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One of the world’s most visited websites that nobody is aware of (2017)

sijmen.ruwhof.net

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Re: One of the world’s most visited websites that nobody is aware of (2017)

#91

Post by Fins »

scottlocklin wrote: post #77
shakna wrote: post #6

> According to another source, a public address book at locatefamily.com, someone under the name Vladimir S. Nesterenko is living at [REDACTED] in Moscow. Vladimir lives according to Google Streetview it’s an apartment complex far away from the Moscow city center... Really? Someone investigating with journalists, and may be considered a journalists themselves (?), actually publishes the address of someone that they a…

It's extremely likely that this person isn't responsible for the website, or knows anything about it. Criminal or shady activities in Russia (and everywhere else) are often laundered through cutouts. You can find an example of this in "Magnitsky act: behind the scenes" where Bill Browder allegedly laundered his corporate holdings for tax fraud through various handicapped people, and eventually gangsters who were conv…

Using that piece of rather silly putin's propaganda as a source lowers your credibility greatly.

Re: One of the world’s most visited websites that nobody is aware of (2017)

#92

Post by cf141q5325 »

topoftheforts wrote: post #28
shakna wrote: post #6

> According to another source, a public address book at locatefamily.com, someone under the name Vladimir S. Nesterenko is living at [REDACTED] in Moscow. Vladimir lives according to Google Streetview it’s an apartment complex far away from the Moscow city center... Really? Someone investigating with journalists, and may be considered a journalists themselves (?), actually publishes the address of someone that they a…

Yeah it's unacceptable, especially for someone who claims to be "ethical" in his bio: > About Sijmen Ruwhof Independent IT Security Researcher / Ethical Hacker

Reminds me of a lot Brian Krebs doxing of the pr0gramm staff.

Re: One of the world’s most visited websites that nobody is aware of (2017)

#93

Post by orbital-decay »

Fins wrote: post #91
scottlocklin wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's extremely likely that this person isn't responsible for the website, or knows anything about it. Criminal or shady activities in Russia (and everywhere else) are often laundered through cutouts. You can find an example of this in "Magnitsky act: behind the scenes" where Bill Browder allegedly laundered his corporate holdings for tax fraud through various handicapped people, and eventually gangsters who were conv…

Using that piece of rather silly putin's propaganda as a source lowers your credibility greatly.

However, their point stands true: in exUSSR climate, registering a dummy entity through an ignorant proxy is an easy and common way to run a shady business, and sometimes even a legit one. It's entirely unnecessary to bring Magnitsky's deal as an example, but this method is well known and practiced since perestroika. It's safe to assume the person in question was a proxy, and that further investigation is needed.

Re: One of the world’s most visited websites that nobody is aware of (2017)

#94

Post by scottlocklin »

Fins wrote: post #91
scottlocklin wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's extremely likely that this person isn't responsible for the website, or knows anything about it. Criminal or shady activities in Russia (and everywhere else) are often laundered through cutouts. You can find an example of this in "Magnitsky act: behind the scenes" where Bill Browder allegedly laundered his corporate holdings for tax fraud through various handicapped people, and eventually gangsters who were conv…

Using that piece of rather silly putin's propaganda as a source lowers your credibility greatly.

Ahem. The maker of that documentary is anti-Putin to the extent he supports the theory that Putin blew up some Russian apartment buildings to start a war.

Browder, on the other hand, is actively surpressing the documentary; even if none of the things said about him in the documentary are true (in which case you'd think he would sue the guy who made it for libel; a guy who lives in the UK), that's pretty shady.

