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Prosecutors allege Micfo obtained 800k IPv4 addresses illegally

wsj.com

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Re: Prosecutors allege Micfo obtained 800k IPv4 addresses illegally

#11

Post by masayoshis_son »

wut42 wrote: post #6
nicolaslem wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He said Micfo provides a legitimate service to VPNs, adding that whatever his customers or their users do through Micfo servers is none of his business. From what I understand he was attributed many IPs by creating shell companies and rented these IPs to VPN providers.

Why pursue him? What he's done has been done by many others since years.

That's what I've been thinking as well. Creating "shell companies" (aka "Special Purpose Entities/Vehicles") is not illegal per se.

Perhaps he violated the terms and conditions of his contract with ARIN and should have had the assignments cancelled but where does the criminality come in?

Re: Prosecutors allege Micfo obtained 800k IPv4 addresses illegally

#12

Post by 0x0 »

_-___________-_ wrote: post #4

Hmm. I "obtained" 2^32 IPv4 addresses pretty easily; not sure if it's legitimate or not: for addr in range(2**32): print('.'.join([str(addr >> (i Edit: Well, this was unpopular. In case it's too subtle, my point is that the title is terrible.

Your script doesn't seem to assign any of the printed IPs to ASNs registered to you, so your joke kind of misses the mark a bit.

Re: Prosecutors allege Micfo obtained 800k IPv4 addresses illegally

#13

Post by qtplatypus »

masayoshis_son wrote: post #11
wut42 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why pursue him? What he's done has been done by many others since years.

That's what I've been thinking as well. Creating "shell companies" (aka "Special Purpose Entities/Vehicles") is not illegal per se. Perhaps he violated the terms and conditions of his contract with ARIN and should have had the assignments cancelled but where does the criminality come in?

If he misrepresented himself in order to gain a financial advantage then that is fraud.

Creating shell companies is not illegal, using a name fir yourself that isn’t your legal name is not illegal, doing either of those things in order to trick people into giving you money is.

Re: Prosecutors allege Micfo obtained 800k IPv4 addresses illegally

#14

Post by _-___________-_ »

0x0 wrote: post #12
_-___________-_ wrote: post #4

Hmm. I "obtained" 2^32 IPv4 addresses pretty easily; not sure if it's legitimate or not: for addr in range(2**32): print('.'.join([str(addr >> (i Edit: Well, this was unpopular. In case it's too subtle, my point is that the title is terrible.

Your script doesn't seem to assign any of the printed IPs to ASNs registered to you, so your joke kind of misses the mark a bit.

I added an edit to make it more clear, but I was talking about the title.

Re: Prosecutors allege Micfo obtained 800k IPv4 addresses illegally

#15

Post by commandersaki »

londons_explore wrote: post #8
masayoshis_son wrote: post #7

The writing is quite confusing in trying to explain things but the gist of it appears to be that the person in question (1) applied for IP addresses through numerous companies created just for this purpose in order to bypass ARIN's restriction on the number of addresses it was willing to allocate to a single entity, and (2) made the obtained IP address ranges available to serve as VPN endpoints, so that "huge amount…

A prosecution seems a bit over the top for this... Setting up multiple companies to meet some rule isnt against said rule. And anyway, it's a company policy not the law.

It was done to deceive ARIN which is why it is being considered wire fraud.

Re: Prosecutors allege Micfo obtained 800k IPv4 addresses illegally

#16

Post by swarnie_ »

commandersaki wrote: post #15
londons_explore wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A prosecution seems a bit over the top for this... Setting up multiple companies to meet some rule isnt against said rule. And anyway, it's a company policy not the law.

It was done to deceive ARIN which is why it is being considered wire fraud.

This seems like a bit of an over reach no?

I've looked up wire fraud in the US and it seems to come with some properly serious penalties:

Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings, signs, signals, pictures, or sounds for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. If the violation affects a financial institution, such person shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both.[4]

Re: Prosecutors allege Micfo obtained 800k IPv4 addresses illegally

#17

Post by wut42 »

_-___________-_ wrote: post #14
0x0 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your script doesn't seem to assign any of the printed IPs to ASNs registered to you, so your joke kind of misses the mark a bit.

I added an edit to make it more clear, but I was talking about the title.

There's nothing wrong with the title. Obtained means "To get hold of; to gain possession of, to procure; to acquire, in any way".

Re: Prosecutors allege Micfo obtained 800k IPv4 addresses illegally

#18

Post by _-___________-_ »

wut42 wrote: post #17
_-___________-_ wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I added an edit to make it more clear, but I was talking about the title.

There's nothing wrong with the title. Obtained means "To get hold of; to gain possession of, to procure; to acquire, in any way".

Which is quite literally what my script does :)

Think about if the title said "800K email addresses obtained illegitimately", and what you would interpret the meaning of that to be.

Re: Prosecutors allege Micfo obtained 800k IPv4 addresses illegally

#19

Post by tialaramex »

qtplatypus wrote: post #13
masayoshis_son wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what I've been thinking as well. Creating "shell companies" (aka "Special Purpose Entities/Vehicles") is not illegal per se. Perhaps he violated the terms and conditions of his contract with ARIN and should have had the assignments cancelled but where does the criminality come in?

If he misrepresented himself in order to gain a financial advantage then that is fraud. Creating shell companies is not illegal, using a name fir yourself that isn’t your legal name is not illegal, doing either of those things in order to trick people into giving you money is.

Not just financial advantage, all deceit where you intend to gain from it is fraud. Money just makes it more obvious what the gain was.

Are there grey areas? Sure. In particular there's a passive sort of deceit in which you let people assume things that you know aren't true, to your benefit. Mostly the law holds that it's their mistake for not asking, and anyway they'd usually be far too embarrassed to make a fuss if they realise their error.

I don't see that here, the plan was explicitly to trick the RIR into giving them resources they were otherwise not entitled to. Those resources were for everybody to share, they're stealing from you and it's appropriate to prosecute for fraud.

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