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I Worked for a Criminal Organization

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Re: I Worked for a Criminal Organization

#21

Post by ikeboy »

saber6 wrote: post #19
ikeboy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See my comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22361670 None of the things mentioned here are crimes, as far as I can tell. The crime they were actually charged with was using these shell companies to get more IP addresses than they were "entitled" to get. See the indictment at https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.scd.250342/...

> [...] as far as I can tell. It appears the law in this case feels differently. The owners claimed under legal penalty that they had certain assets (paying customers, needs for IP addressing, etc). These statements appear to have been completely false. Thus, the trial. And yes, lying to ARIN (or any RIR) about your customer base (need for IPv4 addressing) is just plain crappy. IPv4 addressing is a common resource -…

No, they were not charged for any of the things claimed to be crimes in the article.

The trial is about different alleged wrongdoings than OP is going on about.

Re: I Worked for a Criminal Organization

#22

Post by walrus01 »

Man, screwing with ARIN seems like a really dumb idea. They're located in northern VA and their leadership team has direct contacts at places like the US district attorney's office, and FBI. Some of the internet grey beards who know the ARIN leadership are well connected in the parts of the US government responsible for "cybersecurity".

People at ARIN also have 20+ years of experience identifying shell games.

Re: I Worked for a Criminal Organization

#23

Post by busterarm »

saber6 wrote: post #18
busterarm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you take the OP at face value, they're an unreliable narrator at best. They have questionable character and moral standards by their own admission. That's before even considering the effects of their mental illness. I would never hire this "perpetually unemployed" person. Everything they say points to something being off.

Flipside: This criminal enterprise spotted those same exact attributes, but the mitigating factor was technical competence and submissiveness. And if it came to be where they thought it would never end up (the situation today), someone would discredit them as crazy, given their background.

Absolutely they did. I'm not discounting OP's story, I'm basically suggesting exactly what you're saying.

I've seen a similar scenario play out before with another spammer and the kind of people he hired.

Re: I Worked for a Criminal Organization

#24

Post by ikeboy »

ajross wrote: post #20
ikeboy wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author does not allege that. >But your claim was that this was unrelated to the trial. The response was that, no, it actually corroborated the core allegation in the Micfo case. Now you're misreading both OP and the response to my comment. ghostbrainalpha claimed that the OP says the CEO was the same as the customers that were allegedly committing crimes like spamming. The OP does not say this. >That doesn't make…

I'm sorry, you've completely lost me. The core allegation in the Micfo case is that the company fraudulently obtained 800k IP addresses from ARIN using fake companies. The author of this post corroborates handling large quantities of the the PTR record changes for these companies in exactly the manner described at trial. I mean, this is quite clearly related behavior. And yet you're all like "I can't believe anyone t…

>The core allegation in the Micfo case is that the company fraudulently obtained 800k IP addresses from ARIN using fake companies. The author of this post corroborates handling large quantities of the the PTR record changes for these companies in exactly the manner described at trial.

What? He says it was done for customers. Not for shell companies.

>And yet you're all like "I can't believe anyone thinks this is related!" based on the fact that some other stuff alleged (which seems reasonably credible to me, and also plausibly illegal if you infer some context) wasn't part of the trial. But... so what?

My main point is that nothing alleged in OP is actually illegal. OP implying otherwise is just ignorant of the law. Unethical, perhaps, although I'd defend at least some of the stuff described. The fact that it mentions the trial and mentions the (legal) practice of having multiple shell companies doesn't change anything. They weren't charged with having shell companies, but with using those companies to commit fraud. OP mentions none of that fraud.

>I don't understand why you're saying Child Endangerment isn't "actually illegal", it's literally a term of art in the field used in statutes all across the US! Obviously that's not proof of a crime here, but... no, you're wrong, "child endangerment" is an actual crime.

I'm saying the actions alleged in OP are not illegal, including the actions described in the child endangerment section.

Re: I Worked for a Criminal Organization

#26

Post by saber6 »

busterarm wrote: post #23
saber6 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flipside: This criminal enterprise spotted those same exact attributes, but the mitigating factor was technical competence and submissiveness. And if it came to be where they thought it would never end up (the situation today), someone would discredit them as crazy, given their background.

Absolutely they did. I'm not discounting OP's story, I'm basically suggesting exactly what you're saying. I've seen a similar scenario play out before with another spammer and the kind of people he hired.

Gotcha. I misunderstood - I thought you were saying they were crazy and not to believe them etc.

