and were fed a steady diet of lies. Back then, Jews and communists were the ever present boogeymen.
When the guy you’re following is also followed by literal neo Nazis and other white supremacists… Then you know you’re on the wrong side.
Both sides deserve free speech, yes.
When have you seen Republicans or Democrats jailed or executed for maligning the President of the USA? You haven’t because we do have free speech!
This, my friend, is the only guarantee in the Constitution. The US government allows you to express your opinion about it freely. END OF STORY. Free speech does not mean you can say anything, anytime to anyone.
As a private business, it can choose to host your web site or not. When the contact was made there were rules & the rules were broken so the contract ended.
Finally, we all have to learn to tolerate others but there is NO room in a civil society for hate, lies and intolerance.
Funny how it’s a slight against free speech for a company to decide they don’t want to do business with violent conspiracy nutcases, but when a business decides to discriminate against someone for their sexual preference that’s just good business practice and protected speech according to the right…
People are definitely getting tired of the right’s constant pearl clutching and blatant hypocrisy. It’s old, played out, and everyone can see it coming from a mile away every time. There’s a reason why the largest base of right wingers is the low and uneducated, their the only one’s left that fall for the BS.
Your bigotry is showing. Talk about confirmation bias.
You just learned that term “observation bias” because you say it on a previous comment. You obviously don’t understand what it means, because you aren’t using it correctly.
How about you try to actually refute the argument with a counter argument, instead of using words you don’t understand.
Thank you. I came here to say the same thing.
Came here to say what?
Your comments on this entire article are rather lacking in any foundation of facts and logic.
What are you really trying to say or convey to the audience?!
Obviously being paid in bitcoin (like Nick Fuentes) to shill and shut down websites that offer people a place to discuss things that go against the narrative.
Just today the WHO announced that covid tests produce a huge # of false positives. Something that if you had mentioned it a day earlier on FB/Twitter/ etc you would have gotten banned.
Just now? Where have you been? What were they referring to? Antigen testing? Which one? RT/PCR? Which? Where is this report? Is there really one? Does it really say what you think it does?
So much “so-and-so says this”, and it turns out to be non-existent, mis-represented, cherry picked or just plain wrong.
@Kale
I just searched through the news section at WHO and could not find any statement of an announcement of this sort. Do you have a legitimate link for this?
https://www.who.int/news
Hmm. Interesting that you are a proponent for free speech, but then promptly go forth and dictate how another can use their free speech. Further, I find it interesting you chose the topic of free speech, but then promptly ignore the meat of the article because then you would have to grapple with the understanding that by removing around eight thousand IPv4 addresses,the ability to communicate (especially with legacy single stack devices) is thwarted. This on top of the back handed claim of censorship. I’m sorry, parler dug it’s grave and now does not want to fall into it. ToS exists for a reason. If you do not want to adhere to those terms, it is time to find a service that has Terms you can agree to, or build your own system. Private companies are not government, freedom of speech does not apply.
“…by removing around eight thousand IPv4 addresses,the ability to communicate… is thwarted.”
Not true at all. DDoS-Guard still has 3,000+ IPv4 addresses in the RIPE (Europe) region which they appear to have acquired entirely legitimately.
They will undoubtedly migrate their customer, Parler.com, to that other address range in due course, as and when necessary.
Right. Free speech in any form must be supported, right? Whether it includes death threats, plots to enact crimes, child pornography, you name… free speech above all. That’s it, right.
Parler, in context, was given an opportunity to manage the content that it hosted on its system. It either declined or failed. This is the main reason why it was taken down. Next.
Brian, does anyone make it their personal mission to de-platform conspiracy theorist and far-left groups, such as ANTIFA and BLM, Inc.? No one you would report on, I’m sure. Regardless, it’s called the First Amendment. Far-right, far-left, it doesn’t matter; we have the right to say whatever we want!
The First Amendment only applies to the Government restricting free speech. As for ANTIFA and BLM… please point to any site where they’ve been conspiring to overthrow or kidnap and kill elected officials… I’ll wait.
