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Path, a ddos-mitigation company, is a notoriously abusive company that just so happens to have a big monopoly on L3/L4 ddos-mitigation in the US.
It also happens to be run by a cybercriminal(also a fed informant) and a cybercriminal(also a pedophile).
Together they've been involved in all sorts of crazy shit, from bgp hijacking, to alleged ddos extortion(as noted by Brian Krebs).
They are also sissy pussies that cannot handle someone talking about them, so they resort to illegal means such as sending fake court orders, alleged ddos attacks and more.
Its a company you do not want to do business with.
More information will be surely in the article(I hope).
Because there is even more bullshit in to it than what I just said, it should give you a good idea who we are dealing with.
Source: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/09/ddos-mitigation-firm-has-history-of-hijacks/
Source, archive
Any more news on the general Epik situation?
I'm also curious about Terrahost. It seems like on the surface, Terrahost is now part of Kingdom Ventures (https://www.kingdomventures.com/) which TBH doesn't make me very confident, considering how unstable this whole situation seems to be, both financially and legally.
If anyone has more news/info, please share. Thanks!
Next up in the ICANN process is approval or denial of the change of control of the registrar (Epik). A company with unknown backers stepped in to buy the company at the last minute. But we don’t know anything about the buyers.
So we'll have to wait and watch on how ICANN looks into this situation. Now Epik (domain registrar) is owned by unknown buyers/Proxy services provider.
What we do know for sure is that Rob is working for Epik LLC... in what capacity, hard to tell.
Someone has to lead the morning prayer. /s
lol, best comment I've read in days
Was waiting for when someone was going to bring that up, lol
epik comment!
Rob
Monster
Hard to picture a more fitting name
Received this just a couple of hours ago.
If you spend money on anything on Epik you're basically funding organized crime
(in my very personal opinion)
I think it's too early to tell if the new business structure/management is as bad as it used to be. Hard to imagine it could be worse. I've already transferred everything out and I don't plan on jumping back in. But it's possible after a couple of years of really proving themselves and making things right with customers (if that ever happens!), I might consider trying them again. But again, they'd have to make things right, which is a very tall order. Unlikely TBH, and probably impossible if a certain person still has any control... but if this new structure is truly free from his influence, they might have a chance in 2-3 years.
In my view they funded organized crime too
Also they bought into a hated brand that owns people money, that kind of gives away that whoever they are; they’re irrational
But I guess even with the current inflation there’s a lot of dumb money going around
How so? I've been trying to follow along with the whole Epic / Rob Monster fiasco. Mainly because I would like to purchase services from @terrahost, but the whole situation makes me uneasy, plus their responses have been too canned. Cue "Everything is Fine (on fire)" meme. If they would share a little bit candidly, I might be willing to risk it. Other than Rob seemingly criminally mismanaging the whole company, how does it equate to organized crime?
For me, the term "organized crime" is a really strong term, but you are of course entitled to your opinion. What I personally think happened is -- and underscore this is just an opinion I have today and could change as more facts come to light -- is that Rob Monster basically felt "inspired" by his god to build an empire and he used some very questionable tactics of liquidity of funds to make it happen... a cash-starved kind of up-front daily-balance liquid structure that is very, very risky. He leveraged everything to expand way too rapidly and felt that god was guiding him. (Just go read his position at Kingdom Ventures and you'll get a quick sense of what I'm talking about.)
So I think what his story, from his point of view seems to be at least, is that he felt inspired and "spiritually" driven to accomplish something big to "glorify" his god... there's a term certain groups use, which is "called of god" -- and he felt that he accomplished it... or was in the process of accomplishing it. I think after the big hack that occurred after the various controversies that took place in 2020-2021, though, is he probably felt the forces of evil were trying to tear him down and destroy his empire. So he doubled down on his risky financial approach, probably driven by his "faith in god" to see him through. However, from the outside, his approach can be justifiably considered quite reckless, irresponsible, and it looks like a big scam to many people, and I totally understand that perspective, and there should be and will be lawsuits related to what happened, since people have been taken for a ride, one way or another. I'm not giving any excuses for the man.
