9 ms·

A startup allegedly 'hacked the world', then came censorship, and now backlash

195 points by coloneltcb 3y ago

BLKNSLVR 3y ago
So it appears that Rajat Khare is behind the shady Indian company Appin who appear to offer "hack for hire" services whilst fronting as a cyber security training company and aren't shy about using lawyers to manipulate the public record. Just wanted to make sure that was clear.
- ThinkBeat 3y ago
  Thank you for the summary. I found the article convoluted.
  - dang 3y ago
    (This was posted to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39221337 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39221337 before we merged the threads, so "the article" is actually https://www.techdirt.com/2024/02/01/sorry-appin-were-not-taking-down-our-article-about-your-attempts-to-silence-reporters/ https://www.techdirt.com/2024/02/01/sorry-appin-were-not-tak...)
- coldtea 3y ago
  >and aren't shy about using lawyers to manipulate the public record If they were actually any good at the services they offered, they wouldn't need lawyers, they would manipulate the public record by hacking it!
  - aeim 3y ago
    different jobs, different tools, all hacks
  - some_random 3y ago
    They're good at providing the services they offer insofar as they fulfill the contract, but these sorts of mercenary firms pretty much just phish people. They're quite good at it, but that is pretty much all they do.
sydbarrett74 3y ago
Is this the same Rajat Khare who owns a VC fund?
- w1 3y ago
  Per [this story](https://www.thedailybeast.com/who-is-killing-all-these-stories-about-rajat-khare-controversial-tech-mogul https://www.thedailybeast.com/who-is-killing-all-these-stori...), yes.
- IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago
  Nitpicking, but at least in the US, you dont "own" a fund. Instead, many limited partners LPs are contributing members and the GP has control of the day to day even though he rarely contributes in any significant % No one owns that structure. The GP controls it but at the mercy of the LPs for any major decision. If you truly had an individual owner of a "fund" , this most likely is describing some other structure like a family office, for example.
  - sydbarrett74 3y ago
    Thank you for your clarification. I was aware that a VC fund isn't as simple in structure as having an individual 'own' it, but I was using some shorthand. Maybe 'manage' would've been closer to the mark.
mellosouls 3y ago
Being discussed here (different article): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39221337 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39221337
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- dang 3y ago
  Thanks! Macroexpanded: Sorry Appin, we're not taking down our article about your attempts to silence - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39221337 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39221337 - Feb 2024 (21 comments) I'm having trouble figuring out which one of these articles has more information. Since the this one was posted earlier and is currently ranked higher on the frontpage, I guess it can be 'the one' for now. There are a bunch of techdirt-specific comments in the other thread that don't make sense to merge, so readers may want to check both.
__MatrixMan__ 3y ago
The difference between ads and news is that people will pay to publish ads and they will pay to keep news quiet. It seems that we've built quite a capable ad machine. I wonder what it would look like if we built something for news. Certainly there would be less of this nonsense going on. Like, kudos to those standing up to Appin, but the fact that facing down a bully is necessary at all is a design failure that I'd like to work to rectify.
- hosteur 3y ago
  > It seems that we've built quite a capable ad machine. I wonder what it would look like if we built something for news. Like Wikileaks?
  - babypuncher 3y ago
    Yes, but without the Kremlin dictating which content is actually worth leaking.
    - BlueTemplar 3y ago
      The Kremlin ?
      - toss1 3y ago
        Yes, the Kremlin. Assange may have started out with pure intentions, but as he ran out of money, the only funding became available from the Kremlin. The cover for funding him was his show on RT, the Kremlin-funded English-language television station. You might recall that Assange bragged about a huge dump of info about Putin and other Russian leaders/oligarchs that was soon to be dropped. It never did. It was either entirely BS from the start to provide cover, or existed but was withheld to keep happy his new sponsors. You also may recall that the Wikileaks dumps of info stolen by Russian hackers on Hillary Clinton was miraculously released within hours of Trump's "I grabbed her by the pussy" tapes. A classic Russian disinformation move to distract the media, which was quite successful. That's just glancing at a few highlights. By the time Wikileaks became significant, it was a straight-up Russian operation. It would have been a far better life decision for Assange to simply quit when he ran out of funds, than to sell out. Sad
meepmorp 3y ago
So, if you don't do business in India, why follow the court order? I understand Reuters taking down the article, but why would Lawfare or other blogs comply? What could an Indian court possibly do to someone entirely outside of their jurisdiction? It seems like the most appropriate response is "no, and we're going to publish the demand letters," which is exactly what techdirt did. Let Rajat Khare - the guy who is likely behind Appin - file in a US (or EU, or wherever) court. In the US, at least, he'd have to provide some evidence that the article isn't true, which he probably can't. Fuck Rajat Khare and Appin, the hacking company he almost certainly controls.