Oh, say did you see? Antifa is back at it in Portland, this time attacking the Democrat HQ. I wonder why State TV has failed to cover this? Destruction economics? Or will local leadership call in the NG? And if so, will they be called authoritarian? Can the powers at be control their crazy hired guns?
You can learn more by follow Rose City Antifa’s twitter feed. There you can see a piece of the network, sans the heavy hand of censorship.
I did learn that the Oregon Democratic party HQ was attacked.
I did not learn (because it isn’t true) that that attack was by antifa.
One clue that someone isn’t going to be an honest member of a community is when they can’t spell the name of the political party of the President of the United States. FYI it is the Democratic Party.
It does not control mass media, there is no State TV, but will protect the nation from conspiracies and the Fascist Conspirators who attempted to overturn a properly conducted election. Like Jan 6th.
Antifa back in the 1938-45 era was known as the Armed Forces of the Allies. Anti-Fascist is what is being abbreviated there. Not the same as Communist, or even leftist, anti Nazi. We have a big Nazi problem here in America, and no communists to speak of.
Jill is a Qanon shawoman apparently.
Caught in a lie and caught trying to spread another conspiracy theory much like the, “it was antifa who stormed the capitol” nonsense.
Far-left conspiracy nuts are out there. Anti-vaxxers have long been typically left, not right.
And the 1st amendment of the US constitution is a fascinating read, I suggest you actually read the words. It has never, and will never, apply to private companies.
Congress will pass no law abridging free speech….. and they haven’t.
The first amendment doesn’t apply. I constantly see this argument from people who have zero knowledge of our constitution. “My hate speech is silenced, this is against the first amendment”. Get real.
Just because you are being de-platformed (rightfully so) doesn’t mean it is against your right to “free speech”.
I’m so tired of the same rhetoric. Learn some new material.
When ANTIFA starts spreading organized hate and well-debunked lies and conspiracies, I’ll be happy to deplatform them too.
They have burning down buildings Benoit… They are actually calling for the destruction of this country and I still think they have the right to exist.. That is the difference between the 2 parties. One is an evil dictatorship and one is barely holding on to a country that is being stolen..
Good job perpetuating myths peddled by Trump. I have some magical beans to sell to you by the way!
“we have the right to say whatever we want!” Sure, but not anywhere you want. Krebs lets you post here, but he doesn’t have to. Just to give one example.
Please tell me how a LACNIC revoking IP addresses fraudulently given to a Russian company has anything to do with the first amendment to the United States Constitution.
Don’t worry. I’ll wait.
Well, I’ll bite. For starters, LACNIC is not based in the United States. Secondly, they reserve the right to dole out or rescind chunks of IP space as their legal contracts specify. The U.S. Constitution is irrelevant here.
I think that was lol’s point.
Your article rightly doesn’t cover the US First Amendment as it’s about contracts violations between a non-US (Russian) company (DDoS-Guard) and LACNIC [1] (an entity established in Uruguay [2] in South America [3]) which was assigned responsibility for IP addresses in Central America [4] and South America [3] (IP addresses in the US are covered directly by ARIN [5]). The contract violation according to your reporting is about a fraud undertaken in Belize [6] in Central America [4].
Similarly that AFRINIC [7] (an entity established in Mauritius [8]) to serve companies in African [9] countries) handled disputes with entities over its property is also well outside the scope of the US First Amendment.
Thanks for the article. Especially the bit about AFRINIC which was an easier read than their longer publication explaining their findings which I didn’t finish reading earlier.
[1] https://www.lacnic.net/innovaportal/file/250/1/lacnic-estatuto-en.pdf
[2] https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/uruguay/
[3] https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/south-america/
[4] https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/central-america/
[5] https://www.arin.net/about/corporate/
[6] https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/belize/
[7] https://afrinic.net/bylaws
[8] https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/mauritius/
[9] https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/africa/
The fact that “free speech” is in double quotes tells you all you need to know about Krebs lib views. I would never move to censor an alternate viewpoint from my own. Instead of Krebs having any kind of guts and questioning the stolen election and the cyber issues around that, we get more snark towards Parlor. Let me help you out Krebs because you clearly still have not gotten the point.. FREE SPEECH should never be in double quotes.. It’s either free or not.