But if Rob and his disciples really believe in a good and just god, and meant what they said, and they truly believed that a just god had been driving them forward in this good and noble quest, then ALL the money will be made whole to everyone who basically funded Rob's "vision." That means ALL the customers will get their money back IMO. FULLY. If they do NOT make everyone whole, and if Rob does NOT make things whole himself, then those critics (and there are many) who equate what he did as a "scam" and "fraud" will have VERY good ground to justify their anger, and let the lawsuits fly. People deserve justice.
Worst case, this looks like a scam and fraud to many people, I totally understand... and maybe best case, this looks like terrible mismanagement and negligent risky funding of a business trying to survive in a difficult marketplace.
Either way, I'm staying away.
And so I understand if you and other people think it's "organized crime." It's a justifiable opinion to take given what we know right now. But I think it comes down to what happens next and we'll know the motivations and what kind of people are truly running this business in the next couple of years.
For me, personally, I hope they make everyone whole, give all the money back, and stay far away from this "spiritually-driven" reckless management approach, and Rob can go off running a church if he wants to, and people who love him can make their own choices about whether to join his congregation. BUT the actual business should be run with standard business practices by people who know how to competently and ethically run a tech business! And I don't care if they still pray in the morning, at lunch, and at night, it's not relevant to me... but running a business in an ethical, professional way, providing the service that you say you're going to provide, is all that matters.
Again, all that is my opinion, piecing together bits and pieces from various info that is publicly available, and trying to look at it from different perspectives. No inside knowledge. I could be completely wrong.
The chances that Epik turns a corner with the new management and makes everyone whole, and comes out clean and trustworthy in the future? Probably very low IMO, sadly, considering their recent emails that are offering a small percentage settlement. That's sad. I'll be staying far away, am no longer a customer, but I am interested in the story and I will follow it. It will be a fascinating documentary one day, probably pivoting around the ideas of where "faith" meets "tech." But is it "organized crime?" I guess we'll find out in a few years when the dust settles and the lawsuits are done.
My thoughts only... all personal opinion. I generally try to wish everyone the best when things like this happens. The stories are usually more complex than we can imagine.
EDIT: Typos
It seems planned somehow
Also the 5 cents on the dollar email is written in such an unsympathetic way
I’ve rarely if ever read someone with what sounds with zero shame ask people that it’s in their absolute best interest to take $5 of their $100 to leave ”Epik” continue operating
Masterbucks seemed planned. It definitely seems like they misappropriated that money. Brian Royce definitely seemed cold in the emails, and the fact that it was templated to everyone they owed money to was worse. A little personalization goes a long way. But they also allegedly had ~100k to settle 6M worth of debt so panic may have played a factor. I'm just surprised it's not being investigated more. Seems SEC / FBI would be all over it.
Yesterday was the deadline: Do we have any updates from ICANN?
https://www.icann.org/en/blogs/details/icann-continues-support-for-registrants-impacted-by-epik-inc-30-06-2023-en
Meanwhile Epik stopped giving out Auth codes.
The end is high.
"technical improvements"
https://www.icann.org/compliance/notices
They decided the breach is cured... For now
.. don't expect them to last till 2024.
Which is not allowed by ICANN.
Make sure to file a complaint for every domain you own:
https://www.icann.org/compliance/complaint
I never had an issue with Epik and never understood the fuss over it that was made in 2020-2021. It was just one out of 5 or so decent free speech registrars. Now there's only 3-4. It initially got a bunch of heat for supposedly catering to neo-nazis but there's plenty of other options for them to move to. I dgaf about the owners political leanings as long as they allow all political sides (which Epik did). Messing with the domains of neo-nazis for a month or whatever only does so much.
It was vanwatech that really sucked. If vanwatech was an unofficial or backyard part to epik, I could see epik sucking. But Epik alone was just a pretty generic free speech domain registrar (with bad security apparently)
Oh, definitely.
But it looks like the automatically generated authorization codes are now working as per normal, so I'm just going to seize the opportunity for whatever that's left
Smart, wish this tail would end already, running around like they are doing fixes nothing.
Don’t really care now to be honest
Down to my last 4 to be moved out.
and vanwatech sites, cdn, hosting, etc. all are suddenly inaccessible.
he closed this year, put up a notice
for it to happen the same 2 years as epik trouble is correlation but not necessarily causation. Dunno tho. Vanwa was run nothing like Epik from a customer perspective. Eg Epik had a transfer out button and vanwa didn't. Vanwa's customer support was just Lim in a Discord room, Epik's was more involved.