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You are here: Home / Politics / domestic terrorists / Excellent Link: Epik Failure

Excellent Link: Epik Failure

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I’m beginning to suspect the right-wing grifters have no respect for their marks, and therefore don’t even try to be professional. On the other hand, telling the marks & the grifters apart ain’t always easy:

Epik long has been the favorite Internet company of the far-right, providing domain services to QAnon theorists, Proud Boys and other instigators of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol — allowing them to broadcast hateful messages from behind a veil of anonymity.

But that veil abruptly vanished last week when a huge breach by the hacker group Anonymous dumped into public view more than 150 gigabytes of previously private data — including user names, passwords and other identifying information of Epik’s customers.

Extremism researchers and political opponents have treated the leak as a Rosetta Stone to the far-right, helping them to decode who has been doing what with whom over several years. Initial revelations have spilled out steadily across Twitter since news of the hack broke last week, often under the hashtag #epikfail, but those studying the material say they will need months and perhaps years to dig through all of it…

Epik, based in the Seattle suburb of Sammamish, has made its name in the Internet world by providing critical Web services to sites that have run afoul of other companies’ policies against hate speech, misinformation and advocating violence. Its client list is a roll-call of sites known for permitting extreme posts and that have been rejected by other companies for their failure to moderate what their users post.

Online records show those sites have included 8chan, which was dropped by its providers after hosting the manifesto of a gunman who killed 51 Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019; Gab, which was dropped for hosting the antisemitic rants of a gunman who killed 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018; and Parler, which was dropped due to lax moderation related to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack…

Epik founder Robert Monster’s willingness to provide technical support to online sanctuaries of the far-right have made him a regular target of anti-extremism advocates, who criticized him for using Epik’s tools to republish the Christchurch gunman’s manifesto and live-streamed video the killer had made of the slaughter.

Monster also used the moment as a marketing opportunity, saying the files were now “effectively uncensorable,” according to screenshots of his tweets and Gab posts from the time. Monster also urged Epik employees to watch the video, which he said would convince them it was faked, Bloomberg News reported.

Monster has defended his work as critical to keeping the Internet uncensored and free, aligning himself with conservative critics who argue that leading technology companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and YouTube have gone too far in policing content they deem inappropriate…

Since the hack, Epik’s security protocols have been the target of ridicule among researchers, who’ve marveled at the site’s apparent failure to take basic security precautions, such as routine encryption that could have protected data about its customers from becoming public.

The files include years of website purchase records, internal company emails and customer account credentials revealing who administers some of the biggest far-right websites. The data includes client names, home addresses, email addresses, phone numbers and passwords left in plain, readable text. The hack even exposed the personal records from Anonymize, a privacy service Epik offered to customers wanting to conceal their identity…

After the hackers’ announcement, Epik initially said it was “not aware of any breach.” But in a rambling, three-hour live-stream last week, Monster acknowledged there had been a “hijack of data that should not have been hijacked” and called on people not to use the data for “negative” purposes.

“If you have a negative intent to use that data, it’s not going to work out for you. I’m just telling you,” he said. “If the demon tells you to do it, the demon is not your friend.”…

Reader Interactions

64Comments

  4. 4.

    Captain C

    telling the marks & the grifters apart ain’t always easy:

    Whoever’s bank account is growing is the grifter.  Like conservatism in Cleek’s Law, this needs to be updated daily.

    I’m just telling you,” he said. “If the demon tells you to do it, the demon is not your friend.”…

    He’s soooooooo close to getting it.

  6. 6.

    Chris Johnson

    Like I said when news of this hit Hacker News…

    Anonymous is not your personal army.

    That even goes to Putin, or the alt-right, thinking Anonymous is their personal army just because /pol/ exists.

    They are mistaken.

  8. 8.

    Urza

    Living in Sammamish, when they came out as the host for all these sites I went looking for their address.  They have a house here, and a PO Box.  And I doubt anyone’s working out of the house at this point.  Not sure why they would incorporate in Washington vs some other state or country.  As the QAnon documentaries showed the owners, and pretty much only known workers have been living in the Phillipines for awhile.

  9. 9.

    FridayNext

    A question for academics.

    Is it ethical for researchers to use this material that was gained illegally? Would it pass an IRB hearing? (I know it probably would not need to, but hypothetically)

    It seems problematic to me.

  15. 15.

    Barbara

    @FridayNext: It probably depends on the nature of the research. Informed consent could be problematic for certain types of research protocols.  Journalists on the other hand . . .

  19. 19.

    zhena gogolia

    @Omnes Omnibus: I was alerted to it at 7:15 this morning by a classmate (“NYT puzzle, 42 down”), but wasn’t able to do the puzzle until just a few minutes ago. I think that’s a first!

  23. 23.

    toine

    As depressing and dis-heartening as the fight against these @-holes can be sometimes (mostly due to it being non-stop), it cheers me to no end to be reminded that they are mostly just a bunch of incompetent know-nothing stupid douchebags…

  24. 24.

    FridayNext

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    But with a lot more paperwork.

    Institutional Review Boards.

    Originally they were called Human Subject Review Boards and applied almost exclusively to bio-medical research. But now they apply to almost any research that uses human subjects including oral historians and, in my case, museum visitor surveys and studies. I can, for example, do some simple surveying in my galleries, but if I want to publish, the whole thing has to be approved by our IRB.