You should go read what free speech means. The government has nothing to do with any of this, so your “free speech” arguments are 100% wrong. I’d suggest reading the bill of rights.
If it were a real “free speech” issue, it would be in the courts. Right now Parler is just suing for being de-platformed and will lose because AWS has the right to refuse service, so does Twitter and any other US company.
This guy started his complaint while Parler was still on AWS, so he didn’t target them, just a Russian company that was breaking the rules.
It is in double quotes because the term is misused and misapplied in this context. He uses it ironically because “free speech” is NOT applicable to private businesses.
Learn how to spell, learn the actual text of the Constitution, and learn basic math.
Do these things first, and you will understand why you lost the election (not stolen).
Stolen election… still believe that bs huh?
This article is about what ?
Sorry but everybody is not tech and it savvy people.
Btw the techolodgy have coused a lot suffering to people
Krebs on Security is a technology blog. I understand that the political climate has gathered a bunch of non-technical conspiracy theorist to this site, but at least try to keep up by reading some of the other earlier articles.
The IP Addresses were held by people who weren’t qualified to hold them. One way to explain it is think od someone claiming to be a resident of a state to take advantage of an In state tuition for college but their address is only a PO Box and you don’t actually have any presence in that state. DDOS guard had IP addresses allocated to them from a block they weren’t qualified to hold, that disqualification has been brought to light and now they are losing those IP Addresses.
Free speech should be placed on the endangered species list.
“Hate” and “extremist” are defined differently by different groups. When one of those groups holds power then their definition can impact free speech.
Thus, allowing any group to limit the speech of any other group for any reason detracts from the concept of free speech. What is left when this is allowed to occur is “approved speech”; not free speech.
Speech has NEVER BEEN MORE FREE… than today in the 21st century.
You used to have to pay a lot of money to have pamphlets printed, and even then, could only reach a limited audience that was dependent on how much you spent printing pamphlets, and how much time and money spent on distribution.
Even newspaper editorials, TV or radio broadcasts… your speech was very limited based on the editorial review of the media company that owned the printing press or TV/radio transmission.
Only in the Internet age, has so many people feel entitled to this mode of unbridled communication that can amplify a single voice to an audience of millions… while costing virtually nothing. A homeless guy can go to a public library, create a free social media account, and have a voice heard around the world.
THAT is powerful speech.
But just like before the Internet, there are private companies who put in the time and money to actually build the infrastructure of communications that facilitate speech. And using their infrastructure and platform, is inherently dependent on their permission.
This is not a “free speech” issue. But of private censorship, which has always been allowed.
…the first amendment to the constitution states (paraphrased for brevity) “…the government shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech…” – it says nothing about platforms owned by companies, organizations, etc…
…no one’s “free speech” was abused (by the government)…
The government published section 230.
Huge monopolies in their own fields likeFacebook, Twitter and the likes, protected by section 230, ban anyone opposing their political narative, more precisely anyone right of Marx and his current fans, antifa.
That’s how the government screwed free speech.
Clear enough for you?
…i think you should read section 230 which limits civil liability when someone else creates the content, but leaves in place the criminal liability for certain content (like child porn and sex trafficking)…
…”free speech”ers are free to use another platform (soapbox)…
…no one is guaranteed twitter…
Not clear.. Because your ignorance of Section 230 is even worse than your ignorance of the 1st amendment.
There is no provision in Section 230 or in any law that requires moderation or requires no moderation.
Section 230 protects platforms from getting sued for libel/defamation based on the content they allow their users to post. It basically means that companies don’t have to legally moderate if they don’t want to.
Repealing Section 230 would make the censorship far worse, and they would ban users for even hinting at certain topics.
+1
Just about everybody gets Section 230 wrong. What really means is twofold:
– That they are not considered publishers of a message of their user, merely conveyors (like a trucking company) and thus aren’t required to pre-vet all content (open all packages).
– But a provider *cannot* turn a blind eye and leave illegal content up upon being informed of its presence. Just like a trucking company who turns a blind eye to a known problem.
[This is equivalent to the acts about “common carrier” in the trucking industry and elsewhere.]