- lolc 3y ago
  Being right can be time consuming and expensive. So unless they are prepared to defend themselves, people fold under the vaguest of threats.
  - toast0 3y ago
    You've got to at least have a vague threat in my jurisdiction though.
    - lolc 3y ago
      The vague threat is legal bills.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - fakedang 3y ago
        That depends on the jurisdiction. In UK (and jurisdictions following Commonwealth law), loser pays.
        solardev 3y ago
        How do you win a case if you can't afford to see it through to the end?
FergusArgyll 3y ago
This feels pretty easy but I don't really know. Someone should make a bot that archives any stories with his name in it
shadowgovt 3y ago
Real big example of the Streisand Effect in play here. It seems this company got one ruling from one court in India serving as an injunction against one news agency reporting on them, and they then went on to try and leverage that into getting everyone to stop reporting on the entire situation, including the injunction itself. That's not how injunctions work, that's not how international law works, and it has created a new cycle of news outlets being able to report on the fact that the company tried to gag them.
saagarjha 3y ago
> The judge in the case initially sided with Appin Training Centers, writing that the article could have a “devastating effect on the general students population of India.” He quickly ordered an injunction stating that Appin Training Centers can demand Reuters take down their claims about Appin Technology. What devastating effects could possibly outweigh reporting on a company that does illegal hacking for hire?
- mustacheemperor 3y ago
  In particular because Appin Training Centers was only incorporated several months after being named the plaintiff in the lawsuit, and appears to exist in order to facilitate these suits.
- catchnear4321 3y ago
  while that company may possibly allegedly perhaps do things in ways that could be deemed not the optimal solution for some opinions… …think of how many people that company employs! how many people would lose their jobs if anyone were to…
  - phantomathkg 3y ago
    Does it matter? There are enough scamming companies in India hiring student leaving university with proper training for other jobs. Does it means we shouldn't take down those scamming companies because it hurts India economy?
    - catchnear4321 3y ago
      depends who you ask.
fortran77 3y ago
Hacking for hire teams have saved lives and prevented terror attacks.
- Mtinie 3y ago
  I’m very interested in hearing more about this. Do tell. How exactly do these teams save lives and prevent terrorist attacks?
- thrwwycbr 3y ago
  Lately not so much though (read as: after NotPetya in 2014, which changed the scales of infrastructure targets forever)
- cicko 3y ago
  By conducting terror attacks preemptively?
ssgodderidge 3y ago
Honestly thought this headline was about OpenAI before I read the article. Was I the only one?
mdani 3y ago
I couldn't comprehend the content of the linked article, so I sought out the original piece from Reuters. Here's a concise summary: - Appin, an Indian firm, is accused by Reuters of functioning as the e-commerce platform for hacking (similar to Amazon but for hacking). Users log in to a covert portal, place orders to hack into target mailboxes, make payments, and receive the delivered data. - Appin received requests globally, including from RAW, IB, and the Indian military. However, when the Indian government detected financial irregularities, government contracts ceased. In desperation, Appin took on any available work, but it didn't survive. - Despite Appin's demise, its former employees initiated similar ventures that are still active today. Considering the involvement of the Indian government, I anticipated Appin and its founders to dispute the allegations, and they did. The article was subsequently removed, raising allegations of censorship. The linked article discusses the backlash against this alleged censorship. The timing of this article is intriguing, coinciding with the recent Pannun affair and now presenting another accusation, this time in the cyberspace. Reuters mentions that "The National Security Agency (NSA), which spies on foreigners for the U.S. government, began surveilling the company after watching it hack “high value” Pakistani officials around 2009, one of the sources said. An NSA spokesperson declined to comment." This may lead Indians to question: if the NSA can hack, why can't we?
- throwawayqqq11 3y ago
  Should india lock the involved journalists in some ecuadorean embassy, you know, like the guardian ones?
- alephnerd 3y ago
  > The timing of this article is intriguing, coinciding with the recent Pannun affair It's just pure coincidence. The APT was detected by SentinelOne Labs who then worked with Reuters to publish an investigation. The Pannun stuff actually began in July 2023.
- AniseAbyss 3y ago
  [dead]
- bryanrasmussen 3y ago
LorenzoGood 3y ago
https://archive.ph/ut7Yt https://archive.ph/ut7Yt

195 points by coloneltcb 3y ago

So it appears that Rajat Khare is behind the shady Indian company Appin who appear to offer "hack for hire" services whilst fronting as a cyber security training company and aren't shy about using lawyers to manipulate the public record. Just wanted to make sure that was clear.

