4 ms·

Bulletproof host Stark Industries evades EU sanctions

211 points by todsacerdoti 1y ago

trhway 1y ago
Sanctions?! What sanctions? They don't even hide, right in the heart of Western Europe: https://www.swedbank-aktiellt.se/telegram/WOzsdcJG https://www.swedbank-aktiellt.se/telegram/WOzsdcJG "AMSTERDAM, April 10, 2025 MIRhosting, a leading provider of enterprise-grade colocation and IT infrastructure services in Europe, proudly announces the launch of two dedicated, fully equipped data rooms at its newest location within the NorthC data center in Nieuwegein. This strategic expansion strengthens MIRhosting's colocation capabilities, directly addressing the growing demand for reliable and scalable colocation solutions in the greater Amsterdam region...."
- southernplaces7 1y ago
  Am I missing something? This seems like a pretty banal article about a data hosting provider opening a new center in Amsterdam. Is it a Russian company in violation of sanctions? The name "MIRHositng" doesn't necessarily have to mean it's Russian-based. As far as I can see it's a dutch-registered company, so they aren't exactly flagrantly breaking the law.
hrdwdmrbl 1y ago
Sometimes it feels like the internet is still the wild west. The EU tries to rope off a single building with velvet ropes, a doorman, ID verification, facial scans, and cookie banners, while next door it's an illegal rave in an abandoned supermarket.
- devjab 1y ago
  I think blaming the EU for cookie banners is wrong. Those banners are malicious disobedience, and, for the most part a legal violation. What websites should do is that they should assume you reject any tracking as their default, and then they can offer a site setting that you have to seek out, where you can agree to be tracked. What they are sort of allowed to do, is that they can prompt you with a banner, but it has to be a single no-click without requiring you to read much, but that is still not compliance. Anything more annoying is a legal violation. The real issue is that there aren't a whole lot of consequences when it comes to tracking data. It's a legal violation, sure, but it's not a criminal violation. So it would be up to you to pursue it. In many countries you can't even file a civil lawsuit, but rather, you have to go through your national data protection agency. Which in reality likely means your complaint will be auto-rejected after five years because they need to clean up the queue. As far as the malicious disobedience goes... well... it's probably because "all the other website do it", but you might as well just give people the option to go to a setting to turn it off. It's not like that would be any less of a legal violation than the banner.
  - erulabs 1y ago
    If the majority of users use the system wrong, it's the system that's wrong, not the users.
    - jdlshore 1y ago
      That rubric only applies when the users aren’t actively and maliciously sabotaging the system, which privacy-subverting websites absolutely are. (And everyone else is cargo-cutting their behavior.)
      - WesolyKubeczek 1y ago
        Note that the most annoying consent banners come from advertising conglomerates (IAB comes to mind). Well who would think they wouldn’t sabotage anything?
      - chatmasta 1y ago
        To be fair, I’m sabotaging it from the other side with my ad-blocker.
        kevin_thibedeau 1y ago
        Defending yourself from abuse is not an excuse for others to engage in abuse. I have no issue with passive 90's-style ads. I don't need to block them. I use my abuse-blocker to handle more concerning problems.
  - IanCal 1y ago
    Sort of aside but it’s wild to me that people talk of ab testing all kinds of minor things and yet so many shops immediately cover up the item I’m viewing with a huge banner/full page annoyance about cookies.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - 1y ago
- TacticalCoder 1y ago
  [dead]
- giveita 1y ago
  The physical world is like that too!
- rubiquity 1y ago
  If anything the internet has become more of the wild west and will continue to do so as the internet is incredibly useful for state actors.
iammrpayments 1y ago
It’s a little bit Ironic that they use the name of an American super hero
- DFHippie 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - nickff 1y ago
    It is my understanding that Marvel Studios' Tony Stark was modeled after him, rather than the other way around. Additionally, he had a cameo in one of the Iron Man movies.
    - tomjakubowski 1y ago
      His cameo in IM2 was part of the deal he made to let the producers use a SpaceX facility.
    - simsla 1y ago