In other words, the protection to the provider of the former, does not allow the provider to continue to be a willing accomplice to known and demonstrated illegal acts.
[Illegal acts in this case include violations of copyright, privacy, public threats and so on.]
If section 230 were repealed, providers of forum platforms could be successfully sued or charged from he moment a bad posting appears.
So repealing section 230 would cause every provider of open forums to shut them down – nobody in their right minds would expose themselves to the legal hazard.
Very good summary.
The difference between active and passive moderation is important.
Once notified of content in violation, the platform must act in a reasonable and timely fashion to remediate.
That is the biggest difference between platforms like Twitter and Parler. Twitter does have a process for flagging and does remove content after review. Parler was given every opportunity to remove the content that Amazon and others have shown to be in violation. Parler was unable or unwilling.
Guilmette is acting as judge, jury, and executioner in his own kangaroo court. There are few ills more un-American than attacking the First Amendment. Every online platform has incendiary content—Twitter has done nothing about #killDonaldTrump hashtags, nor has Facebook quieted Iranian calls to destroy the state of Israel. Attacking Parler is an action devoid of any principle, it’s just raw harassment.
Guilmette is literally just ensuring that specific rules are being followed re: assignment of scarce ipv4 address space. Breaking laws should end with discipline, and revoking ddos-guard’s IP space is the appropriate discipline, considering it was ill-gotten.
So tired of this whataboutism.
Read the US Constitution. Ignorance is rampant with the “free speech” crowd.
“judge, jury, and executioner”
Nope, he’s a reporter. He reported it and the companies involved investigated, judged and will execute.
It’s been said over and over…the fact that you don’t like the answer doesn’t mean it’s not he answer.
This has nothing to do with the first amendment. The first amendment prevents the government from taking action to prevent you from speaking out in public.
An internet forum is a privately owned space. It is NOT public, it’s the lobby of a business.
Walk into my business and start spouting off and I have every right to ask you to leave, and enforce that decision if you choose not to.
The constitution protects your right to protest and disagree. It does not allow you to do what you want, when you want, where you want.
I make it a point to block hosting companies, cloud providers, basically anything I catch hacking my web server that doesn’t have eyeballs or is a search engine. I simply can’t believe the sheer number of cloud providers are all actually companies leasing services. The market cannot support that many no-name players. This article confirms my guess. I assume a number of them are intelligence agency fronts, law enforcement, etc. I investigate just enough to make sure they aren’t also an ISP (common in some countries).
Incidentally one I block is buyvm based in Las Vegas, a firm Mr. Krebs may recognize.
Ovh hosting out of France is brutal for that too. I’d say fully 1/4 of the hack probes and hack attempts on my sites come from there.
You can go to bgp.he.net and look up their ip space. The tool can be tricky to use but for OVH just type OVH on the box. You are on your own to get the data into a usable format for your firewall. I just vim it using macros.
Statically blocking IP space in a firewall is very CPU friendly. It does use RAM. Dynamically blocking IPs does use significant CPU cycles so it is up to you if you want to use fail2ban or similar.
OVH and AWS were one of the first VPS I blocked.
Sad. You’re an autistic activist, nothing more.
Sad… your intelligence was left outside this forum.
Not sending ‘the best’ I see.
Good riddance!
Krebs reported what happened. That’s all. I see nothing that promotes influence one way or another. By the way, the far left is message is also suppressed if it promotes violence against the US government.
Nice job Brian. Stamp out free speech anywhere you can. Yup. Overlook that during a capital hearing voting machines were able to be hacked (directly and through a thermostat), but yea this is something worthwhile. If you want to see it happen here is the link you can watch it for yourself – newswars.com/breaking-stanford-researcher-hacked-georgia-voting-machine-confirms-pump-and-dump-vote-manipulation-possible
Maybe just maybe you could look into this.. I doubt it though..
Please tell me how the thermostat managed to print out ballots which were later audited in a hand recount.
It is widely known that electronic voting machines have vulnerabilities. This isn’t anything new or exclusive to Dominion products.
This is why it is important that voting machines print out paper ballots which can be audited. All of the Dominion machines used in Georgia print out ballots which the voter then feeds into a counting machine.