ThinkBeat 3y ago
Thank you for the summary. I found the article convoluted.
- dang 3y ago
  (This was posted to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39221337 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39221337 before we merged the threads, so "the article" is actually https://www.techdirt.com/2024/02/01/sorry-appin-were-not-taking-down-our-article-about-your-attempts-to-silence-reporters/ https://www.techdirt.com/2024/02/01/sorry-appin-were-not-tak...)
coldtea 3y ago
>and aren't shy about using lawyers to manipulate the public record If they were actually any good at the services they offered, they wouldn't need lawyers, they would manipulate the public record by hacking it!
- aeim 3y ago
  different jobs, different tools, all hacks
- some_random 3y ago
  They're good at providing the services they offer insofar as they fulfill the contract, but these sorts of mercenary firms pretty much just phish people. They're quite good at it, but that is pretty much all they do.

sydbarrett74 3y ago

Is this the same Rajat Khare who owns a VC fund?

w1 3y ago
Per [this story](https://www.thedailybeast.com/who-is-killing-all-these-stories-about-rajat-khare-controversial-tech-mogul https://www.thedailybeast.com/who-is-killing-all-these-stori...), yes.
IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago
Nitpicking, but at least in the US, you dont "own" a fund. Instead, many limited partners LPs are contributing members and the GP has control of the day to day even though he rarely contributes in any significant % No one owns that structure. The GP controls it but at the mercy of the LPs for any major decision. If you truly had an individual owner of a "fund" , this most likely is describing some other structure like a family office, for example.
- sydbarrett74 3y ago
  Thank you for your clarification. I was aware that a VC fund isn't as simple in structure as having an individual 'own' it, but I was using some shorthand. Maybe 'manage' would've been closer to the mark.

mellosouls 3y ago

Being discussed here (different article): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39221337 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39221337

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
dang 3y ago
Thanks! Macroexpanded: Sorry Appin, we're not taking down our article about your attempts to silence - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39221337 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39221337 - Feb 2024 (21 comments) I'm having trouble figuring out which one of these articles has more information. Since the this one was posted earlier and is currently ranked higher on the frontpage, I guess it can be 'the one' for now. There are a bunch of techdirt-specific comments in the other thread that don't make sense to merge, so readers may want to check both.

__MatrixMan__ 3y ago

The difference between ads and news is that people will pay to publish ads and they will pay to keep news quiet. It seems that we've built quite a capable ad machine. I wonder what it would look like if we built something for news. Certainly there would be less of this nonsense going on. Like, kudos to those standing up to Appin, but the fact that facing down a bully is necessary at all is a design failure that I'd like to work to rectify.

hosteur 3y ago
> It seems that we've built quite a capable ad machine. I wonder what it would look like if we built something for news. Like Wikileaks?
- babypuncher 3y ago
  Yes, but without the Kremlin dictating which content is actually worth leaking.
  - BlueTemplar 3y ago
    The Kremlin ?
    - toss1 3y ago
      Yes, the Kremlin. Assange may have started out with pure intentions, but as he ran out of money, the only funding became available from the Kremlin. The cover for funding him was his show on RT, the Kremlin-funded English-language television station. You might recall that Assange bragged about a huge dump of info about Putin and other Russian leaders/oligarchs that was soon to be dropped. It never did. It was either entirely BS from the start to provide cover, or existed but was withheld to keep happy his new sponsors. You also may recall that the Wikileaks dumps of info stolen by Russian hackers on Hillary Clinton was miraculously released within hours of Trump's "I grabbed her by the pussy" tapes. A classic Russian disinformation move to distract the media, which was quite successful. That's just glancing at a few highlights. By the time Wikileaks became significant, it was a straight-up Russian operation. It would have been a far better life decision for Assange to simply quit when he ran out of funds, than to sell out. Sad

meepmorp 3y ago

So, if you don't do business in India, why follow the court order? I understand Reuters taking down the article, but why would Lawfare or other blogs comply? What could an Indian court possibly do to someone entirely outside of their jurisdiction? It seems like the most appropriate response is "no, and we're going to publish the demand letters," which is exactly what techdirt did. Let Rajat Khare - the guy who is likely behind Appin - file in a US (or EU, or wherever) court. In the US, at least, he'd have to provide some evidence that the article isn't true, which he probably can't. Fuck Rajat Khare and Appin, the hacking company he almost certainly controls.