Re: I Worked for a Criminal Organization

#27

Post by ajross »

ikeboy wrote: post #24
ajross wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, you've completely lost me. The core allegation in the Micfo case is that the company fraudulently obtained 800k IP addresses from ARIN using fake companies. The author of this post corroborates handling large quantities of the the PTR record changes for these companies in exactly the manner described at trial. I mean, this is quite clearly related behavior. And yet you're all like "I can't believe anyone t…

>The core allegation in the Micfo case is that the company fraudulently obtained 800k IP addresses from ARIN using fake companies. The author of this post corroborates handling large quantities of the the PTR record changes for these companies in exactly the manner described at trial. What? He says it was done for customers. Not for shell companies. >And yet you're all like "I can't believe anyone thinks this is rela…

> What? He says it was done for customers. Not for shell companies.

The "customers" that just happen to be the very same shell companies described at trial, engaged in the very same shenannigans with "their" IP addresses? Those customers?

I mean, come on. I think at this point you're just retreating into pedantry, arguing that the linked article doesn't meet appropriate evidentiary standards when presented in a blog post and therefore we need to assume that Micfo is innocent in the sense of this one article not meeting a sufficient burden of proof. So... OK.

But anyone with a brain can see that this is a personal story about exactly what was going on, and thus that it's clearly describing related activities. Some of which, again, were clearly illegal.

Re: I Worked for a Criminal Organization

#28

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #6
ikeboy wrote: post #4

> They insisted I never talk to any LEO Nothing wrong with this ... >PTR records, Enabling Spam Doesn't say why that's illegal. At best it says they had customers that broke the law. >Often both the CEO and Vice President would talk openly about how one of our clients was violating the TOS of several companies. Not criminal even for the client, at least assuming the HiQ v Linkedin case is upheld. And not illegal for…

>At best it says they had customers that broke the law. Did you see the part at the top where the CEO admitted to being all of those "customers"? They were playing a shell game, and while this guy didn't do the criminal activities he definitely was working for the "legitimate front end" of a larger criminal organization.

So 1%'ers can use shell companies to get what they want, but ordinary corporations can't use their free speech rights to spend money for the same?

Re: I Worked for a Criminal Organization

#29

Post by ikeboy »

ajross wrote: post #27
ikeboy wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The core allegation in the Micfo case is that the company fraudulently obtained 800k IP addresses from ARIN using fake companies. The author of this post corroborates handling large quantities of the the PTR record changes for these companies in exactly the manner described at trial. What? He says it was done for customers. Not for shell companies. >And yet you're all like "I can't believe anyone thinks this is rela…

> What? He says it was done for customers. Not for shell companies. The "customers" that just happen to be the very same shell companies described at trial, engaged in the very same shenannigans with "their" IP addresses? Those customers? I mean, come on. I think at this point you're just retreating into pedantry, arguing that the linked article doesn't meet appropriate evidentiary standards when presented in a blog…

>The "customers" that just happen to be the very same shell companies described at trial, engaged in the very same shenannigans with "their" IP addresses? Those customers?

Where are you getting this from? I admittedly have not watched the trial or read through trial transcripts. Are you asserting that the trial produced evidence that the shell companies mentioned were involved in spamming (as opposed to renting out the IP addresses to customers who ultimately used them for spamming?) I haven't seen this allegation in any of the articles I've read about the case. The blog post doesn't identify any customers.

>But anyone with a brain can see that this is a personal story about exactly what was going on, and thus that it's clearly describing related activities. Some of which, again, were clearly illegal.

No need for personal attacks. It's far from clear that anything described in the blog post is illegal. I already went point by point in my initial comment on this. You're making allegations the blog post never made that Micfo was itself involved in spamming. I doubt this, being as it wasn't charged and nobody but commenters in this thread have alleged it.

Re: I Worked for a Criminal Organization

#30

Post by ikeboy »

ajross wrote: post #27
ikeboy wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The core allegation in the Micfo case is that the company fraudulently obtained 800k IP addresses from ARIN using fake companies. The author of this post corroborates handling large quantities of the the PTR record changes for these companies in exactly the manner described at trial. What? He says it was done for customers. Not for shell companies. >And yet you're all like "I can't believe anyone thinks this is rela…

> What? He says it was done for customers. Not for shell companies. The "customers" that just happen to be the very same shell companies described at trial, engaged in the very same shenannigans with "their" IP addresses? Those customers? I mean, come on. I think at this point you're just retreating into pedantry, arguing that the linked article doesn't meet appropriate evidentiary standards when presented in a blog…

To spell this out:

OP appears to be saying that the "channel partners" were the shell companies. Hence why Micfo was responding as the channel partners and why subpoenas went to them.

He also says:

>Our largest customer would submit PTR deletions, additions, and changes to our channel partners, I would log into the channel partner portal, and recieve them then act on them.

It's clear he's not saying that this customer was a channel partner/shell company. I don't know how you could possibly read the post and come off with that impression.

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