      Elon was three years old when the first Iron Man comic book came out. EDIT: and the movies are pretty faithful to the comic books.
      - dotnet00 1y ago
        The movie personality of Tony Stark was supposedly inspired by Musk's persona (at least from before he began spending most of his time in a futile attempt to woo Trump) https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/oct/28/robert-downey-jr-on-elon-musk-cosplaying-tony-stark-i-wish-hed-control-his-behaviour https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/oct/28/robert-downey-j... "In 2022, Iron Man screenwriter Mark Fergus confirmed that Musk had partly inspired the screen version of the Marvel hero, as both men share tech prowess, arrogance and a short fuse. He told New York magazine that Stark was as if “Musk took the brilliance of [Steve] Jobs with the showmanship of [Donald] Trump,” adding: “He was the only one who had the fun factor and the celebrity vibe and actual business substance.”" Edit: I'm not quite sure why Musk was brought up unprompted though, made it seem like he has something to do with this company, but it doesn't seem like that's the case?
dabeeeenster 1y ago
WTH is a “bulletproof host”? Been working in the industry for 30 years and never once heard it?
- sillyboi 1y ago
  I suppose it's just a click bait title, so nothing special
- gnabgib 1y ago
  Ars covered it in 2013, it's common in security (Risky Business, OSInt, Krebs) https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/01/how-the-feds-put-a-bullet-in-a-bulletproof-web-host/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/01/how-t...
- nickstinemates 1y ago
  It says so in the article. Isp's who ignore authorities and allow anything to happen on their networks.
- david_shaw 1y ago
  > WTH is a “bulletproof host”? A "bulletproof" host or provider is the colloquial term for a business that will not reveal your identity, payment information, provide LEO access, respond to subpoenas, etc. It's generally used by cyber-criminals as a "safe" vendor, though some privacy-minded individuals like this type of provider as well.
  - cptnapalm 1y ago
    My mind first jump to an old video of somebody shooting a Sun Microsystems machine and the bullets did not in fact penetrate the steel.
    - rrauenza 1y ago
      Are you thinking of HP or did they both do it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gnjb1WVkhmU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gnjb1WVkhmU
pessimizer 1y ago
[flagged]
- galaxy_gas 1y ago
  Ignoring the narrative portion , I routinely block the PQ IP spaces which change frequently in my services. They are mass brute force and exploit attempt-abuse report is ignored, spam/exploit scan, botnet CNC They are also UpStream of several other provider. For example https://bgp.he.net/AS215540#_prefixes https://bgp.he.net/AS215540#_prefixes I have not seen legitimate single request from ANY ip in this. Only spam bot and brute.
  - ACCount37 1y ago
    And you never would - if you keep slapping IP bans left and right. Blanket IP bans should have died back in 00s, where they belong. Instead, we still get wannabe webmasters applying them willy-nilly - with gatekeepers like Cloudflare enabling them.
- dafelst 1y ago
  From TFA > Materializing just two weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Stark Industries Solutions became a frequent source of massive DDoS attacks, Russian-language proxy and VPN services, malware tied to Russia-backed hacking groups, and fake news.
- preisschild 1y ago
  This is not "censorship". These are Russian state-sponsored influence operations against countries it might want to invade (hybrid warfare)
- Nihilartikel 1y ago
  I did a pro bono analysis of a ddos against a dolphin protection non profit, probably a lashing out from a butthurt fishing concern. A significant amount of traffic in that attack originated from the stark asn. Interesting to see them here.
- trhway 1y ago
yieldcrv 1y ago
this is more common and easier than people think, and I think this conflict was necessary to exposure the hubris behind global superpowers they think they're omnipotent but really don't control the world, rendering economic sanctions and service blacklisting to be null and moot
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
otikik 1y ago
What a gang. I'm sure they are enjoying the rubles. And that they know that polonium-210 is not detectable with Geiger counters.
perdomon 1y ago
I don't know much about this incident or the politics surrounding it, but I am extremely impressed by the level of investigative journalism in this article. The author is a pro who brought receipts for every connection.