lolc 3y ago
Being right can be time consuming and expensive. So unless they are prepared to defend themselves, people fold under the vaguest of threats.
- toast0 3y ago
  You've got to at least have a vague threat in my jurisdiction though.
  - lolc 3y ago
    The vague threat is legal bills.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - fakedang 3y ago
      That depends on the jurisdiction. In UK (and jurisdictions following Commonwealth law), loser pays.
      - solardev 3y ago
        How do you win a case if you can't afford to see it through to the end?

FergusArgyll 3y ago

This feels pretty easy but I don't really know. Someone should make a bot that archives any stories with his name in it

shadowgovt 3y ago

Real big example of the Streisand Effect in play here. It seems this company got one ruling from one court in India serving as an injunction against one news agency reporting on them, and they then went on to try and leverage that into getting everyone to stop reporting on the entire situation, including the injunction itself. That's not how injunctions work, that's not how international law works, and it has created a new cycle of news outlets being able to report on the fact that the company tried to gag them.

saagarjha 3y ago

> The judge in the case initially sided with Appin Training Centers, writing that the article could have a “devastating effect on the general students population of India.” He quickly ordered an injunction stating that Appin Training Centers can demand Reuters take down their claims about Appin Technology. What devastating effects could possibly outweigh reporting on a company that does illegal hacking for hire?

mustacheemperor 3y ago
In particular because Appin Training Centers was only incorporated several months after being named the plaintiff in the lawsuit, and appears to exist in order to facilitate these suits.
catchnear4321 3y ago
while that company may possibly allegedly perhaps do things in ways that could be deemed not the optimal solution for some opinions… …think of how many people that company employs! how many people would lose their jobs if anyone were to…
- phantomathkg 3y ago
  Does it matter? There are enough scamming companies in India hiring student leaving university with proper training for other jobs. Does it means we shouldn't take down those scamming companies because it hurts India economy?
  - catchnear4321 3y ago
    depends who you ask.

fortran77 3y ago

Hacking for hire teams have saved lives and prevented terror attacks.

Mtinie 3y ago
I’m very interested in hearing more about this. Do tell. How exactly do these teams save lives and prevent terrorist attacks?
thrwwycbr 3y ago
Lately not so much though (read as: after NotPetya in 2014, which changed the scales of infrastructure targets forever)
cicko 3y ago
By conducting terror attacks preemptively?

ssgodderidge 3y ago

Honestly thought this headline was about OpenAI before I read the article. Was I the only one?

mdani 3y ago

I couldn't comprehend the content of the linked article, so I sought out the original piece from Reuters. Here's a concise summary: - Appin, an Indian firm, is accused by Reuters of functioning as the e-commerce platform for hacking (similar to Amazon but for hacking). Users log in to a covert portal, place orders to hack into target mailboxes, make payments, and receive the delivered data. - Appin received requests globally, including from RAW, IB, and the Indian military. However, when the Indian government detected financial irregularities, government contracts ceased. In desperation, Appin took on any available work, but it didn't survive. - Despite Appin's demise, its former employees initiated similar ventures that are still active today. Considering the involvement of the Indian government, I anticipated Appin and its founders to dispute the allegations, and they did. The article was subsequently removed, raising allegations of censorship. The linked article discusses the backlash against this alleged censorship. The timing of this article is intriguing, coinciding with the recent Pannun affair and now presenting another accusation, this time in the cyberspace. Reuters mentions that "The National Security Agency (NSA), which spies on foreigners for the U.S. government, began surveilling the company after watching it hack “high value” Pakistani officials around 2009, one of the sources said. An NSA spokesperson declined to comment." This may lead Indians to question: if the NSA can hack, why can't we?

throwawayqqq11 3y ago
Should india lock the involved journalists in some ecuadorean embassy, you know, like the guardian ones?
alephnerd 3y ago
> The timing of this article is intriguing, coinciding with the recent Pannun affair It's just pure coincidence. The APT was detected by SentinelOne Labs who then worked with Reuters to publish an investigation. The Pannun stuff actually began in July 2023.
AniseAbyss 3y ago
[dead]
bryanrasmussen 3y ago

LorenzoGood 3y ago

https://archive.ph/ut7Yt https://archive.ph/ut7Yt