Another one opposed to free speech. It would not have been necessary for Parler to go outside the borders if American companies had not colluded (and that’s what they did) to shut Parler down. I do not understand how anyone who says they believe in free speech supports this.
“believing” in something is not the same as “understanding” it.
Your belief in this concept means nothing, because you are ignorant in the very thing you profess to believe.
Read what the US Constitution actually guarantees regarding free speech. Hint: it does not apply.
I have read the Constitution and am aware that the 1st Amendment applies to government regulation of speech.
What you’re writing is that free speech only exists in the 1st Amendment of the Constitution and no where else. I disagree with you.
…you’ve been brainwashed by someone…
free speech does exist elsewhere beyond the US Constitution. But in the US… it is only “guaranteed” by the US Constitution.
No private company really guarantees the same protection of free speech. They may encourage speech that is semi-free… (as long as it doesn’t violate the many terms of agreement).
The issue here, is that although Parler wants to guarantee its users a similar platform for free speech… they don’t own the infrastructure below their platform. Amazon, DDOS protection providers, IP address registrars, etc…. all have their own policies and terms that must be followed that could restrict such a broad definition of “free speech”.
…government has not passed a law blocking free speech…
…other groups can say they do “free speech” but it does not have the force of law and they are rightly protected from civil liability for their actions…
…anything else is pure fantasy wishlistism…
Please stop carping about “free speech” and violating your “First Amendment” rights. Hate speech, violence, and terrorism should have no rights at all on the internet, whether far right, left, wherever. Also there is no such thing as the First Amendment on the internet. Not everyone is from the U.S., and even there, would/should not be tolerated.
Why do you get decide the meaning of the following?
Hate speech, violence, and terrorism
SCOTUS interprets the Constitution. And they agreed, “free speech” does include hate speech… But free speech is only applied to laws passed by government. Private sector can do what it wants regarding censorship.
Censorship: Freedom to NOT allow someone to speak on your own property.
Much more important than shutting down some crazy conspiracy racists… holding the news agencies that promulgate the lies and hate.
Why, for example, has Fox News not been de-platformed?
Because you are not the decider of what is and what is not a lie. If you don’t want to hear, read, or see anything about Fox News then stay away from it. This really isn’t hard to figure out. I don’t like NYT, so I don’t have a subscription to it and I don’t read it at all. Problem solved.
Great question.
Because Fox News build and operates it’s own platform. Or more specifically, Newscorp (Rupert Murdoch) does approve of the content on Fox News, and in many cases, directs it.
If Murdoch were to have a problem with Fox News… he can (and has), fired people. He owns the platform, so he can easily deplatform them if he wanted.
This is the crux of this issue.
The 1st amendment doesn’t apply, but rather this is a capitalist free market economy that allows for arbitrary censorship by those who actually own the platform.
Speech has NEVER BEEN MORE FREE… than today in the 21st century.
You used to have to pay a lot of money to have pamphlets printed, and even then, could only reach a limited audience that was dependent on how much you spent printing pamphlets, and how much time and money spent on distribution.
Even newspaper editorials, TV or radio broadcasts… your speech was very limited based on the editorial review of the media company that owned the printing press or TV/radio transmission.
Only in the Internet age, has so many people feel entitled to this mode of unbridled communication that can amplify a single voice to an audience of millions… while costing virtually nothing. A homeless guy can go to a public library, create a free social media account, and have a voice heard around the world.
THAT is powerful speech.
But just like before the Internet, there are private companies who put in the time and money to actually build the infrastructure of communications that facilitate speech. And using their infrastructure and platform, is inherently dependent on their permission.
This is not a “free speech” issue. But of private censorship, which has always been, and should always be allowed.
Comments getting pruned as we post.
Relax and be patient. There is automated moderation that delays posts.
Jill, I don’t moderate comments, except when they contain spam or outright harmful threats. As you can see, your comment got through just fine. Others get auto-moderated by my comments system and stay that way until they are acted on by me. Often, it is hours or days before I get around to reading them all.
That said, free speech has nothing to do with platforms (including this one) removing such offensive content. I am well within my rights to do that, and yet exercise that right very infrequently as you can see from the many misinformed comments and personal attacks that I allow to be published here.