211 points by todsacerdoti 1y ago

Sanctions?! What sanctions? They don't even hide, right in the heart of Western Europe: https://www.swedbank-aktiellt.se/telegram/WOzsdcJG https://www.swedbank-aktiellt.se/telegram/WOzsdcJG "AMSTERDAM, April 10, 2025 MIRhosting, a leading provider of enterprise-grade colocation and IT infrastructure services in Europe, proudly announces the launch of two dedicated, fully equipped data rooms at its newest location within the NorthC data center in Nieuwegein. This strategic expansion strengthens MIRhosting's colocation capabilities, directly addressing the growing demand for reliable and scalable colocation solutions in the greater Amsterdam region...."

southernplaces7 1y ago
Am I missing something? This seems like a pretty banal article about a data hosting provider opening a new center in Amsterdam. Is it a Russian company in violation of sanctions? The name "MIRHositng" doesn't necessarily have to mean it's Russian-based. As far as I can see it's a dutch-registered company, so they aren't exactly flagrantly breaking the law.

hrdwdmrbl 1y ago

Sometimes it feels like the internet is still the wild west. The EU tries to rope off a single building with velvet ropes, a doorman, ID verification, facial scans, and cookie banners, while next door it's an illegal rave in an abandoned supermarket.

devjab 1y ago
I think blaming the EU for cookie banners is wrong. Those banners are malicious disobedience, and, for the most part a legal violation. What websites should do is that they should assume you reject any tracking as their default, and then they can offer a site setting that you have to seek out, where you can agree to be tracked. What they are sort of allowed to do, is that they can prompt you with a banner, but it has to be a single no-click without requiring you to read much, but that is still not compliance. Anything more annoying is a legal violation. The real issue is that there aren't a whole lot of consequences when it comes to tracking data. It's a legal violation, sure, but it's not a criminal violation. So it would be up to you to pursue it. In many countries you can't even file a civil lawsuit, but rather, you have to go through your national data protection agency. Which in reality likely means your complaint will be auto-rejected after five years because they need to clean up the queue. As far as the malicious disobedience goes... well... it's probably because "all the other website do it", but you might as well just give people the option to go to a setting to turn it off. It's not like that would be any less of a legal violation than the banner.
- erulabs 1y ago
  If the majority of users use the system wrong, it's the system that's wrong, not the users.
  - jdlshore 1y ago
    That rubric only applies when the users aren’t actively and maliciously sabotaging the system, which privacy-subverting websites absolutely are. (And everyone else is cargo-cutting their behavior.)
    - WesolyKubeczek 1y ago
      Note that the most annoying consent banners come from advertising conglomerates (IAB comes to mind). Well who would think they wouldn’t sabotage anything?
    - chatmasta 1y ago
      To be fair, I’m sabotaging it from the other side with my ad-blocker.
      - kevin_thibedeau 1y ago
        Defending yourself from abuse is not an excuse for others to engage in abuse. I have no issue with passive 90's-style ads. I don't need to block them. I use my abuse-blocker to handle more concerning problems.
- IanCal 1y ago
  Sort of aside but it’s wild to me that people talk of ab testing all kinds of minor things and yet so many shops immediately cover up the item I’m viewing with a huge banner/full page annoyance about cookies.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - 1y ago
TacticalCoder 1y ago
[dead]
giveita 1y ago
The physical world is like that too!
rubiquity 1y ago
If anything the internet has become more of the wild west and will continue to do so as the internet is incredibly useful for state actors.

