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“Giganews is an FBI Operation”

cryptome.org

11–20 of 74 posts

Re: “Giganews is an FBI Operation”

#12

My biggest surprise is that Usenet is apparently still that big of a thing. I guess I've been out of the loop, the last time I heard about Usenet was 10 years ago, with people talking about pirating from Usenet because torrents were being blocked. I don't think I've used Usenet since I had dial-up.

Usenet was basically the last bastion of relatively open to the public (but hidden by being obscure) piracy, but over the last couple of years even Usenet has been largely neutered by automatic DMCA requests, at least as it pertains to US-based providers.

Re: “Giganews is an FBI Operation”

#13
post #2

Having worked at Texas.Net before it became DataFoundry, and being one of the people who built up the original Sun E450s that were used as the Usenet servers when the separate Giganews product was developed, I find this hilarious. I know a good number of the GN/DF employees mentioned in the article, and think this sounds more like a disgruntled ex-employee trying to badmouth his former employer. As for the "gigauth"…

You must be one of them as well then. /wink

Overall, this doesn't seem credible. FBI detectives will not be doing run of the mill OS installs and what not. Also there isn't a need for fake identities just to be a system administrator in a usenet company. This sounds like delusions from a paranoid schizophrenic.

Re: “Giganews is an FBI Operation”

#15
post #2

Having worked at Texas.Net before it became DataFoundry, and being one of the people who built up the original Sun E450s that were used as the Usenet servers when the separate Giganews product was developed, I find this hilarious. I know a good number of the GN/DF employees mentioned in the article, and think this sounds more like a disgruntled ex-employee trying to badmouth his former employer. As for the "gigauth"…

As for the "gigauth" file - how else are you going to run a subscription Usenet service without logging authenticated users?

Not that I disbelieve the rest of your post, but log minimization is a thing. There is a lot of room for sophistry and misleading statements to be made on the topic of logging. But, I would have assumed that anyone running binary usenet services understands their customers are pirates and would want to hold onto the bare minimum amount of data necessary to allow the service to function.

Re: “Giganews is an FBI Operation”

#18

In addition, Kibbey offered me a new name and identity, with a new drivers license and everything, if I were to go back to work at Giganews. What? Why? The whole story seems disjointed.

Well, and this:

> It was then that I realized that the fed I was talking to had been my coworker at Giganews since I started in 2009!

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I would instantly recognize any coworker I'd known for three years.

Re: “Giganews is an FBI Operation”

#19

Giganews has responded by claiming the ex-employee is delusional. They posted links to a pastebin allegedly written by him, which includes the following: "Besides spamming, the only other conduct that is unacceptable is uploading or contacting our employees with information about Vehuiah the holy angel, her invocation Psalm 3:3, Archangels, or the angels of Jehovah's 72 syllable name called the Shemhamforash. These a…

But it reads like a satirical manifesto. He certainly appears to be trying to be funny and wrote it as the Co-CEO. Ending with:

>Now that you know what we're about, start a free 14-day trial at Giganews.com and join the King of Thieves in the unholy war against God. We can only win with your help, and we need your soul to fuel Hells flames. Our servers are alwayson, always available, and run by a company you can trust. Giganews: Newsgroups Nonstop.

Re: “Giganews is an FBI Operation”

#20

My biggest surprise is that Usenet is apparently still that big of a thing. I guess I've been out of the loop, the last time I heard about Usenet was 10 years ago, with people talking about pirating from Usenet because torrents were being blocked. I don't think I've used Usenet since I had dial-up.

It was actually surprisingly popular while I was going to college and I graduated this year. Most people used it with Sickbeard to automatically download TV shows, but some people thought our university was using deep packet inspection and encrypted Usenet was more secure than torrenting.
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