Put simply, while you have a right to express your opinion, that takes nothing away from the rights of online platforms to refuse to listen to it.
I think I can try to sum up why people are disturbed on this. All the people that are saying free speech means the Government cannot limit speech are correct. The issue is that when you have many companies that at one time work to shut only one side of an argument down, there are problems. When you have amazon say they won’t host Parler anymore because of hate speech and then they have a company selling shirts that say Kill all republicans it seems disingenuous at best. Twitter is the same way. There is a lot of hate spewed in twitter, but only some people are getting censored. One might consider that a number of companies working together to force people into fewer choices is very monopolistic at best.
The right to Free Speech means the government can’t arrest you for what you say.
It doesn’t mean that anyone else has to listen to your BS. Or host you while you share it.
The 1st Amendment doesn’t shield you from criticism or consequences.
If you’re yelled at, boycotted, have your show cancelled, or get banned from an internet community, your free speech rights are NOT being violated.
It’s just that the people listening to you think you’re an *$#@, and they’re showing you the door.
(the above is borrowed from a constitutional law scholar friend)
Is Randall a constitutional scholar?
https://xkcd.com/1357/
If people don’t want to listen to you they don’t have to,
what about those several million that do want to know what the others are saying and thinking, to talk.
But corporations (not governments) don’t like peoples views, they make you virtually disappear for not agreeing with them.
These companies are not calming people, they are raising tensions and instigating the very activity they say they want to avoid.
It’s so depressing. I feel guilty just working in IT right now.
Those several million people will just have to physically go out and interact with like-minded people.
Those who are afraid of the verbiage, the content will try and shut it down. The words terrorism and hate have 100 different definitions depending upon the 100 people providing said definitions. So why the fear of said sites and their content? That’s the real question at hand.
I am all for anything that blocks these idiotic conspiracy theories. These flat earthers, anti-vaxers, stop the steal idiots need to go climb back under their rocks.
This site used to be about security, now it’s about pushing the lastest CNN outrage cancel culture narrative. Sad to see, it was fun while it lasted.
Stop it. you post on every article the same idle threat of “leaving” because you find something too political.
You aren’t leaving. I wish you would.
…security is about understanding the law, and to some extent, where law is sourced, the constitution…
…so yes, this the right place…
Ron Guilmette is now on my personal list of heroes.
Good job Brian!! Looks like you have everyone riled up now[LMAO]
People losing sight that there is criminality & fraud involved in everything this guy is focusing on and complaining because shady business practices are being brought to light. Maybe if this was the case with other political groups we would see something related?
1. Creating a shell company & lying about business presence in a region in order to defraud an internet registry (LACNIC issue)
2. Secretly misappropriating IP ranges for personal profit (AFRINIC)
3. Operating businesses which are no longer licensed to do business & have been suspended for years (ARIN)
Before crying about “free speech” suppression you could make sure your infrastructure isn’t powered by fraud?
I agree with Robert. The point is this outfit is like many of its hostings is a thief and a chiseler, taking IP addresses from out of its area and providing no benefit to the area. In fact it is making it hard for those who actually live there.
As for free speech, you get to say what you want. Nobody has to provide you with a megaphone. That is the other half of free speech. I have no obligation to host anyone on any domain I own which I do not wish to for whatever reason.
The issue is; if you wanted to host content, you can’t.
If your view point isn’t approved, you will be silenced too.
That includes “talking among your peers, if using technology” about potential crimes, real or imagined. The discussion is banned.
lol these comments from QAnon’s and the tin-foil hatters. One can never reason with fascist conspiracist wing nuts.
Anyway, good reporting as always, Brian.
Time to deplatform the worst purveyors of hate and extremism on the web; Twitter and Facebook.
Many of us have been targeting criminal losers that hijack addresses for decades. This set of criminal losers also being violent right wing conspiracy idiots is only mildly relevant; steal addresses, get smacked down.
The QANON demented crowd appears to have infiltrated this venue as well. What a sorry bunch of lawlessness promoters. When you abuse freedom you don’t have a right to keep your freedom.