Re: One of the world’s most visited websites that nobody is aware of (2017)

#95

Post by emddudley »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #70
pjc50 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because they're published on the internet doesn't mean you can rehost them - that's copyright infringement. (The Internet Archive is very careful to skirt the edge of what's permissible and what they can get away with in this regard)

I get the impression ATM that copyright infringement is legal as long as nobody complains. When one person complains or files a DMCA takedown notice, no problem, it gets taken down. It needs to be a big company's documents - like Elsevier or (in the Bittorrent era) music publishers - before a major legal action is undertaken to take a site offline. TL;DR it's not a crime if nobody complains. Now that someone complain…

It is illegal but you may escape consequences if no one complains.

Re: One of the world’s most visited websites that nobody is aware of (2017)

#96

Post by freeflight »

Why would a Russian individual host his, rather shady, operation in the smack dab middle of Germany, and not somewhere in eastern Europe?

Why would an individual like that, who goes through the effort of obfuscating Google analytics code, leave the domain registry information out in the open like that?

Imho none of this really adds up, the whole setup seems to be quite complex and sophisticated, I have a hard time believing that anybody who's as clever as that, would screw it all up over the domain registry information.

Re: One of the world’s most visited websites that nobody is aware of (2017)

#97

Post by ericabiz »

hahla wrote: post #17

I read through the article and I’m baffled. I couldn’t watch the news video or understand what was going on at the bottom of the post... but were news outlets and the government involved for a site that’s skimming PDFs, hosting them and then slapping on ads? This isn’t something new and if I recall correctly SlideShare did the same thing to grow to where they are today. Is it legal, I don’t know, but these types of s…

From the article: "Multiple tax files of Dutch citizens had been published via www.docplayer.nl"

I don't speak or read Dutch, so I couldn't watch the video clip, but my guess is these tax files contained important and sensitive information. They were probably scraped from a government website.

Re: One of the world’s most visited websites that nobody is aware of (2017)

#99

Post by dahart »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #70
pjc50 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because they're published on the internet doesn't mean you can rehost them - that's copyright infringement. (The Internet Archive is very careful to skirt the edge of what's permissible and what they can get away with in this regard)

I get the impression ATM that copyright infringement is legal as long as nobody complains. When one person complains or files a DMCA takedown notice, no problem, it gets taken down. It needs to be a big company's documents - like Elsevier or (in the Bittorrent era) music publishers - before a major legal action is undertaken to take a site offline. TL;DR it's not a crime if nobody complains. Now that someone complain…

> I get the impression ATM that copyright infringement is legal as long as nobody complains.

Copyright infringement is never legal. Yes, it's often not enforced until someone complains, but there is a difference between enforcement and legality.

> TL;DR it's not a crime if nobody complains.

It is a crime even if nobody complains, you're just not getting caught or reprimanded. It is possible to hurt someone without getting caught. That doesn't make it okay.

Re: One of the world’s most visited websites that nobody is aware of (2017)

#100

Post by dragonwriter »

JdeBP wrote: post #55
dragonwriter wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a file is available through non-auth http it’s unclear what the copyright is. Protocol has nothing to do with copyright. “Non-auth http” doesn't suddenly make copyright murky. > But by releasing a document publicly with unlimited access via URL the author explicitly allows unlimited distribution (and due to the nature of tcp/ip redistribution). There is an implicit license to exactly the redistribution necessary…

There is no implicit licence. This is an oft-circulated but fallacious rationalization made by computer people that is not in line with the law. The law does not recognize any such thing, and until the turn of the 21st century this was a recognized hole. Technically, the World Wide Web (and indeed other systems from FidoNet to SMTP) was a violation of many countries' copyright laws. Legislators fixed the hole, but no…

> There is no implicit licence. This is an oft-circulated but fallacious rationalization made by computer people that is not in line with the law.

> The law does not recognize any such thing

Okay, so you said it three times, but it doesn't make it true. Implied license is a real legal doctrine in both the general law of licenses and copyright in particular, at least in the US.

See, just for a random case incorporating this doctrine, Effects Associates, Inc. v. Cohen, 908 F.2d 555, 9th. Cir. (1990) https://m.openjurist.org/908/f2d/555/effects-associates-inc-...

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