    Since this is post facto, I doubt it would need review, but IRB’s are notorious at expanding their remit into any gray area. I do know that many social science journals and professional societies might have ethical concerns about using stolen material as the basis for research.

    It’s seems questionable to me and I am not sure where I stand.

  28. 28.

    mvr

    @FridayNext: ​
     

    Is it ethical for researchers to use this material that was gained illegally? Would it pass an IRB hearing?

    I think those are different questions, since the former seems to be about ethics and IRB has to do with a codification of rules meant (hopefully) to protect people. I don’t do empirical work, but I also don’t think we should have all that much compunction against using illegally obtained information in the public domain so long as its publicity and reuse doesn’t actually hurt the innocent or perhaps the guilty but nondangerous.

    So if, for example, Donald Trump were running a hate group site (I said “if” – I know he doesn’t know much about computers) and that showed up in the data I personally would have no worries using data was obtained in this way. What an IRB would say I don’t know.

  37. 37.

    Roger Moore

    @Baud: ​
     
    The best security against this kind of thing is never collecting data in the first place. This is part of the reason Cole has been steadfast in resisting any system that would require people to get accounts: it would mean collecting data about people.

  44. 44.

    West of the Rockies

    So has anyone been exposed yet?  Have boycotts and public shaming begun?  That’s what I’m waiting for.

  46. 46.

    Dan B

    The Sammamish site bothered me.  I had a big client there and my partner worked for them for a decade+.  Costco’s headquarters are next door (Issaquah) and some other relatively ethical corporations.  Good to read they’re actually operating out of the Phillipines.

  48. 48.

    Another Scott

    Epik failure is excellent.  KrebsOnSecurity.com covers stuff like this very well.  I don’t see anything today on it, though.

    In other news, Keir Starmer released a big essay recently.

    I’m going to have to read all 14,000 words of Keir Starmer’s essay, aren’t I?

    — Tom James (@TACJ) September 13, 2021

    It’s bad. Really bad.

    E.g.

    […]

    Politics is about vibes. It’s about feelings. And the basic problem with Starmer’s essay is that I don’t *feel* anything. It’s mostly boringly obvious or vague. But then I think that the reason I wasn’t *offended* by anything was the same reason I wasn’t *inspired* by anything.

    The Prime Minister does not “sign” anything into law.

    Isn’t Starmer supposed to be a lawyer?

    This actually worries me more than literally everything else. Lawyers are pedants. That’s why we all love them. And this guy can’t even recognise an obvious constitutional solecism in something he supposedly wrote himself?

    It’s interesting to me that *this* is what creeps me out the most. It shows he doesn’t care, or understand, or is even particularly engaged. This is not a mistake a lawyer should make.

    Like, if he was a trade union official, or a showboating celebrity politician, I’d barely notice it. It’s rhetoric. It’s not important. But for a *lawyer* to say something like that feels very wrong.

    This isn’t about *me* being prissy or pedantic, btw. It’s about the standards I expect in others, and the things I look out for when I’m trying to understand whether someone is worth taking seriously.

    […]

    First problem. Use of the subjunctive. Use of “would”. Never say “would”. Say “will”. We *will* set ambitious targets. Except (second problem, lack of ambition), *don’t* set ambitious targets. Do. Or do not. There is no setting of ambitious targets.

    To be clear: I never set ambitious targets. I do ambitious things. What kind of a pathetic loser would boast about setting ambitious targets?

    Aaaargh

    Aaargh. Aaaaargh! Aargh.

    This is bad because:
    1) It makes your action contingent on your enemy
    2) Because 1) it makes you look weak
    3) You’re “promising” instead of doing
    4) You’re taking the decisions necessary to deliver, instead of just delivering
    5) It’s all vague.

    […]

    The UK needs a competent leader in the opposition to BoJo. Starmer still seems to have no idea how to be that person. Nor how to hire someone to write a manifesto that inspires rather than disillusions the reader.

    (sigh)

    (via dsquareddigest)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  49. 49.

    Barbara

    @mvr: Right. They are supposed to protect human subjects from research projects that could harm their individual interests. It is not always clear how that is supposed to operate in the social sciences.  While informed consent is a big part of the process it isn’t always required if other protections are in place. It’s not my specialty but it comes up from time to time so I’m familiar with how it’s supposed to work.​

  50. 50.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @mvr: As I recall, IRB standards apply only to research, not, say, to journalism. Research was defined as work intended for dispersal and the increase of general knowledge. So, for instance, teaching evaluations don’t count even though they’re surveys.

    I’m sure there are ethical standards that apply in other situations, but the IRB is pretty specific.

  51. 51.

    Just Chuck

    The Monster is telling me not to listen to the Demon.

    Is Rob Monster related to Rob Zombie?

    The demon is not my friend: I am the demon.

  52. 52.

    El Cruzado

    On the other hand, telling the marks & the grifters apart ain’t always easy

    ?  It’s the circle of griiiiiiift ?

  54. 54.

    piratedan

    Well…. considering the actions that we’ve seen with the doxxing done and harassment performed, that a reciprocal response doesn’t bother me.

    In short, fuck those guys… here’s some light.

  55. 55.

    Cameron

    Why would an IRB get involved?  I thought that was for research on humans.  Are there any humans on Epik?

  59. 59.

    prostratedragon

    @craigie:  I have a relative whose initials are ASS. I have it that the middle S does not stand for anything. There is a tendency to rather wicked humor in a couple of branches of the family.

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