iammrpayments 1y ago

It’s a little bit Ironic that they use the name of an American super hero

DFHippie 1y ago
[flagged]
- nickff 1y ago
  It is my understanding that Marvel Studios' Tony Stark was modeled after him, rather than the other way around. Additionally, he had a cameo in one of the Iron Man movies.
  - tomjakubowski 1y ago
    His cameo in IM2 was part of the deal he made to let the producers use a SpaceX facility.
  - simsla 1y ago
    Elon was three years old when the first Iron Man comic book came out. EDIT: and the movies are pretty faithful to the comic books.
    - dotnet00 1y ago
      The movie personality of Tony Stark was supposedly inspired by Musk's persona (at least from before he began spending most of his time in a futile attempt to woo Trump) https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/oct/28/robert-downey-jr-on-elon-musk-cosplaying-tony-stark-i-wish-hed-control-his-behaviour https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/oct/28/robert-downey-j... "In 2022, Iron Man screenwriter Mark Fergus confirmed that Musk had partly inspired the screen version of the Marvel hero, as both men share tech prowess, arrogance and a short fuse. He told New York magazine that Stark was as if “Musk took the brilliance of [Steve] Jobs with the showmanship of [Donald] Trump,” adding: “He was the only one who had the fun factor and the celebrity vibe and actual business substance.”" Edit: I'm not quite sure why Musk was brought up unprompted though, made it seem like he has something to do with this company, but it doesn't seem like that's the case?

dabeeeenster 1y ago

WTH is a “bulletproof host”? Been working in the industry for 30 years and never once heard it?

sillyboi 1y ago
I suppose it's just a click bait title, so nothing special
gnabgib 1y ago
Ars covered it in 2013, it's common in security (Risky Business, OSInt, Krebs) https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/01/how-the-feds-put-a-bullet-in-a-bulletproof-web-host/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/01/how-t...
nickstinemates 1y ago
It says so in the article. Isp's who ignore authorities and allow anything to happen on their networks.
david_shaw 1y ago
> WTH is a “bulletproof host”? A "bulletproof" host or provider is the colloquial term for a business that will not reveal your identity, payment information, provide LEO access, respond to subpoenas, etc. It's generally used by cyber-criminals as a "safe" vendor, though some privacy-minded individuals like this type of provider as well.
- cptnapalm 1y ago
  My mind first jump to an old video of somebody shooting a Sun Microsystems machine and the bullets did not in fact penetrate the steel.
  - rrauenza 1y ago
    Are you thinking of HP or did they both do it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gnjb1WVkhmU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gnjb1WVkhmU

pessimizer 1y ago

[flagged]

galaxy_gas 1y ago
Ignoring the narrative portion , I routinely block the PQ IP spaces which change frequently in my services. They are mass brute force and exploit attempt-abuse report is ignored, spam/exploit scan, botnet CNC They are also UpStream of several other provider. For example https://bgp.he.net/AS215540#_prefixes https://bgp.he.net/AS215540#_prefixes I have not seen legitimate single request from ANY ip in this. Only spam bot and brute.
- ACCount37 1y ago
  And you never would - if you keep slapping IP bans left and right. Blanket IP bans should have died back in 00s, where they belong. Instead, we still get wannabe webmasters applying them willy-nilly - with gatekeepers like Cloudflare enabling them.
dafelst 1y ago
From TFA > Materializing just two weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Stark Industries Solutions became a frequent source of massive DDoS attacks, Russian-language proxy and VPN services, malware tied to Russia-backed hacking groups, and fake news.
preisschild 1y ago
This is not "censorship". These are Russian state-sponsored influence operations against countries it might want to invade (hybrid warfare)
Nihilartikel 1y ago
I did a pro bono analysis of a ddos against a dolphin protection non profit, probably a lashing out from a butthurt fishing concern. A significant amount of traffic in that attack originated from the stark asn. Interesting to see them here.
trhway 1y ago

yieldcrv 1y ago

this is more common and easier than people think, and I think this conflict was necessary to exposure the hubris behind global superpowers they think they're omnipotent but really don't control the world, rendering economic sanctions and service blacklisting to be null and moot

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

otikik 1y ago

What a gang. I'm sure they are enjoying the rubles. And that they know that polonium-210 is not detectable with Geiger counters.

perdomon 1y ago

I don't know much about this incident or the politics surrounding it, but I am extremely impressed by the level of investigative journalism in this article. The author is a pro who brought receipts for every connection.