Hey Jay, I’m an independent, I loath both R and D parties for their exclusionary tactics of people that are not with either of their sides, to the point that these two private groups own the government now.
But now that corporations have banded together to block out millions of people. Not just a fringe group of a few hundred Q’anons, or groups that murder people daily, just millions of normal people wanting to have discussions.
I was about to join Parlor, just to hold my name, (like I do with other social media I don’t use) and wow, the corporations have taken over. They have more say on who talks than governments now. And when they tell you why they do it (or why they say they are) – do it for the children,,,,, I would rather know who my enemy is by letting them speak, maybe I could talk some sense into them – not when they are in a digital dungeon, left to stew in their own paranoia, that has been brought into reality LOL god I hate this world.
I get your frustration. I too don’t like either party. We need IRV,Ranked Choice, Approval voting….. so we can let moderate 3rd parties enter politics without being drowned out by the spoiler effect.
Big Tech, is the new enemy. But it’s unlike other “Big X” entities we are used to. For one, WE gave them this power. Not some government corruption allowing drilling rights, manipulating food markets, etc. We are all responsible for allowing Internet companies to become our only outlet for speech and expression.
Long before Trump decided to “rule by Tweet”…. we are the ones who allowed a reality TV show star to captivate us and take all of our attention. When this kind of stuff only existed in tabloids, we could easily ignore it. But the Internet, the great equalizer… gave everyone a Megaphone.
Internet companies should have regulated themselves long ago to classify and censor tabloid sensationalism. But in a misguided and greedy attempt to grow and be all inclusive (they want our data and to sell ads)… they did not, and bear a lot of responsibility for the cesspool that the Internet has become.
I get your frustration. I too don’t like either party. We need IRV,Ranked Choice, Approval voting….. so we can let moderate 3rd parties enter politics without being drowned out by the spoiler effect.
Big Tech, is the new “enemy of the people” according to some. But it’s unlike other “Big X” entities we are used to. For one, WE gave them this power. Not some government corruption allowing drilling rights, manipulating food markets, etc. We are all responsible for allowing Internet companies to become our only outlet for speech and expression.
Long before Trump decided to “rule by Tweet”…. we are the ones who allowed a reality TV show star to captivate us and take all of our attention. When this kind of stuff only existed in tabloids, we could easily ignore it. But the Internet, the great equalizer… gave everyone a Megaphone. They gave us an algorithm to hack. So now, the voices of those who game the system, are heard the loudest.
Internet companies should have regulated themselves long ago to classify and censor tabloid sensationalism. But in a misguided and greedy attempt to grow and be all inclusive (they want our data and to sell ads)… they did not, and bear a lot of responsibility for the cesspool that the Internet has become.
They were granted a huge block of IP addresses. A single server would not justify that to LACNIC.
It is not about being “illegal extremists”…. they fraudulently represented themselves to LACNIC in order to obtain IP space.
They are NOT being censored… they will just have to use more of their legit IP addresses, that might properly show their location in Russia.
These comments, are people THAT disillusioned? So. Much. Misinformation.
Thank you Brian for reporting this, it actually makes me feel hope.
I’m sure the next letter in the alphabet “R” will start 2021 with another baloney outbreak theory. Thank goodness these platforms are taking a stand against it, you don’t need Facebook or Twitter, and like another poster said, you can stand on soap box. Finally, Ron Guilmette, my hero.
I’m not against conservative views but I am against dialog that is wrong, these theorists are never positive lifting messages, they are ugly rumors with less than percentage point in truth. And stop it with the Antifa. You are just embarrassing yourselves.
I wish he’d go after the clowns that sell VoIP access to other clowns that push scam and fraud phone calls to us all. I’d think that would make him a bigger hero. Heck, none of those CLECs appear to have physical locations either.
Funny how all the far right nuts pile into a cyber security blog and suddenly imagine they are all experts concerning the allocation of now scarce routable IPV4 address space, once the fact the new network upstream of their favourite pissoir gets its hand smacked for being naughty. Well, I suppose it’s par for the course, given their claims of superior expertise concerning masks, vaccines, whether Covid19 exists, how votes ought to be counted and superiority of knowledge in just about anything else.